• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Beyond3D article on PS3 scaler

G

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Might be of interest to some:

Ripping off the veil: The mysterious PS3 hardware scaler exposed
http://www.beyond3d.com/articles/ps3scaler/

The key words in that last paragraph would be “until now,” because with the latest PlayStation 3 software development kit (SDK) update, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) has finally exposed part of the built-in hardware scaler to developers.
Click to expand...

The short of it is that:

As of a late January update to the SDK, horizontal scaling is now an option for developers using this scaler, but not vertical (for what reason, who knows?).

Previously, if a developer wanted to support 1080i or 1080p scaling in a 720p game, they had to render to incur the costs of an additional 1080p buffer in memory, which may have been prohibitively expensive.

But now, Sony has unlocked horizontal hardware scaling along with new resolution modes - including 960*1080. This resolution has just a little more pixels than 720p, and thus only requires about the same memory footprint, and can be scaled to 1080i/p using the horizontal hardware scaling (note that the full vertical resolution is there).

Thus going forward, developers should be able to include support for 720p/1080i/1080p modes, but it remains their choice. Though the article speculates that Sony will likely mandate it soon. Previously released games could be patched if the developer so desires.

If you don't get all that, the article itself explains the issues in greater detail.

It's puzzling why they haven't also enabled vertical scaling yet, but then I guess it's puzzling why this wasn't supported in the first place..they basically had what might actually be a very expensive chip going idle (there's speculation the chip is Toshiba's Super Companion AV Chip for Cell, or a version of it).
 
D

dalyr95

Member
Excellent news, why wouldn't they want to enable vertical scaling??

To prevent 720/~512 native games from having a 1080p sticker on the box and thereby tarnishing the idea??
To prevent Linux access?
Any ideas?
 
G

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
TTP said:
So there IS an hw scaler after all.
Click to expand...

Indeed. In fact, it might be Toshiba's Super Companion Chip to Cell, or a version of it, as I've edited in the original post. Apparently a guy from Sony dropped word on a mailing list that PS3 was one of 3 products currently using it.

Why they would have such a chip going idle* until now, one can only speculate. Presumably there were software issues, and may still be if vertical scaling is still off-limits. Or maybe it's related to their cost reduction strategy..exposing certain functionality might commit them to including certain things indefinitely, versus potentially cutting things out later. Who knows.


edit - *well, maybe not quite idle..it could be, and probably is, serving other purposes too.
 
T

The Innocent X

Banned
gofreak said:
Might be of interest to some:

But now, Sony has unlocked horizontal hardware scaling along with new resolution modes - including 960*1080. This resolution has just a little more pixels than 720p, and thus only requires about the same memory footprint, and can be scaled to 1080i/p using the hardware scaler.
Click to expand...

Just doubling rather than complex scaling, and at the cost of less horizontal resolution. Good for those with 1080i only sets.
 
G

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
ChrisAllenFiz said:
Just doubling rather than complex scaling, and at the cost of less horizontal resolution. Good for those with 1080i only sets.
Click to expand...

True, but you do have more vertical than scaling from 720p. There are also now 1280x1080 and 1440x1080 modes too, which similarly allow scaling to 1080i/p using this scaler, without sacrificing horizontal resolution. I guess which a developer would choose would depend on what they can afford, but 960x1080 has to be there, being the closest in expense to 720p.

I wonder if the lack of vertical scaling currently relates to the scaler's capability, or if it's a concious choice on SCE's part..would scaling in one direction only yield better quality?
 
M

MadFuzzy

Member
dalyr95 said:
Excellent news, why wouldn't they want to enable vertical scaling??

To prevent 720/~512 native games from having a 1080p sticker on the box and thereby tarnishing the idea??
To prevent Linux access?
Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Maybe they weren't happy with the performance of the scaler in earlier versions of the SDK but have worked on it to the point where they're happy for developers to use it now?
 
B

Blimblim

The Inside Track
Sho_Nuff82 said:
So...any chance of 720p Blu-Ray playback on my LCD?
Click to expand...
I don't think the lack of 720p for bluray had anything to do with the scaler. It was scaling to 480i/p already...
 
