Predict: Next gen console tech (9th iteration and 10th iteration edition) [2014 - 2017]

[SlickShoesRUCrazy]

I expect new consoles between 2018-2020. by then, we will know if VR has a viable consumer future.

I would think that if VR has a future, the console manufactures will want the tech under the hood to be able to do vr with games that have quality of graphics of games that come out later this gen at minimum.

 

[London Geezer]

I said it before. My crystal ball said that, if anything, we'll get in-between resolutions upscaled to 4k. And that will be just fine.

 

[McHuj]

If the next-gen consoles were to come in 2018, I would expect serious work to begin on them sometime this year. Early dev kits would probably be going out in 2017.

It just seems early at this point especially given how slowly tech is evolving. If we do get a stacked memory GPU and some FinFet chips, maybe but if we don't get advancement I would expect MS and Sony to wait until a generational leap can be achieved.

 

[Rangers]

Maybe they will render games in some halfway between 1080 and 4k resolution. I could see that. Also depends on 4k TV adoption then. It kind of looks to me like 4K is just going to be something your TV does for "free" eventually (It wont be a price premium, just eventually 4k prices will come down to where 1080P already is). Because from what I can tell 4k prices are already plummeting rapidly. Still, hard to say whether a majority of TV's in homes will be 4k in just 4-5 years.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

4k prices are stupidly low relative to other TV tech price reductions. £500 for an LG 4k smart TV now. Of course, 4k isn't terribly useful unless you have a really big screen, so you'll have to spend more, but still, the price of entry has plummeted.

But as others say, it's immaterial. The processing requirements for 4k are 4x 1080p for a very limited improvement. 1080p with excellent AA and upscaled will look plenty good enough and not waste anything on the majority 1080p displays. It'll probably be an option for devs, and most will probably ignore it, like every generation (PS360 could do 1080p, most did less; PS4/XB1 could do 1080p, many games are doing less).

If VR is to take off, it'll likely need foveated rendering. Anything else is a gross waste. (Although I do have my suspicions that foveated rendering could be too laggy to actually work problem free and we might be stuck with brute-forcing).

 

[function]

"Beyond 1080p" would mostly be about marketing. I'm already tiring of hearing how good 1080 content looks at 4k ("OMG my Xbox games look so good at 4k zomg!!!!One1"), but the perception absolutely does matter to some people.

Impact for most users would be minimal, but the bragging rights would be greater - just as they are this gen for 1080.

 

[Davros]

I'm surprised at the negativity towards 4k all the reviews of it have been positive. Are you judging it on up scaled 1080 or 4k native content
Thee is another alternative and that is 4k doesn't become popular but 21:9 UltraWide QHD 3440X1440 tv's does.

 

[BRiT]

@Davros ,

So far all the consumer available 4K sets have shit resolution for motion, which is everything unless you're staring at still pictures. I'd rather have quality pixels, not quantity pixels. Perhaps that explains the negativity towards 4K as it exists today.

 

[Davros]

I dont know what you mean by resolution for motion

 

[BRiT]

I dont know what you mean by resolution for motion

Not still shots. A lot of the TV sets have lower resolution when the image is in motion (moving). For instance if you look at a lot of the 1080p sets from a couple years back. There are a lot of TV sets out there that have the magic 1080p number specified but when you're not looking at still shots it's only able to show 300-600 unique pixels, not the full 1080 pixels. So a lot of the cheap sets might display 1080p unique pixels only when the video input is not changing, but as soon as the video input shows movement the set only displays 600p or lower.

Last I checked into this, the same situation is happening on all those 4K sets. They may display 4K unique pixels but only when displaying a still image. As soon as the input signal is changing (or the video is in motion) then the number of unique pixels it's capable of displaying drops significantly.

From what I understand, it could be that the electronics of the TV set isn't fast enough to resolve all the pixels when the image is changing or it could be that the screen-display don't change fast enough to actually draw all the unique values required.

This is the quickest summary of the matter I could immediately find. For the real meat of the situation you'd have to read expert forums (such as AVSForums) and a good handful of qualified reviews.

excepts from http://forums.hdtvtest.co.uk/index.php?topic=7377.0

---
It's a fairly simple test that measures how well the TV can resolve thin lines on various types of gray background. In the past, it was enough to differentiate performance, but now you're seeing the limitations of the pattern. When you add various real life colours and shades (as in actual content) you still need a trained eye to spot performance differences and can't go on the number alone.
---
It's measured by various tests like the motion test on FPD Benchmark Blu-Ray.
Here's how it looks:

The number of lines which you can clearly distinguish in motion is the actual percieved resolution.

 

[BRiT]

@Davros

One more bit about 4K vs 1080p, have a reread of RobertR1's first post from here where he's comparing a 4K set with a 1080p set: https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/4k-gaming-and-viewing-review.55287/

