RSX and 1080p games.

[Megadrive1988]

high-end 1080p next-generation.... or i should say next-next generation games, will not be practical until PlayStation4 sometime in the early part of the next decade.

once:
-1080p sets are commenplace
-console GPUs have enough fillrate, bandwidth, etc to support 1080p games at playable/smooth framrates
-the next-next gen of consoles has launched in 5-6 years.

 

[alex2792]

Can't wait to play MGS4 with dual 1080p displays running at 120fps!!!!



Oh wait they took that out

 

[Fafalada]

You're trding off 2x the work/pixel for 2x the Res

Except in real world the tradeoff will rarely be anywhere near 2x - unless somehow all games become 100% GPU limited in the future.
Which is possible, but somehow I doubt we've seen the end of people running into the CPU wall first.

Granted - there's also cases of people making decisions based on using completely wrong context for benchmarks, but that's an issue of human factor rather then actual limitations of hw/sw.

Of course with market size being the way it is, any kind of tradeoff to support 1080 is not really worth it (and at the very least, 1080p will sacrifice more memory).

 

[Inane_Dork]

Given the fixed nature of consoles, I wouldn't be surprised if the 2x figure is closer than you think.

At any rate, going with 720p then adding AA seems to be the smarter choice than going with 1080p. Everyone can enjoy 720p with AA, and the hardware is built to handle it pretty well.

 

[mckmas8808]

Given the fixed nature of consoles, I wouldn't be surprised if the 2x figure is closer than you think.

At any rate, going with 720p then adding AA seems to be the smarter choice than going with 1080p. Everyone can enjoy 720p with AA, and the hardware is built to handle it pretty well.

Wont a game made in 1080p being played on 720p TV give the player automatic 2xAA?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If downscaled, yes, but that's expensive Hi Quality AA. 720p with MSAA is a lot less demanding than 1080p downsampled. MSAA doesn't antialise textures/surfaces, so you only render one sample for each pixel. At 1080p you've twice the pixels, twice the samples to render, and downsampled that gives you your 2x SSAA, but you're doing twice the work.

 

[sonyps35]

Stealing a bit for Acert, personally, I\'d prefer 720P games that are well done vs 1080p games that might be short on graphicsl content and compleity just to achieve this goal. Am I too off in thinking that true 1080P will likely not happen in this generation but would be a fair goal for the PS4?

I\'m not sure it\'s a slam dunk even for PS4.

People have attacked microsoft\'s mandatory 720P rule on the basis, probably that they\'re microsoft, but also the idea that a developer might prefer to do a more graphicaly impressive game at 640X480, perhaps using motion blur, etc to smooth out the ugly resolution.

But that same logic applies about 100X more for 720P vs 1080P. 720P is HUGELY better than 640X480, 1080P will only be a incremental improvement over 720P. There is diminishing returns on resolutions.

 

[Fafalada]

Given the fixed nature of consoles, I wouldn't be surprised if the 2x figure is closer than you think.

Vast majority of console titles from PS2/XBox generation were CPU limited. If that trend persists(I'm not saying it will), we'll be a long way from 1080P imposing a 2x hit on performance.

If downscaled, yes, but that's expensive Hi Quality AA

Actually the "hi-quality" is debatable because of samples being arranged on ordered grid, so it's far from being a guranteed win, quality wise. If we could supersample with programmable sample positions it would be a different matter...

 

[zed]

I\'m not sure it\'s a slam dunk even for PS4.

People have attacked microsoft\'s mandatory 720P rule on the basis, probably that they\'re microsoft, but also the idea that a developer might prefer to do a more graphicaly impressive game at 640X480, perhaps using motion blur, etc to smooth out the ugly resolution.

But that same logic applies about 100X more for 720P vs 1080P. 720P is HUGELY better than 640X480, 1080P will only be a incremental improvement over 720P. There is diminishing returns on resolutions.

wasnt pgr3 less than 720p (if so then ms are flexible)
also WRT 1080p is quite a big improvement over 720p check the graphic here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/720p

 

[Shifty Geezer]

also WRT 1080p is quite a big improvement over 720p check the graphic here

No-one's suggesting 1080p doesn't have a huge theoretical beneift, but the question whether it'll be perceived much better. Eg which is better, a Camera+Printer combo that prints 5000 dpi or a camera+printer that prints 10000 dpi? That latter in theory, but the results will be indestinguishable. Will 1080p games actually look better? That's something that really needs side by side comparison on suitable TVs. I expect quality wise it will, seeing how much better 720p is over SDTV, and I think some simple games would benefit, but on the whole its not going to make a huge difference in visual fidelity, for a marked decrease in rendering power per pixel.

 

[Arwin]

1080i or 1080p make a difference when games are moving, but it makes an even bigger difference when images are static.

