wow, just wow....
Is PS3's scaler working now?
- Thread starter Shifty Geezer
- Start date
wow, just wow....
I wanted to resurrect the 'SCC' discussion for a second, although from a different angle... One thing that is VERY important to realize is that for the given functionality, the I/O controller used on the PS3 is incredibly big. NVIDIA and ATI have AMD southbridges that are about one third of that die size, also on 90nm. While the interconnects used may be different, that couldn't possibly make it that much bigger.
That chip is basically as big as NVIDIA's upcoming single-chip Northbridge/Memory Controller/Southbridge/IGP for Intel platforms. So something is definitely fishy here. Either it's a very inefficient design, or it has a fair bit more functionality than it really needs and is exposed. The latter is presumably what some people are using as a basis to say it must be the SCC, along with the similar die size.
And in case that wasn't clear, iSuppli's cost estimates are indeed completely ridiculous, and $59 is a fairly massive exageration. That doesn't mean it is a negligible part of the BOM however, and that it isn't much more bigger/expensive than you'd expect it to be. I'm not saying it's the SCC, because I really don't know and it very well could be something else anyway. However, given the available data, it is far from impossible that it is the SCC - that doesn't mean it has to be though, obviously.
EDIT: And lol at the comments above!
That chip is basically as big as NVIDIA's upcoming single-chip Northbridge/Memory Controller/Southbridge/IGP for Intel platforms. So something is definitely fishy here. Either it's a very inefficient design, or it has a fair bit more functionality than it really needs and is exposed. The latter is presumably what some people are using as a basis to say it must be the SCC, along with the similar die size.
And in case that wasn't clear, iSuppli's cost estimates are indeed completely ridiculous, and $59 is a fairly massive exageration. That doesn't mean it is a negligible part of the BOM however, and that it isn't much more bigger/expensive than you'd expect it to be. I'm not saying it's the SCC, because I really don't know and it very well could be something else anyway. However, given the available data, it is far from impossible that it is the SCC - that doesn't mean it has to be though, obviously.
EDIT: And lol at the comments above!
1. Could be that the chip is fabbed on an old, completely amortized, process and hence is cheap *and* big.
2. Could be that it indeed is the SCC and the economies of scale of using a Toshiba commodity part makes economic reason.
3. Or could be it's a contingency solution after b0rking up the real part.
Who knows ?
If a future revision of the PS3 suddenly shrinks this to a grain of sand it would be 3.)
Cheers
just a friendly word...
before you jump into discussions telling people who/what and where, it might behoove you to sit around and read quietly first and find out with whom you are speaking .
Well I've been reading quietly for some time before I joined. Also, I don't really recall "telling people who/what and where". Perhaps you can elaborate. I do recall expressing my idea's without attacking anyone personally.
Looks like you were stunned by the comment. It is a theory. One of many we bantered around way back when we initially had this conversation on AVS Forums. Let's think about it for a while. Sony has always been pushing the PS3 as the 1080p platform and most of the ads you see for the PS3 always have the 1080p gaming tag line. Now 720p assets interpolated to 1080p aren't as good as native 1080p assets are they? So perhaps Sony wanted to ensure 1080p games were using 1080p assets instead of cheap interpolated 720p->1080p assets.
I wanted to resurrect the 'SCC' discussion for a second, although from a different angle... One thing that is VERY important to realize is that for the given functionality, the I/O controller used on the PS3 is incredibly big. NVIDIA and ATI have AMD southbridges that are about one third of that die size, also on 90nm. While the interconnects used may be different, that couldn't possibly make it that much bigger.
That chip is basically as big as NVIDIA's upcoming single-chip Northbridge/Memory Controller/Southbridge/IGP for Intel platforms. So something is definitely fishy here. Either it's a very inefficient design, or it has a fair bit more functionality than it really needs and is exposed. The latter is presumably what some people are using as a basis to say it must be the SCC, along with the similar die size.
And in case that wasn't clear, iSuppli's cost estimates are indeed completely ridiculous, and $59 is a fairly massive exageration. That doesn't mean it is a negligible part of the BOM however, and that it isn't much more bigger/expensive than you'd expect it to be. I'm not saying it's the SCC, because I really don't know and it very well could be something else anyway. However, given the available data, it is far from impossible that it is the SCC - that doesn't mean it has to be though, obviously.
EDIT: And lol at the comments above!
Why are iSuppli's cost estimates completely ridiculous? Do you have information to contradict their information? If so, I'd like to see it because until then this is all we have. Since iSuppli gets paid by companies to source and cost the parts in a competitors product I would imagine they're pretty good and accurate at what they do. Their reputation basically depends on being as accurate as possible. I have a lot of faith in those numbers because I find it hard to believe a company like iSuppli would just pull those numbers out of thin air. They've sourced enough components to know what they're talking about.
There is an extreme variance on the quality of scaling from one TV manufacturer to another. They all do it differently. The scaling circuity and output in an XBR would probably produce a different result from the scaling performed by a cheaper brand that didn't place as much emphasis on scaling quality. The benefit of having the PS3 do the scaling is that the picture, for the most part, remains consistent across these TV's without having to rely on the quality of the TV's scaler circuity.
Blade47167
Newcomer
And its a good theory. Sony most likely predicted that developers were going to have trouble with the PS3 at first. Why let them cope instead of making them learn how to use it properly. I'd rather see it come later if it leads to developers getting more familiar with whats going on, then to release it early and them having no idea.