T

The Innocent X

Banned
gofreak said:
True, but you do have more vertical than scaling from 720p. There are also now 1280x1080 and 1440x1080 modes too, which similarly allow scaling to 1080i/p using this scaler, without sacrificing horizontal resolution. I guess which a developer would choose would depend on what they can afford, but 960x1080 has to be there, being the closest in expense to 720p.

I wonder if the lack of vertical scaling currently relates to the scaler's capability, or if it's a concious choice on SCE's part..would scaling in one direction only yield better quality?
Click to expand...

The problem is that a widescreen TV has a lot more horizontal res than vertical res, and so you might notice the loss a lot more than the increased vertical. I think you`ll get a lot of complaints that 1080i looks worse (blurrier) than 720P, but we`ll have to see.
 
G

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
ChrisAllenFiz said:
The problem is that a widescreen TV has a lot more horizontal res than vertical res, and so you might notice the loss a lot more than the increased vertical. I think you`ll get a lot of complaints that 1080i looks worse (blurrier) than 720P, but we`ll have to see.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, but it depends what resolution they use. 1280x1080 would be nice if a dev can accomodate it. It's a little more expensive than 720p. 1440x1080 would be the best, of course, short of 1080p itself.
 
T

The Innocent X

Banned
gofreak said:
Perhaps, but it depends what resolution they use. 1280x1080 would be nice if a dev can accomodate it. It's a little more expensive than 720p. 1440x1080 would be the best, of course, short of 1080p itself.
Click to expand...

True, true. from what we've seen of framerates on 360 and PS3 so far, not many people have managed to hit 720P at a decent lick, let alone anything else. However, there are notable exceptions, so we can remain hopeful.
 
S

speculawyer

Member
So they are whining about having to allocate the memory for a 1920 x 1080 buffer?

Jeez . . . remember way back when it was rumored that the PS3 would have two HDMI outputs and could render two 1080p displays simultaneously. Now it seems they can barely do a single 1080i buffer.

It has been mentioned by some that extra memory in the xbox 360 neutralizes any advantage of the 7 core cell chip . . . it seems to be true.
 
B

Blimblim

The Inside Track
gofreak said:
Perhaps, but it depends what resolution they use. 1280x1080 would be nice if a dev can accomodate it. It's a little more expensive than 720p. 1440x1080 would be the best, of course, short of 1080p itself.
Click to expand...
A little? It's 50% more expensive than 720p. When devs have a hard time locking a game at 30 fps (on any platform), I doubt they'll be happy to "just" have 50% more fillrate to find somewhere.
 
T

tHa_vIlLaMaN

Member
gofreak said:
Might be of interest to some:

Ripping off the veil: The mysterious PS3 hardware scaler exposed
http://www.beyond3d.com/articles/ps3scaler/



The short of it is that:

As of a late January update to the SDK, horizontal scaling is now an option for developers using this scaler, but not vertical (for what reason, who knows?).

Previously, if a developer wanted to support 1080i or 1080p scaling in a 720p game, they had to render to incur the costs of an additional 1080p buffer in memory, which may have been prohibitively expensive.

But now, Sony has unlocked horizontal hardware scaling along with new resolution modes - including 960*1080. This resolution has just a little more pixels than 720p, and thus only requires about the same memory footprint, and can be scaled to 1080i/p using the horizontal hardware scaling (note that the full vertical resolution is there).

Thus going forward, developers should be able to include support for 720p/1080i/1080p modes, but it remains their choice. Though the article speculates that Sony will likely mandate it soon. Previously released games could be patched if the developer so desires.

If you don't get all that, the article itself explains the issues in greater detail.

It's puzzling why they haven't also enabled vertical scaling yet, but then I guess it's puzzling why this wasn't supported in the first place..they basically had what might actually be a very expensive chip going idle (there's speculation the chip is Toshiba's Super Companion AV Chip for Cell, or a version of it).
Click to expand...
Cool, so it does have a scaler afterall. Thanks for shedding some light on the situation, they sould be paying you for this suff! :lol
 
G

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Blimblim said:
A little? It's 50% more expensive than 720p. When devs have a hard time locking a game at 30 fps (on any platform), I doubt they'll be happy to "just" have 50% more fillrate to find somewhere.
Click to expand...

