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Xbox One's Scaler May Be Applying a Sharpening Filter to All Sub-1080p Games

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
wonder how that will work when there are differences in framerate.

It doesn't effect framerate. The X1 is simply overlaying the 1080 UI stuff over the upscaled resolution of the game output to create one unified 1080 output to the screen. If the game runs at 30 fps then the UI is output at 30 fps. If the game output is 1080 then the game image is not upscaled and this sharpening/darkening effect is never seen, and it's never seen in the UI because all UI elements are 1080 by default so they never pass through the upscaler. This is only an issue when the original game output is less than 1080 and has to use the image upscaler.

It's kind of a messy method of outputting screen images, hopefully as the dev kits mature and devs come more to grips with the X1 we will see less and less games at sub 1080 resolutions to avoid this issue.
 
I wouldn't advise anyone to just set Sharpness to 0 on their TV without using some test patterns or going by eye. On some TV's setting Sharpness to 0 goes beyond turning off the Sharpness processing and creates a picture that is too soft.

If I set Sharpness to 0 on my Sony W6 the image on 1080 looks like its sub hd.

Same here. I have it on 40/100 for now. Might go back up because I like detailed and sharp it looked.
 

nib95

Banned
Why haven't the review sites picked up on this?

Your expecting the same kind of publications that can barely tell the difference between 1080p and 720p to pick up on this? My advice, stick to GAF for this kind of IQ and tech break down or deconstruction. We are ahead of the media curve 95% of the time. Based on screens alone, I can see that COD Ghosts, BF4 and DR3 add this awful sharpening filter. So what the OP says regarding sub Full HD feeds having sharpening applied, makes sense. Perhaps it only does it with 720p games, because I haven't seen the issue in AC BF or Ryse, and both of those games are 900p.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
ugh....

this all depends on the frame buffer. some games will have a 1980x1080 frame buffer with the target render at less than that. it doesnt mean there is a specific scaler that it passes through. its part of the rendering pipeline which is a composite.

take this image for example this is UI which you can tell its native text since its probably vector, so this means the actual frame buffer must be 1920x1080. so this 'nightmare scaler' is doing what exactly if the frame buffer is already 1080p. if you're actually seeing something then either its your tv or you're seeing something thats not there.

there is so much fud on here :/ I should just make a separate thread on it.

Perhaps it is using the display planes, and the scaler is up scaling and sharpening the game 720p buffer before compositing the 1080p UI on top? No need to be quite so rude about it, seems like plenty of people are seeing IQ issues and trying to understand why



It seems odd though. If you're the kind of person that doesn't care, you probably have sharpening way up on your TV anyway, so the games will still be sharpened. Doing it twice can't be good.
 

velociraptor

Junior Member
Your expecting the same kind of publications that can barely tell the difference between 1080p and 720p to pick up on this? My advice, stick to GAF for this kind of IQ and tech break down or deconstruction. We are ahead of the media curve 95% of the time. Based on screens alone, I can see that COD Ghosts, BF4 and DR3 add this awful sharpening filter. So what the OP says regarding sub Full HD feeds having sharpening applied, makes sense. Perhaps it only does it with 720p games, because I haven't seen the issue in AC BF or Ryse, and both of those games are 900p.
Review sites are as clueless as ever. The fact that some downplayed the differences between 720p and 1080p this generation whilst claiming a PS3 multiplatform game looked like it had vaseline smeared all over the screen (a much smaller 20-30p difference) lends poorly to their credibility.
 

ethomaz

Banned
Oh ok. My screen is more on the left. How do I fix this?
First you need to check some things...

1) Do you any sharpening option enable in your HDTV?
2) Do you have sure the output and input are the same (Limited RGB with Limited RGB or Full RGB with Full RGB)?

After check these two points you need to calibrate your HDTV... that's a really hard job and it is different from HDTV to HDTV... start with simple options like brightness, contrast, color, etc... then you can start to make test with gama, white balance, etc... there are dozen of options to calibrate a HDTV.

PS. The better way to calibrate a HDTV is using special equipments but you can do a good job just using the options in HDTV too.

Edit - Use the image the user @OdysseusVA shared with us and display it on your PS3/PS4 in full screen (use a PenDrive for that)... after that start the calibration comparing the changes the options in your HDTV do in the colors of the image.

The difference for any console with good calibration is massive compared with the factory calibrations... and for each souce input you need a different calibration for the best result (eg. I use three custom calibration in my HDTV.. on for PS3. one for Blu-ray movies and one for Cable TV... I enable Game Mode for PS3 too to help with the input lag).
 