I think what many forget is that 1080p is great for the PS3 built in Browser, for instance. Even if not a single game would use it, the PS3 XMB, photos, videos, and so on, will look a lot better on a nice big screen. I for one won't mind if I one day get a nice TV that I can use for both browsing and gaming, watching tvs, downloaded movies, and so on.

And if Linux PS3 will really happen (I'm going to remain sceptical, because I want it too much), then 1080p is another great blessing.

 

[kyleb]

Actually the "hi-quality" is debatable because of samples being arranged on ordered grid, so it's far from being a guranteed win, quality wise. If we could supersample with programmable sample positions it would be a different matter...

Yeah, displays don't downsample in a way suited to remove aliasing, but rather to retain detail. Even on my ED plasma games rendered at 1080p with no AA have very obvious jaggies.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

By downsampling I was assuming the PS3 woud do it, a simple Bilinear resampling from 1080p to 720p, which should provide reasonable quality especially for textures at 2 samples per pixel. That's acutally an unknown for PS3 at the moment - how does it deal with different resolution outputs? I guess this could be part of the OS reserved SPE function, scaling for different outputs.

 

[darkblu]

Except in real world the tradeoff will rarely be anywhere near 2x - unless somehow all games become 100% GPU limited in the future.
Which is possible, but somehow I doubt we've seen the end of people running into the CPU wall first.

Faf, you did see the GTHD footage, didn't you?

from my totally consumer's perspective wrt GT, i really expect the next GT to up the visaul ante, not present me with GT4 at 1080 sans the juicy fill-rate taxing effects of the ps2 original. i really don't want a fill-rate starved GT4 at 1080!

 

[nAo]

i really don't want a fill-rate starved GT4 at 1080!

they better write a sw rasterizer then...

btw.. even in GPU limited scenarion 2x the pixels don't get you a 2x slowdown, in fact bigger triangles gives more opportunities for color/z compression and also increase shading quads efficiency (more full quads to shade..)

 

[kyleb]

There are bound to be drawbacks to using twice the pixels as well though, eh? At least on the PC side a particular rig might run a game at 1024x768 while keeping a respectable minimum framerate but tank to well under half that minimum when trying to push 1600x1200.

 

[zed]

No-one's suggesting 1080p doesn't have a huge theoretical beneift, but the question whether it'll be perceived much better. Eg which is better, a Camera+Printer combo that prints 5000 dpi or a camera+printer that prints 10000 dpi? That latter in theory, but the results will be indestinguishable.

whilst that would be a valid point if monitors + cards gave us 1000's dpi (but theyre not even close to 200dpi ) everyone (even my half blind grandma) can distingwish between 1080p + 720p, esp on a big HD tv
1080p is espicially useful for non game uses eg browsing the internet etc.

At least on the PC side a particular rig might run a game at 1024x768 while keeping a respectable minimum framerate but tank to well under half that minimum when trying to push 1600x1200.

well 1600x1200 is more than 2x the number of pixels, but say its in fact twice as much (math leeway), this statement is false (and benchmarks will back me up) the only case where it could be true is if youve used up all the cards memory with the higher resolution

 

[darkblu]

they better write a sw rasterizer then...

well, i'd venture to say they could do some better stuff at lower res, without going to the extremes of ps2 bandwidth.

btw.. even in GPU limited scenarion 2x the pixels don't get you a 2x slowdown, in fact bigger triangles gives more opportunities for color/z compression and also increase shading quads efficiency (more full quads to shade..)

Marco, it's not the slowdown they give you while keeping the same quality, it's the wasted opportunity for massive gains at the original resolution.

that's the whole gripe i have with this whole friggin console generation.. i mean, 2/3rds of it. i understand that sony have hdtv's to sell, and that ms marketing are 'me too' on a morning basis, but that does not make me any happier.

 

[Fafalada]

from my totally consumer's perspective wrt GT, i really expect the next GT to up the visaul ante, not present me with GT4 at 1080 sans the juicy fill-rate taxing effects of the ps2 original.

What effects were missing? I haven't really paid much attention but it looked pretty identical to GT4 from quick glance.

At any rate, I don't know why people were expecting anything more - PD has not exactly set any precedents for their ability to make techdemos/showcase the new hardware.
GT2k for PS2 was exact same thing as GTHD - previous gen assets with slight upgrades running in higher resolution.
The only difference is that this E3, there was no RidgeRacer on PS3 to completely embarass GT's showing like what happened at TGS 1999.

The real question is what posessed Sony to dedicate so much conference time to it.

 

[Megadrive1988]

GT5 running in 720p, with 4x FSAA, 60fps that has visual assets that are WAY beyond PS2 GT4 and PS3 GTHD, would be fine with me.