[AlStrong]

Okey Dokey Folks. Let's begin anew, shall we? The other thread was just getting too huge. See the stickied thread above for quick reference. It'll be updated as time goes.


edit:

You can find a list of discovered game resolutions in the following thread (also stickied) and a bit of info on the hardware scalers:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=46241

[Hazuki Ryu]

I think Eurogamer made a mistake there by using VGA to test the xbox 360, i tested my 360 at a friend's house with VGA vs component and the VGA gave me that same kind of blurriness that i see on those screenshots but the component didn't.

I have my xbox 360 connected to a pc monitor most of the time, so i dont really have a choice mine is the old model no hdmi yet.

[AlStrong]

Eurogamer has an article series as well, looking at multiplatform titles with screengrabs. The formatting for the images isn't the most tab-browser friendly, but it is functional.

Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4
Round 5
Round 6
Round 7
Round 8
Round 9
Round 10
Round 11

Bonus Round: Orange Box
Bonus Round: GTA 4

http://d.hatena.ne.jp/yoda-dip-jp/archive --> another site that can apparently take good screenshots from games.
I want to make it clear that this is NOT a VERSUS thread. This is NOT an ART PREFERENCE discussion. This is NOT a "GAMEPLAY > GRAPHICS" discussion. This is NOT a "GRAPHICS > GAMEPLAY" discussion either. Leave gameplay out!

This is a technical forum.

The Eurogamer links serve as additional sources of reference. Although the articles offer opinions on the "better version", they are NOT the focus of discussion.

This thread is meant to be a discussion on technical issues pertaining to a game's rendering resolution, anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering etc. Where comparisons may be made with multiplatform titles, please refrain from off-handed remarks and one-liners that do not add to this technology forum.

Instead it would be more helpful to everyone present to discuss the reasons for a developer's decisions on the graphics rendering they chose - why there may be a difference or what methods may have been used to achieve parity. Some games do weird things - Why? Some games do things unexpectedly - Why? What are alternative technologies or algorithms that the developers could have used? Why didn't they?

If you don't know the answers, ask the questions. Analyze. Discuss. Hypothesize. Question. Genuine curiosity should breed further analysis without the oft heated opinions. This is not the place for tit-for-tat discussion to push your own agenda. Save it for other forums or your Real World Friends Who Care.

Of course, due to the existence of multiplatform disparity, it would only be natural for folks to base a purchase decision on the graphical experience. Please take this decision making process elsewhere. As a technical discussion, what your purchase decision ends up being has no bearing here. There are other places to discuss your Life Story™.

[Mr Deap]

Originally Posted by Hazuki Ryo

I think Eurogamer made a mistake there by using VGA to test the xbox 360, i tested my 360 at a friend's house with VGA vs component and the VGA gave me that same kind of blurriness that i see on those screenshots but the component didn't.

I have my xbox 360 connected to a pc monitor most of the time, so i dont really have a choice mine is the old model no hdmi yet.

Vga is 1:1 ratio while Component have the color cross a bit.(>_> cheating)

The difference between VGA & HDMI is that the HDMI can actually go right on the pixel without getting fuzziness around 1 1/3 of a pixel in the honrizontal due to bad synchronization of the analog signal. There's also the accuracy that is superior.

[Hazuki Ryu]

Originally Posted by Mr Deap

Vga is 1:1 ratio while Component have the color cross a bit.(>_> cheating)

The difference between VGA & HDMI is that the HDMI can actually go right on the pixel without getting fuzziness around 1 1/3 of a pixel in the honrizontal due to bad synchronization of the analog signal. There's also the accuracy that is superior.

I'm not questening you on that because I'm not informed enough but i thought VGA and component were very similar, anyway that doesn't mean in certain cases component cannot look better than VGA does it?
One TV could handle component better than VGA or not really?
What about if the tv is 1366*768 that wont give you 1:1 ratio at 720p it will be upscaling anyway, what would be the better way to go?

[Quaz51]

Originally Posted by Hazuki Ryo

I think Eurogamer made a mistake there by using VGA to test the xbox 360, i tested my 360 at a friend's house with VGA vs component and the VGA gave me that same kind of blurriness that i see on those screenshots but the component didn't.

I have my xbox 360 connected to a pc monitor most of the time, so i dont really have a choice mine is the old model no hdmi yet.

Just round 1 and 2 use VGA. Round 3,4,5,6 and 7 are Full HDMI

[habbe]

This res thing is a bit confusing, 1280x1080 or 960x1080 is still "1080P" it's not FullHD(1920x1080) but still 1080P right?.

