Will next gen consoles focus on improving IQ at current HD resolutions?

The "for free" probably relates to no additional effort in making new assets etc... i.e. leverage the higher processing power for resolution... that's virtually for free.

 

Well in some cases the new consoles are too removed from the old to handle direct renders. eg. any game exploiting PS2's incredible overdraw and transparency is going to hit a wall on PS3. A beast with a zillion fur polygons just can't be rendered the same way on PS3.

 

Even that isn't really true, as my last post highlights. You can't take a PS2 monster with a zillion fur particles and drop it in PS3 and have it rendered at high resolution, because PS3 struggles with transparency. There's no solution for using the same assets on hardware that can't handle assets of that design. There must have been quite a bit of game refactoring for some titles. Others, like Sly Raccoon, were probably pretty cheap to implement.

 

I think the main issue has more to do with the limited bandwidth of ps3 than with the incredible geometry pushing of ps2 games. The PS2 has a 4 mo edram running at 48 GO/s bandwidth, That is difficult to emulate. I think if ps3 ram was a 48 Go/s+ bandwidth, the geometry of ps2 games wont pose any problem for a 1080p rendering at 60 fps.

 

resolution vs IQ.. i'm always in favor of IQ and second the comments on that especially texture res.
When I saw the new IPad being touted as graphically advanced for having 2048x1536, i instantly thought that would be a complete waste for games and it would be much better to stick to 1024x768 with more effects.

I'm assuming the next consoles will be 10x graphics power so what a 360 does at 30fps,720p the next should do at 60fps, stereo, 1080p...

I think people will target 1080p as that is what the displays are but the extra graphics horsepower will be quickly hovered up increasing lighting fidelity etc

 

But there is no PS2 games rendering a zillion fur particles, either... And by looking at a game which does really nice furs (Shadow of the Colossus, which incidentally ran at 15fps in a lot of parts in-game) does run at (upscaled from 960x1080) 1080P on PS3... even with a 720P 3D option. In 3D, it does however result in quite a hit, making it run not much faster than it did on PS2.

Yes, PS3 struggles with bandwidth intensive framebuffer operations... PS2 didn't, and a LOT of devs exploited this to a degree that makes some ports really hard...

Now, I am not saying it's simple drag the PS2 project file into VC and compile it for PS3... that's not how it's done... there's a video talking about the Jak and Daxter ports on Youtube. Naughty Dog apparently implemented a lot of Assembly stuff to make those games run on PS2... and that must've taken a lot of time to retrofit for PS3.

But isn't it still much easier to reprogram that stuff than adding new assets to those games? They actually did do that for the second GOW collection, because the PSP games blown up to a 40'' tv look horribly simple.

 

By free, or almost free as i wrote, i of course meant free assets. And without being 100% sure i am pretty sure that there is a some kind of framework created by Sony for these HD releases of old games.

My original point was that the resolution bump to 720p was the most apparent visual improvement for this generation of consoles, and i think the PS2 games, using the same "free" assets as the original low res games to a large extent is a good example of this. And then i wondered how much the next gen would differ from this generation considering that the HiDef trick had been used already.

 

sorry but I have to totally disagree with you on this.

the biggest improvement to visual quality this gen wasent at all due to higher rez screen output (geometry resolution) but rather due to higher rez textures (as i already explained 512*512 instead of 256*256 or even 128*128 textures that has been used last gen) and secondly higher poly count models (very important for animation and showing new model details like fingers, eyes of characters...etc).

it was the new 512*512 bump mapping and displacement mapping textures that contributed most to the next gen look that we are so used to it this gen of consoles.

The benefit of higher rez screen output resolution was precizely to show those new highly detailed textures and high poly count models in all their glory.

to proove my point take any ps2/xbox remastered game rendered in 720p or 1080p with the same last gen texture resolution (256*256) and poly count models (for example 5000 poly per character) and you will notice that this game dosent have any next gen look to it, keep alone competing with next gen game titles pushing 512*512 textures with 80 000 poly character models.

I will give the example of Alan Wake that has the look and visual fidelity of a very advanced next gen title despite being rendered at a very low sub HD resolution (960*540), this mainly due to high rez next gen texture resolutions (512*512) and high poly count models.

of course someone could argue that the high fidelity precision particle and lighting effects contributed to the next gen look of alan wake, but my point is not at all more than the high rez textures and high poly models of the game. If one can replace the textures of alan wake with last gen textures and replace the models with low poly last gen models and keeping all the other high precision effects, you would simply not recognize the game at all as a next gen looking game.

the other example being call of duty 4 rendered at a sub HD 1024x600 resolution, but using high rez textures and high poly count models, contributing hugely to its next gen look.

another example could be PGR3 on xbox360 (1024*600)...

I dont believe that any last gen game rendered at 1080p resolution can compete in terms of graphical fidelity with the look of the three games I mentioned that are running at very low sub hd resolutions. so no, the bump to 720p wasent at all the most apparent visual improvement for this generation of consoles, it was instead the higher rez textures and higher poly count models. the higher rez screen output resolution was important to this gen mostly as a threshold and a mean to show on screen the incredible new details allowed by higher rez textures and high poly models.

and I believe that next xbox and ps4 would do the same (running at 1080p but having an impressive next gen look because of higher 1024*1024 texture rez and higher poly count models). the higher rez is beneffical to show those new details created by artists and modelers. thats why kazunory yamauchi said that GT5 should have been a PS4 game and not a ps3 game not because ps3 cannot achieve 1080p but because the ps3 cannot handle the crazy high rez textures and crazy high poly cars that polyphony artists crafted for the game, unfortunately with ps3 we are not seeing the work of those artists in all its glory, we should wait for ps4 for that.

