XB360 hasn't got a scaling chip?

[StefanS]

Since this is the case would it be possible to upscale PS3 games via 1 of the SPU's. Does anyone remember exactly how much memory is required for a 1080p buffer? Would it be less now that the internal scaler within the PS3 has been revealed to bring 1080i down to 720p requirements?

Check the B3D PS3 scaler article

 

[-tkf-]

If the GPU can scale without cost who cares. If not.. someone kept a secret better than Sony...

 

[infinity4]

There is no requirement from the HDMI forum itself that HDCP must be there. Given the applications HDMI will be used in, though, its unlikely that you will see many HDMI implementations where HDCP isn't included.

HDCP is triggered by the content not the devices, so a non-HDCP compliant system will be able to operate fine on no protected content (i.e. PC applications / desktop, PC / console games, etc.) but of the content is protected (i.e. Blu-ray / HD DVD movies) and there is a break in HDCP down the chain then there will be no content displayed.

so what is difference between Sony not letting DVI(non HDCP) users to just play games whilst microsoft does when both consoles have an equipment to play HD films? is there copyright issues involved in this when making consoles in the first place?

the only reason i could have think of is because BRD is integrated into the console whilst 360 HD DVD drive isn't

 

[DeanA]

so what is difference between Sony not letting DVI(non HDCP) users to just play games whilst microsoft does when both consoles have an equipment to play HD films?

For a number of titles that have licensed material (Singstar, for example) then I'd imagine that copy protection on those assets makes perfect sense, no?

There's little context as to when the HDCP functionality has to be enabled either. I would say it makes sense for the HDCP state state to be enabled/disabled during hardware initialisation (ie: a reboot). And bearing in mind that both Blu-ray movies and games both launch directly from XMB, without any form of OS reboot involved, it might be one of those things that's just gonna stay as-is. Basically, they'd both need to have HDCP enabled, or both disabled. And given Blu-ray content protection agreements, it's obviously enabled.

Just my thoughts, of course. And I direct readers to my signature...

Cheers,
Dean

 

[cthellis42]

Opinions I share here are my own, and should not be incorrectly interpreted as the views of SCEE, SCE, or Sony Corporation.

What about SCEA through a VPN tunnel?

 

[Dave Baumann]

That's not what came out of discussion with PS3's scaling, and indeed doesn't common sense tells us otherwise. If you have an extra chip in there to perform a function, you'll have more system performance than without that chip!

If scaling isn't handled on one specific scaling chip, then it requires an extra display buffer in RAM, an amount of RAM BW consumed, and GPU cycles.

I'd say that its not common sense to do what the PS3 is doing!

And, you don't need a separate scaling chip. Graphics chips have "display pipelines" that perform a number of functions, including scaling. There isn't necessarily any need to be reading / writing to RAM when scaling as your scaler logic is going to have a maximum horzontal and vertical scale and you only need buffer enough input and output data according the those scaling factors (i.e. you don't scale the entire image at once, you scale for a certain number of samples as you pass out to the display hardware).

 

[nAo]

I'd say that its not common sense to do what the PS3 is doing!

What is PS3 doing?

 

[mrcorbo]

In the comparative case, the advantage XB360 had over PS3 in including a scaler chip - none of the graphics system hit that PS3 has when scaling - seems to have vamoosed.

IIRC the most prominent issue people had with the PS3's scaling vs. the 360's was missing functionality not performance.

I find it very odd that this comes out after all this time and after public statements to the contrary. Time for some B3D investigative reporting?

 

[rounin]

What is PS3 doing?

Well said. Now tell us you sly dog

What I find interesting is that now the only confirmed and exposed hardware scaler is in the PS3...http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/16/

 

[Rangers]

Well said. Now tell us you sly dog

What I find interesting is that now the only confirmed and exposed hardware scaler is in the PS3...http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/16/

Now if they could just run 1080i..

 

[MonkeyLicker]

Looks to me like they're saying the analog-only 360's have a scaling chip, but the digital scaling in the elite is being done with the help of the gpu.

 

[rounin]

Now if they could just run 1080i..

Well, if this thread proves to be of any significance, its not a matter of could its really a matter of would

 

[inefficient]

Looks to me like they're saying the analog-only 360's have a scaling chip, but the digital scaling in the elite is being done with the help of the gpu.

Pretty hard to accept that conclusion when we have this quote from amirm speaking on the Elite and regular 360s scaling.

"Given where the hardware is, the scaling logic is the same in both products."

link

 

[Rangers]

Well, if this thread proves to be of any significance, its not a matter of could its really a matter of would

That's a hard sell..anyways we have the B3D article already.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

And, you don't need a separate scaling chip. Graphics chips have "display pipelines" that perform a number of functions, including scaling.

