Lots 'o Embedded DRAM on R500

[Tagrineth]

> It seems 1080i is rare enough on HDTVs (forget about 1080p)

To the renderer it's irrelevant if the output is 1080i or 1080p, the rendering resolution is the same unless you do field rendering with nasty tearing as a result.

Who said SLI is dead?

SLI still outputs a progressive (full-frame) image once all the cores are done.

 

[Pete]

The wink should indicate I was being less than serious, but my apologies for the uneducated joke. I was just thinking that SLI might fit well with interlaced output, but it's probably not worth or even possible to implement.

 

[DeathKnight]

It seems 1080i is rare enough on HDTVs (forget about 1080p) that 720p seems the highest worthwhile target to aim for.

All HDTV's support at least 1080i. In fact, most HDTV's support only 480i, 480p, and 1080i. 720p support isn't that easy to come by (although it is increasing), and native 720p support is somewhat rare. Most sets that do support 720p convert it to either 1080i or even down to 480p (resolutions can vary though since a good deal of TV's convert signals to odd sizes). Obviously more thorough support will increase in the coming years.

To tell you the truth, I don't doubt that next-gen consoles will support HDTV resolutions.

As well you shouldn't doubt it. The Xbox supports both HDTV resolutions and it's in this generation of consoles.

Remember that the X-Box, as an example, supports internal resolutions up to 1024x768, but this is hardly ever used.

This is false. Retail Xbox's have support for 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i. There's no cap at 1024x768. 720p is rendered at 1280x720 and 1080i is rendered at 1920x1080 (rendered in a full progressive frame, then converted to an interlaced signal by the Connexant chip for output). Dragon's Lair 3D is one of the few games that supports 1080i on the Xbox. It's quite stunning at this resolution (even on HDTV's that can't really resolve the full resolution). It's head and shoulders above 480p.

That is, you just don't see games that run at those resolutions, because it's not worth the performance to do so.

I see plenty of games running at HDTV resolutions on the Xbox, and the list is increasing. It may be worth the performance hit to do so on games that otherwise wouldn't really push the system. There are quite a few Xbox games that support 720p (shame for owners of HDTV's that don't support 720p though, including myself) and a couple that support 1080i. It's only going to get more widespread next generation. All three next-gen systems will likely support HDTV resolutions for output.

 

[London Geezer]

Isn't this discussion for the console forum?

Anyway i wouldn't say there are LOADS of Xbox games with HDTV support. A few EA sports games, Dragon Liar, Soul Calibur 2 is not exactly LOADS...

I'm just very very curious if they will do a NO-HDTV-for-PAL-territories thing again next gen....

 

[notAFanB]

I'm just very very curious if they will do a NO-HDTV-for-PAL-territories thing again next gen....

and break tradition?...naaahh..

 

[London Geezer]

I'm just very very curious if they will do a NO-HDTV-for-PAL-territories thing again next gen....

and break tradition?...naaahh..

Well, it's always been like that, first 60Hz (Which still doesn't come for every game on some consoles), now it's pro-scan/HDtv...

It's a race thing isn't it.... It's because we eat bangers and mash and say SHAG... Right...