Support NeoGAF

[DHC-Shannow]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-does-resolution-really-matter

Guess the author...

It all makes for fascinating reading. In an era where the relevancy of the specialist press is under scrutiny, we find that coverage of the resolution issue not just made it into the general public's consciousness - but also defined buying intentions, to the point where it was still considered an issue a whole year after the release of the current-gen consoles. Obviously this is our own personal interpretation, but our take on it is that resolution became a way of quantifying the technological capabilities of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One - a relatable metric, if you like. We're not sure if 'console A is more powerful than console B' was one of Nielsen's 30 reasons, but resolution is a parameter by which the differing power levels of the machines can be addressed, and was certainly the way the specialist press - ourselves included - went about it

The question of whether resolution actually matters is explored nicely in GameSpot's recent Reality Check video, in which Cam Robinson oversees a 'blind taste test' of sorts across three platforms - PS4, Xbox One and PC. Far Cry 4 and COD are the main examples here, illustrating that despite a yawning chasm in resolution between PS4 and Xbox One, it's very hard for the majority of those participating to tell any difference in actual gameplay conditions. What's crucial in this case is that not only are both COD and Far Cry 4's res reductions well-handled on Xbox One, they also have performance profiles equivalent to or even better than their PS4 counterparts - and we're firmly of the belief that frame-rate difficulties have much more of an impact on the overall experience than resolution.

Lots more on the link discussing how changes in filters and scaling techniques are hiding the resolution deficit.

 

[ekim]

Of course it matters depending on the size of your TV/monitor and the distance between you and the picture.

Framerate is more important though.

 

[jpax]

Is it Leadbetter?

 

[benny_a]

I can only recommend to not knee jerk about the author and just read the article.

It also includes information about the Nielsen methodology.

 

[Theorry]

Of course it matters depending on the size of your TV/monitor and the distance between you and the picture.

Framerate is more important though.

Agree. Want 60fps for all games.
And then 1080p would be nice. But if they cant get that with locked 60 i am fine with lower res also.

 

[KainXVIII]

Another downplaying of Xbox one?

 

[Purest 78]

So a site that test resolution is saying it's not important that's interesting.

 

[Xater]

Is it Leadbetter?

Of course it is.

 

[alr1ght]

This is becoming a bit of a joke now.

Is it Leadbetter?

Of course.

There's still a long way to go. In the greater scheme of things, it's still early days in the current console generation, and while progress in the visual arts has moved on significantly since Xbox One and PS4 launched, mitigating the resolution difference has mostly come about through improved scaling on Xbox One and heavier post-processing effect pipelines on certain titles. We've seen some promising results, but we're not out of the woods yet. Battlefield Hardline launches later this month with a 720p Xbox One resolution and unimpressive image quality as a result, while we suspect we'll see the same situation with Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain later on in the year, if the Fox Engine titles released to date are any indication.

Those titles should be outliers though, and fingers crossed that across 2015 we'll see enough progress that next year's re-run of the Nielsen survey sees the quality of the gaming experience as the motivating factor behind investing in console hardware. In the meantime, perhaps the biggest takeaway from the survey data is that it's the Wii U owners that are having the most fun from their gaming hardware...

 

[Nokterian]

Saw thread title thought of leadbetter and well there it is.

 

[soulassssns]

It doesn't matter to me....

 

[Khaz]

Since we all play now on modern but fixed-resolution displays, yes, yes it does.

 

[Akai__]

Art Style > Framerate > Resolution

If the game is at least 720p/60FPS on the consoles, I'm fine with it. I was kinda disappointed, that not all games could reach 1080p/60FPS this gen, but at this point I don't really care anymore.

 

[jabuseika]

My monitor and TV are not 480p, or 720p anymore.

 

[King_Moc]

Oh dear. I guess we should just go back to 640x480 but just use better scaling techniques this time.

In fact, why even waste resources on that? I'm sure 320x240 is fine.

 

[omonimo]

Never change Leadbetter. Never change. I'd liked too see more statement about this thing in the ps3 era because generally I agree but why just today?

 

[dark10x]

Since we all play now on modern but fixed-resolution displays, yes, yes it does.

