SDTV owners and next-gen systems - beware?

[darkblu]

re the look of xb360 titles on SD:

a 3rd party 360 developer who has done titles for all three platforms last gen, said that this time (with xb360) emphasis is on games looking good on HD, with little to no concern about how they look on SD - and that according to him was MS official stance.

take that as you wish.

 

[scooby_dooby]

that sounds ridiculous. With 80% of the market in the US (and even more worldwide) still on SDTV, you better believe they are going to make the games loook damn good.

 

[rosman]

You have to remember that from ps1 to ps2, there was a resolution increase too. A ps2 game in 320*240 wouldn't have looked so good, many details compared to ps1 games would have a lot hidden by resolution.

 

[Sovere]

This is the hi-def era people! SDTV will not be getting the same treatment as it did on the Xbox it's not going to happen not necessarily saying that SDTV owners will be screwed but from the tone of the marketing campaign, SDTV is not as high on MS priority list for the 360.

 

[BTOA]

Its oblivious that the scaler chip MS put inside the Xbox 360 will do the job just fine. Since developers can make games run in a lower resolution then 1280x720 (1024x600 for PGR3) and just upscale or downscale the resolution with the scaler chip to meet the resolution demand of the user.

SDTV should be fine.

 

[darkblu]

unfortunately a scaler that can guarantee you that does not exist. there are various rendition techniques reliant on the fact that their output will not be down/up-sampled, so passing their output through any scaler would produce arbitrary-deviating results. remember the effect of SSAA on certain textual/GUI elements in pc games back when SSAA was the only option for FSAA?

 

[Serenity Painted Death]

That really wasn't encouraging at all for CoD2...

"at SD resolutions, it looks better than ABOUT ANY Xbox shooter"

Meaning that at standard resolutions, there are better looking games. I doubt this is true, but I don't see how that is positive :/.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Its oblivious that the scaler chip MS put inside the Xbox 360 will do the job just fine. Since developers can make games run in a lower resolution then 1280x720 (1024x600 for PGR3) and just upscale or downscale the resolution with the scaler chip to meet the resolution demand of the user.

Just because they allowed an exception at launch, on a flagship 1st party game that HAD to make launch day, doesn't mean developers are now allowed to simply scale up lower resolution games.

 

[PARANOiA]

Meh. I have a HDTV and am very glad for the shift. Anyone who has games at a higher resolution than SDTV - including PC gaming - will tell you to move out of the 90's and upgrade out of 640x480.

 

[BTOA]

Just because they allowed an exception at launch, on a flagship 1st party game that HAD to make launch day, doesn't mean developers are now allowed to simply scale up lower resolution games.

Only time will tell.

 

[Fafalada]

Just because they allowed an exception at launch

Who said there was an exception?

There are mandated requirements for minimum res and aspect ratio support, afaik no title is breaking them yet (not PGR3 either). Whether public PR was completely honest about what is mandated is another matter.

That said, explicit 4:3 and SDTV support are 'not' mandated - so unless developer will go out of the way to do it, you will get auto-scaled letterboxed output on SD.

 

[darkblu]

so much about xb360 games looking 'darn good' on sd.

 

[Magnum PI]

Some uninformed SDTV owner will have a very bad surprise when they'll plug the console in their TV, expecting same IQ as in the kiosk..

Let just hope next games will be optimised anough to offer more to SDTV owners.

If it is not the case it will mean that the SDTV owners, still the majority of the consumers (esp. worldwide) were forgotten, being offered not much added value in a next gen expensive console.

Why wouldn't STDV owners be able to enjoy a real improvement ?

* Despite still being the majority, there are considered as a secondary target

* The architecture and/or components of a HD-able console were optimized for HD and not suited to provide a better SDTV console

* We reached the limits of what SDTV can provide.

Each one these cases is adressed by revolution:

As it is only SDTV capable you can be sure the console will be tailored for SDTV and games will be optimized for SDTV.

