Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion Archive [2015]

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This is, for me, the issue, and I think it's actually accountable for my lousy eyesight. When eyes try to focus on detail that isn't there, they learn to relax to focussing at the necessary level for the detail attainable, as it were. And then they get lazy. My TV actually looked pretty crap when I got new glasses - it's UI is fuzzy, like interlaced edges or a pentile arrangement (which it isn't). That's what has me wanting a new TV so it's pin sharp, although now my eyes have relaxed to the same perpetual soft-focus that they prefer. ;)

Don't look at the TV too much. :) I spend maybe 1 hour a day in front of the TV. I spend much more looking at things in the real world. Infinite resolution. ;)

I still can't tell the difference between most 720p content and most 1080p content (basically anything without a lot of aliasing or low res UI elements, like text) on my TV at typical living room distances. And neither can 99% of the people I've invited over for blind resolution tests.

Regards,
SB
 
Although I do agree with your car analogy, Joker, it isn't this simple with two consoles. If anything the slower target will determine how the game will be developed, so it won't suffer on release. At this time around, it's the X1, and thus it already gets the dreaded 900P downgrade. PS4 otoh just gets set to 1080P and the port is done.

With console exclusives, your argument fits a lot better.

EDIT: Unless your point is that the PS4 version should also get a 900P framebuffer and just add more bells and whistles instead of raising the resolution..

(chose 900P because it is so prevalent today)
 
Although I do agree with your car analogy, Joker, it isn't this simple with two consoles. If anything the slower target will determine how the game will be developed, so it won't suffer on release. At this time around, it's the X1, and thus it already gets the dreaded 900P downgrade. PS4 otoh just gets set to 1080P and the port is done.

With console exclusives, your argument fits a lot better.

EDIT: Unless your point is that the PS4 version should also get a 900P framebuffer and just add more bells and whistles instead of raising the resolution..

(chose 900P because it is so prevalent today)

In multiplatform game it is the right choice and the cheapset choice. After exclusive games are another matter...
 
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The article is about Nielsen survey and resolution difference between Xbox One and PS4 version of a game... It seems resolution is the only factor for uninformed people to qualify what is the best version of a game forgetting for example framerate. People want to play the best version of very big franchise like COD, GTA, Destiny, Far Cry 4, Battlefield or Assassin's Creed, or Watchdogs. But the article loose credibility because out of ACU , Destiny and GTA all the other run at better resolution with same or better framerate and same AF. Destiny and GTA are in parity. ACU was better on Xbox One but since patch it is probably a parity situation or not so far. Here again Digital Foundry never do clear comparison post patch like other game...

I don't know why the customer will not choose the best solution if the best uptime of Live is not a big factor or if he is not interested by exclusives games on the two sides.

If you can afford only one console and you prefer Xbox live, controller, have all your friend on Xbox One, and want to play Halo, Gears of War, Quantum Break, Fable Legends, Sunset Overdrive buy an Xbox One.

If you want better multiplatform version most of the time, prefer PS controller, have all your friend on PS4, like PS+, want to play Uncharted 4, Bloodborne, Wild, The Tomorrow Children, the next Ratchet and Clank, next Sucker Punch game buy a PS4.
 
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And for everything inbetween, buy both? ;)

You need to do a choice if you can't afford two consoles I only have a PS4 but I want to play Quantum Break and Sunset Overdrive. Another choice is a PC if you want to play the absolute best version of multiplatform (4k, 60 fps, better effect) if paid a bigger price for hardware is not a problem after PC games are cheaper and you don't need to pay an online services.

I forget to talk about driving games you can add Forza and Forza Horizon on Xbox side and Drive Club on PS side...

And maybe you are more interested by a Wii U it is another choice...
 
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It is very funny out of convenience and exclusives games. PC has the best value if you buy one very powerful PC at the beginning of a console cycle and keep it until the next one but people prefer paid cheaper hardware and paid online subscription during all console cycle. It is similar to paid a phone without or with carrier plan...
 
I think the discussion on if resolution matters, or on that particular poll, is going far beyond on how those results/statistics were derrived...

Does Resolution Really Matter?

....

Now I'm curious to see the responses to this. Will there be an actual reasoned discussion or will it degenerate into "bias" or "clickbait" accusations?

