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PS3's biggest short-term problem

Raistlin

Post Count: 9999
If I understand the scaling issue correctly, the PS3 does not scale games at all.

In that case, when you select 480p ... the PS3 isn't downresing the game to that resolution ... the game is simply internally rendered at 480p.


If that is the case, there goes the free AA (basically automatic supersampling) for SD TV's.

That gives 360 a huge IQ advantage on SD TV's.




Certainly the devs can turn on some massive AA when rendering at 480p, and that will get rid of jaggies ... but it won't improve detail.



A way around this is to render the game at 720p, and then downsample to 480p. A dev would have to answer this ... but I'm guessing that wouldn't have much in the way overhead. The problem however, is that it isn't automated ... it is left to the dev to implement this.

I expect many devs will in the future, but a lot of first gen games won't ... and those are the games more people will be playing on SD TV's over the next year or two.



Powned :(
 

Riddler

Member
yea I was thinking supply and the quality of titles coming out up until spring doesnt seem as "big" compared to 360's spring launch of games (Oblivion,Fight Night,GRAW,etc... )
 

HyperionX

Member
So what? A lot of Xbox 360 games aren't in 720p ever, HDTV or no. Wii games will never be in 720p. So pick your poison.
 

Raistlin

Post Count: 9999
HyperionX said:
So what? A lot of Xbox 360 games aren't in 720p ever, HDTV or no. Wii games will never be in 720p. So pick your poison.

But they are higher than SD ... and when downsampled to SD, look better than what any of the current PS3 games will as far as detail/IQ.
 

Yoboman

Member
Yes because when a consumer walks into a store and sees no PS3s in stock and a $499 price tag he'll surely think to himself "damn, no automatic supersampling on a standard definition TV? UR NOT GETIN MY MONEY SONY LOL"
 

squatingyeti

non-sanctioned troll
HyperionX said:
So what? A lot of Xbox 360 games aren't in 720p ever, HDTV or no. Wii games will never be in 720p. So pick your poison.

So, how many and which ones equal a lot? Which of these are confirmed?
 

JCBossman

Banned
Onix,
Your mistake is that this is a LONG term problem(Like Chiense Water torture) the screws will tighten SLOWLY(same thing for Sony's Online...Free Now, But for how long?)
 

Riddler

Member
HyperionX said:
So what? A lot of Xbox 360 games aren't in 720p ever, HDTV or no. Wii games will never be in 720p. So pick your poison.


What games for the 360 beside PGR isnt 720p? I set my 360 to 1080i & assumed all the games were HD(they looked sharp and crisp).
 

Pimpbaa

Member
Onix said:
But they are higher than SD ... and when downsampled to SD, look better than what any of the current PS3 games will as far as detail/IQ.

Not true with all all 360 games. Some 360 games render at SD (and run better as a result) if the 360 is set to the SD resolution.

Edit: wasn't there also a patch for saints row that enabled 4x AA in the game when used in SD? Resolutions are gonna be all over the place for both 360 and ps3, but I just hope there isn't many more games that only run good in SD (like need for speed: carbon).
 

Mario

Sidhe / PikPok
Onix said:
Certainly the devs can turn on some massive AA when rendering at 480p, and that will get rid of jaggies ... but it won't improve detail.

I'm not sure what you mean by losing detail - if you have "massive AA" which is fullscreen then you are supersampling and scaling down. That would be pretty much equivalent to downsampling from a higher res.

In our PS3 game, we just have different fullscreen AA levels for each resolution. The lower the res, the higher the AA setting.

Its the low resolution that will fundamentally see you losing detail, not downsampling via AA or scaling from higher res.
 

JB1981

Member
Onix said:
But they are higher than SD ... and when downsampled to SD, look better than what any of the current PS3 games will as far as detail/IQ.

I guess this might be why Shane and co. were saying how bad the PS3 looked in SD on the last 1up Show.
 

DCharlie

And even i am moderately surprised
seriously, how did you people not spot that PGR3 wasn't really 720p ? it was obvious and certainly didn't require some dev somewhere to tell them of this fact....
 

bill0527

Member
Sony's biggest short-term problem is that they are their own worst enemy.

Its clear now beyond belief, that they didn't even bother looking at the Xbox 360 to see just exactly what that system did right.

In their own arrogance, they decided to do it their own way and to hell if it pisses a few people off, because they'll still buy it anyway, because we are Playstation.

I was all set to score one of these in the Spring or possibly sooner if I just happened to find one at a retail store.

Not now. Now, there's no point in even buying one until I upgrade my TV. I will not game in last generation's resolutions. Its just unbelievable to me that a gaming console that is touting itself as the most advanced ever created, can't even do something that its 1-year old "inferior" competition can do (and do rather well).
 

ram

Member
who plays next gen on a SD? seriously, one advantage over the current gen consoles is the HD resolution. maybe you shopuldnt buy a next gen console, if you dont have the money to buy a HD TV too?
 

bill0527

Member
DCharlie said:
seriously, how did you people not spot that PGR3 wasn't really 720p ? it was obvious and certainly didn't require some dev somewhere to tell them of this fact....