I think in most cases the option will be 960x1080, sure. But when you have someone like Insomniac saying that 1080p wasn't an option because of the memory footprint it would require, one might wonder if the decreased footprint of a 1280 mode might be viable instead. It's just speculation, obviously it will depend on the game and where it is bottlenecked.

tHa_vIlLaMaN said:
Cool, so it does have a scaler afterall. Thanks for shedding some light on the situation, they sould be paying you for this suff! :lol
Click to expand...

I doubt the innocence of such a comment, but I don't work for Beyond3D..your thanks should be to them.
 
C

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
Thats awesome news...and its crazy how much power 1080p requires.

Hey Factor 5...go down to 720p on Lair and we'll understand. :)
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
thank the lord!

Now most devs can target native 720p like most people will really use, and let the scaler deal with 1080p, rather than being pressured into 1080p from the off and having the resulting performance hit.


Seems this was just a software readiness thing and the SDKs weren't mature enough.

Same with the bluray thing, only that doesn't need this scaler - just need to update the bluray player software
 
P

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
ChrisAllenFiz said:
The problem is that a widescreen TV has a lot more horizontal res than vertical res, and so you might notice the loss a lot more than the increased vertical. I think you`ll get a lot of complaints that 1080i looks worse (blurrier) than 720P, but we`ll have to see.
Click to expand...

It depends, those who can visualize games in native 720p (and maybe 1080p too) will still be happy just like they have been happy so far since they were not affected by the reduced-to-480p problem.

Those using this new 1080i HW-upscaled method, to finally enjoy games with HD resolutions, with new games might find the image blurrier than a properly rendered 720p image... well if they have good memory and they have seen a 720p capable HDTV running the same game, otherwise it is pretty difficult to find something blurrier than something you have never been able to experience ;).

I think HW-upscaled 1080i should look better than 480p ;).
 
T

tHa_vIlLaMaN

Member
gofreak said:
I think in most cases the option will be 960x1080, sure. But when you have someone like Insomniac saying that 1080p wasn't an option because of the memory footprint it would require, one might wonder if the decreased footprint of a 1280 mode might be viable instead. It's just speculation, obviously it will depend on the game and where it is bottlenecked.



I doubt the innocence of such a comment, but I don't work for Beyond3D..your thanks should be to them.
Click to expand...
Why? Not everyone reads B3D, so thanks to you for bringing it to the attention of people over here.
 
G

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
theBishop said:
If it has a scaler, then why is it exposed via the SDK? Why not set it in the XMB?
Click to expand...

Because the way it works at the moment requires specific resolutions that a game wouldn't necessarily be using..thus they're doing it through the developer who will implement the required resolutions.

For example, if I tried to have the XMB scale a 720p native game to 1080i at the moment, that won't work because it requires scaling in both directions. So a developer has to be involved somewhere to make the game render at somethingx1080, and allow the horizontal scaling to work.

The article also points this out..if vertical scaling were also enabled, it's something that could be exposed to the user in the xmb. The resolution(s) the developer was using wouldn't really be an issue then.
 
A

aloof

Banned
GoFreak, does this mean 480i/480p PS2 games can be upscaled to HD resolutions like with 360? And also add anti-aliasing?
 
B

Blimblim

The Inside Track
aloof said:
GoFreak, does this mean 480i/480p PS2 games can be upscaled to HD resolutions like with 360? And also add anti-aliasing?
Click to expand...
It would require a vertical scaling too, and the scaler might not be linked at all to the PS2 hardware inside the PS3 for all we know. As for AA, it won't happen unless Sony switches to software emulation.
 
B

BlueTsunami

there is joy in sucking dick
Luckyman said:
PS3 wasn't clearly ready for the market.
Click to expand...

What I've been saying for a while

I wonder if the overall software development was kept on track while Sony decided to launch the PS3 ahead of time (seeing the obvious effects now). So the real vision of the PS3 (as far as launch) will probably be realized during the Euro launch or this coming Fall.
 
