Xbox Series S Suffers from VRAM Limitations, Just Like 8GB GPUS

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Microsoft did not put enough shared memory in its little console

white xbox series s with controller
(Image credit: Microsoft)

It looks like the Xbox Series S is facing serious memory allocation issues in Borderlands 3, at least according to Reddit user u/jokekiller94 — who posted a screenshot of the game crashing on their Series S console with an "out of memory" error on the screen. 

The issue isn't limited to the original poster — Reddit user u/bacon_sammer responded in the thread, saying they have the same issue with Borderlands 3 crashing frequently on their Xbox Series S. They said the game runs fine on the Xbox Series X, however, so the it seems to be a Series S issue.

Sadly, this type of memory allocation issue is not uncommon for Microsoft's little console. According to reports from Digital Foundry and The Verge, the Series S' small memory capacity is a headache for developers to optimize around. It is the single biggest contributing factor to the console's lower graphical settings and lack of ray-tracing effects on Series S ports, and it bottlenecks the console's already weak 4 Teraflop (PS4 Pro level) GPU.

Apparently, complaints among developers regarding the Series S' memory became so extreme that Microsoft released a dev kit in June 2022 that gave developers more manipulation over the Series S' memory system. 

The Xbox Series S is Microsoft's most recent entry-level console running on AMD's modern Zen 2 and RDNA 2 architectures. The console features a 4TF AMD RDNA 2 GPU with 20 compute units clocked at 1550MHz, a 512GB NVMe SSD, and 10GB of GDDR6 memory that is shared between the CPU and the GPU. Strangely, the memory bandwidth is mixed, with 8GB featuring 224GB/s of bandwidth and the other 2GB running at a paltry 56GB/s.

The 10GB memory capacity is why the Series S' memory allocation issues are so problematic. Modern-day PC titles generally recommend at least 16 GB of system RAM, plus at least 6GB to 8GB of VRAM for playing games at high settings. The Series S' unified memory system does reduce a game's memory requirements compared to a PC, but 10GB is still a pretty small number for modern-day gaming (not to mention the unorthodox bandwidth configuration, where only 8GB runs at high speeds). 

Thankfully, the memory allocation errors don't appear to be a widespread issue, and hopefully Borderlands 3's developers will fix this problem in a future patch. But the Xbox Series S' overall longevity does not look good given its past and present memory capacity issues. 

Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

15 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Sleepy_Hollowed
    Dang, this came quick for consoles.
    Either SDKs make it easier to take care of this, or the underlying framework does, or else games are going to cost a lot much more to make, which usually means in USA more hours and less pay for developers.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    Developers may complain about this, but it's on them to actually be competent. There is absolutely no reason why they can't easily work within the boundaries set other than it would require more resources. The vast majority of the problems appear to be centered around textures which means they're likely using textures larger than necessary for lower resolutions.
    Reply
  • ohio_buckeye
    On the series s there shouldn’t be any reason they can’t reduce textures/details. When I bought the Harry Potter game, I actually bought and played it on a series s. It really runs quite nicely if you use the performance mode.
    Reply
  • beckerjr
    This again? The game can run on PCs with as little as 2GB of VRAM and has been released on last gen consoles too. It has nothing to do with the S hardware. This is on the game and the developers.
    Reply
  • ET3D
    beckerjr has a good point. This is an old games and much newer games run fine on the Series S. It's a bug.

    That doesn't mean that 10GB isn't a real limitation. 10GB for the OS + game + VRAM is really not much, and game devs are struggling with this.

    It should be easy for Microsoft to upgrade the RAM without a redesign of the console. It could release an updated version with 12GB, for example. However, with millions of Series S already on the market, that won't really save the devs from having to continue optimising for 10GB.
    Reply
  • Gahl1k
    If things go on like this, by 2025 even the Series X and PS5 will have problems due to only having 16GB of VRAM. It seems new developers didn't learn memory management and allocation, and with DirectX 12 it's gonna get worse.
    Reply
  • Upacs
    I feel sorry for those developers. They are likely overworked as it is, and here we are telling them that they don't know how to do their jobs.

    Most likely they know perfectly well how to solve the problem, but don't have the resources, and are unwilling to work more than the 12hr days they are already pulling. All in the hope that the game becomes a big hit and can walk away with a decent paycheck.
    Reply
  • usertests
    ET3D said:
    That doesn't mean that 10GB isn't a real limitation. 10GB for the OS + game + VRAM is really not much, and game devs are struggling with this.

    It should be easy for Microsoft to upgrade the RAM without a redesign of the console. It could release an updated version with 12GB, for example. However, with millions of Series S already on the market, that won't really save the devs from having to continue optimising for 10GB.
    Is it known exactly how much of the memory is used by the OS and unavailable to games? If so, that number should be in the article. I think it was slightly over 2 GB but may have been reduced to around 1.5 GB. So you're looking at less than 9 GB for a game.

    I agree on a 12 GB update. It won't fix the problem; the damage is done for at least the rest of this decade. But it could be a quick fix for anybody who buys an updated model, without needing much extra attention from developers.
    Reply
  • cknobman
    Maybe game devs/pubs should focus on just making a quality game that runs good on the hardware that exists instead of trying to push graphics to the limit?
    I'd rather have a game that plays stable with fewer bugs that one pushing the edge of graphical fidelity.
    Reply
  • ItsASpider
    Other systems that experience the exact same issue in Borderlands 3: Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5.

    It's not the VRAM, it's the game.
    Reply