Killzone: first pics

[London Geezer]

This is just a function of how they developed their game engine. It might be, that if they had the time to re-engineer the engine, they could. But how would they gain? It is the job of game developers to make great games that sell loads; not to meet arbitary technical criteria.

yeah of course, and if the game is good then i'll buy it anyway regardless of pro-scan support. i only say it because the difference between interlaced and pro-scan signals on my TV is like night and day... and it would be nice if the game were in pro-scan, thats all

 

[marconelly!]

But if you are halving screen resolution (on the GS) you could use...well, you should use textures that had half the resolutions if you wante to save space.

So what are you going to do when the object with your 'half-height texture' gets rotated by 90 degrees to the left or right?

 

[gmoran]

This is just a function of how they developed their game engine. It might be, that if they had the time to re-engineer the engine, they could. But how would they gain? It is the job of game developers to make great games that sell loads; not to meet arbitary technical criteria.

yeah of course, and if the game is good then i'll buy it anyway regardless of pro-scan support. i only say it because the difference between interlaced and pro-scan signals on my TV is like night and day... and it would be nice if the game were in pro-scan, thats all

Well of course I'll have to take your word for that, given that mine isn't progressive (DOH).

But I know what you mean, since getting my 5.1 setup 6 months ago, I expect all my PS2 games to support either DTS or DPL2. I'm pleased to see DPL2 in KZ, and I'm hoping for proper (i.e. Burnout style) support for widescreen as well.

 

[London Geezer]

Well of course I'll have to take your word for that, given that mine isn't progressive (DOH).

But I know what you mean, since getting my 5.1 setup 6 months ago, I expect all my PS2 games to support either DTS or DPL2. I'm pleased to see DPL2 in KZ, and I'm hoping for proper (i.e. Burnout style) support for widescreen as well.

YEAH my same thoughts... except for the fact that my receiver doesnt support DPL2.... i mean DTS sounds better and has a tiny little performance hit. the kit is FREE for developers so i dont know why it's not used. at the end of the day there are FAR more receivers that support DTS compared to DPL2. in fact every receiver supports DTS while very few newer ones support DPL2... it sux. and its one of the reasons why i would buy an Xbox if i could get over the uselessness factor... that is apart from 2 or 3 exclusive games that interest me on the thing

 

[ShinHoshi]

So what are you going to do when the object with your 'half-height texture' gets rotated by 90 degrees to the left or right?

I see...Rotating the half size texture 90º would made had half the original horitzontal resolution and in that case we would notice it.
Thanks by the response. Now I understand it.

 

[zurich]

Well of course I'll have to take your word for that, given that mine isn't progressive (DOH).

But I know what you mean, since getting my 5.1 setup 6 months ago, I expect all my PS2 games to support either DTS or DPL2. I'm pleased to see DPL2 in KZ, and I'm hoping for proper (i.e. Burnout style) support for widescreen as well.

YEAH my same thoughts... except for the fact that my receiver doesnt support DPL2.... i mean DTS sounds better and has a tiny little performance hit. the kit is FREE for developers so i dont know why it's not used. at the end of the day there are FAR more receivers that support DTS compared to DPL2. in fact every receiver supports DTS while very few newer ones support DPL2... it sux. and its one of the reasons why i would buy an Xbox if i could get over the uselessness factor... that is apart from 2 or 3 exclusive games that interest me on the thing

Trust me, its hard to go back from DD5.1

 

[London Geezer]

Well of course I'll have to take your word for that, given that mine isn't progressive (DOH).

But I know what you mean, since getting my 5.1 setup 6 months ago, I expect all my PS2 games to support either DTS or DPL2. I'm pleased to see DPL2 in KZ, and I'm hoping for proper (i.e. Burnout style) support for widescreen as well.

YEAH my same thoughts... except for the fact that my receiver doesnt support DPL2.... i mean DTS sounds better and has a tiny little performance hit. the kit is FREE for developers so i dont know why it's not used. at the end of the day there are FAR more receivers that support DTS compared to DPL2. in fact every receiver supports DTS while very few newer ones support DPL2... it sux. and its one of the reasons why i would buy an Xbox if i could get over the uselessness factor... that is apart from 2 or 3 exclusive games that interest me on the thing

Trust me, its hard to go back from DD5.1

i know i know.... thats why i'm frustrated by the one hit wonder appearance of DTS in SSX tricky....... sure it was on some other games, but none of my interest really. seen how small the performance hit is (faf said something like 4% or less), it should be included in pretty much every game....

 

[sir doris]

Well my TV only does DD and not DTS, so SSX Tricky was a bit of a dissapointment, still a great game though. As for DPL2 I'm sure it still works with any reciever that does Pro Logic which is almost 100% I'd imagine as it's still analogue. I think the main diference is that you only get mono effect speakers instead of stereo.

And yeah it's really annoying when you get a game and it doesn't support widescreen, especially after buy one. Must be worse for those with Pro Scan. Although I can understand why maybe the devs didn't think about it, Kill zone is being developed in Europe isn't it? And I don't think I've ever seen a Pro Scan TV in England - not sure if those plamsa TV are pro scan I know most have VGA inputs but at £3K for the cheepest well...

 

[London Geezer]

Well my TV only does DD and not DTS, so SSX Tricky was a bit of a dissapointment, still a great game though. As for DPL2 I'm sure it still works with any reciever that does Pro Logic which is almost 100% I'd imagine as it's still analogue. I think the main diference is that you only get mono effect speakers instead of stereo.

