Fortinbras
Member
Let's say I want to play a 720p game (e.g.) RE5 on my 1080p TV. I know the 360 has a hardware solution for this but I have absolutely no idea how this kind of stuff works for the PS3.
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How does PS3 upscaling work?
- Thread starter Fortinbras
- Start date
Well, it depends on the game. If the game doesn't support 1080p then the PS3 simply doesn't do anything -- your TV will get a 720p signal and upscale it (and most half decent 1080p TVs do a good job of that).
Note that the 360 solution isn't without its problems (I have it set at 720p even though I have a full hd display).
Note that the 360 solution isn't without its problems (I have it set at 720p even though I have a full hd display).
Beer Monkey
Member
jett said:
I vote this the best answer.
metalmania4evr
Member
Came in to post just this. End of thread.jett said:
PS3 Upscaling is only accessible by developers. This is because it has the capability to upscale horizontaly but not vertically, unlike the Xbox 360 which performs full upscaling automatically and by hardware.
In the case of the PS3 you have several scenarios, depending on the settings of the game.
1. The Game just doesn't upscale at all and sends 720p signal to your 1080p TV.
2. The Game gets upscaled by software, which results in a hit in the framerate.
3. In very special cases, like GT5, the game upscales horizontally by hardware resulting in a 1080p image. (This is because the original picture has half the vertical pixels - 960 x 1080 -, and it gets processed after that)
With the Xbox 360, things are simpler:
If the game supports native 1080p, then that's the resolution you get. If not, the console will upscale it automatically without a performance hit. You should always receive a 1080p signal to your TV whether it's upscaled or not.
For 1080p TVs, I'd say the Xbox 360 is the best performer.
In the case of the PS3 you have several scenarios, depending on the settings of the game.
1. The Game just doesn't upscale at all and sends 720p signal to your 1080p TV.
2. The Game gets upscaled by software, which results in a hit in the framerate.
3. In very special cases, like GT5, the game upscales horizontally by hardware resulting in a 1080p image. (This is because the original picture has half the vertical pixels - 960 x 1080 -, and it gets processed after that)
With the Xbox 360, things are simpler:
If the game supports native 1080p, then that's the resolution you get. If not, the console will upscale it automatically without a performance hit. You should always receive a 1080p signal to your TV whether it's upscaled or not.
For 1080p TVs, I'd say the Xbox 360 is the best performer.
Zombie James
Banned
Everything you need to know: http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/16/
edit: Oh wait, you're talking about scaling and not the actual scaler. Well, basically the developer picks the optimal resolution for their game and the PS3 compensates based on the settings you've picked.
For example, Uncharted is native 720p but also upscales to 1080i if needed. So if you have a 1080i set, it defaults to 1080i, but if you have a 720p/1080p set, it defaults to 720p. You can manually force it to use other resolutions by checking and unchecking different resolutions in Video Settings, but it usually isn't pretty.
THEN there are other games who's developers just picked the wrong resolution to start with, like Rainbow Six Vegas. It defaults to 1080i on my TV even though 720p looks better and sharper, so I have to manually change my video settings. Very, very sloppy work by Ubi.
edit: Oh wait, you're talking about scaling and not the actual scaler. Well, basically the developer picks the optimal resolution for their game and the PS3 compensates based on the settings you've picked.
For example, Uncharted is native 720p but also upscales to 1080i if needed. So if you have a 1080i set, it defaults to 1080i, but if you have a 720p/1080p set, it defaults to 720p. You can manually force it to use other resolutions by checking and unchecking different resolutions in Video Settings, but it usually isn't pretty.
THEN there are other games who's developers just picked the wrong resolution to start with, like Rainbow Six Vegas. It defaults to 1080i on my TV even though 720p looks better and sharper, so I have to manually change my video settings. Very, very sloppy work by Ubi.
Aquanox said:
First off, most 1080p games on the PS3 are done as in your case 3. No game I know of on the PS3 is upscaled by software, other than PS1/PS2 games. It's either 720p native, or 960*1080 upscaled.
Second, upscaling on 360 most definitely has a performance hit. Depends hugely on the game. If the game is already on the teetering edge of holding a consistent framerate, 1080p may cause it to drop. Same applies to PS3 games, as 960*1080 is ever so slightly a higher resolution than 720p.
Saint Gregory
Member
TheExodu5 said:
Wait - is this why Fable 2 tears and turns into a slideshow half the time for me? I'm trying it at 720 as soon as I get home.
