I'm pretty sure "get beat" is not in their agenda. Unless they're all into a bit of S&M, or really have bad grammar.
PS3 and Automatic Scaling.
- Thread starter Gradthrawn
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I'm pretty sure "get beat" is not in their agenda. Unless they're all into a bit of S&M, or really have bad grammar.
If there is/are indeed off-limit scaler(s) in PS3... can someone point it/them out in the PS3 motherboard shot ? I'm curious again
If it's anywhere it's likely on the RSX die.
Problem with the on-die idea, is I think on-die scaling typically deposits the result in VRAM (e.g. 5x7 tap scalers). Some GPUs (especially prior to pixel shaders) had fixed-function multitap scalers in them, but I don't think GPU dies feature "scale-on-scanout", and given that the RSX must support both analog out and HDMI/HDCP out, it is much more likely that the RSX "scan out" simply supplies digital data to either a TMDS/HDCP chip (ala Silicon Image) or an analog DAC. So unless the DAC or TMDS chip has a scaling feature, I would bet there is no traditional scaler.
By that, I mean, the line-buffer kind that buffer up a few lines and scale/(de)interlace them. Something which buffers a complete frame I think is probably outside the realm of reason. Then the scaler chip would need its own 16mb of RAM.
By that, I mean, the line-buffer kind that buffer up a few lines and scale/(de)interlace them. Something which buffers a complete frame I think is probably outside the realm of reason. Then the scaler chip would need its own 16mb of RAM.
heliosphere
Newcomer
Current PS3s don't have any usable scaler hardware so it's unlikely to be fixable through firmware for the first generation PS3s. In theory they could ship future PS3s with functional scaler hardware. They could also set a TRC requiring games to support 1080i and existing titles could be patched with software updates to add support (though it wouldn't necessarily be particularly easy).
Title specific upscaling would be easy to add - native 1080 support wouldn't.heliosphere said:
And afaik right now Sony doesn't even mandate HD support, so developers are free to develop for SD resolutions if they really want to, changing TRC to require 1080 native support would be a bit of a stretch.
A poster named darkknight on avsforum was saying that the PS3 has a scaler, yet Sony isnt allowing anyone to use it.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=751368&page=5&pp=30
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=751368&page=5&pp=30
Little offtopic but related to scaling, with X360 & PS3 DVD's are not scaled up with component signal (stupid "rules") but I was quite upset with PS2 as Sony did not allow DVD's played at all via RGB !! How stupid was that !!Well i think this goes hand in hand with all those unsolved mysteries we have encountered in our long and suffered gaming lives. Like why exactly pro-scan was disabled from European Xbox and GC games but not PS2...
edit: more on-topic
If sony starts to force that 1080i must be outputted and so game must somehow support that resolution natively or by scaling, is that going to create frame rate problems or quality differences like PC gamers are used to experience? (less effects, or less fps..)
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I wouldn't be surprised if that came from a poster on this forum. And from this very thread now that we're talking about it.
The rule is that a title must support at least the SD resolution for the region it's being released in, and at least 1 HD resolution. So, based on that I would say that HD support is mandated.
And note the 'at least's there.. It's perfectly ok to do a title that supports every possible resolution natively (480/576/720/1080). Just as it's perfectly ok to do a PAL title that only supports 576 and 1080.
Although that would be a pretty stupid thing to do, IMO.
Dean
just_some_gamer
Newcomer
Homebrew media player?
I'm a bit disappointed that DVD playback wont be upscaled, and the best it can offer is 480p - outputting natively at 720p or 1080i (on a tv that supports it) tends to look quite a lot better than allowing the tv itself to take the 480p signal, and use its own internal scaler.
I wonder how long it'll be till someone has developed a homebrew media player that supports this. Even if its been very clumsily coded, and done in SW only ... surely the CELL has enough oomph to do a good job of this?
And on that issue, do we know if the linux OS will allow programming access to the SPUs, or just the PPE? (even then the PPE ought to be enough for good quality DVD decoding and upscaling?)
Ta.
D.
I'm a bit disappointed that DVD playback wont be upscaled, and the best it can offer is 480p - outputting natively at 720p or 1080i (on a tv that supports it) tends to look quite a lot better than allowing the tv itself to take the 480p signal, and use its own internal scaler.
I wonder how long it'll be till someone has developed a homebrew media player that supports this. Even if its been very clumsily coded, and done in SW only ... surely the CELL has enough oomph to do a good job of this?
And on that issue, do we know if the linux OS will allow programming access to the SPUs, or just the PPE? (even then the PPE ought to be enough for good quality DVD decoding and upscaling?)
Ta.
D.
The first question I would ask here is - how does one go about making DVDs run 720/1080 Natively? Because if there's some super secret switch DVD Forum has been hidding, I'm dying to know.just_some_gamer said:
That said, IIRC Sony already said something about adding DVD upscaling in a firmware update - it's a relatively trivial thing to do (unlike the whole situation with games).
Yea I'm sure Q&A would think it's prefectly ok to get more testing to do as well.DeanA said:
Anyway the scary part is that various publications are already taking the attitude with native 1080 support that may very well make it a "publisher required standard" just for the whole checkbox thing.
(quoted from the internals thread, where it doesn't really belong)
Scaling doesn't need that much bandwidth. The worst case would be scaling a 720p image to 1080p (or vice versa), and that's roughly 12MB per frame, or 720MB/s if the game happens to run at 60fps. That's just 3.5% of the GDDR bandwidth.
crazygambit
Regular
What about this theory that there really is a scaler in the box just Sony won't let devs use it? Can anyone think of a reason not to allow this? Does it have to do with DRM issues and what not? I'd be really interested in hearing your theories on this.
Well i don't see what kind of DRM issues would prevent them from using it. But DeanA (or was it DeanoC... Or was it someone else completely?!) did say that there is one in there that can't be used, and they would surely know something about this.
If this were true, the only reasons that would make sense (to me at least) is that either
a. They intend to remove it in future versions possibly for cost cutting. MS wouldn't let you program the TV output chip on Xbox 1 for this reason, although I don't believe in the end they exver changed it.
b. The quality is extremely poor.
Option b makes no sense to me, as surely it'd lead straight into option 1. If the quality is that poor it won't be used, if it's not upgradeable (?) and thus will never be used, you'd pull it out.
If there's a scaler in there, it has to be able to do the job. And given the rest of the quality of the components, I'd be surprised if it was a cheap device. However, I don't recall anyone saying a scaler was in there. I thought they said scaling was an option, and I took that to mean using Cell/RSX to do the job. It could be something on the OS side that's not currently supported too.
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