I do agree but 1080p alone isn't enough. Ryse at 900p has much much better image quality than, say, Doa5 Final Round which is 1080p. Without good AA, though, sub-native can look pretty bad.

, why even waste resources on that? I'm sure 320x240 is fine.

I've spent hundreds of dollars getting 240p content to look awesome on my plasma.

 

[amar212]

It mattered 7 years ago.

It should be even more important today.

Guy seriously have issues with progress standards.

 

[hodgy100]

they are right, frame-rate is more important but that doesnt change that a higher resolution looks better. bringing up the gamespot video is a joke as the majority of people would have used the YouTube comparison vids and not the uncompressed version to make their personal verdict which just muddies the water. what a joke.

 

[Krappadizzle]

Of course it matters. In the context of the screen.

 

[Bold One]

That's weird, it used to matter.....

 

[CambriaRising]

What a trash article.

 

[John Bender]

So after the US study, Leadbetter had something to write again.

Is it Leadbetter?

Of course! As expected.
And guess what he is trying here:

What's crucial in this case is that not only are both COD and Far Cry 4's res reductions well-handled on Xbox One, they also have performance profiles equivalent to or even better than their PS4 counterparts

Leadbetter: "Leave ma Xbone alone"

 

[GeoGonzo]

I can only recommend to not knee jerk about the author and just read the article.

It also includes information about the Nielsen methodology.

This, please. It's very sad when infamous authors aren't allowed to start reasonable discussions just because of what they've written in the past.

 

[krioto]

It did last gen - what's changed I wonder?

 

[Upinsmoke]

Oh dear. I guess we should just go back to 640x480 but just use better scaling techniques this time.

In fact, why even waste resources on that? I'm sure 320x240 is fine.

Yep. I was gonna build a new pc, 4k capable and such but after reading that I'm still gonna spend the same as i would on a 4k build but play at 640x480 as the author has convinced me it doesn't matter.

 

[TheLegendOfMart]

Art Style > Framerate > Resolution

If the game is at least 720p/60FPS on the consoles, I'm fine with it. I was kinda disappointed, that not all games could reach 1080p/60FPS this gen, but at this point I don't really care anymore.

Resolution is paramount. If you have a PC play a game at 720p on your 1080p monitor and look at the nasty blurring.

 

[Tidus_Great]

when 2 systems share 99% of their library then obviously it does. if the systems essentially play the same exact games then why not pick up the one with better resolution? assuming they are similar in price. In this case ps4 actually launched for 100 less than xbone lol

 

[CozMick]

Leadbetter.....

All I hear is "downplay, downplay, downplay."

We get it, you love Xbox geez,

 

[Pimpbaa]

I do agree but 1080p alone isn't enough. Ryse at 900p has much much better image quality than, say, Doa5 Final Round which is 1080p. Without good AA, though, sub-native can look pretty bad.


I've spent hundreds of dollars getting 240p content to look awesome on my plasma.

I disagree. Ryse looks very blurry just like every other 900p game. To me that looks much worse than a 1080p image without AA.

 

[benny_a]

It did last gen - what's changed I wonder?

What's so unreasonable to think that the difference between 720p and 640p is more significant than 1080p and 900p?

 

[bobbytkc]

It did last gen - what's changed I wonder?

Gee. I am really scratching my head with this.

 

[Rebel Leader]

480p for everyone!

 

[RedAssedApe]

"It's still early days"

That idiom annoys me for some reason.

 

[iRAWRasaurus]

Matters for me, I hate the blurriness of screens that are under resolution.

 

[Yoshi]

So a site that test resolution is saying it's not important that's interesting.

They are measuring all kinds of technical differences and I think the more intersting part of their analysis is not the resultion - that one is known beforehand anyway - but the framerate. Personally, as an Xbox One owner, who is really unhappy with the performance of many games, I'd wish to get the option to enforce rendering in 720p (or lower, if necessary) in order to obtain a stable (and reasonably high) framerate. For almost all games, resolution has no bearing on gameplay (realistically, don't answer with a comically low resolution picture...), whereas framerate has an enormous one. Xbox One has not been a good place for stable game experiences from my perspective and that's what's hurting my view on the new consoles the most.