S

SleazyC

Member
So vertical scaling could be enabled in the future as well then?

Kind of half-assed that they released the system without this very important feature unlocked and I hope they totally unlock the scaler so we can get all of our content scaled.
 
B

Bad_Boy

time to take my meds
Great news and really good read imo. Glad this whole thing is fixed. 480p/1080i HDTV owners don't have much to worry about anymore. And everybody else gets the benefit of games scaled up to 1080p. I'm really interested in what they will do about the games in the past though, thats a lot of games to patch and from my understanding this fix is not 'retrocompatible' and game specific. For example the non-online games? Do they have some sort of network code for patches or must the bet issued through the PS Store?

Games going gold in the past recent weeks or next recent weeks might or might not have this enabled, but I'm guessing all those march titles for the europe launch should be fine. Funny how things worked out. I suppose every game after virtua fighter 5 should be fine, and if the rumors of 1080p for that game turn out true it wont be affected at all. Maybe this is the cause for the recent late february games to get delayed a week or so. Worth it i'd say if true.
 
f@luS

f@luS

More than a member.
I dont really care since here no one got 1080i HD only , but great news for some pple. (like 720p ftw)

BUt we have to admit that the ps3 is going so great ....what was the 2 biggest thing pple were bitching about?

-Omg teh jaggy PS2 games ffs cant be patched coz its hardware issue not software

= Done


-Omg teh scalling cant use ps3 on 1080i HDTV

= almost done


whats next?
 
A

antiloop

Member
Without scaler people complain and with scaler people complain. They should just do whatever they want from now, because people complain in all cases. :)

Edit: Great news btw.
 
A

aloof

Banned
Blimblim said:
It would require a vertical scaling too, and the scaler might not be linked at all to the PS2 hardware inside the PS3 for all we know. As for AA, it won't happen unless Sony switches to software emulation.
Click to expand...
Blimblim, would upscaling PS2 games to 720p/1080i/1080p make the games look better or worse?
 
3

3rdman

Member
gofreak said:
Because the way it works at the moment requires specific resolutions that a game wouldn't necessarily be using..thus they're doing it through the developer who will implement the required resolutions.

For example, if I tried to have the XMB scale a 720p native game to 1080i at the moment, that won't work because it requires scaling in both directions. So a developer has to be involved somewhere to make the game render at somethingx1080, and allow the horizontal scaling to work.

The article also points this out..if vertical scaling were also enabled, it's something that could be exposed to the user in the xmb. The resolution(s) the developer was using wouldn't really be an issue then.
Click to expand...

I will be reading this article shortly with great interest as it has been a real point of frustration to me that Sony screwed up the scaling issue. Does the article go into detail about how the scaling is achieved? Is it hardware based or is it being done in software? It would REALLY suck if they had to use existing hardware resources for this. It certainly sounds like it it...

Also, as far as the SCC is concerned, the rumor that was being passed around is that the chip isn't fully integrated into the MB and only being used for the southbridge. Don't know if its true since nobody is talking, but its also ominous that nobody is proclaiming otherwise.
 
R

Ryu1999

Member
f@luS said:
I dont really care since here no one got 1080i HD only , but great news for some pple. (like 720p ftw)

BUt we have to admit that the ps3 is going so great ....what was the 2 biggest thing pple were bitching about?

-Omg teh jaggy PS2 games ffs cant be patched coz its hardware issue not software

= Done


-Omg teh scalling cant use ps3 on 1080i HDTV

= almost done


whats next?
Click to expand...

Lowering the price

I still maintain that Wii's main advantage is its price-point. I mean its fun and all, but being 50-60% cheaper than your competition doesn't hurt
 
3

3rdman

Member
aloof said:
Blimblim, would upscaling PS2 games to 720p/1080i/1080p make the games look better or worse?
Click to expand...

I hate to bring up the 360, but its my only experience in upscaling games. It can make some games look amazing...Ninja Gaidan and Conker look absolutley stellar. So it can definetly make it better, but it all depends on how (or what) is doing the scaling. Off to read the article...
 
