EA Play subscribers have been kicking the ball about on FIFA 22 since September 22 thanks to the subscription’s 10-hour early access trial. But FIFA 22 players on Xbox Series S are reporting a slew of graphical and technical issues.
Expressing their complaints with FIFA 22 via Twitter, EA Forums, and Reddit, players are reporting that the Xbox Series S version of the game is generally more blurry than the Xbox Series X version due to what players are suggesting is a complete lack of anti-aliasing, causing the image to be blurred with jagged edges everywhere, to the point that you’re almost unable to read a player’s number on the back of their shirt.
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Xbox Series S players have also suggested that FIFA 22 on Series S renders at a meager 720p resolution, instead of 1080p like FIFA 21, which is probably contributing to the game looking so blurry to some users.
Xbox Series S players have even gone as far as to say that FIFA 22 on Xbox One looks better than the Xbox Series S version, with some players reverting to playing FIFA 22 on Xbox One rather than Xbox Series S, despite this version missing out on all the next-gen features like HyperMotion technology.
And apparently, according to player reports, the FIFA 22 menus on the Xbox Series S are throttled to 30fps– for some unknown reason- compared to the Xbox Series X running the menus at 60fps.
Additionally, but with fewer cases, players have also reported that there’s been constant lag and input delay with the Xbox Series S version of FIFA 22.
@EAHelp FIFA 22 - Series S resolution scaling issue I've made a post on the tech forums in regards to this but there's seriously something wrong with series S resolution no matter what montior, TV, resolution I try the game looks very poor fidelity wise. 1/4September 23, 2021
A recurring issue?
Among the reports of poor performance and subpar visuals of FIFA 22, Xbox Series S players have also expressed that they experienced similar issues with last year’s version of FIFA 21. Threads on EA forums and Reddit from 2020, do report the same issues when it comes to blurriness and a lower resolution. Players reported that FIFA 21 rendered at 720p, too, just like FIFA 22 apparently does on Microsoft’s more affordable next-gen console.
EA has responded to players’ concerns about FIFA 22 on Xbox Series S, and said it is investigating these issues and will provide players with an update. Xbox Series S FIFA 22 players can stay up to date on this issue by following the EASF tracker.
Analysis: Is the Xbox Series S hitting next-gen standards?
Xbox Series S was created by Microsoft to offer a more affordable option for next-gen Xbox gaming than the Xbox Series X, though at the expense of some graphical grunt. The Xbox Series S tends to target 1440p resolutions at 60fps, while the more powerful Xbox Series X targets 4K/ 60fps.
However, since the release of the Series S, next-gen games (in particular AAA games) haven’t quite hit Microsoft’s initial target, and often come with some other trade-offs like no ray tracing, or a poorer implementation, as seen with the RT mode in Resident Evil Village. Most next-gen Xbox Series S games are instead running at 1080p at 60fps.
F1 2021 runs at 1080p at 60fps on Series S, while running at 4K at 60 fps on the Series X and PS5. The 120Hz mode that is available on the Xbox Series X and PS5 is also disabled on the Series S, however, a large number of games do hit 120fps on Xbox Series S, more so than on PS5 currently.
Along with FIFA 22 and 21, Xbox Series S owners have been reporting performance and visual issues with other games like No Man Sky, The Hunt Showdown, Control, and PES 2021.
It’s not known what’s causing these consistent performances and visual issues with Xbox Series S, however.
Last year, developers at (the now Microsoft owned) id Software did share concerns with the low amount of RAM on the Xbox Series S, and said: “The much lower amount of memory and the split memory banks with drastically slower speeds will be a major issue,” lowering resolutions will marginally help but won’t completely counteract “the deficiencies.”
The sentiments of id Software were shared this year by Remedy’s Thomas Puha. Puha said that optimizing games for the Series S is nowhere as simple as just lowering resolution and texture quality. The Metro Exodus dev, 4A Games also expressed similar concerns with the weaker GPU of the Series S.
It’s hard to say whether these technical limitations are causing the current issues with some Xbox Series S games, but it probably contributes to it in some way. But this doesn’t dismiss the fact that the Xbox Series S is still a compelling console at an affordable price, and is especially a great console for Xbox Game Pass subscribers.
We’ll continue to follow the situation of FIFA 22 on the Xbox Series S and hope EA will rectify the situation soon, preferably, before the game’s October 1, 2021 release date.
