The Neverending Upscale Discussion Thread * Summary=#457

Thanks again Stefan.

So from what I gather, one would need a debug kit to take a direct framebuffer dump... How did Blim get ahold of one, is he a developer And if he could get them from PGR3 (confirming 1024x600), why would it not then confirm the framebuffer resolution for the Halo 3 Beta

 

Did he post direct pics from the beta or were those provided by MS/Bungie?

 

Blim had captured a ton of media from various user records of matches (from file sharing). I seem to recall he was doing it differently than in the past... I'm trying to find the post explaining his new capture method.

edit: Well, it seems he uses an HD capture card... (So how did he get the PGR3 shots ) I don't know if he got a new one since this post over at AVS:

This is the device: http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/multibridge/

edit2: Reading back, it almost seems like Microsoft sent him the dev kit with PGR3 loaded for review?

edit3: I guess we could compare the Beta screens to screencaptures of 360 games that don't have AA...

 

Probably the devkit doesn't take a screenshot of a signed game code such as a retail game.

As for Gamersyde, their Halo Beta captures are played and captured by respective people who don't own a devkit. I doubt a devkit can join Live and play it, let alone capture a frame buffer.
http://www.gamersyde.com/game_798.html

 

People sent their saved films to Blim and he captured/converted the images and videos.

edit: If you didn't know, users have the ability to save replays of the matches they play. The replays are played back in real-time rather than just being videos. It keeps the file sizes down so players can share them. So, the media that Blim has released on Gamersyde may have been played by others but Blim does all the capture/conversion work.

 

It requires a Halo 3 Beta account to play back replay films, right? Isn't it associated with hardware ID of his Xbox 360 which is not a debug kit? Then again,

this point stands. Anyway it doesn't matter as we saw already for example captures such as posted in this page.
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20070518/halo3.htm

 

I think there is some serious lack of understanding here. Blim captured the Halo 3 media with an HD capture card, not a dev kit.

I don't know if a devkit can go on live or not so I did not dispute that. I don't see why not since it would make testing easier for developers. But again, I don't know.

What I was disputing was your commment that other people played and captured the material. This is not true. Other people played the beta and sent their saved films for Blim to capture with his HD card and convert to screenshots or videos. That's why I only quoted that part.

But thanks for making sure your point stands when it wasn't even the focus of my previous post...


edit: Well now that got me curious. I thought I recalled IGN or Gamespot editors having separate accounts on live due to them using debug kits or something... i.e. they'll have their own account for personal use and another for work. Anyways, the folks at Gamepro seemed to be able to access Live with their debug unit:

http://www.gamepro.com/microsoft/xbox/games/previews/60648.shtml

Though, I do get the impression that it's a special version of live, which may or may not tie into the public Live (probably not).

I do wonder why you doubt a devkit could capture from the frame buffer. Further more, one wouldd think there would be some sort of connection to live for the internal beta that Bungie has mentioned from time to time, an "internal" Live as it were.

 

I knew your point in your previous post, hence this reply instead.

Also I quote what kyleb wrote here.
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1045431&postcount=66
I have no idea about the validity of it but if debug kits could capture frame buffers from any signed code we'd see more direct-feed media in game websites.

My memory is fuzzy but I remember journalists have access to a special network that have preview builds, press materials and such, I suspect it's what the XBLA article you quote mentions. Anyway you can ask BlimBlim for the details.

As I wrote already, that reservation is not much use when you can examine dozens of examples in completely unrelated scenes.

 

Ah... fair enough.

 

It's called Parternet

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/685/685681p2.html

 

I hadn't heard about The Darkness upscaling on PS3.

 

Topic: Upscaling

Not-Topic: Anything else

 

Is this 1080p launch title being upscaled on PS3? It looks that way, even though it is much clearer than the Xbox360 version.

NBA2K7 1080p comparison screen.

 

This single feature is VASTLY more important for the millions of players who will enjoy Halo 3 in the coming years, and much more worthy of discussion than the fanboyish bickering upscaled/not upscaled and bombastic slogans like "719p is NOT HD". Now please start bickering about all games who are not "True HD" aka 1080p.

What's technically interesting about the upscaling discussion, deserving a supposedly educated discussion in this supposedly educated forum? We all know that it's sometimes done, we know why it is done (fillrate/bandwidth), in less than two months we'll know for sure if it's done.

 

Where does that 719p come from?

If you are neutral about the upscaling issue you don't have to be upset like that in the first place. You should relegate your opinion to Bungie devs who made the very decision or J "HD Era" Allard, not here.

 

I'm one of the larger halo fans ever (though it may not show as there aren't many halo topics here), and while I agree that there are many features of halo that are worthy of better topics of conversation, I still think this is a valid and interesting topic. We know that other games are able to pull off great graphics at 720p (and higher) on the 360 without upscaling from a lower resolution, so it's not as if the 360 is incapable of HD games. So what is Halo 3 doing that other games aren't doing? Can we infer anything about Halo based on this? What about the EDRAM? Is this done to avoid tiling? If so, what does this say about predictive tiling? These questions aren't directed at anyone, but they're still the kind of questions that will only get answered if we discuss this topic.

edit: Of course, this is all assuming that Halo 3 will be released at a resolution below 720x1280, and that's a pretty hefty assumption.

 

Sure, i think this is one of the most interesting topics for some time. If this topic lives a little longer Developers or is it publishers? will have to be more carefull when they claim 720p or FUUUUUL HIIDEEEF.

Besides the obvious HALO3 sensation i think the COD3 stuff is more interesting and i´m curious as if this is something that is related to their development pibeline.

 

Yawn. Plenty of HD in my 360.

And let's not turn this in to a 'which company made the most outrageous claims', because I'm pretty sure your beloved $ony would be a serious contender...

On topic: I don't care about the native rez, and I also don't get the secrecy of the industry, but that's just the way it is.

What are those official clock speeds of the PS3 again?

 

Could you elaborate? I thought CoD4 was a definite 720p.

On a side note, I'm actually curious to see how the scalers in the 360 and PS3 compare to one another. The PS3 scaler has a setting for 960*1080 (and so forth). I wonder how the 360 would handle that particular resolution when scaled (should fit within the 10MB). Heck, if a 24-bit Z buffer were used instead of 32-bit, you could try to fit a 1280x1080 back buffer into the eDRAM.