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[B3D Article] "Ripping off the veil: The mysterious PS3 hardware scaler exposed"
- Thread starter Arun
- Start date
I just don't get it. Why "almost"? Why not just make people use the damn thing?! It's there, it's been confirmed, and they only make devs use the horizontal scaling? Why make developers "support" it and not just enable the damn thing by default in the dashboard for all games? Why depend on "developer support" and not just have a standard for the platform?
Sony, you are one weird company.
EDIT: And thanks Uttar!
There might be limitations with vertical scaling that would make it unusable. I'm not saying there are - but as the gaming staff's article clearly states, there still are some questions left unanswered. Hopefully we'll begin understanding the technical reasons behind this in the coming days/weeks/months, but this is how things stand today. And that's obviously better than what it was before this SDK update, so let's not complain too much, shall we?
Uttar
Perhaps the limitation is there so that the upscaled results will be always better in the worst case compared to the upscaled games on another console (by ensuring upscaling from something higher than 720p and by basically making 720p the baseline)? Apart from this, I can't really see a real reason for it
There might be limitations with vertical scaling that would make it unusable. I'm not saying there are - but as the gaming staff's article clearly states, there still are some questions left unanswered. We don't even really know how they achieve scaling right now, and what chip is responsible for it!
Hopefully we'll begin understanding the technical reasons behind this in the coming days/weeks/months, but this is how things stand today. And that's obviously better than what it was before this SDK update, so let's not complain too much, shall we?
Uttar
Oh i'm not complaining... Ok maybe a little... But it's just amazing that this has been overlooked by Sony. If anything, they should be the best ones in the business, with their experience with the scalers in their HDTVs. Surely they should know better than this.
Yes i'm definitely complaining.
Awesome article!!!
I see a pattern here.
Sony is not unleashing all the power of the PS3 from the get go.
It would be interesting to know the reasoning behind this, but my guess it is some kind of mean to prolong the life-cycle of the console, by controlling the incremental improvements of the software through incrementally releasing new hardware features/improvements to the developers. It may sound stupid, but I don´t see a better explaination.
Perhaps this scaler functionality was released a little bit earlier than planned because of the massive critisism. Maybe they wanted to motivate developers to aim for true 1080p to differentiate the PS3 from the 360, instead of letting games be scaled to 1080p in a similar fashion as on the 360. It seems strange anyhow.
I see a pattern here.
Sony is not unleashing all the power of the PS3 from the get go.
- They keep an unreasonable amount of memory reserved for the OS, that may later be made available to the developers, that happened to PSP, but it took a couple of years.
- They possibly downclocked a component (RSX), that may later upped, that happened to the PSP, they have recently changed the frequency restrictions a bit for PSP games.
It would be interesting to know the reasoning behind this, but my guess it is some kind of mean to prolong the life-cycle of the console, by controlling the incremental improvements of the software through incrementally releasing new hardware features/improvements to the developers. It may sound stupid, but I don´t see a better explaination.
Perhaps this scaler functionality was released a little bit earlier than planned because of the massive critisism. Maybe they wanted to motivate developers to aim for true 1080p to differentiate the PS3 from the 360, instead of letting games be scaled to 1080p in a similar fashion as on the 360. It seems strange anyhow.
Perhaps the limitation is there so that the upscaled results will be always better in the worst case compared to the upscaled games on another console (by ensuring upscaling from something higher than 720p and by basically making 720p the baseline)? Apart from this, I can't really see a real reason for it
Asides from scaling from more pixels, presumably scaling in one direction only might be yield better quality too..?
Anyway, nice scoop B3D
Quite enlightening. I guess we can continue speculating on what the scaler is (i.e. a Toshiba SCC or something else).Also, had the PS3 a strong hardware scaler (mainly downscaling of Blu-ray movies to 720p, and upscaling of DVD's), it would eat the market of dedicated Blu-ray players, especially now as there are so few models on the market, and they are so much pricier than a PS3.
They need to have something where a dedicated BD player is better, and a reason someone might buy a Sony standalone instead of PS3, or even buy both.
When the market is saturated with standalones, the prices have come down, they'll open up the scaler fully.