If we reached the limits of SDTV, revolution would be the console with the more added value to SDTV owners, thanks to the controller.

I'm a SDTV owner not willing to invest in HDTV anytime soon, why would I spend lots of cash for an HDTV product ?

 

[kyleb]

I heard a nasty rumor that both Kameo and PDZ are actually rendering at 640x480 when running in 480i/p. I didn't put much stock into this story at all as that would be simply moronic when the scaler in the 360 can downsample the high resolution render and effectively give "free" SSAA to SD users. However, just now I stumbled across this comparison and that game is obviously rendered at a far lower resolution when set to output 480p. How in the world could MS let something as jacked up as that slide?

 

[rosman]

I heard a nasty rumor that both Kameo and PDZ are actually rendering at 640x480 when running in 480i/p. I didn't put much stock into this story at all as that would be simply moronic when the scaler in the 360 can downsample the high resolution render and effectively give "free" SSAA to SD users. However, just now I stumbled across this comparison and that game is obviously rendered at a far lower resolution when set to output 480p. How in the world could MS let something as jacked up as that slide?

Is the image stretched or the hud and game, or the devs resized the game internally to make it look better in 4/3 format ?

 

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

Looking at that is amazingly disappointing. If MS is shooting itself in the foot with anything, it's not having lower-than-HD minimum requirements (whether that was the intention in the long run, a decision made later, or a launch-title leniency), but rather that.

 

[kyleb]

Their TV was just adjusted for overscan on with the 480p input, and they are running widescreen at 480p as well. But that is all beside the point that those are sraight up low resolution jaggies in the 480p shot and it would look a lot smoother if it was downsampled from a higher resolution.

 

[Teasy]

This is exactly what I thought would happen when I first heard about the focus of next gen consoles on HDTV. I was worried that instead of using the advanced hardware for more polygons, better pixel shading ect developers would use most of it just for higher resolutions. Leaving SDTV owners basically paying for hardware they cannot see the effect of, a total waste of money for the massive majority of gamers. People assured me that the effect of downsampling the image to a SDTV would create large levels of anti aliasing making the game also look great on a SDTV, looks like that isn't happening. Nintendo's aproach is starting to look like a far better one for me. Revolution could have half the pixel pipelines/pixel shaders/TU's/embedded memory and still put out better graphics at 640x480 then the HDTV focused PS3 and XBox 360. Its all fine and well to say that MS and Sony are helping to push HDTV adoption. But it really doesn't matter what anyone does to convince me to buy a HDTV when I simply cannot afford one.

 

[Ty]

Teasy,

Frankly it's too soon to tell. Yes, it's quite possible devs may choose the higher resolution as the path of resistance. But remember, devs may also be able to go with 480P resolutions and then have way more PS power than the Rev.

In the end, I have no doubt the Rev is best suited for you since you like Nintendo first and foremost (which isn't a knock, the GCN was my second next gen console) but for others like me who have HDTVs, the other consoles certainly could look attractive.

 

[Teasy]

How can 480p games ever happen on these HDTV consoles though? Its one thing rendering slightly below HDTV resolutions and upscaling the image slightly. Its quite another to bring out games actually rendered only at 640x480, surely MS cannot allow that given what they have said. Same goes for Sony really.

In the end, I have no doubt the Rev is best suited for you since you like Nintendo first and foremost (which isn't a knock, the GCN was my second next gen console) but for others like me who have HDTVs, the other consoles certainly could look attractive.

Its not about what games or game companies I like in this case. Though obviously Revolutions games library was always likely to suit my tastes best it looks like Revolution will suit me in more ways then just my taste in games. Check out my old posts, I brought up these concerns before it was ever announced that Rev wouldn't support HDTV. The idea of a very large portion of the hardware improvement I'm paying for when I buy a next gen console being used on something I'll never see (HDTV display resolutions rather then better graphics) just annoys me. Though obviously I have no doubt that people who own HDTV's will like the idea of focusing on HDTV resolutions and I can understand that.