 

[PnCIa]

At 240i you can make your games look like Avatar i guess...lets do it! Baseball-sized pixel perfect headshots!

 

[omonimo]

Leadbetter.....

All I hear is "downplay, downplay, downplay."

We get it, you love Xbox geez,

I remember ps3 version of Rage lose a face off because drop too much the res compared the x360 although 60 fps was more steady.

 

[eFKac]

It's a bit funny to see such a conclusion in a DF article and then recall them seeing clear sharpness differences between X360 and PS3 on resolutions like 1280 vs 1174 by 720 in games.

 

[blu]

Framerate matters way more than resolution.

That said, resolution matters a lot for devices that are held at a hand's distance from the eyes. And it matters both ways - it can be too little, just as well as too much.

 

[alr1ght]

Games look better in gifs. Let's all just play games in gifs.

 

[dark10x]

I disagree. Ryse looks very blurry just like every other 900p game. To me that looks much worse than a 1080p image without AA.

Well I guess it's just a matter of taste then.

It's a bit funny to see such a conclusion in a DF article and then recall them seeing clear sharpness differences between X360 and PS3 on resolutions like 1280 vs 1174 by 720 in games.

It's not so black and white. Once you drop under 720p image quality starts to dive hard. The difference between 1080p and 2160p is much greater than 480p to 720p but that doesn't reflect reality. The more pixels you're dealing with the less the differences matter.

900p to 1080p isn't as dramatic as 576p to 720p.

 

[GnawtyDog]

I remember ps3 version of Rage lose a face off because drop too much the res compared the x360 although 60 fps was more steady.

Would love a read....link appreciated in advance. Just to check on consistency that's all...

As for OT: Yes it does, specially on a big TV like mine.

Edit: I see what you mean:

Texture streaming is the other main bugbear people will have with Rage: it's noticeable on all platforms (even PC), but a full 360 install up against a partial PS3 install is no contest - the 360 wins hands-down and provides the better experience. At its worst, the combination of low resolution textures and sub-HD resolution combines to make Rage look rather bland, a touch blurry/blocky and detail-lite on the PS3 at times, something that just doesn't seem to be the case with the 360 game running exactly as id outlines.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-rage-face-off

 

[omonimo]

What's so unreasonable to think that the difference between 720p and 640p is more significant than 1080p and 900p?

It's quite comparable if you ask me in a big screen.

 

[Khaz]

Oh dear. I guess we should just go back to 640x480 but just use better scaling techniques this time.

In fact, why even waste resources on that? I'm sure 320x240 is fine.

These resolutions look great if you have the correct display. I agree it look like shit on modern fixed-1080p screens with a default upscaler.
The problem is we don't use variable-res displays any more and without a decent upscaler and plenty of filters, non-native res stuff look like shit.

 

[RedAssedApe]

Games look better in gifs. Let's all just play games in gifs.

I'm just gonna hangout in the screenshot thread. Everything looks better in photo mode.

 

[FeiRR]

I think we know now who it matters to. It would be interesting to add PC gamers to the comparison though. Easy to match the author's affiliations too.

 

[Akai__]

Resolution is paramount. If you have a PC play a game at 720p on your 1080p monitor and look at the nasty blurring.

I didn't mention PC resolution. I specifically mentioned consoles.

But PC is a funny thing, because it's your job to tweak settings, in order to achieve 1080p/60FPS. It's also really not that hard with a decent GPU (given that the game is optimized good enough), where as on consoles it's the job of the devs to achieve certain resolutions and framerate.

 

[JAYSIMPLE]

Another downplaying of Xbox one?

Another reality check hopefully for the world. Resolution has never been such an issue until this generation. It's embarrassing. 1080p was available last gen for pc players but no one seemed to care. Biggest load of bollox this gen and I think games are suffering because of it

 

[madmackem]

Never change leadbitter, to answer yes yes yes res is important anything below 900p looks like dog shit on my tv no amount of tricks can save that image quality on a decent sized tv.