*Video Output Quality Discussion (Spawned)

[vanquish]

Mod : This thread's spawned from the Game IQ+Framebuffer Analysis thread

It's strange that they have to resort to scaling, with a 2D sprite based game, would have thought the consoles would have been more than up to task. What resolution are games like Castle Crashers? 720p?

BTW here's another question for Grandmaster:
As an avid reader of your excellent multiplatform comparison articles over on EG, one thing I have noticed is that when comparing MP titles that look fairly similar on both consoles, you judge them to be equal (which is fine, it prevents fanboys making mountains out of molehills etc).

However you rarely detail the differences between platforms with regards to a game's 1080p upscaled IQ (the GTA4 article was a great exception). Seeing as the 360 has a hardware scaler, while the PS3 has to resort to software or horizontal scaling, and has a few games does not support 1080p output, or 'prefer' 720p, and will only output 1080p when forced.

Doesn't this mean that a games that look fairly identical at 720p on both consoles, could possibly have better 1080p IQ on the 360, due to its hardware scaler?
ie your GTA4 Face-Off, mentioned how the 360 has superior 1080p support, with the oft discussed dithering also diminished at this resolution. (I bought the 360 version on this basis).
So I (and perhaps other owners of 1080p sets), would be interested in whether this fundamental difference in handling 1080p output, affects other recent MP titles as well such as Fallout 3, COD WAW. Is the general trend similar to the differences described in the GTA4 face-off?

 

[grandmaster]

1080p is a tricky business. I think it's safe to say that PS3 owners are more likely to get a better picture by allowing their screens to scale the image as opposed to letting the PS3 do it, if it supports it. I provide the 1080p shots so people can make up their own minds about performance, but certainly in my case, I always have my PS3 set to 720p and then manually set it to 1080p when the game has a tangible bonus for doing so (eg GT5 Prologue).

I may be wrong, but I would expect most modern HDTVs to scale with an algorhythm more advanced than the bilinear scaling used on many/most PS3 1080p modes.

 

[FirewalkR]

I may be wrong, but I would expect most modern HDTVs to scale with an algorhythm more advanced than the bilinear scaling used on many/most PS3 1080p modes.

What algorithm does the 360 scaler use?

And I don't know if people can talk about this but... what's the problem exactly with the vertical scaler in the rsx? Or even... how does something like this go unnoticed until after launch?

 

[vanquish]

What algorithm does the 360 scaler use?

And I don't know if people can talk about this but... what's the problem exactly with the vertical scaler in the rsx? Or even... how does something like this go unnoticed until after launch?

Bicubic mostly, but I think Lanczos can be selected as well. And Grandmaster, by the same token, would 360 games also be better off outputting in 720p and then letting your HDTV scale to 1080p? (If your HDTV does good job of course)

It's quite ironic, that with all Sony's 'Full HD' rhetoric, it's the mostly the 360 that can output 1080p.

 

[lbartley]

It's hugely ironic, that with all Sony's 'Full HD' rhetoric, it's the mostly the 360 that can output 1080p.

Actually, that's rather backward. The PS3 has a larger library of real 1080p titles. Due to the scaler in the 360, it's rather rare that anyone really tries to push beyond 720p.

PS3 games can also support not-really-1080p-but-still-better-than-720 resolutions like 1280x1080, etc. which are, of course, upscaled to 1080p. But the fact remains, upscaled or not, 1280x1080 > 1280x720.

 

[djskribbles]

Bicubic mostly, but I think Lanczos can be selected as well. And Grandmaster, by the same token, would 360 games also be better off outputting in 720p and then letting your HDTV scale to 1080p? (If your HDTV does good job of course)

It's hugely ironic, that with all Sony's 'Full HD' rhetoric, it's the mostly the 360 that can output 1080p.

What gave you that idea? In the sticky, there are more PS3 games that render at 1080p, not even including the PSN titles (which the majority of them are 1080p).

 

[vanquish]

What gave you that idea? In the sticky, there are more PS3 games that render at 1080p, not even including the PSN titles (which the majority of them are 1080p).

Well true, but for most retail titles, the 360 versions will have better 1080p support (if at all) due to the scaler. And the list of game rendering resolutions has many more PSN games than XBLA games listed.

BTW what resolution does Castle Crashers run at native?

 

[Nesh]

They arent 1080p on the 360 (with some very few exceptions). They are upscaled on the 360 which is actually the point. On the PS3 you will find far more retail titles that run at 1080p or close to 1080p natively.

 

[grandmaster]

What algorithm does the 360 scaler use?

Bicubic mostly...

Do a proper search of the forum and you shall discover, but it's not bicubic - if it's 'mostly' anything, it's Lanczos.

 

[FirewalkR]

Do a proper search of the forum and you shall discover, but it's not bicubic - if it's 'mostly' anything, it's Lanczos.

That's good advice.

Seems like it's done by an ATI hardware feature called AVIVO and the algorithm is selectable, according to Fafalada. Lanczos is among the options.

