Microsoft Play Anywhere games support is getting worse instead of better

Phazoner 94 · Mar 4, 2019

The first steps for the Microsoft Store weren't the best but it seemed to be improving. In the last months it's just the opposite. I have installed Gears of War 4, Sea of Thieves, Forza Horizon 3 and Forza Horizon 4 and the first one is the only one I didn't
have had to reinstall because it just didn't work or stopped working anymore.

Forza Horizon 3 was driving me nuts because for some time it was constantly loosing the graphics settings but some glorious day the issue disappeared, more than a year after the release of the game.

Sea of Thieves hasn't one think that Forza Horizon 3 have: Support for Nvidia's Dynamic Super Resolution. I can run Forza Horizon 3 in a resolution around 1600p at Ultra over 60FPS but I just haven't the choice to run Sea of Thieves over my monitor's resolution,
1080p, which is a really bad limitation when trying to increase the image quality.

I have reinstalled Forza Horizon 4 and it still doesn't work. Just installed the first time worked but the game asked for a restart when changing the graphics settings and it wouldn't start until the next day. Then I changed the graphics settings again,
asked for a restart and again, the same issue, not even restarting solved it, and it isn't a specific setting issue as I changed different things. Anyways this game neither allow me to use DSR which is pretty ridiculous to me being Horizon 3 completely compatible
with this.

I have a Xbox One X, and my PC is even more powerful than it (GTX 1070 in there), I use both platforms as I bought many games in the Xbox One before getting my PC and even with games available in PC the Xbox is more comfortable to me to make parties with
friends which only play in the Xbox. But I prefer to play certain games in PC, I did with Forza Horizon 3 because of the resolution and FPS combination was a better middle ground to me, I did with Gears of War 4 to play the campaign over 60FPS, I still prefer
to do it with Sea of Thieves as being unable to use DSR isn't worse than the weirdly frame-pacing of the 30FPS of my One X, and I would prefer to do it with Forza Horizon 4, but I just find myself almost uncapable, and I say almost as I just won't reinstall
it a third time and keep lowering the lifespan of my SSD (this is another reason for playing in my PC to Sea of Thieves and Forzas: The much shorter loading screens).

Please, it just can't be that hard to make games work properly.

:)

PalmettoBling

To be clear, all of the titles work, but not in the resolution/settings that you want, correct? Just checking that it's a developer features issue, and not a technical troubleshooting issue? All of the titles you cover are Xbox Studios, but they are their
own development houses. I would recommend reaching out to the developers sites and forums, and post your direct feedback for their titles directly to them. They do use the Play Anywhere feature, but that support isn't related to the issue you're experiencing,
it's a configuration/feature issue.

Letting them know what you'd like to see, or even posting on the Xbox Feedback site, and let others support your idea, to show the developer that you're not alone in wanting
these features, would go a long way in getting these requests implemented retroactively for the titles you list, but also for future titles.

Obsessive Power

Hi,

In regards to setting DSR factors. Have you tried setting the resolution in Windows first, then launching the game and selecting the resolution from there?

Setting a resolution beyond my screen seems to be an option I can select on my FH4 game. My native resolution is 4K as I have a 4K display. However, using DSR I can - if my PC was beefy enough use a higher resolution with DSR factors enabled. See below.

Phazoner 94

I finally managed to know what was wrong with the DSR, totally my fault, DSR settings just lost its configuration with a driver update. Also the initial load problems were because of not using the latest version of MSI Afterburner or Rivatuner.

Anyways, the game is still not working properly. The first day I figured out why wasn't it starting, the game freezed and shut down after some minutes of gameplay. I restarted and i worked fine for something less than an hour. I was back to play it today
and the game again freezed after some minutes, just when I was arriving to the end of the first part of the second stunt exhibition. I restarted and I accomplished the first part, but just seconds after a second try to the second part of the same exhibition
the game shut down again.

I'm hyper [Mod Removed- Inappropriate] off with this. I have literally more than a thousand PC games and it is extremely rare to me to find any trouble, but with the Microsoft Store I have had troubles with every single game I have installed.

If at least the 60FPS mode of Horizon 4 for Xbox One X was properly optimized, but no. My 1070 is usually
slightly better than the AMD RX 580 which is pretty similar to the One X GPU. In Horizon 4 both cards performance is pretty similar as the game is better optimized for AMD GPUs (not a surprise being both Xbox One models AMD powered), but then I just
can't understand why can I play at Ultra settings on PC over 60FPS over 1080p with everything at Ultra settings but if I play the 60FPS mode in the One X I can see extremely late terrain detail loading, extremely obvious LOD, shadows are worse, the reflections
on the car seem to be limited to 30FPS which makes them look weird...

Armani204

Wow this game just keeps getting worse instead of better. I couldn't even force myself to play it at all yesterday. Definitely trading it back in towards a MW3 controller.

Kronvict

It’ absurd that Minecraft isn’t a Play Anywhere title. Minecraft is Microsofts flagship game and the Better Together Update was supposed to become a Play Anywhere title. Now I have to pay 20 bucks again? Just to play Minecraft on an other Microsoft plattform?
Why? What is the reason for Play Anywhere, when even Microsoft don’t want to support this?

It seems Microsoft is going the Sony way, if they have a successful product. Just make money, don’t respect your customers. Sad :\

Agreed. Will not buy it until it becomes a play anywhere title.

Microsoft Play Anywhere games support is getting worse instead of better