Just changed it, thanks. How do I fix the blacks? I have a post a little above this asking how to fix it.

Brightness up, contrast down a bit, backlight up slightly. If you have gamma controls then forget the above and put the gamma up by a single notch for all colours as that will be achieve the same result.

The issue, however, is that the Bone seems to be outputting a pre-crushed image so some data will have been lost before it reaches your TV and there is no getting it back.

They really need to fix this.

I wouldn't advise anyone to just set Sharpness to 0 on their TV without using some test patterns or going by eye. On some TV's setting Sharpness to 0 goes beyond turning off the Sharpness processing and creates a picture that is too soft.

If I set Sharpness to 0 on my Sony W6 the image on 1080 looks like its sub hd.

Yeah, setting to "0" is a bad way of putting it, should be set to base levels. As in no sharpening or softening applied whatsoever. Sony's have this at 50 FWIW.
 

Gestault

Member
So what the OP says regarding sub Full HD feeds having sharpening applied, makes sense. Perhaps it only does it with 720p games, because I haven't seen the issue in AC BF or Ryse, and both of those games are 900p.

Yup, I was waiting for someone to highlight that, because as written, we have exceptions to the title, but what you wrote here matches up with what we know.
 

ethomaz

Banned
Brightness up, contrast down a bit, backlight up slightly. If you have gamma controls then forget the above and put the gamma up by a single notch for all colours as that will be achieve the same result.

The issue, however, is that the Bone seems to be outputting a pre-crushed image so some data will have been lost before it reaches your TV and there is no getting it back.

They really need to fix this.
He is using a PS3/PS4 so I think it more related to calibration... or maybe the source is wrong like PS3/PS4 outputing in Full RGB and HDTV receiving in Limited RGB.
 
Brightness up, contrast down a bit, backlight up slightly. If you have gamma controls then forget the above and put the gamma up by a single notch for all colours as that will be achieve the same result.

The issue, however, is that the Bone seems to be outputting a pre-crushed image so some data will have been lost before it reaches your TV and there is no getting it back.

They really need to fix this.



Yeah, setting to "0" is a bad way of putting it, should be set to base levels. As in no sharpening or softening applied whatsoever. Sony's have this at 50 FWIW.

It's definitely not the case for all Sony TVs. My KDL-55HX300 definitely needs to be set to 'Min'. It's a 30 point scale on my set, and there is obvious sharpening if I set it to 15. Using my PC as an output (it's 4:4:4 YUV before you ask) and using sharpening test patterns, this is clear.

People need to use a test pattern to figure out what their set does. Some Sony's do it one way, some the other, so there is no rule of thumb I don't think, and we don't want to misdirect people here.
 
It's definitely not the case for all Sony TVs. My KDL-55HX300 definitely needs to be set to 'Min'. It's a 30 point scale on my set, and there is obvious sharpening if I set it to 15. Using my PC as an output (it's 4:4:4 YUV before you ask) and using sharpening test patterns, this is clear.

People need to use a test pattern to figure out what their set does. Some Sony's do it one way, some the other, so there is no rule of thumb I don't think, and we don't want to misdirect people here.

Well that's just silly in that case. Across a single company it should be standardised. :/

It's always a good idea to look at AVS forums as well, they tend to have good advice for TV settings.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
It's definitely not the case for all Sony TVs. My KDL-55HX300 definitely needs to be set to 'Min'. It's a 30 point scale on my set, and there is obvious sharpening if I set it to 15. Using my PC as an output (it's 4:4:4 YUV before you ask) and using sharpening test patterns, this is clear.

People need to use a test pattern to figure out what their set does. Some Sony's do it one way, some the other, so there is no rule of thumb I don't think, and we don't want to misdirect people here.

Yeah, pretty sure my HX803 needs to be at 'min' which is basically 0 (one tick below 1). I guess maybe they cnphanged that recently? Madmackem, does your W9 need to be on 50 to disable sharpening? Should be the same rules for the W6
 
Yup, I was waiting for someone to highlight that, because as written, we have exceptions to the title, but what you wrote here matches up with what we know.

BF4 definitely has sharpening. I haven't seen direct capture screens of KI or Ryse to know if that does or doesn't yet.

But BF4 certainly has it.

bf4sharpeningbycia.png


there is a very clear sharpening halo around the dark bit of debris here. other high contrast edges show the same ringing.
 