...what is happening here, is rather simple. People buy a console and when confronted with actual questions on why they chose that system [over another], it's only natural to stand behind some of the perceived differences, irregardless how miniscule they are.

The PS4 just happens to tick the right boxes, making the argument to stand behind it as the system of choice so much easier. I think the discussion if people really see the actual difference in resolution or if it is indeed a valid metric to determine system performance to be quite irrelevant. In fact, I think most blind tests will actually show that distinguishing resolution while actually playing a game to be rather difficult to next to impossible. It is only highlighted when doing side by side comparisons and even then, it's probably too difficult unless we are talking about a larger resolution difference than what we are getting between Xbox One and PS4.

...and that is before we start to realize that most TVs have overdraw enabled so we are actually judging upscaled/filtered images without a 1:1 pixel mapping...

Seriously - this whole talk is a bit like people explaining to other people why they bought a BMW instead of a Mercedes or vice-versa. Yes, sometimes, one car is actually better than the other, but it rarely comes down to technical superiority to the point a car magazine reviews the car at its limit. The same applies to game; Thanks to digital foundry, anyone has some insight into the differences of games on differing platforms. It's the whole point of these technical discussions to extrapolate and exagerate differences that are even so miniscule, not even technical minded people would actually notice them if it weren't for a framerate counter, or a pixelcounter with a magnifying glass doing the math for them.

...and yet, it's only human to want the best for your money. And some people actually prefer to play on the platform that gives them the [false] feeling to be actually be playing the game in the best possible way, irregardless if they would actually notice any difference.

But why do these "differences" have any impact on sales in the first place?

Because you go into game or electronics store - and people before actually purchasing a system might ask the sales person on which is better. And at that point, the general conscious is that PS4 is (was) cheaper, yet is expected to offer better performance due to a better GPU. And that Xbox is the one with the big unknown Kinect vision etc that isn't exactly about playing games. That may be a thing of the past, but the technical difference is still something part of that image they will not be able to get rid of. And as time goes on; what once used to be technical arguments in favour of one console will slowly turn into the much more basic but powerful argument; "The PS4 is the better selling console, so is probably also the safer bet".

And everyone else who doesn't listen to what the store sales person sais, either gets what they are fan of, or because they know which [exclusive] games they prefer - or simply what their friends are playing or the platform that they invested time and money in. It's really that simple.
 
...and that is before we start to realize that most TVs have overdraw enabled so we are actually judging upscaled/filtered images without a 1:1 pixel mapping...

Not that many Full HD tvs still do this, especially if they have game mode? I haven't seen one in real life yet anyway.
 
Well, my sisters one does, as does a friends. I haven't really bothered to check how many TVs actually still do this though, so perhaps I'm mistaken on the 'most' part. I'm pretty sure that by default, my projector (Sony VPL) actually had overdraw enabled too - but being technical minded and so, it was one of the first things I disabled. I actually do it so automatic, that I tend to forget it was set on something else for the most part. In the case of my sisters TV set (a Samsung fullHD LED 46" set that is now a couple of years old), the only reason I actually realized overdraw was turned on was because I took my PS4 to play a bit of Diablo and realized that the HUD was cut off, forcing me to correct the in-game screen-size setting.

I wouldn't be surprised if many TVs had overdraw turned on, but that most people are painfully unaware of it and what it does. When they play games, they simply correct it by adjusting the screen-size option - a option, just like gamma-settings, that is presented in most games on its first time startup... By doing that, the game might look "right", but of course isn't a 1:1 pixel mapping. Not that the difference is huge anyway. Having said that, I'd be surprised if most people (e.g. not technically minded people) actually enable game-mode too. Most people just tend to plug-and-play their stuff. As long as it works and looks half right, why change it? This of course doesn't apply to 99.9% of the members that post here though...
 
Certainly possible that it happens more than I think. Some TVs actually get an HDMI signal from the PS4 to use Game mode by default iirc. I've not had to correct a single PS4 game at least. That was different for the PS3 and especially when I had an HD Ready tv, which in Europe means 1366x768
 
I think that article is more of writing exercise than anything else. There is no real case to discuss, the studies is about perception and marketing, it shows what marketing bullet points are the most relevant to a given population, resolution is only one.
It is not even clear if resolution is stated as a comparative advantage against another system or simply by-self, for the ref in the study faster processing power is a factor for both the PS4 and the XO. It could be stated with previous generation system in mind: we don't know.