I knew that PGR wasn't in 720p, but it doesn't really compare in this case to any PS3 game because at least the 360 would scale it to 1080i. Even if its a sub-par scaled image, at least its not a downgraded image.
 

JB1981

Member
i still can't believe the system doesn't scale games to 1080i AT ALL .. that is just unacceptable, plain and simple.
 

pestul

Member
ram said:
who plays next gen on a SD? seriously, one advantage over the current gen consoles is the HD resolution. maybe you shopuldnt buy a next gen console, if you dont have the money to buy a HD TV too?
Maybe, tell that to Sony.. who shipped thier console with only composite cables.
 

kiUNiT

Member
HyperionX said:
CoD3 and THP8 are both short of 720p. That's the latest announcement at least.

Yea it's obvious COD3 on the 360 is'nt HD.

dsc09864dd9.jpg


dsc09866rl6.jpg


dsc09873bb8.jpg



these are off screen on a Sony 1080i crt.
 
HyperionX said:
CoD3 and THP8 are both short of 720p. That's the latest announcement at least.

That's because activision sucks and they are trying to pull a fast one with the 360 scaler. On the other hand. All games will have to be 720p on the ps3, because it can't 'cheat' because there isn't a scaler. That's why the PS3 version of both has frame rate problems that are worse than the 360 version.
 

JB1981

Member
kiUNiT said:
Yea it's obvious COD3 on the 360 is'nt HD.

dsc09864dd9.jpg


these are off screen on a Sony 1080i crt.

Those are Tapout's pics from TeamXbox, right? Yeah. I have that same TV. Yes, the game looks good. Yes, that particular TV is amazing. But I can almost guarantee you that he doctors his screenshots.
 

Pimpbaa

Member
ram said:
who plays next gen on a SD? seriously, one advantage over the current gen consoles is the HD resolution. maybe you shopuldnt buy a next gen console, if you dont have the money to buy a HD TV too?

Resolution is far from the only thing that makes next gen games look next gen. People can still enjoy the games at SD. And there is gonna be a hell of a lot of them when the ps3 and 360 drop down in price considerably.
 

kiUNiT

Member
JB1981 said:
Those are Tapout's pics from TeamXbox, right? Yeah. I have that same TV. Yes, the game looks good. Yes, that particular TV is amazing. But I can almost guarantee you that he doctors his screenshots.

Yes they are and I would like to know how he doctors his screen shots o_O (high contrast?), but you know the thread and there are many great shots from other members. and it looks great on my Hitachi 1080i 51"CRT also.
 

JCBossman

Banned
Sony has been very cheap(as opposed to rushed)
ON PS3
Friend: hey let's play coop Resistance on my new PS3!
ME: OK, you got a second gamepad?
F: No, pick one up so we can play coop!
ME: OK
ME: here's a NEW PS3 controller I just bought, but it seems to be dead, where is your charger cord as this $50 controller doesn't come with one?
F: it's lost
ME: forget it than...


ON X360
Friend: Hey lets play coop Gears of War!
ME: OK, you got a second gamepad?
F: No, pick one up so we can play some coop!
ME:OK
ME: Here is a New X360 pad, I just bought for $40 on sale!
F: Cool, throw in those included batteries and lets play!
ME:OK
Friend: RaaM on insane was tough, glad you had my back
ME: NO Problem!

SAYS IT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
JCBossman said:
Sony has been very cheap(as opposed to rushed)
ON PS3
Friend: hey let's play coop Resistance on my new PS3!
ME: OK, you got a second gamepad?
F: No, pick one up so we can play coop!
ME: OK
ME: here's a NEW PS3 controller I just bought, but it seems to be dead, where is your charger cord as this $50 controller doesn't come with one?
F: it's lost
ME: forget it than...


ON X360
Friend: Hey lets play coop Gears of War!
ME: OK, you got a second gamepad?
F: No, pick one up so we can play some coop!
ME:OK
ME: Here is a New X360 pad, I just bought for $40 on sale!
F: Cool, throw in those included batteries and lets play!
ME:OK
Friend: RaMM on insane was tough, glad you had my back
ME: NO Problem!

SAYS IT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!

And this means that Sony will have trouble trumping it's compeititors why?
 

elostyle

Never forget! I'm Dumb!
IGN said:
As final PlayStation 3 units continue to trickle into more and more hands, additional details about how the system works and what it can and can't do are hitting the web. The latest (rather major) tidbit is how the console treats the upscaling and downscaling of 720p titles on televisions that don't support that resolution -- specifically those that are only 1080i capable.