QaaQer

Member
It just upsets me that game journalism doesn't care about this stuff.

Its a completely different world when buying a tech gadget. I'm actually looking into buying a projector and the things I've learned by watching reviews was enough to make me say whoa.

Things like this in video games are slid under the rug. The whole 1080p/720p fiasco was a prime example. And other things like brushing off multiplayer modes, microtransactions, and testing framerates.

That said, there are a couple sites that still look out for these things. But it should be a widespread thing.

Thank goodness for gaf.

People don't pay for journalism any more, they expect it to be free. This is the result. Journos work for advertisers.
 

QaaQer

Member
It's times like these I'm glad I'm not getting the Xbone, simply because I'm such an ocd-maniac that's been calibrating my tv for almost a year now.

Watching movies at my friends house is a nightmare.

Crushed blacks, red tint, all post-processing effects activated and fucking movie-plus.

GET THAT SHIT OUT OF HERE I'M GOING HOME TO WATCH THIS MOVIE FUCK YOU AND YOUR SHITTY CALIBRATION AND REFUSAL TO LET ME FIX IT.

haha, me too. I had to buy an htpc + spyderpro + nvidia card (for the best madVR settings) + plasma so I could have accurate colors and decent blacks and I'm saving up for an OLED.
 

Durante

Member
Seriously, the oversharpening and forcing a darker color palette (by sacrificing quality with the crushed blacks) was a conscious decision by MS to fool the uninformed mass market crowd into believing games look more vibrant on the Xbone.
It's disgusting.


It it's anything like the 360 scaler, it's up to the devs to chose the algorithm used.
That's probably the case.

Whatever else you may say about Crytek, they still care about 50 times more for IQ than the average console developer, and it shows.
 

spwolf

Member
Yeah, pretty sure my HX803 needs to be at 'min' which is basically 0 (one tick below 1). I guess maybe they cnphanged that recently? Madmackem, does your W9 need to be on 50 to disable sharpening? Should be the same rules for the W6

it is just different terminology... it is always the middle/default setting, which is sometimes 0, sometimes 50, depening on scale used. If the scale goes from 0 to 100, it is 50. If it goes from -10 to +10, then it is 0., etc, etc.
 
It's disgusting.


That's probably the case.

Whatever else you may say about Crytek, they still care about 50 times more for IQ than the average console developer, and it shows.

I wouldn't put it past Crytek to use their own software scaling solution if they didn't like the output of the built in one. Hopefully that's just my paranoia talking though, because I want this to not be as common as it appears to be right now at launch, going forwards.
 
it is just different terminology... it is always the middle/default setting, which is sometimes 0, sometimes 50, depening on scale used. If the scale goes from 0 to 100, it is 50. If it goes from -10 to +10, then it is 0., etc, etc.

this is wrong. my scale goes from MIN(0) to MAX (30). Min is no sharpening. Anything above MIN has varying degrees of artificial sharpness.

Seriously, use a test pattern for all this kind of stuff. There is no standard numbering or terminology.
 

Brannon

Member
Wow, was just thinking about calibrations. My new set should be properly broken in by now so I'm confident that any calibrations I perform will hold for a good while. Any software or sites I could use to do thi...

holy shit at that Dead Rising image
 
Yeah Ryse doesn't have it. It must be optional for developers to use.


Then why the blacks are crushed in the Digital foundry high bitrate video ?

Man this upscale problem is huge and I can't buy a console who destroy all my games. It's like if you were forced to play in composite over RGB on the ps2 or GC, the games look bad ...

I didn't buy a plasma tv for crushed blacks and sharpening effect. With last gen I was thinking we will never have any IQ problems due to video output thanks to the HD era and
hdmi cables but this shit is unacceptable in 2013.

We need to put pressure on microsoft and they must fix this mess ASAP.
If only the gaming press was doing its job ... I would even pay extra dollar to fix this issue ...
 

Flo_Evans

Member
It's times like these I'm glad I'm not getting the Xbone, simply because I'm such an ocd-maniac that's been calibrating my tv for almost a year now.

Watching movies at my friends house is a nightmare.

Crushed blacks, red tint, all post-processing effects activated and fucking movie-plus.

GET THAT SHIT OUT OF HERE I'M GOING HOME TO WATCH THIS MOVIE FUCK YOU AND YOUR SHITTY CALIBRATION AND REFUSAL TO LET ME FIX IT.

I almost cried when I went to watch the breaking bad finale at a friends.

120hrz motion flow, full on VIVID settings.