Now resolution is something pretty easy to market, there is no need to go into great length with game A pushing a couple tenth percent more pixel to get it. The testament to that is the phone market where some people got convince that they need more than 4k resolution on the ~5" display. The same applies to corez, easier to market than say L2 cache, less costly to add than RAM. I would take a x2 A53 @1.2GHz with 2MB L2 against a x4 set-up with only 1MB of L2 the market as a whole? I doubt it really strongly.

I think the most relevant part of that studies (for those that ordered it) is not that resolution came first for the PS4, the result smells of significant differences in the demographics between the XO and the PS4 (i did not care to read the WiiU results), without knowing any better I would think that the answered gave for the XO smells of a demographic with more buying power (think technophiles adults and young adults that buy the system for them-selves), the answer for the PS4 are reminiscent to me of both a younger and older demographic (or more the family dad than the geeky adults though both are not exclusive).
If I were to bet anything based on the study it is that the XO demographic is likely to spend more on their system than the PS4 in the studied market (US).
 
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I don't recall ever seeing a HDTV that by default had overscan turned off, but these are mostly PS360 era displays. They seem to be getting increasingly good at having a 1:1 1080p game mode, but not everyone uses that mode, because they don't know about it, because it looks good the first time they turn it on and that's enough, or because they don't like the garish colours and contrast of the "game mode" and they don't know they can dig around and fix these things (or select 1:1 and sometimes low lag) in-menu.

I think the internet gives us unrealistically high expectations of how TVs are set up.
 
It's actually not strange that DF does a piece on this data. One of their primary concerns is uncovering hardware differences. It would have also been easy for them to just say that their work is vindicated by this research, and that people should be paying more attention to their articles, basically. But they do the opposite - they question the results.
 
It's actually not strange that DF does a piece on this data. One of their primary concerns is uncovering hardware differences. It would have also been easy for them to just say that their work is vindicated by this research, and that people should be paying more attention to their articles, basically. But they do the opposite - they question the results.
Well I would be surprised if the purpose of that study is to prove anything wrt to resolution, that is a pretty myopic approach.
The study presents 3 systems, lists the top five buying factor per system, it makes for 15 options, better resolution appears once. Resolution is the topic of that study for a press that is more and more into click bait and less and less into anything remotely close to journalism.
People are taking things completely upside down, the topic is the demographic (of the whole 8th generation market), not the resolution or actually any of the other factors per-self. As a side note I wish that the results were presented in a more raw manner, ordering only tell that much.

Now it makes sense for DF to "rebound" on the topic (or how it has been (mis) represented in the video gaming news).
 
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If all TV were CRT we will not have this discussion at all...

There would still be differences, the presence of scaling artifacts just wouldn't be one of them.

It's actually not strange that DF does a piece on this data. One of their primary concerns is uncovering hardware differences. It would have also been easy for them to just say that their work is vindicated by this research, and that people should be paying more attention to their articles, basically. But they do the opposite - they question the results.

That's not how I read it. I see the article as questioning that people disproportionately focus on one aspect of their IQ testing, in a lot of cases to the exclusion of everything else.
 
Agreed^. Though as many have cited earlier preference towards the native resolution of their display is completely understandable and by extension purchase of the PS4 over XO for this reason is justified.

Having said that for me at least, having less than native resolution on a large screen TV far away from me is much less painful than a similar setup on a PC monitor. Though this may have to do with the fact that motion resolution for my plasma is ~700p.
 
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I think its a odd article for Digital Foundry to do, its like they saying all the work they do is irrelevant its all about the fun which it is but I dont read Digital Foundry articles to learn if a game is fun or not. Ever since Leadbetter had an article that boiled down to him saying Final Fantasy 13 poor performance on 360 was bad programming. Which probably was true but he had never gone through the same effort the otherway when there were also games that ran badly on ps3 because of being a bad port.
 
There's more to game technology than resolution.

The debate about resolution needs to happen. Bad texture filtering, janky frame rates that don't need a "side by side" comparison to spot and low res shadows that saw-tooth through your eyeballs can all go to hell.

Dammit, I miss Spock.
 
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