MonkeyLicker
Newcomer
If you were talking about SD content it might be an issue, but it's doubtful any 1080p TV would give poor results when scaling 720p content.
If you do know of any then by all means correct me. There will never be a day I'm not willing to learn something new.
I see. So you're suggesting that there would be no discernible image difference between a native 1080p source on a 60" LCD and a native 720p source upscaled to 1080p. Interesting. Also, a 720p source upscaled to 1080p on a 60" Sony LCD would produce similar results to the same source upscaled on a 60" Daewoo LCD. Interesting also.
I think maybe we have all blown it out of proportion. But still, given it's intended function it is likely a high end digital I/O and advanced programmable DSP. Could it possibly even be a multi-core programmable DSP which allows each core to be programmed for any kind of necessary digital signal processing function. Taking this a step further into the speculation stratosphere I will say that it is a multi-core streaming DSP combined with digital I/O. This would give the SCC total flexibility to be used in all kinds of applications. All with the same chip which will eventually cost not much. Wow, if this speculation is correct it is a good business model.
So if we could have the SCC be what we wanted it to be it would be a "Cell like" multi-core streaming programmable DSP combined with the usual CPU chipset logic. This must have been the chip MS was referring to when they said that the PS3 was just a multi-core DSP.
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I think it´s a crazy idea, if anything the Scaler would ensure 1080p games even if they were rendered at a lower res. It worked for Microsoft so why not Sony?
My crazy theori is that the SCC chip (which i still believe it is) was a deal between Toshiba and Sony, the functions Sony wanted would be to pricey if they had to make it themselves, getting a SCC chip from Toshiba and then only using 25% of the features could be the cheapest solution in short term, while creating a stripped down version in the long term.
Which would also require Sony to be carefull about any kind of Scaling they exposed to the developers since the hardware could change.
No, he's saying (I think) that a 1080P TV would have a scaler and it would do as good a job as one in a PS3, at least to 99% of the populace. I agree. If Sony could upscale all 720P games to 1080P for free now they would do it. They could always list the "native" game res on the back off the box and give the user an option to bypass the PS3 scaler via the config.
The only negative thing about the 360 solution is the listing of all resolutions up to 1080P, which leaves users in the dark about the real resolution.
It's not a theory I really agree with. As you pointed out, the obvious benefit of exposing the scaler would be that every game would be in 1080p. The drawback is that because you're getting free upscaling why not just develop using 720p assets and just use the scaler to interpolate it to 1080p. So why even waste your time and effort on a native 1080p game?
Now, if I remember correctly, Sony stated that their console was the only next generation console capable of native 1080p gaming (at the time) so they may have thought that by limiting the use of the scaler the number of native 1080p titles would increase. As I mentioned, I don't agree with this, but I can see how this idea gained traction.
My reasoning was that because there is such a variance in scaling techniques used by TV's wouldn't there be discernible differences between the upscaling result performed by various TV's? If the PS3 is performing the scaling to 1080p then there's no need for the TV to interpolate and the image the PS3 passes should be relatively uniform. Or am I wrong here?
By the way, one thing that Darknight mentioned that really resonated was that the PS3 scaling solution is not transparent like it is on the 360. Each game must explicitly enable scaling. So it's not something Sony can just fix via a firmware patch or addition. Each game would need a patch to enable it.
MonkeyLicker
Newcomer
Most crt hdtv owners have been having to rely on their tv's scaler since PS3 launched since most accept 720p signals and scale it to 1080i (if I'm not mistaken).
So why put the scaler in there at all? And why enable half of it later? And why target 1080p owners who are in the minority? And crap out your HD movie playback which was a key aspect of your console? And why target 60" screen owners, when most of the world doesn't get such large TVs (AFAIK anyhow. Anyone got a breakdown? In Europe 40" is a big set).
I can't imagine Sony would look at their hardware and knowing it's abilities and limits, decide to try and force developers into targetting 1080p, especially without locking them into 1080p. If you really wanted to do that, you'd only have 1080p as a render resolution and then scale the image to fit smaller res's. That'd mean every 1080p set owner would get native res, and everyone else would get decent quality. Hmmm, perhaps that's the answer! Maybe that's what they intended but then decided 1080p was too much of a load, and decided to allow rendering to lower resolutions?
Still wouldn't explain the disabling of the scaler though.Converting a 720p60 source to 1080i30 on a CRT would be retarded, are there really sets that retarded which can take 1080p60 input?
PS. in an ideal world 720p60 is all that's necessary this generation. 1080p60 is too rare to support, any sets which can take it can take care of their own upscaling perfectly well and 1080i30 is too ridiculously hideous an output format to even consider. The only reason to have a scaler is for DVD playback and for the idiots who like big numbers ... and for DVD playback you could simply implement scaling on the CPU. So the only reason to have a scaler which is left in the end is to please idiots.
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I kinda disagree. 720p60 is good enough for my 32" TV, of course, but I think that 1080p will become the norm for any TV above 32" quite quickly. So games that can afford it (like so many PSN games and probably maybe not ever all, but certainly an increasing amount of BluRay games) will definitely benefit from 1080p, and of course a lot of the media stuff (pictures, movies, internet) benefits from 1080p also.