Revolution will not support HD (official)

[darkblu]

Notice the trends in videogame consoles.

94-96: The introduction to true 3D games.

99-01: The introduction of online gaming.

05-06: The introduction to HD gaming.

are you trying to give us a merketing presentation?

Thats how big this HD gaming thing is. HD gaming actually does offer a different gameplay expirence and isn't just a cosmetic change. Having the ability to see more things on the screen, seeing further into the level, and things on the screen being more clear and crisp gameplay can change competely.

i don't see exaclty how having to burn more fillrate and bandwidth to represent the same scene would allow you to 'see more things on the screen, seeing further into the level', and even less so how it 'can change gameplay competely', unless you mean lower framerates : )

Imagine Burnout 5 in 720p or 1080p. Going 200 mph zipping through city traffic is not easy, but its fun as hell. Doing it in HD will be triple the fun. Only people who have actually seen HD programming can vouch for this.

you are kidding us, right? since when did realtime computer graphics reach the level where you can direclty compare HD tv programming with HD console rendition?

let me try help with your completely wrong analogy - imagine watching SD programming versus watching a same genre HD console game. which would look better?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The main advantage real TV has over computer generated imagery is an insane amount of AA, meaning no jaggies. To get the same picture quality you'd need a good 16x AA I think. And if your system can handle that, it can handle 1080p without AA.

Saying 'no HDTV' suggests to me only minimal AA on SDTV

 

[darkblu]

:? When did I say hi-res textures are the be all and end all of good CGs? Plus AA is more important than HDR. If given a choice between existing visuals at 4x AA or HDR at no AA, I'll take the AA thanks. Jaggies do more to destory the quality of visuals than absence of HDR, much of HDR's optical effects being readily fakeable.

how exactly do 'existing visuals' get to 'existing visuals with HDR'? once you introduce HDR your orignianl 'existing visuals' are already surpassed greatly in photorealism, which you cannot counter even with infinite AA.

 

[Shark Sandwich]

i don't see exaclty how having to burn more fillrate and bandwidth to represent the same scene would allow you to 'see more things on the screen, seeing further into the level', and even less so how it 'can change gameplay competely', unless you mean lower framerates : )

Higher resolution lets you see more detail from farther away. Look at a game like FF: Crystal Chronicles. Your characters have awesome levels of detail, with realistic looking fur and everything, yet 99 percent of the time your character is a little blob of 1000 pixels and you can't see any of the detail. If the resolution were higher, you'd be able to make out a lot more of that detail. It's kind of sad to see games like this, where most of the time you can't even make out all the detail the artists put into the characters, becuse they're too far away most of the time.

You can also see objects you wouldn't be able to see otherwise. Look at FPS games. The higher your resolution is, the further away you can see your opponents. This obviously does change the nature of the gameplay.

 

[JasonLD]

I don't think that is really smart move by Nintendo..You can still play Xbox360 or PS3 in the standard def. Are they planning to make profit from the hardware from the beginning? And why would supporting HD wouldn't be beneficial to the gamers? We want HD..Nintendo doesn't want to support it only because they want to cut the cost of hardware..

 

[Shark Sandwich]

I don't think that is really smart move by Nintendo..You can still play Xbox360 or PS3 in the standard def. Are they planning to make profit from the hardware from the beginning? And why would supporting HD wouldn't be beneficial to the gamers? We want HD..Nintendo doesn't want to support it only because they want to cut the cost of hardware..

My impression (as someone else pointed out before) is that it's to save money on development costs rather than hardware. It does cost more to design high-res textures, more detailed models, things like that.

I can see where Nintendo is coming from with that, but I can't see why they couldn't at least leave it up to the developers whether to support HD or not. Sure, Mario Tennis and Super Monkey Ball might not benefit much from HD, but Metroid Prime and Resident Evil sure would. This is a big disappointment.

 

[darkblu]

The main advantage real TV has over computer generated imagery is an insane amount of AA, meaning no jaggies.

many would disagree regarding the 'main advantage' of TV.. for example, the 'insane amounts' of phisically true lighting with 'ridiculously high' HDR and 'infinite' raytracing may contribute too : ) but yes, you're right, tv has generally good amounts of AA.

To get the same picture quality you'd need a good 16x AA I think. And if your system can handle that, it can handle 1080p without AA.

again, you keep equating picture quality with anti-aliasing. and then you ask me where you said it was the end-all-be-all.

Saying 'no HDTV' suggests to me only minimal AA on SDTV

which may not be a bad thing (tm). why don't we wait and see what _else_ do they have in their GPU sleeves before ctrying tears for the lack of HD?

 

[PC-Engine]

Look at a game like FF: Crystal Chronicles. Your characters have awesome levels of detail, with realistic looking fur and everything, yet 99 percent of the time your character is a little blob of 1000 pixels and you can't see any of the detail. If the resolution were higher, you'd be able to make out a lot more of that detail.

Huh? I have the game. Your character is as big as a Zelda character from the SNES. That's not small.

Anyway as long as they support widescreen with some good AA, I can live with it. Think about it, when you're watching something like Shrek, Monsters, or FFTSW, do you complain about the resolution? If they support DVD widescreen resolution with good AA then it isn't that big of an issue. Resolution is not the end all be all in visual quality.

 

[mckmas8808]

And online gaming isn't the end all be all to this generation, yet it still hurt Nintendo. It's plain as day that Nintendo screwed up not support HD. While everybody else's games will be bright and crisp clear, while their will not. In the HD-era this is not a good thing.

