HDTVs: Game Mode 2.0... tearing clean-up? What else?

Those controls are like an EQ on music. Different people have different tastes, and like to tweak their content from the originator's ideal to their own personal preference. In this day and age of digital content, it's possible to preserve the data exactly (bar compression) from capture to consumer reproduction. If the reproduction equipment was suitably calibrated, it wouldn't need any controls at all. But then the moment Joe Public sees real content on one calibrated TV, and more saturated content on a different TV, they'll probably say the over-saturated TV looks better, or hears real music on one set of headphones and bass-enhanced on another and they prefer the super-bass experience. The way to accommodate taste is to provide personal customisation - something I encourage in games despite that going against the notion of the developers deciding the experience exactly.
 
Those controls are like an EQ on music. Different people have different tastes, and like to tweak their content from the originator's ideal to their own personal preference. In this day and age of digital content, it's possible to preserve the data exactly (bar compression) from capture to consumer reproduction. If the reproduction equipment was suitably calibrated, it wouldn't need any controls at all. But then the moment Joe Public sees real content on one calibrated TV, and more saturated content on a different TV, they'll probably say the over-saturated TV looks better, or hears real music on one set of headphones and bass-enhanced on another and they prefer the super-bass experience. The way to accommodate taste is to provide personal customisation - something I encourage in games despite that going against the notion of the developers deciding the experience exactly.
:smile: Woo, I am all for some freedom too Shifty. The HDTV's spectrum is a broad range, not to mention the settings you can play with.

But like real life sometimes you find a standard at some point that fits you, at least for a while. As a friend of mine says, "life is conflict Cose". That sentence has much more profound implications, but taking it lightly, I am not always perfectly happy with the picture quality, and don't calm down easily nor I settle, thus I feel like fiddling quite commonly.

It's like when you dress nice for work... but personally I feel awkward with some types of shirts that have low neck-lines. I just feel uncomfortable that way. With the picture quality in games I experience similar thoughts. I love Dynamic Mode, the enhanced oversaturated colours are something I find difficult not to fancy, but I want Game mode, so the lag is less noticeable and I switch to Standard which can't match Dynamic mode regardless of what you try -nor Movie can either-. So in the end your selection is more limited.

As for developers giving us freedom, I like the idea of developers choosing the correct settings for your hardware. They make the compromises and try to enhance the areas where your hardware works at its best, or this I want to believe.

Being able to customize a lot of settings reminds me of PC gaming. A likened and curious example I can give:

Some games can determine the capabilities of your PC, and I have a decent laptop where I game on, but sometimes I do the craziest things to achieve the smoothest framerate, other times the temperature goes way up and I degrade the performance of a game because my processor and my graphics card can't handle such high level of graphics, just because I wanted to know how the game looks at max settings. To me, it's just funny... But for some reason it's hard to find a setting I am truly comfortable with.

In that sense I rather prefer the console philosophy. The original creators of a game decide the settings based on their own experience while creating their game. What can possibly go wrong? Also it makes the experience equal for everyone.

Just imagine a guy like me with a decent PC, but nothing to brag about, mainly an average computer, playing a competitive online game at 1024x768 at max settings and running the game at 20 fps in the best-case-scenario.

Now my opponent has a top of the line PC, which means a significant increase in image quality -let's say they select 1080p as native res- and also in the framerate, so they can run the game at 200 fps and some fancy extra smoke and mirrors. Obviously I will be at a clear disadvantage.

On a different note, I find the article very informative and interesting but I disagree with the author in some specific matters. Colour Space set to Wide instead of Auto makes a big difference in the way it makes the colours look a lot more realistic and vivid, at least on my TV. This setting doesn't add lag and it's perfectly usable when you switch to Game mode, so it's a no brainer for me.

Maybe Carmack -being the genius he is- is absolutely right asking for the inclusion of Game Mode within HDMI specifications because those boosts provided by it aren't unfair at all and make the overall console experience even better and fairer for everyone.
 
Something like brightness and contrast are still essential, just for work alone - you don't want to stare into a bright lamp all day. My wife's new monitor was so bright it needs to be at 50%, even though it can be nice to crank it up for pictures sometimes. Ditto for the iPad three, where 100% gives me both a headache, and reduces the battery life considerably.
 
So I have been using an internet search engine and I found this VERY interesting article about how controls like Contrast, Brightness, Tint and Sharpness shouldn't even be there in the first place on modern HDTVs.