K

kaching

"GAF's biggest wanker"
Odd that the scaler chip is still shrouded in a bit of mystery. Hasn't a PS3 been ripped open and all its internals been accounted for by now?
 
G

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
3rdman said:
I will be reading this article shortly with great interest as it has been a real point of frustration to me that Sony screwed up the scaling issue. Does the article go into detail about how the scaling is achieved? Is it hardware based or is it being done in software? It would REALLY suck if they had to use existing hardware resources for this. It certainly sounds like it it...
Click to expand...

Hmm..not really. At least according to the writer it's presented to developers as being a scaler.

But you're not the first to suggest it could be something else. Others have suggested that they may be fiddling with the output to simply double pixels horizontally, although that would not cover the other supported resolutions asides from 960x1080.

3rdman said:
Also, as far as the SCC is concerned, the rumor that was being passed around is that the chip isn't fully integrated into the MB and only being used for the southbridge. Don't know if its true since nobody is talking, but its also ominous that nobody is proclaiming otherwise.
Click to expand...

The origin of that rumour is a post by a guy apparently from Sony, listing PS3 as one of 3 products using the SCC*. He said that it was represented differently in the different systems, whatever that means. If it is in there, it would seem rather expensive and wasteful to use it just as a southbridge, though.

edit - * actually, having a second look, he doesn't explicitly refer to it as a SCC. But he is referring to a IO controller/southbridge that is rather large and, according to the iSuppli teardown, sourced from Toshiba..
 
P

plagiarize

Banned
Bad_Boy said:
Great news and really good read imo. Glad this whole thing is fixed. 480p/1080i HDTV owners don't have much to worry about anymore. And everybody else gets the benefit of games scaled up to 1080p. I'm really interested in what they will do about the games in the past though, thats a lot of games to patch and from my understanding this fix is not 'retrocompatible' and game specific. For example the non-online games? Do they have some sort of network code for patches or must the bet issued through the PS Store?

Games going gold in the past recent weeks or next recent weeks might or might not have this enabled, but I'm guessing all those march titles for the europe launch should be fine. Funny how things worked out. I suppose every game after virtua fighter 5 should be fine, and if the rumors of 1080p for that game turn out true it wont be affected at all. Maybe this is the cause for the recent late february games to get delayed a week or so. Worth it i'd say if true.
Click to expand...
that's really the clincher. how soon they can get this mandated as part of the certification process. hopefully it can be patched into games already sold, and if not, hopefully when they are next printed or rereleased that it can be added at that stage.

while it might not look good compared to 720p even, as pointed out, it'll look a darn site better than 480p so this is good news, even if it isn't as good as the scaling situation on the 360.
 
f@luS

f@luS

More than a member.
Ryu1999 said:
Lowering the price

I still maintain that Wii's main advantage is its price-point. I mean its fun and all, but being 50-60% cheaper than your competition doesn't hurt
Click to expand...


Yeah maybe , but since im working i dont care about 600€ for a 5/6 years system... i spend as much with my cellphone per ...year ! :eek:

anyway , sony's doing a fanstastic job
 
B

Blimblim

The Inside Track
3rdman said:
I hate to bring up the 360, but its my only experience in upscaling games. It can make some games look amazing...Ninja Gaidan and Conker look absolutley stellar. So it can definetly make it better, but it all depends on how (or what) is doing the scaling. Off to read the article...
Click to expand...
I'd say it mostly depends on what the game looked like in the first place. If it was a jaggy mess before, it will be even worse after the scaling.
 
R

RuGalz

Member
3rdman said:
I hate to bring up the 360, but its my only experience in upscaling games. It can make some games look amazing...Ninja Gaidan and Conker look absolutley stellar. So it can definetly make it better, but it all depends on how (or what) is doing the scaling. Off to read the article...
Click to expand...
There's difference between rendering game at lower res and then scaling it up as oppose to rendering it at higher res altogether which I believe is what X360 is doing.
 
pcostabel

pcostabel

Gold Member
theBishop said:
If it has a scaler, then why is it exposed via the SDK? Why not set it in the XMB?
Click to expand...

