EB Employee plays PS3

[Ben-Nice]

I dunno but the 1080p VT pics are clearly better than the 720p. First 8 are PS3 last are 360. Yes I know different dev teams . I have one question though. If a game is done in 1080p if it downscales to 720p. Does that 720p version look better than "normal" 720p?

http://www.playsyde.com/news_3668_en.html

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Does that 720p version look better than "normal" 720p?

If the 720p version doesn't have AA, then yes. However, if a game is optimized for 720p, it'll look better at 720p then a 1080p downscaled to 720p. It's thus quite inconceivable that a game created for 720p and as well optimized for that resolution as a 1080p title won't look better (per pixel, though less of them) than that 1080p title. Of course, the overall look can be influenced by resolution. eg. A G70 using all it's shader power on a 640x480 game won't in anyone's eyes look as good as that G70 using 50% of it's resources on a 1280x1024 game, because the resolution of 640x480 on the monitor is so darned blocky. A 1080p game might just have more appeal than a 720p game. Like 60 FPS games. You have to sacrifice other effects to get to that 60 FPS, but it gives such a slickness to the motion that it's preferred by many, and 'looks better.'

 

[avaya]

So “1080p is a fallacy” has been debunked….well sort of.

God man, it's an arcade port made with last generation GFX cards.

How can you be so obtuse? Compare it to Rockstar's Table Tennis, does that make it a little more clear to you? This game is not a graphical showcase, not even close, and if you can't see that, well I dunno what to say...

I guess in your mind, it's 1080p so it must look good, and you just ignore what your EYES are telling you.

I think his underlying point is why does the game not look better on the 360 at 720p? 1080p does show PS3’s visual advantage. If both systems are perfectly capable of it, why doesn’t the 360 run the same game better at 720p?

Now I know this isn’t the be all and end all of the argument, there are several factors involved, one of the most important being the developer’s time+skill but on the face of it, to the uninformed, it does give Sony a great ability to push the line that the PS3 is more powerful.

I am of the opinion the PS3 is slightly more powerful, certainly majority developer opinion talks off better peak power or whatever that may mean in a vague sense, while Microsoft pretty much gave up on the power angle in terms of marketing. There’s been much discussion here about this and I don’t think we need to get into that but I don’t understand the downplaying or hype over 1080p.

The CE majors will try their hardest to push 1080p, the number of 1080p panels for screens over 32” will only increase till it eventually becomes the default standard. Retailers will sell what they can get, consumers will be pushed into it by sheer lack of choice. We are only at the very beginning of the HD adoption curve. 2-3yrs down the line most HDTV panels over 32” will likely be 1080p. For a 5-7yr console cycle 1080p certainly isn’t irrelevant, but it will play a small part.

 

[Phil]

If the 720p version doesn't have AA, then yes. However, if a game is optimized for 720p, it'll look better at 720p then a 1080p downscaled to 720p.

I'm not quite sure I agree with this. The 1080p frame would already have quite a bit more detail since it's rendered at a higher resolution - surely those details would translate into the resized 720p picture that the "optimized 720p rendered version" would not.

It's like comparing two cameras, a 6 mega-pixel camera and a 8 mega-pixel camera both at the exact same location with the same lens taking a picture with the same settings. If you'd compare the 3 Mpixel picture with the downsized from 8 to 6 Mpixel picture, I'm sure the latter should have a bit more detail, even if those details would end up being blured through the resizing process.


I guess it also depends on the case we'd be comparing: A 720p frame with 4x AA compared to a 1080p with 2x AA downsized to 720? Or 1080p with no AA? etc etc..

 

[Bobbler]

I'm not quite sure I agree with this. The 1080p frame would already have quite a bit more detail since it's rendered at a higher resolution - surely those details would translate into the resized 720p picture that the "optimized 720p rendered version" would not.

It's like comparing two cameras, a 6 mega-pixel camera and a 8 mega-pixel camera both at the exact same location with the same lens taking a picture with the same settings. If you'd compare the 3 Mpixel picture with the downsized from 8 to 6 Mpixel picture, I'm sure the latter should have a bit more detail, even if those details would end up being blured through the resizing process.


I guess it also depends on the case we'd be comparing: A 720p frame with 4x AA compared to a 1080p with 2x AA downsized to 720? Or 1080p with no AA? etc etc..

Unless I'm mistaken there are quite a few different ways to downsize stuff depending on what you're trying to achieve with varying amounts of aliasing issues. Depending on how it's done, a 1080p -> 720p image downsampled might look as good as a 720p with 4x AA or it might not. I imagine it should look pretty comparable regardless of how poorly or well it's done (linear, bilinear, bicubic, lanczos, who knows!).

 

[pegisys]

I don't think you would get much of a supersample going from 1080p to 720p

it may even cause some type of aliasing or artifacting because the pixel ratio is not even

 

[nonamer]

I don't think you would get much of a supersample going from 1080p to 720p

it may even cause some type of aliasing or artifacting because the pixel ratio is not even

It's the equivalent of 2x supersampling. For games that's usually pretty good, especially if you already have some MSAA.