They are a thing of the past according to the author:

Controls of a Bygone Era

Even more shocking, today’s digital monitors and HDTVs still have the same basic user controls that were found in the original analog NTSC color TVs from 1953: brightness, contrast, tint, and sharpness. These controls only made sense for analog signals on the old NTSC television system. Brightness controlled the CRT direct-current bias, contrast controlled the video amplifier gain, tint controlled the phase of the color subcarrier, and sharpness performed analog high-frequency peaking to compensate for the limited video bandwidth of the old vacuum tube amplifiers. Today, none of these controls are necessary for digital signals.

Brightness and contrast controls shouldn’t be there because, for digital video, the black level is fixed at level 16, reference white at 235, and peak white at 255. Similarly, tint and phase have no real meaning for digital signals. Finally, the sharpness control isn’t appropriate for digital displays because in a digital image there’s no transmission degradation—the image is received exactly as it appeared at the source. Sharpening the image involves digitally processing the pixels, which leads to artifacts and noise unless it’s done at resolutions much higher than the final displayed resolution, which, of course, isn’t the case inside your monitor or HDTV.
Controls that Do Worse Than Nothing

Most monitor and HDTV user-menu options are actually unnecessary features added for marketing purposes—gimmicks to suggest the display has unique features that other models lack. Even worse, most of these options actually decrease image and picture quality.

In many cases, it’s not even clear what these sham controls really do. The documentation seldom explains them, and I even know engineers from high-level manufacturers who don’t know what the controls do, either. When I test TVs, I spend an inordinate amount of time using test patterns to figure out what the options and selections really do, and in most cases, turning off the fancy options leads to the best picture quality and accuracy.

The following is a list of useless (or near-useless) menu options and selections from three HDTVs sold by major brands: Black Corrector, Advanced CE, Clear White, Color Space, Live Color, DRC Mode, DRC Palette, Dynamic Contrast, xvYCC, Color Matrix, RGB Dynamic Range, Black Level, Gamma, White Balance, HDMI Black Level, Fresh Contrast, Fresh Color, Flesh Tone, Eye Care, Digital NR, DNIe, Detail Enhancer, Edge Enhancer, Real Cinema, Cine Motion, Film Mode, Blue Only Mode.
Some of the terms sound impressive, but almost all of this is unnecessary puffery and jargon that confuses not only consumers but the pros, as well.

That Samsung also supports Analog input....
 
I don't have that Samsung TV in particular but I guess you are talking about the Component HD cable. I wonder if, even taking into account that the cable is analog, the output image is completely digital regardless of the input being analog.

I tried my *new settings* yesterday; Game Mode, Standard, Sharpness 0. I played for a while but I couldn't get used to it.

The picture looked blurred and softened to me after I decreased the Sharpness and it began looking slightly better at 17 sharpness or so but not quite right yet.

After reading some comments in this thread and some experimentation on my part I conclude that my HDTV displays Sharpness at true 0 when you set it to 50 instead of actual 0. :) Anything below 50 starts a softening, blurring process that makes the image quality suffer.

When I was playing RDR with Sharpness at 0 I couldn't distinguish some characters inside a tent in the distance, they looked a bit messy. I didn't move while making some adjustments and when I jacked the Sharpness up again, I could finally tell the difference between the characters inside the tent.

I am back into Game mode with some extra Sharpness, if by extra you mean 50 equals 0.
 
Another thing I want games to know automatically: when I was playing Zen Pinball 2 yesterday, after a while I noticed in the settings that it was using 10% border margin. When I put those to 0%, the game actually ran with less lag so I'm guessing it scales, and that the scaling introduces lag. If my TV shows 1920x1080 pixels without overscan, I'd love it if games knew about this automatically and disable any overscan.

If you switch the 1:1 on in the Game Mode on your TV, the Game Mode are always in 1:1 at least on the Sony TV, so less manipulations.
 
If you switch the 1:1 on in the Game Mode on your TV, the Game Mode are always in 1:1 at least on the Sony TV, so less manipulations.

My TV has PC mode, which basically makes it act like a PC monitor, and I have set this mode for both PC and PS3. But the game doesn't know that, and defaults to 10 (or 15% not sure) overscan compensation.
 
My TV has PC mode, which basically makes it act like a PC monitor, and I have set this mode for both PC and PS3. But the game doesn't know that, and defaults to 10 (or 15% not sure) overscan compensation.