 

[Shark Sandwich]

Huh? I have the game. Your character is as big as a Zelda character from the SNES. That's not small.

Well maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration. Still, I remember playing CC with some friends, and every time we saw a close-up of our characters we thought "WOW, since when did they look this good?" The fact remains that, in a game like CC, there is a LOT of detail you just can't see most of the time becaue the resolution isn't high enough.

 

[pc999]

In Europe that dont bother much, at least not me.

 

[darkblu]

And online gaming isn't the end all be all to this generation, yet it still hurt Nintendo.

you think so? i'd say oline gaming this generation was the least thing to hurt ninty, but that's just my opinion.

It's plain as day that Nintendo screwed up not support HD. While everybody else's games will be bright and crisp clear, while their will not. In the HD-era this is not a good thing.

you sure you didn't mean '..while evetybody else's HD-DVDs will be bright and clear..' ? because that's the only definitive advantage one can attribute to HD support. then again, Revolution is not expected to play DVDs, so that's kinda moot.

 

[Teasy]

Revolution will not support HD (official)

Where does any Nintendo official say "Revolution will not be able to display in HDTV resolutions" in that article?

All I see is a Nintendo official saying that Nintendo will not support HDTV. Nintendo didn't use bump mapping either.. doesn't mean GC couldn't do bump mapping if a developer wanted to use it.

Before ever anti Nintendo fanboy leaps on me. I don't know nor do I claim to know wether or not Revolution will support HDTV resolutions. What I'm not about to do is take something like this as a 'official confirmation' either way.

We'll see the actual truth when Revolution is unvieled.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The main advantage real TV has over computer generated imagery is an insane amount of AA, meaning no jaggies.

To get the same picture quality you'd need a good 16x AA I think. And if your system can handle that, it can handle 1080p without AA.

again, you keep equating picture quality with anti-aliasing. and then you ask me where you said it was the end-all-be-all.

I'm talking about why AA's important now. Where before then did I say it's 'the be all and end all'? Um...I didn't

It only needs a little imagination to see AA is more important than HDR or other tricks. Imagine GT4 as is on the PS2, only with added HDR. You'll have nicely lit pixels, but jaggy edges and shimmer and so forth. Now imagine GT4 as is on the PS2 but with 16x supersampling. No jaggies, no shimmer. No matter how well lit a scene is, or how high quality the textures are, or how many polys you've got, if you've got jaggies and shimmer it's gonna look poor, especially stretched over a modern large-screen TV. FF-X is a classic example of where jaggies and shimmer totally destroy the visuals, That game would look a lot more like a cartoon with decent AA, but as it is it's a series of stepped lines

Saying 'no HDTV' suggests to me only minimal AA on SDTV

which may not be a bad thing (tm). why don't we wait and see what _else_ do they have in their GPU sleeves before ctrying tears for the lack of HD?

Like I say, no matter how many other rendering features they have, even real-time raytracing, no antialiasing at SDTV is going to look very poor next to XB360 and PS3. And if they have the power for AA, they have the power for HD, so not including it suggests to me IQ will suffer.

UNLESS...Nintendo are pushing for visual quality on standard TVs (the major viewing plaform for next-gen gamers) by forcing high (9/16x AA?) without providing any HD output. That is, they have the power to render a hires display but are choosing not to include hardware to output that display.

 

[Shark Sandwich]

Revolution will not support HD (official)

Where does any Nintendo official say "Revolution will not be able to display in HDTV resolutions?"

All I see is a Nintendo official saying that Nintendo will not support HDTV. Which could very well mean they will not make HDTV resolution Mario, Zelda ect

From that blurb quoted in the first post:

Nintendo doesn't plan for the system to be HD compatible as with that comes a higher price for both the consumer and also the developer creating the game.

I take this to mean that it will be incapable of outputting HD resolutions.

 

[Teasy]

Wait, are we talking about being able to connect to a HDTV or are we talking about being able to support HD resolutions? Because you don't have to use a HDTV to display a high res signal (I'm talking about PC monitor support).

I can see that not including a HDTV output can save a little bit of money in a console. But limiting the display resolution won't save anything (unless the rumoured amount of eDram on the GPU is completelly off the mark).

 

[Geeforcer]

Wait, are we talking about being able to connect to a HDTV or are we talking about being able to support HD resolutions? Because they are two different things. Not including the ability to connect to a HDTV can save money in a console (though I wouldn't have thought it was significant). But not including the ability to display high res won't save any money for anyone (I'm talking monitor support here).

Since I don't see how lack of HDTV jacks would be "saving money to developers", it seems to me they are talking about no HD resolution support.

 

[Ozymandis]

Wow. Revolution is fast turning into a joke.

I don't understand at this point why Nintendo is even releasing a new console. It's the technological progression that makes new systems worth buying... at this point, Rev isn't offering anything in that regard.

 

[Teasy]

Since I don't see how lack of HDTV jacks would be "saving money to developers", it seems to me they are talking about no HD resolution support.

How does limiting the allowed resolution save developers any money though?

I think that comment is just about not forcing developers to support the resolution (like MS are doing).

So they won't include a HDTV connector and (obviously) won't force devs to support HD resolutions. I don't see any reason to force a lower res on a console though (if a developer decided to support it).

 

[ERP]

But limiting the allowed resolutions doesn't save developers money either.

No but you need 1/3 of the fillrate and pixel shader computation rate to get "equivalent" graphics since 480p has 1/3 the pixels of 720p.

That probably saves Nintendo money.

Just a thought.