Sure, if there's scaling hardware on the GPU, that'll do doing what we thought ANA was, and mean there is a 'scaling chip' in there.

I contacted Eurogamer for clarification and this is what they said :


--- from Rich.
That Scott Henson quote comes out often. Amir Majidimehr, Corporate Vice
President, Microsoft Corporation, Consumer Media Technology Group, Mobile
and Embedded Devices Division (gasp) says this about that exact article:
"The article is wrong unfortunately. HANA/ANA are video encoders, not
scalers. You basically have a bunch of pixels in memory ready to be
displayed and you must convert it to the appropriate standard, whether it is
composite, component, etc. You need to clock the samples are the right rate
and format the signal (including modulating it for some of the output
formats) before you can hook it up to you TV/monitor."
I also asked him this question to research the 360 Elite article as I
assumed the Henson article to be accurate too:
"Does the Xbox 360 Elite's HANA scaling chip use the same bilinear scaling
algorhythm as the old ANA chip in the original console?"
To which he replied: "Hana (or ANA) is not used for scaling in 360. Instead,
the graphics processor (GPU) is used to do the scaling. I won't disclose the
internals of the filter but it is not bilinear at all. It is much more
sophisticated than that with far more taps. Given where the hardware is, the
scaling logic is the same in both products."
As ATI GPUs typically use four or six tap lanczos scaling, that was the
educated guess I put into the article as I very much doubt ATI would create
an all-new scaling system just for Xenos.

Rich

From that, I guess because of the mention of 'taps', I got the impression it was the pixel shaders doing the scaling, making the scaling solution the same as PS3. So can we say that where the ANA isn't the scaling chip, the same hardware scaling solution is in place which doesn't use the normal GPU functions?

 

[Blade47167]

Sure, if there's scaling hardware on the GPU, that'll do doing what we thought ANA was, and mean there is a 'scaling chip' in there.

I contacted Eurogamer for clarification and this is what they said :


--- from Rich.
That Scott Henson quote comes out often. Amir Majidimehr, Corporate Vice
President, Microsoft Corporation, Consumer Media Technology Group, Mobile
and Embedded Devices Division (gasp) says this about that exact article:
"The article is wrong unfortunately. HANA/ANA are video encoders, not
scalers. You basically have a bunch of pixels in memory ready to be
displayed and you must convert it to the appropriate standard, whether it is
composite, component, etc. You need to clock the samples are the right rate
and format the signal (including modulating it for some of the output
formats) before you can hook it up to you TV/monitor."
I also asked him this question to research the 360 Elite article as I
assumed the Henson article to be accurate too:
"Does the Xbox 360 Elite's HANA scaling chip use the same bilinear scaling
algorhythm as the old ANA chip in the original console?"
To which he replied: "Hana (or ANA) is not used for scaling in 360. Instead,
the graphics processor (GPU) is used to do the scaling. I won't disclose the
internals of the filter but it is not bilinear at all. It is much more
sophisticated than that with far more taps. Given where the hardware is, the
scaling logic is the same in both products."
As ATI GPUs typically use four or six tap lanczos scaling, that was the
educated guess I put into the article as I very much doubt ATI would create
an all-new scaling system just for Xenos.

Rich

From that, I guess because of the mention of 'taps', I got the impression it was the pixel shaders doing the scaling, making the scaling solution the same as PS3. So can we say that where the ANA isn't the scaling chip, the same hardware scaling solution is in place which doesn't use the normal GPU functions?

So if thats the case and its using the same scaling solution as the PS3 does that mean that a firmware update that upscales based on the system setting for all games not just ones with the feature built in is possible in the near future?

 

[rekator]

So ANA would be a video encoder…
Why included a video encoder in a game console?

 

[oeLangOetan]

So ANA would be a video encoder…
Why included a video encoder in a game console?

encoding the signal (for vga, component etc), it's not video compression

 

[Mmmkay]

So they did just read AVS then? Hah! "Microsoft has now confirmed to us" my arse.

 

[Dave Baumann]

From that, I guess because of the mention of 'taps', I got the impression it was the pixel shaders doing the scaling, making the scaling solution the same as PS3. So can we say that where the ANA isn't the scaling chip, the same hardware scaling solution is in place which doesn't use the normal GPU functions?

"Taps" is a fairly generic term for samples - you sample things in multiple areas and isn't necessarily just something you would apply to describe texture filtering. Amirs reply also talks specifically about "hardware" and "logic" in relation to the scalar function, which are not necessarily the two terms you'd apply if it was a shader program.