And yeah it's really annoying when you get a game and it doesn't support widescreen, especially after buy one. Must be worse for those with Pro Scan. Although I can understand why maybe the devs didn't think about it, Kill zone is being developed in Europe isn't it? And I don't think I've ever seen a Pro Scan TV in England - not sure if those plamsa TV are pro scan I know most have VGA inputs but at £3K for the cheepest well...

in europe i think the only way to get pro-scan is with plasma or, like me, LCD displays.
some of them only have VGA inputs, but i think most of them have normal pro-scan compatible component inputs.
i'm not exactly sure whether there are any pro-scan compatible CRT TV's in europe. the only ones i've seen are the ones in arcade cabinets, but that doesnt count....

 

[duc]

I think the Philips PixelPlus TV's also support 60Hz NTSC prog-scan. The 75Hz "1664x768" resolution PAL is still interlaced though.

 

[London Geezer]

anyhow, if i didnt know that, it means that they are just not advertising it or not even putting it into the specs sheets.... which is sad really, becuz until people know what pro-scan is, it will never catch up here in EU

 

[rabidrabbit]

Hopefully now that PAL progressive is allowed in DVD players, we'll see more prog scan TV's in Europe.
There is a new Panasoni top model CRT TV that has PS.

 

[Magnum PI]

the Panasonic TX32PH40 (which is a CRT) is said to support both PAL and NTSC progressive scan.

 

[Fafalada]

Are you basically saying that all those big developers compromising image quality in exchange for more texture space, are incompetent?

Putting words into my mouth aren't we?
Anyway, gmoran makes a nice observation in regards to engine design issues. As for your question (slander aside ) in my opinion there is not much, if anything to be gained by compromising IQ etc. to get more static texture space. And any potential gains are far outweighed by the losses.

But to layman it would seem to be a good idea to have a permanent residence for textures that are used often, so you wouldn?t have to resend them over and over again.

The higher the reuse of the texture, the less impact any load penalty has on overal performance (granted I am assuming here your renderer/scene organization is intelligent enough textures won't be loaded multiple times).
The stuff that stands to gain most from permament storage would be single texture uses, say, skymaps, user interface etc.

How small a buffer do you recon it would be possible to get by with, without compromising texture quality?

This will be highly application dependant (as well as what your largest texture size is etc.). Personally I never had problems with texture buffer size, but I had to tinker around some to get large enough effect buffers. And caching wise I benefited more from increasing palette buffer size then texture one
A good 'arbitrary' guess would probably be something like "yourlargest texture size"*2, to allow for double buffering of path3 transfers.

But if you are halving screen resolution (on the GS) you could use...well, you should use textures that had half the resolutions if you wante to save space.

The problem here (aside for what others have pointed out) is also that you are not halving the actual screen resolution at all. The end result on interlaced display (TV) is still full 480 lines - rendering it interlaced just means you don't render lines that are invisible on current frame.
In other words, even if the 'half height' textures could work as you thought, you would need two sets of them - one for odd and one for even interlace frame - meaning you wouldn't be saving anything after all

 

[ShinHoshi]

Hmmm...Fafalada, just a question. Aren't interlaced frames rendered in different stages ?
Just supposing we use what I said (even it's a proven fact by what other members have said, that is not a good idea):
I mean that the even frame is rendered using the set of even textures. And then you render the odd frame using the set of odd textures. That way you sure save space, don't you ?
If in a different way, you rendered the odd frame using the full texture and then the even frame using the full texture, then you would need more space.


Probably I am wrong since I have never worked at a such low level in rendering.

 

[notAFanB]

I mean that the even frame is rendered using the set of even textures. And then you render the odd frame using the set of odd textures. That way you sure save space, don't you ?

where are you storing the texture?

 

[London Geezer]

AM i the only one here not completely grasping the concept of half frame textures?? :?

 

[cybamerc]

london-boy:

> i'm not exactly sure whether there are any pro-scan compatible CRT
> TV's in europe.

There are. Selection is still fairly limited but support is increasing.



duc:

> I think the Philips PixelPlus TV's also support 60Hz NTSC prog-scan

Certain Philips models convert a 60 Hz signal to prog scan via an internal deinterlacer but they can display a native prog scan signal.

In general you can be pretty sure that if the TV doesn't have component in it won't do proper prog scan. Of course component in isn't a guarantee for proper prog scan OTOH.



rabidrabbit:

> Hopefully now that PAL progressive is allowed in DVD players

PAL progressive spec has been finalized to my understanding and as you might have noticed support is increasing. Lots of companies are now supporting PAL progressive with their DVD players eventhough their TVs don't (e.g., Sony and Philips)



Magnum PI:

> the Panasonic TX32PH40 (which is a CRT) is said to support both PAL
> and NTSC progressive scan.

Panasonic 32PH40, 32PS20 (cheaper version of PH40), 32/36PD30 support PAL and NTSC progressive (not just via internal deinterlacer like previous models). I think there's a 36PL35 coming as well that should support it.

Several Toshiba models support PAL and NTSC progressive.

JVC HV-32D25 support PAL and NTSC progressive and doesn't force widescreen unlike the Panasonics and Toshibas.

Loewe supports prog scan via VGA and component but unfortunately they don't have a regular component in (you need a special cable).

There are probably others. Some projection screens are starting to support progressive as well.

 

[notAFanB]

AM i the only one here not completely grasping the concept of half frame textures?? :?

you're not the only one

unless you are discarding the odd/even texture data no space is saved regardless.

EDIT: a little OT maybe this query should be taken elsewhere?

 

[London Geezer]

thanx cybamerc.

notAfanB, i just dont get the idea of half frame textures.............

is it because i'm missing something or is it because it's a stupid idea?