As it turns out, gamers who own older HD sets that feature only 480i, 480p, and 1080i resolution input capabilities will have to settle for the display quality being downsized as the game boots in its 480p mode rather than upscaling the image from its more desirable 720p mode to the TV's 1080i. We tested this development on older HDTV sets with games designed for 720p but not 1080i -- Resistance: Fall of Man, NHL 2K7, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07, and Need for Speed Carbon. Sure enough, the system downshifted all four titles to 480p rather than moving up to 1080i.

The PlayStation 3's competitor, Microsoft's Xbox 360, does upscale 720p games to 1080i if the HD set supports the latter resolution but not the in-between and commonly-employed 720p resolution.
uh oh
 

BorkBork

The Legend of BorkBork: BorkBorkity Borking
JCBossman said:
Sony has been very cheap(as opposed to rushed)
ON PS3
Friend: hey let's play coop Resistance on my new PS3!
ME: OK, you got a second gamepad?
F: No, pick one up so we can play coop!
ME: OK
ME: here's a NEW PS3 controller I just bought, but it seems to be dead, where is your charger cord as this $50 controller doesn't come with one?
F: it's lost
ME: forget it than...


ON X360
Friend: Hey lets play coop Gears of War!
ME: OK, you got a second gamepad?
F: No, pick one up so we can play some coop!
ME:OK
ME: Here is a New X360 pad, I just bought for $40 on sale!
F: Cool, throw in those included batteries and lets play!
ME:OK
Friend: RaaM on insane was tough, glad you had my back
ME: NO Problem!

SAYS IT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!

joepaternolc0.jpg
 

Luckyman

Banned
Rendering natively at 480p will force devs to optimize on SD-sets too. Downscaled 720p or 1080p makes text and menus look like crap as noticed with Dead Rising.
 

drohne

hyperbolically metafictive
afaik 360 games also render at 480p when you set them to output 480p -- in fact some of them run much better that way (full auto, tomb raider legends).
 

VNZ

Member
So, is it really true that it's up to the developer to set up different framebuffer sizes based on the system prefs?

In that case it is a deeply concerning move towards "PC-mentality", in that that framerate may differ at different resolutions -- which in extension will lead to an increased sloppiness as far as framerate optimization goes...

The "one resolution - one framerate" target has always been one of the main advanteges for consoles, in my opinion.
 

Fafalada

Fafracer forever
On the other hand. All games will have to be 720p on the ps3, because it can't 'cheat' because there isn't a scaler.
You don't need a separate scaler to 'cheat' in this manner - it's been quite common practice on PS2/GCN (and sometimes XBox), and it's perfectly feasible to do on PS3.
On 360 there are just more immediate gains from lowering resolution to fit the eDram (same reason why PS2/GC did this more often).
 

Tk0n

Member
kiUNiT said:
Yea it's obvious COD3 on the 360 is'nt HD.

dsc09864dd9.jpg


these are off screen on a Sony 1080i crt.

you use screens, taken with a digicam, and downsized to 640x480 to proof that that cod3 renders in hd? :D
 

DenogginizerOS

BenjaminBirdie's Thomas Jefferson
JB1981 said:
i still can't believe the system doesn't scale games to 1080i AT ALL .. that is just unacceptable, plain and simple.

I would be SOOOO pissed if I came home with my PS3 and discovered that my less than 1 year old Sony CRT HDTV can not display PS3 games in 1080i.
 

Raistlin

Post Count: 9999
Yoboman said:
Yes because when a consumer walks into a store and sees no PS3s in stock and a $499 price tag he'll surely think to himself "damn, no automatic supersampling on a standard definition TV? UR NOT GETIN MY MONEY SONY LOL"

No ... but when he finally gets one home ... he's going to hook it up to a SD TV ... look at the picture ... and scream WTF?!!?!?
 

Raistlin

Post Count: 9999
Mario said:
I'm not sure what you mean by losing detail - if you have "massive AA" which is fullscreen then you are supersampling and scaling down. That would be pretty much equivalent to downsampling from a higher res.

In our PS3 game, we just have different fullscreen AA levels for each resolution. The lower the res, the higher the AA setting.

Its the low resolution that will fundamentally see you losing detail, not downsampling via AA or scaling from higher res.

So do you think most devs are doing this ... and Ridge Racer 7 looking like poo at SD is more of an anomaly?
 

Mojovonio

Banned
DenogginizerOS said:
I would be SOOOO pissed if I came home with my PS3 and discovered that my less than 1 year old Sony CRT HDTV can not display PS3 games in 1080i.

Well, you SHOULD have a tv that does 1080p, Ken said everyone would take on second jobs!
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
In that case, when you select 480p ... the PS3 isn't downresing the game to that resolution ... the game is simply internally rendered at 480p.
Many XBOX360 games also render internally at 480p when you select that mode.

That is why you often see massive performance boosts while using 480p.
 

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
DenogginizerOS said:
I would be SOOOO pissed if I came home with my PS3 and discovered that my less than 1 year old Sony CRT HDTV can not display PS3 games in 1080i.
Well you won't discover it ever - as your TV will show games in 1080i when it gets 720p input from PS3 :)
 
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