Also, according to AlStrong:

For what it's worth, Wavey mentioned that Xenos was their first implementation/release of AVIVO. If nothing has changed, then that means the scaler does 10-tap horizontal by 6-tap vertical sampling for scaling.

Some of the above and some more information, for both consoles is here:
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1113341&postcount=1

Regarding the PS3, there's an article about the hardware scaler at, surprise, Beyond3D: http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/16/.
An update would be nice since the list of supported resolutions is obviously better now, given what Wipeout HD is accomplishing, but I guess there'd be the need for some developer to provide the information.
Of course, it doesn't mention the reasons for the lack of vertical scaling support (or the puzzling lack of horizontal scaling since the beginning). It'd be great if some new SDK update would allow for both horizontal and vertical scaling. One could argue that at this point in the console's lifetime it's unlikely but some time ago people just assumed there was no hardware support so, without knowing more details, I guess anything is possible.

 

[warb]

What gave you that idea? In the sticky, there are more PS3 games that render at 1080p, not even including the PSN titles (which the majority of them are 1080p).

Barely half a dozen more, not including PSN titles. I think the point was that not every PS3 game supports upscaling to 1080p, and that when they do the results aren't great.

 

[joker454]

But the fact remains, upscaled or not, 1280x1080 > 1280x720.

1280x1080 has a much higher pixel shader load, so you end up losing frame rate for a negligible increase in visual quality. Hence why games like GTA4 had poor frame rate on PS3 if they were run in 1080 mode. Larger buffers mean more memory, especially if msaa is used, so you will lose texture fidelity since the memory has to be reclaimed from somewhere. Add in the mass trickery that goes on behind the scenes like 1/4 or 1/2 sized buffers used for particles and post processing, limited shadow resolution, limited texture filtering, etc, and the bump from 1280x720 to 1280x1080 isn't worth it.

Games are better off forgetting about 1080p, and instead spending those ms on 720p msaa2x, another cascade shadow map, better shaders, etc...

 

[vanquish]

Barely half a dozen more, not including PSN titles. I think the point was that not every PS3 game supports upscaling to 1080p, and that when they do the results aren't great.

Thanks, that is indeed what I was trying to say.

So Grandmaster regarding your advice on letting the HDTV upscale PS3 output to 1080p, am I better off letting the 360 do the same?

And I read an article somewhere mentioning that AVIVO does bicubic upscaling, but my memory must be off. Anyone know what other filters are available besides bicubic and lanczos, eg spline interpolation? Does selecting a filter like Lanczos over Bicubic come with a performance penalty?

 

[djskribbles]

Barely half a dozen more, not including PSN titles. I think the point was that not every PS3 game supports upscaling to 1080p, and that when they do the results aren't great.

Misunderstanding then, sorry. But I never said a lot of PS3 titles were 1080p.

 

[Fafalada]

am I better off letting the 360 do the same?

Ultimately preference of filters is totally subjective (it essentially boils down to - 'do I prefer one type of blur over another') so it's better off to try it for yourself what you like. Though it does depend on your TV, some are better with pixel processing then others.

 

[vanquish]

Ultimately preference of filters is totally subjective (it essentially boils down to - 'do I prefer one type of blur over another') so it's better off to try it for yourself what you like. Though it does depend on your TV, some are better with pixel processing then others.

Do most HDTV's do anything other than basic bilinear upscaling by default? ie if image enhancement options are disabled.

 

[Fafalada]

Do most HDTV's do anything other than bilinear upscaling by default?

I think they have to. Bilinear basicaly borks anything that isn't scaling by integer multiple, and a lot of resolution scaling cases aren't.

 

[thambos]

Actually, that's rather backward. The PS3 has a larger library of real 1080p titles. Due to the scaler in the 360, it's rather rare that anyone really tries to push beyond 720p.

PS3 games can also support not-really-1080p-but-still-better-than-720 resolutions like 1280x1080, etc. which are, of course, upscaled to 1080p. But the fact remains, upscaled or not, 1280x1080 > 1280x720.

there's a lot more to IQ than resolution. It plays a part for sure, but take for example "Full Auto", which is a 1080p game. Not exactly stunning to look at.

 

[grandmaster]

A good example of resolution vs quality scaling from a good base image would be the LEGO games running in 1080p. PS3 has a resolution advantage at 960x1080 vs 720p, while Xenos copes nicely with blowing up a well anti-aliased 720p image.

LEGO Indy 1080p is the top set of images here: http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=8139&article_id=161089

 

[Quaz51]

A good example of resolution vs quality scaling from a good base image would be the LEGO games running in 1080p. PS3 has a resolution advantage at 960x1080 vs 720p, while Xenos copes nicely with blowing up a well anti-aliased 720p image.

LEGO Indy 1080p is the top set of images here: http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=8139&article_id=161089

except one use AA and other use blur, not really perfect example for compare "960x1080 vs 720p upscaled"