Strange the 1:1 mode is not setting for the entry, despite the mode?
 
Strange the 1:1 mode is not setting for the entry, despite the mode?

I think that is because in order to work well with TVs that do have overscan, Sony recommends developers to assume 10-15% overscan
 
That Samsung also supports Analog input....
Curiously, now that you mention it, I am back into analog input once again after following sebbi's :smile: advice on latency, game mode, etc.

For any unaware, he mentioned time ago that it's better if the output resolution of the console matches the native resolution of the HDTV -mine is 1680x1050- than the other way around, because it reduces lag from the TV.

So I am using again the VGA cable with the console set at 1680x1050, and Game mode active.

The picture quality is out of this world. I just want to cry seeing so much awesomeness.

To be honest, many of us praise and sing the goodness of HDMI but, at least on my TV, it's the VGA cable which give the best picture quality by far.

IMHO. the image quality is quite worse on the HDMI cable, and the VGA cable still holds the top to me.
 
I recall a Digital Foundry article saying that Halo Reach is one of the 30 fps games with the lowest latency, and after playing it yesterday for an hour or so using Game Mode and having the output resolution of the console set to the native resolution of the HDTV, I can certainly corroborate that statement! The response is very smooth, of immediate effect.

Somehow is like your brain already knew that... when you play games, but if well educated people don't tell you, you just don't know how to put it into words. I don't know what percentage of people notice those differences without actually minding them much because of the lack of knowledge, but I would bet it's actually quite high.
 
I recall a Digital Foundry article saying that Halo Reach is one of the 30 fps games with the lowest latency, and after playing it yesterday for an hour or so using Game Mode and having the output resolution of the console set to the native resolution of the HDTV, I can certainly corroborate that statement! The response is very smooth, of immediate effect.

Somehow is like your brain already knew that... when you play games, but if well educated people don't tell you, you just don't know how to put it into words. I don't know what percentage of people notice those differences without actually minding them much because of the lack of knowledge, but I would bet it's actually quite high.

Well all the improvements you got is not due to better VGA vs HDMI but for the fact that HDMI out from 3.6 is 720p or 1080p and your TV, probably a PC monitor do have 1680*1050, have got no scaling function. In VGA mode the scaling is made by 3.6, so very good scaling and low latency. ;)
The only times where HDMI is better than VGA are when TV got native 720p or 1080p. ;)

@Arwin: You can forced the 1:1 Mode on your TV? PS3 got always overscan? Seem strange don't remember that but long time I'm checking that. And remember, Quaz51 use 1:1 mode to determine native reso from games on PS360, no? Or I don't understood?
 
Well all the improvements you got is not due to better VGA vs HDMI but for the fact that HDMI out from 3.6 is 720p or 1080p and your TV, probably a PC monitor do have 1680*1050, have got no scaling function. In VGA mode the scaling is made by 3.6, so very good scaling and low latency. ;)
The only times where HDMI is better than VGA are when TV got native 720p or 1080p. ;)

Wrong :rolleyes:.

"PC resolutions" like 1680x1050 for example apparently are not just available via VGA output but apparently are also available via HDMI and/or DVI-D output (via HDMI to DVI-D adapter(-cable) for example) with Xbox 360, see for example:

Digital Foundry said:
http://insidethedigitalfoundry.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-xbox-experience-everything-you-must.html

Also worthy of note is the inclusion of 1440x900 and 1650x1080 resolutions for users of VGA and DVI displays.


;)
 
My TV has 1:1, it's basically just like a PC monitor (and I'm typing this on it, also use it for PC, which is connected on the other HDMI). PS3 also is perfect and always correct, but some games, like Zen Pinball 2, still default to 10-15% overscan for safety. Most games ask me to check and correct this setting upon startup, but this one didn't, and when I noticed a performance improvement when I reduced it to 0%, I was surprised.
 
Well all the improvements you got is not due to better VGA vs HDMI but for the fact that HDMI out from 3.6 is 720p or 1080p and your TV, probably a PC monitor do have 1680*1050, have got no scaling function. In VGA mode the scaling is made by 3.6, so very good scaling and low latency. ;)
The only times where HDMI is better than VGA are when TV got native 720p or 1080p. ;)

@Arwin: You can forced the 1:1 Mode on your TV? PS3 got always overscan? Seem strange don't remember that but long time I'm checking that. And remember, Quaz51 use 1:1 mode to determine native reso from games on PS360, no? Or I don't understood?
As user said, it's an HDTV and modes like 1680x1050 are supported or at least featured in the list of available resolutions for HDMI.

