Fatghost said:
I don't think they're even doubling the scan lines. Each frame, even though it's progressive, is still displaying as interlaced. Look at this pic
You might have to enlarge it, but look at Yun. I took this pic as I activated his genei-jin. You see how the blue overlay looks interlaced? There's no line doubling or any kind of filler/filter being applied to cover it up. That's what's causing the comb effects.
If the image were actually being displayed as interlaced, there would be no combing effect like the one on Yun's Genei-Jin; the entire screen would look like that. The Genei-Jin and Parry effects are the result of combing caused by poor deinterlacing. SF3: 3rd Strike is one of the hardest games to deinterlace because of the extremely quick and flashy effects; just try to play it with a PS2 on pretty much any HDTV and you'll see the same issues.
When I run the game on a PS2 through my iScan VP50, there are no effects like that. Genei-Jin and parrying both look completely normal. Along with the XRGBs, the iScan is the only box I have seen that is able to properly (and quickly) deinterlace all fighting games.
Edit: I thought I'd add a more technical explanation so you can understand that the PS3 is infact performing deinterlacing.
3rd Strike runs at 60FPS. Genei-Jin literally means "illusion stance" in English, so the effect is made to look like Yun has a ghost behind him. To do that, the blue shadow is displayed on or behind Yun on every other frame. That's why sometimes on match videos (on Youtube or whereever) you will see a Yun using Genei-Jin but without the blue shadow; sometimes you'll even see only the blue shadow. That's because the cameras are capturing at a lower framerate, so they coincidentally skip the frames necessary to see the Genei-Jin's shadow.
So, on to the PS3. The only possible way that the combing artifact on Yun's shadow could be produced is if it is buffering at least 2 frames in advance before displaying the image. What's happening is the PS3 is deinterlacing by waiting for 2 frames from the game, then combining them to make a single field which is then displayed. This is a poor way to perform deinterlacing because whenever you have flashy effects that alternate frames, you'll have combing like with an activated Genei-Jin or parrying--not to mention input lag, and as you know 2 frames is a huge difference for games like 3rd Strike.
Superior deinterlacing algorithms for gaming, such as the ones found on the XRGB2/3 and iScan VPxx instead use a predictive algorithm so that it can display a field while still on the same frame. These algorithms do not buffer frames like most HDTVs and the PS3 do. That's why the PS3 should allow us to display 480i over HDMI (which is totally possible, to whoever said it wasn't up there). Alternately, Sony could implement a better deinterlacing algorithm in a future firmware update, but that would take actual work.
/end edit
Onix said:
Which version of the iScan are you using?
The PS3's de-interlacing is obviously a variation of a 'game mode'. If your version of the iScan doesn't have it (and I believe only the newest one has game modes), you may end up with some lag issues.
I use an iScan VP50, but it doesn't really matter--I can hook the PS3 up straight to the HDMI port on my HDTV and get the exact same results. Same awful combing artifacts in 3rd Strike, and the same lag while the PS3 deinterlaces a 480i-only game to 480p (my display can process a 480p signal with under 8ms lag, I've tested it).
The way you can test this is with Guitar Hero II. First, enable progressive scan for the game under video options, then do the test a few times and try to find the average number you're getting. Next, uncheck the progressive scan option (PS3 will now be using its deinterlacing, so the signal will still be the same, 480p) and do the test again--it should be higher.