[Shifty Geezer]

According to the TV definitions, AFAIK, they only count vertical lines, so yes, 1080 lines is 1080p. I think convention would say it has to be 1920x1080 to really be 1080p. Certainly a game with 1080p on the box but rendering in less than 1920x1080 and being upscaled would attract a dozen class-action lawsuits for lying and cheating and demanding a trillion dollars compensation by some though, so would be something to avoid...

[Laa-Yosh]

Well, if Halo3 at 1150*640 - 80% of the pixels - is not considered to be 720p, then I don't see how 50% of 1920*1080 can be considered 1080p.

I have a proposition: let's call "rendering to undersized framebuffers + upscaling" simply as support for the given resolution.

[Shifty Geezer]

Well sticking to official definitions, there's no way H3's render resolution could be considered 720p as the number 720 doesn't appear anywhere in the resolution dimensions! I think all normal, sane folk accept a display type on the back of a box as the display support, and not rendering resolution. For the sake of console discussions I guess we should accept 1080p (or 720p) means the full widescreen size, and undersampling doesn't count as 'running at'.

[Laa-Yosh]

What about Iron Man? The images give me the feel that it's not 720p either...
http://www.gamersyde.com/news_5791_en.html

[Quaz51]

Originally Posted by Laa-Yosh

What about Iron Man? The images give me the feel that it's not 720p either...
http://www.gamersyde.com/news_5791_en.html

screenshots are 720p

[AlStrong]

Some of them look very blurred though. Seems very ... non 720p.

[Squilliam]

Do they render at 600p because most households still have SD tv's? 600-120=480 and 600+120=720. So that makes a good compromise? Don't have to render at a resolution most people can't use anyway?

[AlStrong]

It's actually a bit of a mystery how developers can decide on a particular resolution, but it seems to come down to the 10MiB eDRAM in Xenos for 360 games. The 1152x640 resolution for Halo 3 is certainly unique compared to others that choose 1024x600.

[Gitaroo]

could it be the frame rate that they are aiming for? just keep lowering the resolution until it reach the frame rate they want?

[Quaz51]

Fifa street PS3 is 1920x1080 (no AA) and probably the X360 version too (not tested), it's the same engine than NBA street

[Hazuki Ryu]

Originally Posted by AlStrong

It's actually a bit of a mystery how developers can decide on a particular resolution, but it seems to come down to the 10MiB eDRAM in Xenos for 360 games. The 1152x640 resolution for Halo 3 is certainly unique compared to others that choose 1024x600.

And what about for ps3? I think they just rush things up and then have to lower resolution to achieve stable framerates

[AlStrong]

Originally Posted by Hazuki Ryo

And what about for ps3? I think they just rush things up and then have to lower resolution to achieve stable framerates

I'm talking about the specific resolution. Of course they lower it according to their bottlenecks. Does 600p make that much of a difference to 640p ? There must be some bad inefficiencies for those 1024x576 games that don't even look anywhere near Gears of War quality. Or... what made SEGA choose 1024x1024 for VF5?

[Hazuki Ryu]

I thing regardless of what devs say to about 960x1080 being 1080p the fact is that it's not, 10x1080 would be 1080p if you think that way thats simply deceaving consumers in my opinion.

Before this whole hd console bs, there was no 720p or 1080p there was only 1920x1080 for 16/9 on pc and 1280x720, 1366x768 and so on.

The widescreen like the name says it means the screen is wide, so it should have more pixels proportionally, never less pixels in width then in height.

[Arwin]

Originally Posted by AlStrong

Or... what made SEGA choose 1024x1024 for VF5?

My guess would be that the root for that is the Arcade version.

[AlStrong]

Is it typical for arcade games to render to square resolutions?

[Gubbi]

How about just categorizing by the amount of pixels on screen

2M - 2 mega pixels, typically 1920x1080
1M - 1 mega pixels, typically 1280720, but can be 960x1080
S1M - Sub 1 mega pixel.

Cheers

[Blade47167]

Originally Posted by Quaz51

Fifa street PS3 is 1920x1080 (no AA) and probably the X360 version too (not tested), it's the same engine than NBA street

Just got the chance to check out Fifa Street 3 on PS3 last night and it looks horrible. Worst looking game I've seen as of late.

Take that back NFL Tour but still...

[kyleb]

Originally Posted by Hazuki Ryo

Before this whole hd console bs, there was no 720p or 1080p there was only 1920x1080 for 16/9 on pc and 1280x720, 1366x768 and so on.

Not so, vairous PC games support setting the aspect ratio seprate from the rendering resolution. Doom 3 engine games are notable examples, and in such games I've found trading horizontal resolution for more vertical to be benifital to image quality.