They need to have something where a dedicated BD player is better, and a reason someone might buy a Sony standalone instead of PS3, or even buy both.
When the market is saturated with standalones, the prices have come down, they'll open up the scaler fully.
I'm not sure if the 720p Blu-ray issue is directly related to this..they could trivially handle all of that on Cell alone I think, and I don't think there'd be the same memory issues as typically in a game (?)
Backtracking a little, even if horizontal scaling-only is due to quality, enabling the vertical scaling could be useful for 1080p native games that want to rescale to 720p (?) At the moment they output at 1080i to 720p displays, I think...which isn't a huge deal, but if scaling up and down was comprehensively covered it might be a little neater.
Backtracking a little, even if horizontal scaling-only is due to quality, enabling the vertical scaling could be useful for 1080p native games that want to rescale to 720p (?) At the moment they output at 1080i to 720p displays, I think...which isn't a huge deal, but if scaling up and down was comprehensively covered it might be a little neater.
I dont know if you missed it, but it´s obvious that Sony isn´t trying to stall the PS3 as a BluRay player, they are clearly targetting the PS3 as a High-End player. Things just take time.
Stuff like this and the PS2 game fix makes me think that Sony really must have been hard pressed on more than just the Diode issue or why else are we seing things that should have worked and been implemented for a 2006 spring launch being introduced almost 1 year later?
Sorry it's the tech section, but it could be marketting tecnics
How did come the fact that Sony did make these clear from scratch?
Look at the awfull buzz this has generated!
They should have been clear, and by clear I mean a clear PR before people notice by themselves "it's not broken, will be activated in some month".
Good news and great article anyway, but I really can't understand Sony communication these times...
How did come the fact that Sony did make these clear from scratch?
Look at the awfull buzz this has generated!
They should have been clear, and by clear I mean a clear PR before people notice by themselves "it's not broken, will be activated in some month".
Good news and great article anyway, but I really can't understand Sony communication these times...
So am I correct in assuming this is going to essentially force PS3 devs to develop at a slightly higher than 720p resolution?
Well, for Sony fans, that's nothing to be applauded. Which will amount to another small performance hit, correct? And it's not like the PS3 hasn't had enough of those.
Though I suppose, if 1080p is doable in some cases, then this small rez increase over 720p could be almost irrelevant.
Well, for Sony fans, that's nothing to be applauded. Which will amount to another small performance hit, correct? And it's not like the PS3 hasn't had enough of those.
Though I suppose, if 1080p is doable in some cases, then this small rez increase over 720p could be almost irrelevant.
115.000 pixels, Sony is doomed!
Unleash the KRAKKEN!
Umm, I understand how some could get this impression of Sony being inspired by Rocky I through III. But at this point I can't help but imagine the old man on the ropes yelling "throw in the towel Rock!".
How does the scaler work in 360? Does it require RAM access as well? If not, why wouldn't Sony have used this chip instead?
Panajev2001a
Veteran
Unleash the KRAKKEN!
Umm, I understand how some could get this impression of Sony being inspired by Rocky I through III. But at this point I can't help but imagine the old man on the ropes yelling "throw in the towel Rock!".
How does the scaler work in 360? Does it require RAM access as well? If not, why wouldn't Sony have used this chip instead?
One tiny reason why SCE probably had some trouble using that same chip is that Microsoft designed that analog scaler chip (ANA) in-house
.
If they render in 960/1280/1440/1600/1920 x1080, they'll be 1080p/i compatible all the time.
One tiny reason why SCE probably had some trouble using that same chip is that Microsoft designed that analog scaler chip (ANA) in-house
Which, once again, is totally amazing (in a bad way). Sony makes this for a living.
Maybe they're taking an SR-71 approach to things; they don't tell you how fast it CAN go, they just bring it out to take the record back any time it gets broken.
One tiny reason why SCE probably had some trouble using that same chip is that Microsoft designed that analog scaler chip (ANA) in-house
Interesting - Does it use ram the same as ps3 though?
And as LB said - why would this even be an issue as Sony have been using scalers in their tv's for years.
