How To Improve Windows 10's Xbox One Streaming

So there's a way to improve the streaming from the Xbox One to Windows 10. It's not recommended for anyone who has a phobia of getting into the nitty gritty of their network settings and it's also not recommended for anyone who doesn't have very fast and powerful home network equipment.

Nevertheless, over on Reddit there's a thread in the Xbox One sub-Reddit where user OomaThurman explains that users can access a special “very high” network setting above the standard streaming setting of “high”. The "very high" settings enable 12Mbp/s and 1920 x 1080 streaming. In order to access this setting you'll need to edit the userconsoledata in the Xbox app's folder. You'll need to change “IsInternalPreview” to “true”.

If you need to access the file you can either search it up in the search bar or you can locate it in the C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.XboxApp_~~~~~~\LocalState folder.

This is available for those who have Windows 10 and an Xbox One and are attempting to stream games from the Xbox One to their home computer.

There is a folder of images showing the difference in throughput in network bandwidth from the “high” setting to the “very high” setting. The OneDrive folder that OomaThurman linked to has some shared images where you can see the stats of the network usage where going to “very high” shows the Xbox One streaming zapping about approximately 11 – 13Mbp/s.

Even if your ISP doesn't support high bit-rates and you're limited in how much you can download or upload, your home network equipment has separate thresholds. So if you're Time Warner or Comcast and you're limited to only 5Mbp/s if your router and network adapter can do up to 15 or 20Mbp/s then you can take advantage of your hardware and up the settings so that you can stream games fast and fluently between your Windows 10 system and the Xbox One.

This follows on a previous thread within the past few days where user smegg had pointed out that there was a hidden “Very High” setting in the Xbox app files.

Some of you might be wondering, “Why would you want to go from high to very high and use up more bandwidth to stream games from your Xbox to your PC?” Because, as smegg points out in the thread not everyone enjoys playing their games at 1280 x 720.

With the higher bit-rates enabled you can stream the games at higher resolutions and smoother frame-rates. This makes the play experience from Xbox to PC more enjoyable and gives you a clearer and cleaner looking visual output.

Microsoft has supposedly been looking into reversing the streaming capabilities between the Xbox One and Windows 10, allowing Xbox One owners to stream games from their PC to the console. I don't know how well that would really work out given that the benefit of streaming from PC to console is very low and you would need to have a keyboard and mouse hooked up to your console. I suppose an argument could be made that if your PC was in a separate room and you wanted to play some PC games on the television in the living room or den, that could justify the streaming option.

Windows 10 is available right now along with the Xbox app.