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Developer The Coalition has found a method to handle the memory limitations of the Xbox Series S while working on the first-party title Gears of War: E-Day. Because the console features 10GB of GDDR6 RAM, handling the game's densely-detailed environments proved challenging, prompting the studio to offload certain data onto the system's ultra-fast NVMe SSD storage drive using technology co-developed by Xbox's Advanced Technology Group.
Since NVMe drives contain RAM modules of their own, The Coalition utilized the drive as a second tier of RAM to assist the game engine in streaming assets more smoothly. By trading a couple of gigabytes of storage space on the SSD, the method yields approximately one gigabyte of usable system memory.
The system relies on advanced heuristics to analyze access patterns, ensuring that frequently used data stays in RAM while idle data is moved to the SSD. Meanwhile, development on Gears of War: E-Day also included engine upgrades focused on gore and dismemberment, as the studio felt fans were growing desensitized to previous violence in the franchise.