Saint Gregory said:
Well it certainly won't fix the issue, but it should help. Also note that game installs can actually effect performance in some games as well. Lost Odyssey has a lot of slowdown entering battles and new areas without an install. With an install, it's nearly perfectly always 30fps (outside of cutscenes).
All these explanations are embarassingly wrong. The process is simple:
The Cell chip inflates the video atoms with Argon gas, to double their size. Because Video atoms have a "top" atomic spin - they become oval shaped when inflated - which is what causes they 16:9 ratio.
The Cell chip inflates the video atoms with Argon gas, to double their size. Because Video atoms have a "top" atomic spin - they become oval shaped when inflated - which is what causes they 16:9 ratio.
WickedLaharl
Member
tirant said:
a few games might have more screen-tearing or slowdown when upscaled.
which is nothing compared to the ps3s upscaling (or general lack thereof)
Aquanox said:
lol. So you say I get my choice of nearest pixel upscale by dedicated xbox circuitry or by nearest pixel display of 720 res on 1080 actual res.
I like how this response is based around the idea that there is a secret anti aliasing unit hidden in the xbox 360 that only users of high definition tvs can use.
The game picks its preferred resolution from the list of enabled (checked) resolutions. If a game picks 720p over 1080i, it's because its developers think that's the optimal choice for their title (which is true for virtually every game out there). If the XMB displays in 1080i (which it indeed does), it's because SCE thinks that's the superior choice for a menu system (which I agree with).TheExodu5 said:
All this deselecting options and forcing stuff is a misguided obsession with the bigger number. Forcing 1080p, or worse 1080i output on any game that would use 720p if you just let it achieves nothing at best, and more often than not even reduces image quality.
And it's all so simple: if the 720p image fills the 1080p television screen, it's already upscaled. Done. I have no idea why people like to mess with this so much.
WickedLaharl
Member
Durante said:
very few games suffer a performance hit while upscaling. it isn't a big deal and certainly isn't anywhere near the ps3s issues with upscaling.
Klocker said:
360
* Xenos is the hardware scaler, not HANA/ANA, which are just the video output chips dealing with digital/analog output to the various connections made with the display. http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1022643&postcount=77
* AVIVO takes more samples for scaling so it is expected that the scaling is better (the algorithm also appears to be some form of bicubic, not a simple bilinear) Update: see below
* Hardware scaling to the output resolution chosen in the dashboard is automagically performed .
o In upscaling to 1080p, some games may first scale to 720p in software before the GPU scales to a 1080p output. e.g. RR6, SCIV, VF5, CoD4, H3, TR:L...
o Some games let the GPU handle the scaling to 1080p directly from the arbitrary resolution. e.g. MotoGP 06, PGR3, ESIV:O...
o "lanczos is just one of the selectable filters. Ultimately each game 'could' opt to use a different filter/sample count combination (though I suspect most don't bother)." -Fafalada
PS3
* For whatever reason, the Pure Video scaler in the G7x derived GPU (RSX) is gimped to horizontal scaling of specific front buffer resolutions. See B3D Article
* As of the January 2007 PS3 SDK, only the following front buffer resolutions are supported for hardware scaling to 1920x1080p: 960x1080 1280x1080, 1440x1080 and 1600x1080
* Games whose back buffers are rendered at strange resolutions must upscale the front buffer (at a cost of extra memory) to either 1280x720 (720p output) or to one of the acceptable 1080p resolutions. (Note: native resolution = back buffer resolution, front buffer = image for displaying/hardware scaling)
* ShootMyMonkey mentions scaling support for a pixel height of 576. There may be more new settings available.
Saint Gregory
Member
TheExodu5 said:
I'm playing it installed but I was just thinking last night abou how terrible the tearing and framerate drops are. It's such a beautiful game otherwise but you make it sound like it's more a problem with the game than the 1080P upscaling.
A few months back we were debating the PS3 upscaling (or lack therof) issue and by the end of it I became convinced that letting my TV upscale PS3 720P to 1080P wasn't noticably different than letting the 360 handle it.
Well, to me the end result is that I let my display handle all 360 and PS3 scaling. In fact, 360 is slightly more annoying since I'd have to change my settings to play native 1080p games :/WickedLaharl said:
Also, where do you get that "very few" quantification? Has anyone done a comprehensive survey? Of the 8 360 games I own 5 suffer from some kind of performance degradation when running at 1080p.
Danne-Danger
Member
That's my new favorite word.°°ToMmY°° said:
