1080p games and tv's

[Davros]

just wondered
tv's generally come in 3 types hd(1080) hd-ready(1280x720) and sd (525x480 ntsc / 576x480 pal)
since hd-ready tv's can accept a 1080 signal I would assume the game sends 1080 and lets the tv's scaler deal with it.
but what about old tv's that croak on 1080? does the game/console autodetect and pre-scale or does the game render at a lower res, is this done automatically or is there an option for resolution/tv type ?
tnx...

 

[XpiderMX]

just wondered
tv's generally come in 3 types hd(1080) hd-ready(1280x720) and sd (525x480 ntsc / 576x480 pal)
since hd-ready tv's can accept a 1080 signal I would assume the game sends 1080 and lets the tv's scaler deal with it.
but what about old tv's that croak on 1080? does the game/console autodetect and pre-scale or does the game render at a lower res, is this done automatically or is there an option for resolution/tv type ?
tnx...

Do you mean next gen consoles? Xbox One works only with HDMI and Xbox 360 can re-scale the output image to several resolutions.

 

[dagamer]

Consoles won't output a 1080p signal if the TV doesn't support it. And any modern TV should be able to take a 1080p signal and scale it down to a 720p display.

The only TVs that can't handle a 1080p signal are pre-2006, at which point I would say "Time to get a new one".

 

[Shifty Geezer]

XB1 only has HDMI out, so only formats supported by your TV will render. I don't think any HDMI TV isn't HD Ready. PS4 will have exactly the same, but also has analogue video out (really??) so SDTV users will get downscaled video I guess. I doubt any devs wants to waste time targeting an SD render, so I expect the OS to handle downscaling if necessary.

 

[Scott_Arm]

XB1 only has HDMI out, so only formats supported by your TV will render. I don't think any HDMI TV isn't HD Ready. PS4 will have exactly the same, but also has analogue video out (really??) so SDTV users will get downscaled video I guess. I doubt any devs wants to waste time targeting an SD render, so I expect the OS to handle downscaling if necessary.

I thought the display planes on both had scaling hardware that handled up/downscaling without devs really having to do anything? I guess you'd have the HUD to worry about because you don't want it scaled.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I guess so. Display planes are really for compositing for the output, but there may be a scaler at the end as well. Can't remember. But I expect it to be transparent to the devs anyway, whether managed in scaling hardware or via the OS's output pipeline.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I guess so. Display planes are really for compositing for the output, but there may be a scaler at the end as well. Can't remember. But I expect it to be transparent to the devs anyway, whether managed in scaling hardware or via the OS's output pipeline.

According to vgleaks, each display plane has its own hardware scaler, colour space converter, border cropper and data type converter. http://www.vgleaks.com/durango-display-planes/

I would think the setup would be the same hardware for PS4, just with 2 planes vs 3.

 

[Arwin]

Also, from HDMI out you can still get to a suprising amount of different display types. You can use a HDMI-to-DVI plug or cable for instance, which I've used a lot on my 22" 1680x1050 Samsung PC monitor in the past.

 

[Davros]

I was actually thinking ps3 arnt there some native 1080p games on that
so what happens when you run one of those games on a sd tv ?

 

[ERP]

All PS3 games are REQUIRED to support SD televisions.
i.e. The developer has to do the work to make it work.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Really?!?! Poor devs.

 

[Arwin]

Note that automatic downscaling isn't necessarily a great idea to begin with. Text very quickly becomes unreadable, icons can become too small. So good devs would probably have to do some extra work. Number of SD tvs being used at the start of this gen was still very high.

Maybe this requirement can be dropped for PS4 though ... don't know how many will get a PS4 and use it with an SD tv.

 

[Michellstar]

Note that automatic downscaling isn't necessarily a great idea to begin with. Text very quickly becomes unreadable, icons can become too small. So good devs would probably have to do some extra work. Number of SD tvs being used at the start of this gen was still very high.

Maybe this requirement can be dropped for PS4 though ... don't know how many will get a PS4 and use it with an SD tv.

Maybe displayplanes in durango can make up for this, displaying Hud and text at a fixed res (1080p)

 

[Davros]

a fixed res (1080p) on a sd tv ??? a tv that can only do 720 x 480 ( to keep holsty101 happy )

 

[AlphaWolf]

As I understand it on the x1 the display planes are combined to output resolution at time of display. So they'll just be output at sd resolution even if the game renders at higher. But how hard would it be to support 480p rendering? Surely there are still enough sd users for that to be worth the minimal effort.

 

[ERP]

As I understand it on the x1 the display planes are combined to output resolution at time of display. So they'll just be output at sd resolution even if the game renders at higher. But how hard would it be to support 480p rendering? Surely there are still enough sd users for that to be worth the minimal effort.

Outside of "emerging markets" SD TV's used with high end consoles would now be considered a rarity.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Outside of "emerging markets" SD TV's used with high end consoles would now be considered a rarity.

I know a few people still using current consoles with sdtv's. How rare do you think? If it's more than a few% it's probably worth the limited effort, at least for Sony who are still bothering to have component outputs apparently.

<edit> of the 5 active tv's in my house one is an old sdtv tube tv (in a rarely used guest room) 2 are 1080p native and two are 720p. My motive for upgrade is probably limited to failure of the units at this point, which could easily be years. They've added no feature worth a nickel to me in the last 5 years, even 1080p I would consider very limited value.

 

[Davros]

there are also non hdready lcd tv's

 

[Michellstar]

a fixed res (1080p) on a sd tv ??? a tv that can only do 720 x 480 ( to keep holsty101 happy )

Sorry for the confusion, i was referring to HD displays,and the blurriness of text with downscaling.

I agree that they´d be better off not supporting sd displays, like XB1, but PS4 is supposed to support sd.

This gen, there are many games unplayable at sd, (Dead rising)

 

[Davros]

Why would dead rising be unplayable it looks like a standard 3rd person shooter no text to read ?
and why would it be better not to support sd, its just a case of some ui scaling and adding a resolution option (or auto detecting it)