 

[pegisys]

It's the equivalent of 2x supersampling. For games that's usually pretty good, especially if you already have some MSAA.

actually its not, 2x would be 2560x1440

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's like comparing two cameras, a 6 mega-pixel camera and a 8 mega-pixel camera both at the exact same location with the same lens taking a picture with the same settings. If you'd compare the 3 Mpixel picture with the downsized from 8 to 6 Mpixel picture, I'm sure the latter should have a bit more detail, even if those details would end up being blured through the resizing process.

That's an unfair comparison (as well as a floored one, as the information per pixel in downsampled one would still be the same!) as you get 'infinite quality rendering' per pixel no matter the resolution you take the photo at.

If you have 1 million pixels, and shaders that can do 100 million pixel shader ops per frame, you'd have 100 ops to spend per pixel. If you go up to 2 million pixels, you have 50 ops per pixel. By moving up to 1080p, the work the GPU can perform is diluted across a larger image. It's like Orange Squash. If you have a litre of Robinsons Orange Squash (with sugar - none of this artificial sweetener rubbish) and make up 20 glasses of drink, you'll have a much richer taste than if you make it into 40 glasses of drink.

With finite resources, you are going to get less detail per pixel given a higher resolution if you're maxing out the rendering for each resolution.

I guess it also depends on the case we'd be comparing: A 720p frame with 4x AA compared to a 1080p with 2x AA downsized to 720? Or 1080p with no AA? etc etc..

As MSAA is more efficient than SSAA, rendering a 720p image with 4xMSAA is going to be less demanding on shader performance than 1080p with no AA. Downsampling will improve IQ and have a beneficial effect on texture quality, but the 720p render will still be able to make more use of shaders and will have better edge AA.

I don't think you would get much of a supersample going from 1080p to 720p
it may even cause some type of aliasing or artifacting because the pixel ratio is not even

Actually 2x uniform bilinear supersampling can look pretty good. Just grab yourself any game screenshot without AA and shrink it to 66%. The SnowBlind Studios games use SSAA and have great quality, especially in the textures. You get far less texture shimmer as well (which isn't an issue next-gen as textures are mipmapped to death and just fuzzy blobs at any sort of distance...)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

actually its not, 2x would be 2560x1440

That's 4x, or 4 samples per pixel. 2x means 2 samples per pixel, and not a 2x2 uniform grid.

 

[mrboo]

I don't think you would get much of a supersample going from 1080p to 720p

it may even cause some type of aliasing or artifacting because the pixel ratio is not even

It would be 2x as 1080p is twice the pixel's of 720p

1280x720 = 921,600 pixel's

1920x1080 = 2,073,600 pixel's

I think

 

[rabidrabbit]

LOL, you guys are hopeless!

Ok, then let me ask you this: Do you consider Virtua Tennis or Ridge Racer 7 good examples of next generation graphics?

Answer please.

btw: The answer is no.

Yes.
For their genres, yes.
Obviously they are to be surpassed later, by some 720p or 1080p game, but that's expected.
They might not be the best examples, but good nonetheless.
IMO they look what I thought next gen VT and RR games to look like, especially for launch (window) titles.
Right away, I can't think of much, if any, how they could've improved upon them.

Why do you think they are not good examples, what are they lacking?
VT? more detailed characters? They are already pretty good imo.
RR? More detail in the scenery and more realistic physics? Imo the scenery is already quite detailed and realistic physics is just not Ridge Racer.
All imo of course, I'm not giving you any definitive answers.

 

[aldo]

Seems there was an activision event recently, with information starting to come out. But many things still under wraps until NDA's end.

As for the games, stuff running in 1080p on the PS3 look incredible. Wii games look ok, but I don't think the best graphics are going to come out of Activision published games, but they are committed to 480p and 16:9 on their games. Everything on the 360 looked and played well, but it seems that the PS3 has the edge graphically across the board already (shader effects especially).

Here's some confirmation on the PS3 shaders and 1080P in an Activision game:
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=34371

-aldo

 

[Phil]

If you have 1 million pixels, and shaders that can do 100 million pixel shader ops per frame, you'd have 100 ops to spend per pixel. If you go up to 2 million pixels, you have 50 ops per pixel. By moving up to 1080p, the work the GPU can perform is diluted across a larger image. It's like Orange Squash. If you have a litre of Robinsons Orange Squash (with sugar - none of this artificial sweetener rubbish) and make up 20 glasses of drink, you'll have a much richer taste than if you make it into 40 glasses of drink.

I agree with this - though I was trying to keep the comparison as simple as possible. If we are to move to a more complex scenario in comparing the case you've described above, we'd probably end up arguing an entire subjective matter - a matter of personal preference. I.e.: Do I prefer the added detail in the higher resolution output or do I go for the smaller res but with more effects?


