God of War 2 - Hidden HD mode?

[AlNom]

Gametrailers has a video of it, but because I don't have the game, I can't tell what's different or if it's a significant improvement. Can someone here shed some light on that? It'd be nice if they had a comparison video...

http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=2567

 

[[maven]]

http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/resources/2007/04/gowhdinstructions.jpg shows how it's done, and yes it works, I've tested it on my NTSC PS3. It simply enables a higher resolution back-buffer (round-about normal TV resolution instead of a smaller one).

 

[Neb]

There is a perfomance hit by turning this on.

 

[tabs]

Well there would have to be wouldn't there, or it would be on by default. :smile:

 

[Neb]

Well there would have to be wouldn't there, or it would be on by default. :smile:

True, true. Wonder what other games have hidden settings...

 

[xmu]

True, true. Wonder what other games have hidden settings...

Well dunno if it qualifies as hidden but loads of PS2 games have hidden 480p support. I think you just had to press triangle and .. cross(?) while booting.. can't be arsed to remember at this hour. For example the latest Burnouts had this (Revenge at least), the NTSC version of GT4 I think hdgames.net was the site that carried the most info on this.

 

[kyleb]

I just found out about this last night and played a little, I didn't notice much change in performance but it looks notably better . I suppose it's bound to loose vsync more often pushing more pixels, but it does that quite a bit either way so I didn't notice much of a difference.

Anyway, apparently the backbuffer size is 640x448 in the highe resolution mode, see pic here. Anyone know what normal mode uses?

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Anyone know what normal mode uses?

480i, so half the resolution mentioned above, roughly..

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Well dunno if it qualifies as hidden but loads of PS2 games have hidden 480p support. I think you just had to press triangle and .. cross(?) while booting.. can't be arsed to remember at this hour. For example the latest Burnouts had this (Revenge at least), the NTSC version of GT4 I think hdgames.net was the site that carried the most info on this.

Those are only hidden in the Euro-version ntsc games pretty much always gives you the option to switch it on, if it's supported.

480i, so half the resolution mentioned above, roughly..

No, God of War has progressive support in the menu so that's the normal resolution. I believe 640x448 progressive is how this game is displayed if you choose progressive, and it probably rises to 640x480 with that hack mentioned at gametrailers.

 

[kyleb]

Nah, the high res mode is 640x448 according to explanation of how to enable it on www.islandofrhodes.org, and without that enable resolution is visably lower than that regardless of if progressive scan is turned on in the menu or not. Surely they aren't rendering interlaced though? I'm at a loss to think of what the progressive scan option would be doing if they were.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Nah, the high res mode is 640x448 according to explanation of how to enable it on www.islandofrhodes.org, and without that enable resolution is visably lower than that regardless of if progressive scan is turned on in the menu or not. Surely they aren't rendering interlaced though? I'm at a loss to think of what the progressive scan option would be doing if they were.

:smile: I have actually read that page before, but it seems I didn't pay much attention. I though they were just talking about the standard progressive mode as 640x448 didn't sound that high to me... I have been under the impression that PS2 games use 640x480p/i in pretty much all cases, but apparently not.

 

[kyleb]

I heard that quite a few PS2 games use smaller backbuffers, like 512x512 and such.

 

[Fu3lFr3nzy]

I was just watching the GT video of it, and I have to say(with an untrained eye), that theres not much notable(if any) differences in the video between HD and SD except for HD having a bit more clarity in some spots.

Thats not to say thats how it looks on peoples TV's, but in that video, I certainly didnt see much :|

 

[djskribbles]

I was just watching the GT video of it, and I have to say(with an untrained eye), that theres not much notable(if any) differences in the video between HD and SD except for HD having a bit more clarity in some spots.

Thats not to say thats how it looks on peoples TV's, but in that video, I certainly didnt see much :|

thanks for posting that video.

i noticed that in "HD" mode, it was a little sharper and more detailed. it wasn't really that noticeable until they zoomed in, though.

 

[kyleb]

The compression on the video masks most of the difference, at full quality on a decent display the difference is much more notable.