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

madmackem

Member
Wow, ill start off by saying im a bit of an image quality nerd, i set up my tvs spot on i spend alot of time doing to until i get them right.

So having read about xboxone scaler and how it darkens and over sharpens things i was worried, i booted up cod ghosts on 360 and then booted it up on my xboxone. Same settings etc and there it was clear as day even in the lobby menu. Xboxone over sharpens things way too much, anyone who is into setting up there tvs will know what it is and it jumps out like a sore thumb, the worse thing is you cant negate it, turning down sharpness etc in your tv settings doesnt remove it. For those who dont know what to look for google it its like haloing around the text. The game is made to look nearly as bad as the 360 version as the upped textures etc are being over sharpened within an inch of there lives and it adds even more jaggies.

How ms thought this would be ok is beyond me, it also means people in the gaming press havent got a clue about things like this as no one mentioned it about cod, infact they couldnt tell the difference between native and this scailing mess.

Im a tad worried now going forward of non native titles on xboxone if they all have this effect its really going to bug me.
 
Is it possible that Forza 5 would look better without this scaler's effect? The game really needs anti-aliasing.

Likely not, its got a native resolution of 1920x1080 so scaling is not required. It has other major technical problems besides anti-aliasing. All it really has is 1920x1080 and 60 fps.
 

Bedlam

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.
 

avaya

Member
If you're getting both consoles just don't get multi's on the Bone. Nothing gonna get fixed, hardware is simply inadequate vs. competition.
 
It's more noticeable the higher quality the TV. So I completely understand. It wasn't nearly as bad on my old dynex than it is on my high-end Samsung.
 
But it's such sharp

1920x-2.jpg~original


wow

many pixels
 

KMS

Member
Better buy a plasma as I'm guessing you are using a fix pixel display. LCD? Would go a long way to smooth out the image quality if you really want to get the best image quality out of an xbox.
 

Frumix

Suffering From Success
As a hobbyist digital video editor, that scaler makes me want to punch a puppy.
Practices like SHARPEN EVERYTHING are right up there with the extreme DNR on movies.
 

madmackem

Member
As a hobbyist digital video editor, that scaler makes me want to punch a puppy.
Practices like SHARPEN EVERYTHING are right up there with the extreme DNR on movies.

Yep sharpening things is a real pisser it effect the overall IQ in a real bad way, the thing is there doesnt seem a way to defeat it by tweaking tv settings.
 

madmackem

Member
If you're getting both consoles just don't get multi's on the Bone. Nothing gonna get fixed, hardware is simply inadequate vs. competition.

Thats my plan but i have friends on xbox that wont move so i end up with mutli plat shooters on both systems.
 

KMS

Member
Yep sharpening things is a real pisser it effect the overall IQ in a real bad way, the thing is there doesn't seem a way to defeat it by tweaking tv settings.

Some of my friends tvs hurt my eyes with the sharpening settings they run at. At least I don't have to get headaches from looking at flashing CRT's as anything under 85hz I can see. Walked out of Resident evil: resurrection because of all the water mark patterns covering the screen in all the good scenes but none of my friends could see them.
 
The sharpening and filtering is ludicrous, it's like locking your television set in torch mode. Great for people that don't know shit about image quality without discerning taste, horrid for people that understand how content is supposed to look. If I was working on a game and I know it'd be fed through that scaler I'd weep tears of sadness. It's doubly sad because the 360 has one of the most natural looking scalers around imo, and multiplats tend to look better on my 360 because the scaler it has surpasses the performance of the one included on my television set.
 

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
A 720p TV. ;)

If you have a 720p TV, you'll still want to go with PS4 versions of games. The 720p output from native 1080p games is ridiculously clean. I've tested it pretty thoroughly. Dat supersampling.
 

robot

Member
Im assuming this is the case for Ki as well? A friend of mine brought his system over last night, and yea KI was overly sharp. I thought my maybe I was using an input that hadn't been calibrated yet.
 

Sojgat

Member
Have you tried squinting your eyes or perhaps buying a pair of prescription eyeglasses not meant for you?

I usually wear glasses when watching tv or playing games, but with the Xbone I haven't needed to (I'm not kidding about this). I remember when I was a kid, I used to put the sharpness right up on the family tv, because it was more comfortable for my eyes. That's what this is like.

Xbox One: The console for people with bad eyesight.
 
Wow.

Surprised they wouldn't even give basic options. Hell, let people turn that upscaler off if they want to let their TV do the job.
 

edbrat

Member
If are have a not shit panel which is even half decently calibrated you are obviously in a minority - few people go to the lengths of getting a test image or signal to get the settings passable and even fewer get a professional round to properly sort all this out. So the majority who have their settings as if it is still a retail display set, colour and brightness up to max ("bububu it pops!") + stupid processing effects and just play Cod and FIFA / Madden annually aren't going to even notice unfortunately. They have no basis for comparison past "bububu it pops and it was the brightest in the shop!".

So the technology does address the overwhelming majority of the market and if most of your customers are content that is fine. The only reservation I have is that there is no way to address it even if you have enthusiast level technology and the people who do care about this, the few that do have a basis of comparison, are also likely the people who spend a lot on home entertainment and tend to be the opinion shaping CE / tech nerds whose friends are likely to rely on when they are wondering which console to buy. They might not understand nerd AV friends reasoning, they probably don't have a set up on which they could even tell the difference but they will remember him or her saying "yeah but don't buy bc of this <insert incomprehensible tech speak>." Most people don't want to understand this shit and that is fine and that is why we rely on sectoral experts so we don't all have to start posting on beyond3d or whatever.

Anyway my convoluted point is there might not be a discernible short term market impact in not keeping enthusiasts happy but this segment do tend to "incept" (DUNNNNNNNN DUNNNNNNN etc) opinions into the rest of the market.
 

Gozan

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

And they're going to succeed, because the mass market ain't got eyes worth shit, judging by how most people set up their TVs. They are going to think it looks great because they just spent $500 on the premise that it will look great.
 

madmackem

Member
Have you tried with another game besides COD: Doges? Just curious.

I havent got anything to compare them against, seeing cod is on both machines and close to the same res its something that stood out right off the bat even in the lobby.
 
I usually wear glasses when watching tv or playing games, but with the Xbone I haven't needed to (I'm not kidding about this). I remember when I was a kid, I used to put the sharpness right up on the family tv, because it was more comfortable for my eyes. That's what this is like.

Xbox One: The console for people with bad eyesight.

Sharpening does not increase your ability to pick out text from a distance unless the text is blurred by default. In fact sharpening tends to make the edges of nearby letters smudge over eachother in some sort of odd pixelated pattern. The contrast tweaks could make letters more readable but it's nothing you couldn't achieve by tweaking your tv set, and it has the nasty side effect of destroying any intention by the developers to achieve a specific colour balance. If you really have issues reading text that don't stem from myopia you should visit an optometrist to get some contrast sensitivity testing done.
 

avaya

Member
The scaling's gonna get real special when PS4 games go for 720p to up the effects leaving Bone games going sub-HD.
 

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
Why haven't the review sites picked up on this?
 
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