However, when I select 1680x1050 via HDMI a "Mode not supported" message appears. I discussed this before, time ago, with grandmaster and it is a problem with the hardware IDs, apparently.

If I knew how to update the bios or firmware of the HDTV this may do the trick, but I still have to learn how, and since it supports that resolution via VGA, I don't get into it.

This is the TV in particular:

http://www.directtvs.co.uk/samsung_le22s86bd_le22s86bdx-xeu/version.asp
 
Have you already tried something like what apparently is described over there for example:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=448574

?

;)
No I didn't! I am going to test that today, it seems to be worth giving it a try. If it works with HDMI then I am not going to need any external speakers or Hi-Fi system, which is a plus, along with some exclusive HDMI features. Many thanks user542745831 for your help, this makes you cool.
 
As user said, it's an HDTV and modes like 1680x1050 are supported or at least featured in the list of available resolutions for HDMI.

However, when I select 1680x1050 via HDMI a "Mode not supported" message appears. I discussed this before, time ago, with grandmaster and it is a problem with the hardware IDs, apparently.

If I knew how to update the bios or firmware of the HDTV this may do the trick, but I still have to learn how, and since it supports that resolution via VGA, I don't get into it.

This is the TV in particular:

http://www.directtvs.co.uk/samsung_le22s86bd_le22s86bdx-xeu/version.asp

So, I'm right, it's a Pc monitor panel sell like TV.
And the 3.6 don't saw you 1680*1050 in the HDMI choice? Or you have it and it don't go on? I'm knowing the problem with PC monitor sell like TV, my brother-in-law got one (not the same like you), and this material don't have scaler so you need to done the scaling to native panel reso on the console, PS3, 3.6. In this case the HDMI port of 3.6 (don't test on PS3) seem to only support 720p, 1080i, and 1080p but it's not the native panel reso. So in fact on these type of TV VGA is the way to go.
 
My TV has 1:1, it's basically just like a PC monitor (and I'm typing this on it, also use it for PC, which is connected on the other HDMI). PS3 also is perfect and always correct, but some games, like Zen Pinball 2, still default to 10-15% overscan for safety. Most games ask me to check and correct this setting upon startup, but this one didn't, and when I noticed a performance improvement when I reduced it to 0%, I was surprised.

You just saw this on one game? It's really strange.
 
So, I'm right, it's a Pc monitor panel sell like TV.
And the 3.6 don't saw you 1680*1050 in the HDMI choice? Or you have it and it don't go on? I'm knowing the problem with PC monitor sell like TV, my brother-in-law got one (not the same like you), and this material don't have scaler so you need to done the scaling to native panel reso on the console, PS3, 3.6. In this case the HDMI port of 3.6 (don't test on PS3) seem to only support 720p, 1080i, and 1080p but it's not the native panel reso. So in fact on these type of TV VGA is the way to go.
Well, it's a regular Samsung HDTV, with its remote, built-in DTT and electronic programming guide, PiP, built-in speakers and optical audio output, RF input, composite S-Video and Scart sockets...

In fact I have another Samsung HDTV in the living room, a much larger one -46"- and the remote works with the one I play games on, and has the same capabilities, with some extras.

The reason why it is 1680x1050 native instead of 1080p is the size of the TV, only 22", although it supports 1080i.

Yes, the 1680x1050 resolution is listed and it detects it fine. In fact when you select the "Recommended resolution" the console automatically tries to set it at 1680x1050, but it says "Mode not supported", although it is supported, according to the manual. As I say, it's a problem of the IDeds, or whatever it is called, I can't recall.

The TV has a built-in scaler, it lets you use different options when setting the format. I use Just Scan on HDMI because it's 1:1. With VGA the TV uses an 1:1 format automatically, so I don't lose field of view. which is great. I tested this just in case, and luckily for me it works great. I prefer the scaler on the console though, the image is much better, imho.

user542745831, I tried to follow your advice and it didn't work. Much obliged anyways. I need to try updating the firmware of the TV and see what happens., but I don't know how yet. Time to read the manual. If it doesn't work, I won't for sure lose my sleep over it. I got all my bases covered. (it would be nice not to have to connect the console to external speakers though, but running the games at 1:1 Just Scan, in Game mode, and the native resolution of the TV... who's to complain?) :)
 
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