Besides, your answer was in reply to Ben-Nice who was comparing screens from the 1080p PS3 version of the game with the 720p Xbox360 ones. Given that the two hardware are quite different in various aspects, I'm not sure a valid comparison is that simple. If we keep this to one hardware only, I would think it quite depends on the game and the bottlenecks. if anything, the end result probably comes down to opinion and personal preference.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

Some Virtual Tennis and RR7 is now a crappy/cheesy game?

Allow me to be use less hyperbole and assume people can put things into context (graphics, which this thread, subforum, and website are about, sheesh).

VT and RR7 are not the most graphically demanding games out there. VT in particular because of the genre... there just isn't that much on the scene to render at once, and the physics of a bouncy object are hardly revolutionary. Thus, more can be done with what is on screen, meaning better textures, better lighting, higher poly characters, and (eureka) higher resolutions/AF/AA.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

I agree with this - though I was trying to keep the comparison as simple as possible. If we are to move to a more complex scenario in comparing the case you've described above, we'd probably end up arguing an entire subjective matter - a matter of personal preference. I.e.: Do I prefer the added detail in the higher resolution output or do I go for the smaller res but with more effects?

I think you might be missing some key points. The amount of information contained in a pixel can be increased by using anti-aliasing. Ignoring photography, which plays by different rules, when you render geometry the amount of information displayed is not directly proportional to the number of pixels on screen.

Let's take a trivial case. Imagine a non-textured sphere on a plain color background. You render it at 1080p with no AA, and at 720p with 4xMSAA. More information is contained in the 720 shot. Rendering to 1080 and downsampling will increase the information density per pixel, but not enough to overcome that difference. The obvious caveat is that downscaling increases information density in textures and lighting as well.

So it isn't just that 1080 allows for "more detail" that necessarily gets lost at 720. Information density per pixel can be increased more efficiently by MSAA and AF than by rendering at higher resolutions, though I don't think anyone would argue that it looks as good as just having a super high resolution. The age old argument has been along the lines of "720 w/4xAA or 1080 w/0xAA" (though in the past, it was more of 640x480 vs. 1024x768 in the PC space). And if you use the more efficient methods of hardware accelerated MSAA and AF, instead of higher resolutions, you have more bandwidth and possibly shader power left to do other IQ trickery with.

So the argument isn't as straight cut as you make it out to be. Which is why many of the best looking PS3 games will be 720.

 

[Pete]

I had a hard time discerning detail differences b/w two 42" screens at Best Buy, a $3500 1080p Sony LCD and the 42" Panasonic (generously) 720p plasma. This was especially strange b/c I used to notice that 37-42" 720p LCDs seemed to show more detail/res in static shots than 42" plasmas back when I was comparing the two intently. My point being that, sure, screenshots look nicer at 1080p, but I'm interested in how apparent the extra detail will be on similar-size (but different res, natch) HDTVs.

Obviously, the bigger the HDTV, the better the extra res, but I don't think it's a stretch to assume that even an $1800 TV (42" LCD or plasma) will be nicer than most TVs paired with a X360/PS3. That is, I'm not expecting us to look into 50+" plasmas and LCDs to determine if 1080p's worth it, b/c if you own that much TV, you just buy all the consoles you want.

It's weird that the Virtua Tennis 3 PS3 screens have AA and the 360 ones don't. I mean, if any game's gonna do 1080p with AA, it'd be VT3, but no AA at 720p sounds like a lack of $/effort invested in the 360 version. I don't think there's an issue of a special effect interfering with the tiling required to get AA working at a full 720p, but I could be wrong.

 

[V3]

I don't go as far as snaking, I don't have any player-based competition... though I guess if I trained myself to snake well I could probably finally get f*cking Very Hard #7 done... one of these days...

You should snake, F-Zero is a fast game, you go that much faster if you snake. Faster = more fun. Once you learn to snake all the hard races become abit easier to win. If not it'll be retry after retry.

 

[V3]

It's weird that the Virtua Tennis 3 PS3 screens have AA and the 360 ones don't. I mean, if any game's gonna do 1080p with AA, it'd be VT3, but no AA at 720p sounds like a lack of $/effort invested in the 360 version. I don't think there's an issue of a special effect interfering with the tiling required to get AA working at a full 720p, but I could be wrong.

I think they put in the same effort/budget in for both version. Its just PS3 is that much closer to Lindbergh, while 360 is different. Overall I doubt Sega spent alot of effort or budget in porting the title to get it to look much better than their flagship arcade machine. Beside Sega seems to concentrate their effort/budget in putting extra mode and players and stuff. That said, 360 VT3, still looks noticeably better than 360 Top Spin. Its not like 360 version looks bad or anything. 360 owner won't have the PS3 version side by side when they play the game, so who cares if one is better looking than the other.

 

[Tagrineth]

You should snake, F-Zero is a fast game, you go that much faster if you snake. Faster = more fun. Once you learn to snake all the hard races become abit easier to win. If not it'll be retry after retry.

I've won every other dang race on that thing without snaking. =c

I also won every Master cup, finishing 30th in each final race and still winning the gold.