My recommendation for now would be to wait for the 2nd gen of 4k displays. What good is a bump in resolution if you lose most of it when things start moving on the screen?
~~~
Resolution:
Static resolution is the area where the 4K Sony shines beautifully. Give it static or slow moving images and the resolution bump is beautiful. BluRay's and HD DVD's that do not contain a lot of action look great. For gaming, AutoVista in Forza 5 looks phenomenal. Even thought these are 1080p sources, the upscaling to 4K is a very noticeable benefit. Unfortunately, this is where the set starts showing major limitations.

Once motion is introduced the effects of 4K start to diminish rapidly. By the time you're dealing with fast paced action or games, the Pioneer actually seems to preserve the quality better. This set is simply not able to keep up with fast motion while preserving resolution quality.

 

[Davros]

I read the post
but he is judging 4k with upscaled 1080 so no wonder. id get similar results if i judged a 1080 set using upscaled vga or 720p and if I tried to review a 1080 set using upscaled content b3d readers would rightly tear me apart
granted ive not seen 4k in the flesh but I have seen 3240x1920 and 5292x1050 with native content and it was fantastic

 

[BRiT]

I read the post
but he is judging 4k with upscaled 1080 so no wonder. id get similar results if i judged a 1080 set using upscaled vga or 720p and if I tried to review a 1080 set using upscaled content b3d readers would rightly tear me apart
granted ive not seen 4k in the flesh but I have seen 3240x1920 and 5292x1050 with native content and it was fantastic

the main point you need to know is TV sets are not equal when displaying static content versus dynamic content. It's a marketing game. The 4K number is on static content and typically on dynamic content they are worse than the best 1080p sets.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I could maybe see 1920x2160 (a realistic target at double 1080p) with something like Killzone Shadow Fall's temporal reprojection to get there. I'm kind of waiting for the next stab at it on current gen. Then there's dynamic resolution and all that, which will also probably see some more development in current gen.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

the main point you need to know is TV sets are not equal when displaying static content versus dynamic content. It's a marketing game. The 4K number is on static content and typically on dynamic content they are worse than the best 1080p sets.

My Bravia X8505 came with a Blu-ray disc which has 60Hz 4K video from the 2014 World Cup. I've copied some of these to a USB stick and played them on the TV and the playback is nothing short of phenomenal.

Obviously if you buy a budget 4K set, your hardware is going to come with compromises.

 

[London Geezer]

Motion resolution is a very real thing, and it's one of the most important aspects of a TV you should worry about, if you're after good IQ at all of course. Most people don't care, hence why they end up with budget LCDs of any resolution, regardless of 4k.

 

[Davros]

Im having a real problem getting my head round this "Motion resolution" thing and im sure your getting mixed up some sort of post processing the tv is doing (which should be disabled if your gaming) or poor upscaling where the tv is inventing pixels that arnt present in the original signal and doing a bad job. Why would motion lower the quality ? The tv is displaying 1 static frame after another shouldn't make a difference if those frames are identical or different we are long past the days of panels not being able to keep up with 60hz.
Plus a few people have said they've seen 4k TV's but Dsoup is the only one who has categorically stated "yes ive seen a 4k tv with native 60Hz 4K content" and he's not saying "when the image is moving I see a massive resolution drop"

ps: Dsoup when viewing native 4k content can you freeze frame ?
If so could you double check for any drop in perceived res

 

[BRiT]

Im having a real problem getting my head round this "Motion resolution" thing and im sure your getting mixed up some sort of post processing the tv is doing (which should be disabled if your gaming) or poor upscaling where the tv is inventing pixels that arnt present in the original signal and doing a bad job. Why would motion lower the quality ? The tv is displaying 1 static frame after another shouldn't make a difference if those frames are identical or different we are long past the days of panels not being able to keep up with 60hz.

Basically its because some TV displays are not fast enough to display all the unique pixels when they change between frames. Not all of them have high quality displays or high quality enough electronics that can transition between the previous pixel color and the new pixel color in the limited time frame (1 frame). This happens regardless of the video source. This happens on 1080p sets with 1080p content and even some low end 720p sets with 720p content and on 4k sets with 4k content.

Yes we should be past all this, but it's how manufactures are able to make cheaper TV sets. They cheap out. To lower the price they use lesser quality parts. You don't think they're magically able to lower the price without dropping something like quality? There is no such thing as a free lunch. They also do this because the common person can not tell. The common person can only tell that on the set it says 1080p or 4k and that it only costs Xbox dollors/euros/pounds/rupees/pesos/yen.

This happens even with all post processing disabled. Go have a long lengthy read up on this subject at the expert forums hinted at previously to catch up on the issue of motion resolution.

 

[function]

When I was picking a new gaming telly a couple of years ago, I found that within my budget a 1024 x 768 plasma retained detail better than any of the sub £500 1080p LCDs on offer. That was one of the reasons I picked it (actually there were lots, Plasma 4evar). The high end Sony and Panasonic 1080ps compared well to the 768 plasma for motion resolution but were, well, out of my budget.

Last year I got a 1080p Panny plasma. Mmmmmmmm dreamy. Except it has awful input lag and so I still prefer the jolly-low-lag 768 for gaming on.

In addition to overscan (no, son, you are not looking at native 1080p so don't give that "I'm sensitive to upscaling" nonsense) most people still game on displays that turn to shit soup when things start moving.

 

[sebbbi]

Some people can't even see the difference between 720p and 1080p. 4K will be a much smaller difference (diminishing returns). I don't believe 4K will become a popular game rendering resolution in the next generation (4x higher pixel processing costs). 1080p with 4x higher quality pixels (more realistic materials and lighting) should deliver better image quality in most scenarios. You'd have to have massive GPU performance to have a case where 4K looks better than 1080p.

1080p TVs are starting to become the norm right now, but there are still lots of "HD Ready" (~720p) sets being sold. I don't expect big audiences to have 4K TV sets when the next generation launches. I don't believe 4K gaming to be a big priority for next gen consoles. 4K video output on the other hand has to be a standard feature (for 4K BR movies and streaming services).