Microsoft Announces FPS Boost for Xbox Series X/S Backward Compatibility

Microsoft’s focus on backward compatibility has been a key part of their strategy in recent years, and with the Xbox Series X/S specifically, the enhancements they have offered for the program have caught the attention of many. Recently, they promised they’d be sharing some more exciting news about the same, and that news is now here.

Microsoft have announced FPS Boost for Xbox Series X/S’ backward compatbility program. As its name suggests, FPS Boost will target certain games to natively enhance their frame rates, often doubling or even quadrupling their performance. FPS Boost is available for all owners of the new consoles starting today, and launches with an initial batch of five games to receive performance enhancements- Watch Dogs 2, Far Cry 4, Sniper Elite 4, UFC 4, and New Super Lucky’s Tale.

“We chose this initial collection of titles not only because they are popular among fans, but to highlight several different ways that FPS Boost can improve your experience,” writes Paul Eng, senior program manager at Xbox.

Within that batch of games, New Super Lucky’s Tale now runs at a significantly boosted 120 FPS, while UFC 4 specifically targets the Xbox Series S for 60 frames per second performance. Meanwhile, as Digital Foundry reports, Far Cry 4, Watch Dogs 2, and Sniper Elite 4 all also run at 60 FPS now.

Additionally, the enhancements applied to these games will also available via Xbox Game Pass- should those games be in the Game Pass catalog, of course. Of the aforementioned initial batch of games, New Super Lucky’s Tale and Sniper Elite 4 are both currently available via Xbox Game Pass.

More titles will be benefiting from FPS Boost in the future, while Microsoft will also be adding new menu icons and system settings in an upcoming system update, one of which will allow you to toggle both FPS Boost and Auto HDR on or off from the Xbox menu.