This is bad. It has to be programmable though right ? Dev kits still NDA'd? Can any say what the deal is?
 
this is wrong. my scale goes from MIN(0) to MAX (30). Min is no sharpening. Anything above MIN has varying degrees of artificial sharpness.

Seriously, use a test pattern for all this kind of stuff. There is no standard numbering or terminology.

Wait, so you don't have a softening option?
 

pixlexic

Banned
Then why the blacks are crushed in the Digital foundry high bitrate video ?

Man this upscale problem is huge and I can't buy a console who destroy all my games. It's like if you were forced to play in composite over RGB on the ps2 or GC, the games look bad ...

I didn't buy a plasma tv for crushed blacks and sharpening effect. With last gen I was thinking we will never have any IQ problems due to video output thanks to the HD era and
hdmi cables but this shit is unacceptable in 2013.

We need to put pressure on microsoft and they must fix this mess ASAP.
If only the gaming press was doing its job ... I would even pay extra dollar to fix this issue ...

they probably had their settings wrong. I turned on full rgb.. that gave me crushed blacks so I set it back to limited and 24 bit.
 

avaya

Member
Well that's just silly in that case. Across a single company it should be standardised. :/

It's always a good idea to look at AVS forums as well, they tend to have good advice for TV settings.

Maybe US vs EU difference? Every Sony I've purchased for the past 5yrs has had it at 50
 
Can someone PM me a link or something for decent settings for Watching Movies and especially Gaming or give me tips here in this topic? Please.

I have a Samsung Smart TV(UA46ES6200), something always felt wrong when I game, however I have tinkered and it is starting to look okay, especially PC games on the screen.

XBOX ONE games are just too dark and aliasing or image distortion is very in your face for most, however RYSE looked amazing in my opinion(even if it was a shallow game).

My settings for gaming so far:(Movies look good so not a big deal)
Standard Picture Settings- In GAME MODE

Backlight: 10(max 20)
Contrast:85(Max 100)
Brightness:50(Max 100)
Sharpness: 20(Max 100)
Colour:50(max 100)
Tint(G/R): G50 AND R50

Advanced Settings:
Dynamic Contrast: Medium
Black Tone: Off
Flesh Tone: 0(that is in the middle)
Colour Space: Native
White Balance: Everything is 25(Max 50)
Gamma:0(Middle again)
Expert Pattern:Off
Motion Lighting: Off

Picture Options:
Colour Tone: Standard
Digital Noise Filter: Auto
MPEG Noise Filter: Auto
HDMI Black Level:Low(Only other option is Normal)

I find this is the best topic to ask in as I cant make a thread nor can I find a more suitable thread to post this in.

I'm tired of gaming wrong, I'll like GAF to share their wisdom and knock some sense into me, I'll like to say though RBG set to full on XBOX ONE or PS3 makes the games quite a bit darker,is that normal?

Thanks guys.
 

Applecot

Member
Did you turn on the cloud? I heard it makes things look 4 times better.

Seriously, the oversharpening and forcing a darker color palette (by sacrificing quality with the crushed blacks) was a conscious decision by MS to fool the uninformed mass market crowd into believing games look more vibrant on the Xbone.

This might very well be the case. Just look at the original BF4 screenshot thread, so many people saying the XB1 version looked better.
 

Blimblim

The Inside Track
Blim, can you confirm that your console was set to limited in that pic?

Because that would certainly put a new light on the BF4/DF incident.
I'm 99% certain it was on limited. I'll do some more testing tonight to double check.
 

Alo81

Low Poly Gynecologist
Whatever else you may say about Crytek, they still care about 50 times more for IQ than the average console developer, and it shows.

Yeah, and then they throw a fuckin grain filter on top of it all!

Yes, that's actually how it looks natively.

Resolution matters, bro. Artificially sharpening it does only degrade the image quality.

Use this test pattern on your TV to calibrate sharpness.

It's worth pointing out that if you're using the test pattern - it must be entirely full screen, displaying 1:1 and your display must be 1080p.
 
they probably had their settings wrong. I turned on full rgb.. that gave me crushed blacks so I set it back to limited and 24 bit.



You're right, just watched Blimblim's footage of the same scene and the picture is fine.
I will only boycott games who use this shitty filter then. It's not as bad as I thought.

It's hard to trust digital foundry anymore with all those fuck ups on settings and bad capturing.
 

taoofjord

Member
Yeah I noticed it in Dead Rising 3 immediately. They better patch it, it really makes the game look worse than it would without it.
 
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