What resolution gives best performance?

[Alkohallick]

A quick and hopefully easy question...

Both my plasma and DLP TV's are native 1080p. On my 360, to get the best in game performance should I have the resolution set to 720p or 1080p?

 

[hoho]

Majority of games render at much lower resolution and use HW scaling for the final output so it shouldn't really matter what resolution you are using. In case there really is some game that doesn't use that kind of scaling then 720p will be faster.

 

[AlNom]

In general, it won't matter. There are only a handful of games on 360 that set different rendering resolutions based on output. The only ones I can recall are Saint's Row 1, Call of Duty 2, and Sacred 2. The first two games here don't even have a 1080p mode (difference was just for 480p vs 720p).

 

[Jedi2016]

For the Xbox, I don't think it matters. No matter what game I play, the TV always sees it as a 1080p signal, so the system is upscaling whatever it's rendering in any event. I'd say just leave it at 1080p and don't worry about it.

 

[Sigfried1977]

In general, it won't matter. There are only a handful of games on 360 that set different rendering resolutions based on output. The only ones I can recall are Saint's Row 1, Call of Duty 2, and Sacred 2. The first two games here don't even have a 1080p mode (difference was just for 480p vs 720p).

I believe Tomb Raider Legend does it as well. At least the game ran silky smooth (as in rock solid 30fps) on my old-ass SDTV. Then I bough an HDTV and the framerate turned to shit.

 

[Alkohallick]

Thanks for all the quick answers, I just asked because coming from ps3(set to 1080p) it used to "seem" like games played a tad smoother when I only had 720p checked. Guess it was all in my head lol

 

[Sigfried1977]

Guess it was all in my head lol

Yep. Especially since PS3 games rarely ever upscales games to begin with. Doesn't matter whether your XMB displays in 1080p native or not, Deus EX HR will go back to 720p regardless (just to pick an example)

 

[RudeCurve]

Some games on Xbox run better at 720P...less tearing.

 

[Alkohallick]

Yep. Especially since PS3 games rarely ever upscales games to begin with. Doesn't matter whether your XMB displays in 1080p native or not, Deus EX HR will go back to 720p regardless (just to pick an example)

Not quite sure I fully understand what you are saying. Seeing as most games are below 720p I'm sure some kind of up-scaling has to take place

 

[Jedi2016]

It's done in the buffer, I think.

The PS3 does have options to force upscaling to a different resolution, that's why there's multiple checkboxes in the options. Some games actually support different internal resolutions, which you can force by deselecting the resolutions you don't want. But in most cases, the results are less than pleasant, so it's a good idea to check every resolution that your TV supports and let the system export what it wants to.

I wasn't aware that the Xbox360 gave you that option, to force resolution.

 

[Rangers]

A quick and hopefully easy question...

Both my plasma and DLP TV's are native 1080p. On my 360, to get the best in game performance should I have the resolution set to 720p or 1080p?

Set it to 1080P as the 360's internal scaler should theoretically have less lag than your TV's scaler.

If you set the 360 to 720P then your TV will have to scale that to 1080P, eg in theory, more TV input lag.

 

[assurdum]

Set it to 1080P as the 360's internal scaler should theoretically have less lag than your TV's scaler.

If you set the 360 to 720P then your TV will have to scale that to 1080P, eg in theory, more TV input lag.

From what I have read in the topic of rendering native resolution, 360 use software upscale...

 

[AlNom]

It's entirely up to the developer on 360. The scaler will take anything for input. That said, one would have to take care with scaling effects with respect to the HUD.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That said, one would have to take care with scaling effects with respect to the HUD.

And if one wants to render a sub-720p frame with a 720p UI, you'd have to software scale the render and overlay the UI because the inbuilt scaling is the final step for output.

I don't think either Sony nor MS really understood the requirements of HD game rendering. MS's scaling allows a game to render on any TV but isn't a good fit for sub-HD rendering. Sony missed the scaling aspect altogether. Then again they are using the best hardware available from the time, so it's not like they could do much more to enable current sub-HD games to have hit 720p. Suddenly I'm struck with an impression of how damned hard it really is to produce realtime graphics!

 

[Rangers]

From what I have read in the topic of rendering native resolution, 360 use software upscale...

Wouldn't that still be faster than pushing out 720P to the TV and letting the TV upscale it? I'm not sure I understand.

Am I wrong that setting the 360 to 1080p reduces lag?

 

[Turok]

Wouldn't that still be faster than pushing out 720P to the TV and letting the TV upscale it? I'm not sure I understand.

Am I wrong that setting the 360 to 1080p reduces lag?

I think with older TV sets that was true. Not sure how true it is now.

 

[egoless]

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