Because of HDMI. The 360 scaler works on the analog signal, so it's transparent to the code. With HDMI, you have to scale in the digital domain, so you have to allocate a buffer at the higher res somewhere. That's why they only support horizontal scaling: they can cheat the horizontal res by replicating the pixels but they still need all the lines in memory.
 
L

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
So there is a hardware scaler after all. I remember someone from Insomniac here mentioning something like that actually, but saying that it was not accessible to game developers.

960x1080 should look about as good as 720p. It's a bit more pixels than 720p after all. On one hand, 1920 made from just doubling pixels would look worse than if it was created from 1280, but on the other hand, 1080i created from the real 1080p vertical resolution will look better, because it can be ideally interlaced, and on a 1080p TV it can be ideally mapped.

This only really should concern people with 1080i-only TVs. Everyone else will either be unaffected or will now have an option to chose whether they want their TV to scale 720p to 1080i or to let PS3 do that, with a different resolution scaling.

pcostabel said:
Because of HDMI. The 360 scaler works on the analog signal, so it's transparent to the code. With HDMI, you have to scale in the digital domain, so you have to allocate a buffer at the higher res somewhere. That's why they only support horizontal scaling: they can cheat the horizontal res by replicating the pixels but they still need all the lines in memory.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure that's true. How would you scale 1280x1080 or 1440x1080 to 1920x1080 by just duplicating pixels? I'm wondering how this scaler works myself, where does it store the final 1920x1080 buffer is a good question. Does it have some kind of memory on it's own for storing the buffer or is it just scaling and generating 1080p signal on the fly? If developers still have to allocate real 1920x1080 buffer somewhere in the main memory, then this 'scaler' is pretty much useless, as they could be scaling like that in software with a super-simple pixel shader :\


speculawyer said:
Jeez . . . remember way back when it was rumored that the PS3 would have two HDMI outputs and could render two 1080p displays simultaneously. Now it seems they can barely do a single 1080i buffer.
Click to expand...
When your game is designed to use 720p buffer, and to use every available bit of memory space, of course it will be a problem having to allocate 4x more memory for a front buffer than what you used to allocate for 720p. Complaining about 1080p support on PS3 is misguided IMO, given that there's already some pretty damn good looking games on it that not only run in native 1080p but 60FPS also.
 
3

3rdman

Member
gofreak said:
Hmm..not really. At least according to the writer it's presented to developers as being a scaler.

But you're not the first to suggest it could be something else. Others have suggested that they may be fiddling with the output to simply double pixels horizontally, although that would not cover the other supported resolutions asides from 960x1080.



The origin of that rumour is a post by a guy apparently from Sony, listing PS3 as one of 3 products using the SCC*. He said that it was represented differently in the different systems, whatever that means. If it is in there, it would seem rather expensive and wasteful to use it just as a southbridge, though.

edit - * actually, having a second look, he doesn't explicitly refer to it as a SCC. But he is referring to a IO controller/southbridge that is rather large and, according to the iSuppli teardown, sourced from Toshiba..
Click to expand...


It looks like we won't be getting an answer soon whether or not its done in hardware or not. The following is from one of B3D staff...

I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't really a scaler per-se, although I *think* that's how it is being described to developers. We ran the story with what we knew - not with what we didn't. So hopefully we'll get to know more about this in the (near) future...
Click to expand...

I guess we'll see soon...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

[Digital Foundry] New PS5 Pro GPU details emerge - including a 2.35GHz max boost clock
News Hardware Platform 3 4 5 6 7
310
24K
Lysandros replied
  • Poll
SONY/SIE: The Balance Of Chasing Margins, Multiplat Expansion, And Maximizing The Console
Opinion Business Analysis 2 3
101
8K
vaibhavpisal replied
  • Poll
Why Xbox Abandoning The Traditional Console Business Model, Makes Business Sense
Business Analysis Platform 2
72
6K
WitchHunter replied
yuzu updated with Resolution Scaler - Play Switch games in 8K
2
74
13K
01011001 replied
  • Locked
Surveyed PC gamers say they STILL prefer Windows 10 and mid-range 1080p over high-end parts
Opinion Hardware
19
1K
Topher replied
Top Bottom