Recently bought a new Xbox One and cannot wait to dive in? Well, we recommend that you do. Now that you have a new gaming console to take care of all your weekend gaming urges, what comes next is getting the most out of it. Of course, you can take the console as it comes and never delves deeper in the beautiful hub of its settings that allow you to take the visuals up several notches and miss out on all the exquisite features that are inbuilt but initially. Or you can decide to find out exactly what your console offers and get the best out of it. Couldn’t agree more? Well, then this article might be tailor-made for you.
Without further ado, here are the settings you can change to get the best visuals out of your Xbox One.
Best Graphics & Visual settings for Xbox One
1] Make sure that 4K and HDR are turned on
Sounds obvious, right? Well, you would be surprised at how many people miss out on this one teeny setting and stick with the bad visual quality for the entirety of their console ’s life.
Both Xbox One X and Xbox One X come preloaded with 4K features. This means that your favorite games look that much clearer. Imagine the visuals of Witcher 3 but upgraded to the crispiness of a 4K screen. Combine this with the HDR (High Dynamic Range), and you will have so much better contrasts ratio and a color gamut that your brain might refuse to comprehend the beauty in front of your eyes for a while.
So, go to settings and make sure those features are turned on. You know you will be missing out otherwise.
2] Go for the right color depth
Another obvious one for the list. But in case you are not very familiar with the concept, here’s what it means. What the color depth settings of your display do is represent the number of bits used to recreate the colors on the screen. So, the higher the color depth, the more vivid the colors on the screen should be. When you crank your Xbox One’s color depth, it will offer you a more varied range of colors, making the images pop out more and the visuals even more enticing.
But while that does sound sweet, putting it on maximum might not be a good idea either. Because your screen and the game you are playing have a say in it too. The Xbox One’s HDR10 usually goes better with a 10-bit screen, but there are ones that kinda support 8-bit ones.
Keeping those factors in mind, here’s how you change color depth on your console:
Go to Settings > Choose Display and Sound > Then go to Video Output > Colour Depth.
3] PC RGB settings
Now this one’s for you if you are specifically using a PC monitor.
Your Xbox console allows you to play around with the available color space, what with its recommended standard settings and the PC RGB. Depending on what kind of display you are using, this determines what colors are covered by your screen. So you might want to switch to the PC RGB when using PC monitor.
But a word of warning. Using the full RGB range available might sometimes result in something called the black crush, which essentially means that some of the details in the darker scenes will be lost or pretty hard to see. So, while using PC monitors, this setting is recommended, you might want to steer clear of it when using a TV.
You can change these settings by going to Display and Sound settings and then on to Video Output and Colour Depth.
4] Calibrating
Saving the best for the last, the built-in calibration tool included in your gaming console helps you take your experience up by several notches. Once you have followed all the previous steps, it is important to use this tool to find out if are using the best possible settings available for your specific console and screen combo. This will take into account finer details like external lighting and checks to see if your screen is representing what you want and how you want it.
You will find this under Display and Sound and then by going to Video Output and, finally, Calibrate HDTV.
While calibrating, you will be asked to change several of your display settings including sharpness, brightness, and colors. When you do this, you will finally get the best that your gaming console has to offer.
Read next: How to fix Xbox One Controller Drift.
