What resolution do "real widescreen" games on GCN

[London Geezer]

480p displays are best for SD content as there is less scaling, but a good HD display can look just about as good.

At which point one might as well go for a marginally more expensive 720p/1080i display, so he gets the full whammy.
Some sets are just perfect even at 480p.

 

[kyleb]

Damnit LB, when are you going to get a new TV so I can rag on your choice?

 

[London Geezer]

Damnit LB, when are you going to get a new TV so I can rag on your choice?

Hehe i'll only buy a new TV when i'll find one that will please EVERYONE. From PC-Engine to my granma.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That could be a bit ricky, because different HDTVs handle lower resolutions differently. Some are very very good and clean, some are just a mess.

Even less incentive for Europeans to get HDTV, as the majority of their existing viewing, even when HD films are available, will look WORSE than on their old CRT

Actually I think digital TVs a mess. Fixed resolution displays, compressed images with compression artefacts, unclear standards with HDTVs not actually supporting HD resolutions. I'm gonna wince out and come back in 10 years when hopefully everyone's got their act together

 

[London Geezer]

Heh... in the meantime, the vast majority of the people will play next gen games at 480i with copious amounts of AA applied. I would assume 640x480 rendering on next gen consoles will come with at least 8xAA on every game.

 

[Nick Laslett]

Re: What resolution do "real widescreen" games on

...they look really nice on my 19" computer monitor.

Is this the display you usually use for playing console games?

 

[PC-Engine]

Re: What resolution do "real widescreen" games on

...they look really nice on my 19" computer monitor.

Is this the display you usually use for playing console games?

Yes, it's a 5 year old highend CAD monitor. It even has a sharpness setting which helps a lot when I want to tone down the jaggies on some games. I also have a 32" 4:3 HD Ready tv, but I don't use it for games since it looks pretty bad compared to my monitor. SCII looks gorgeous on my monitor, same with F-Zero GX and ED because they're sharp. Some other games don't look as clear like RE4 for example but they still look good.

 

[Fox5]

Hmm, I was thinking that the resolution is something like 848x480.

Unfortunately there's no extra resolution for widescreen.
It's very important, for compatability with video recorders, DVD recorders, hard disk recorders etc, that a 16x9 frame has the same number of pixels as 4x3 frame. You can still record the anamorphic widescreen output from a gamecube on your 20 year old Ferguson videostar.

I was thinking the same because in WS mode in SCII you can see MORE objects. It's like comparing pan scan vs WS.

You can indeed see more, but the resolution has not changed. The view of the world has simply got wider.

So in that case is there less detail?

BTW, I've seen TVs that say they have something like 848x480 resolution, and I've also seen the NTSC spec for SDTV listed as 848x480.

It would explain why n64 games had higher performance with wide screen than full screen, but I thought they didn't have true wide screen and just bordered the image.

Oh, I've noticed a lot of games have 640x512 res instead of 640x480, Super Smash Bros Melee is the first one off my mind.(I think PAL res might have 512 vertical lines, so maybe they make the games the same around the world, especially on games with practically simultaneous worldwide releases like SSBM?)

That could be a bit ricky, because different HDTVs handle lower resolutions differently. Some are very very good and clean, some are just a mess.

Just like some HDTVs look better than others even at HD resolutions.

What about using an external scaler, like ViewSonic's Nextvision N6 or HD10 and HD12?

At which point one might as well go for a marginally more expensive 720p/1080i display, so he gets the full whammy.

1080i seems marginally more expensive, heck it's been a while since I've seen a tv that supports 480P that doesn't support 1080i, 720P seems to jack up the prices considerably though.

Some other games don't look as clear like RE4 for example but they still look good.

I've noticed that different games have control over their output quality, dunno why consoles aren't as consistent as PC games.
For that matter, they even seem to have control over how they output component video. RE4 doesn't seem to recognize that there's more than 1 standard of component output, so on my 480i TV with component input it ends up giving a green tint to everything over component.

Or at least that's what I got from the little bit of research I did. There's CB-CR-Y and PB-PR-Y, most sets with interlaced component inputs have CB-CR-Y and if a PB-PR-Y interlaced signal is sent to them it comes out with a green tint.

 

[MrSpiggott]

MrSpiggott wrote:
Quote:
Hmm, I was thinking that the resolution is something like 848x480.



Unfortunately there's no extra resolution for widescreen.
It's very important, for compatability with video recorders, DVD recorders, hard disk recorders etc, that a 16x9 frame has the same number of pixels as 4x3 frame. You can still record the anamorphic widescreen output from a gamecube on your 20 year old Ferguson videostar.

Quote:
I was thinking the same because in WS mode in SCII you can see MORE objects. It's like comparing pan scan vs WS.

You can indeed see more, but the resolution has not changed. The view of the world has simply got wider.


So in that case is there less detail?

A little. You'll have more geometry to display, because of the wider view point, but no more resolution to display it in.

BTW, I've seen TVs that say they have something like 848x480 resolution, and I've also seen the NTSC spec for SDTV listed as 848x480.

I've never heard of that resolution in the NTSC spec. Do you remember where you read it? I've seen some old LCD and Plasma sets with wacky native resolutions. They can have what ever resolution they want, PAL or NTSC resolution is 'simply' scaled to fit.

Oh, I've noticed a lot of games have 640x512 res instead of 640x480, Super Smash Bros Melee is the first one off my mind.(I think PAL res might have 512 vertical lines, so maybe they make the games the same around the world, especially on games with practically simultaneous worldwide releases like SSBM?)

Yes, that sounds like a PAL optimised game. If you're lucky you might get 576 by 702.

 

[Fox5]

Ah, I was wrong about the 848x480, it was actually 720x480.

 

[Iron Tiger]

Or at least that's what I got from the little bit of research I did. There's CB-CR-Y and PB-PR-Y, most sets with interlaced component inputs have CB-CR-Y and if a PB-PR-Y interlaced signal is sent to them it comes out with a green tint.

Y Cb Cr is digital, Y Pb Pr is analog. AFAIK, no TVs can accept a Y Cb Cr signal over component, as most devices will convert it to Y Pb Pr when outputting through component. The Gamecube (or at least, older versions with the Digital AV port) outputs Y Cb Cr along with digital audio which is converted by a DAC in the 'Cube end of the component cable, while the audio portion is pretty much discarded (as it's not transcoded or passed through on that cable).

 

[Fox5]

Or at least that's what I got from the little bit of research I did. There's CB-CR-Y and PB-PR-Y, most sets with interlaced component inputs have CB-CR-Y and if a PB-PR-Y interlaced signal is sent to them it comes out with a green tint.

Y Cb Cr is digital, Y Pb Pr is analog. AFAIK, no TVs can accept a Y Cb Cr signal over component, as most devices will convert it to Y Pb Pr when outputting through component. The Gamecube (or at least, older versions with the Digital AV port) outputs Y Cb Cr along with digital audio which is converted by a DAC in the 'Cube end of the component cable, while the audio portion is pretty much discarded (as it's not transcoded or passed through on that cable).

I've heard of TVs with seperate component inputs though, one Cb-Cr-Y and Pb-Pr-Y. The difference is that one is usually for interlaced while the other is for progressive.