 

Cool but imho, when i look at the MGS games at DF that was rendered natively in 5112x448 on the PS2 i think there is a magnitude of difference. And even compared to our current gen Sub Res games, there is

This is GT5 in low res, it still looks great

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIp4baoQbDg&feature=youtu.be
GT3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrsHj8O2IPE&feature=youtu.be

 

Thats very optimistic to think Sony is bothered to have some kind of framework for these HD games, so Microsoft must have the same? More likely someone spends a lot of time making these HD versions using the same data that shipped and source code. They are more akin to emulations in some cases.

I agree the resolution bump was significant, but I also agree with others that actual processing spent per pixel was very significant. PS2 has limited shading, we see a reflection and some specular effect on a road, Xbox1 was more capable , but limited being only pixel shader 1.1?, gamecube/Wii was very limited too. PS3 and 360 have pixel shader 3.0 and some tricks to make them a bit better than what you could do on a PC of the same vintage. Also the texture sizes are improved.

Up the res of a ps2/xbox1/GC game and most people here (I hope) could tell which generation it was, even increasing the texture size.

 

I think everything has to be very well balanced for you to see the biggest improvement on current gen consoles. Also some games are much better suited for some specific effects or rendering methods so I wouldn't generalize as much. But ideally a 1280x720 is much preferred just so everything is sharper and doesn't fall below the baseline of HDTV standard.
Now as for nextgen 1080p + 30fps is IMO the absolutely best combo to get the best visuals on your full HD TV. I would rather run Samaritan at 1080p 0xaa, maybe 1/4 res alpha than 720p 4xmsaa and full res alpha.

 

Strangely though, a lot of HDTVs still come with overscan enabled in the factory settings, so users would have to disable it themself.

But:

Even at full 1080p, with overscan and all user accessible post-processing disabled, unfortunately many HDTVs today apply chroma subsampling to 4:4:4 input signals, thus not reproducing full color resolution, which far too often can not be bypassed. And in the few cases where it can be bypassed, it far too often introduces some other disadvantages.

As PS3, Xbox 360 and PC games for example output full 4:4:4 (RGB is always 4:4:4), unfortunately many HDTVs today do not reproduce them pixel perfectly because they subsample from 4:4:4 down to 4:2:2 (or maybe even 4:2:0), regardless if the output is 720p or 1080p and regardless if overscan is enabled or disabled.

Nevertheless of course, on any 1080p HDTV a game rendering at full 1080p and overscan disabled would still look much better than the same game rendering at just 720p. But on many HDTVs it even then would not be reproduced 1:1.

More about this:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1381724

 

Nice info! Will definitely take into consideration when buying a new TV.

 

Following some of the discussions there, it's suggested getting a 4:4:4 TV in the UK is extremely hard. As I never knew about this issue, and I've been experiencing games on HDTVs for a few years now, I guess it's not really a problem; ignorance was bliss, but now education makes for a pointless added complexity where I'd want a 4:4:4 TV despite it making very little difference to the experience!

 

I wonder if people can really notice 4:4:4/4:2:2 that easily. Most hd video cameras in the < $5000 range are 4:2:2 or worse and I don't think people can tell much.

 

There is also the question that do regular displays really show the full colour space so is it even possible to see the difference in theory.

 

Nobody was talking about video footage, which is stored at 4:2:0 almost always anyway (even on Blu-ray Disc) .

It's about gaming output (PS3/Xbox 360/PC for example) and PC desktop output as another example, which is full 4:4:4 RGB .

It's about color resolution (chroma information). And as you can probably gather from the previously linked thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1381724), it is noticeable .

In case your HDTV would be doing 4:2:2 chroma subsampling and you would play a PS3/Xbox 360/PC game for example which would render at 1280x720, your HDTV would reproduce color at just 640x720.

In case your HDTV would be doing 4:2:2 chroma subsampling and you would play a PS3/Xbox 360/PC game for example which would render at 1920x1080, your HDTV would reproduce color at just 960x1080.



That's only mentioning popular resolutions like 720p and 1080p for example, it would be the same for other resolutions.

By the way: as opposed to a lot of HDTVs, almost all regular PC monitors should reproduce full 4:4:4 on their DVI/VGA inputs. If you would connect an HDMI output of a PS3/Xbox 360 for example to a digital (and for PS3 also HDCP capable) DVI input of a regular PC monitor via an HDMI to DVI adapter cable, then there most likely would be no chroma subsampling at all and it would reproduce full 4:4:4.

 

But it's also about colour reproduction. I have doubts that many usual tv's can actually show full 256 shades of colours used by games. Especially if neighbouring pixels are black to white. I doubt any tv outside some special one's would show you 10 bits per channel colours what would be possible with yuv444. There are miles to go before yuv444 would show full benefit on the tv's masses buy. And one could extrapolate what it would take for plasma to go to 9 or 10bits per channel, it wouldn't at least not with reasonable price.

Last CES had some pretty cool displays which actually might have insane colour reproduction but price is going to be prohibitive for quite some times. Like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1O_lPbnfiY and this one http://www.pcworld.com/article/247717/sony_shows_off_55inch_crystal_led_hdtv.html

I call this bullshit unless you have the measurements to prove this. They might take it as input but I bet you ain't going to get 10bit per channel colours that are really reproduced on the display.

 

It was not about the display quality, just about if chroma subsampling occurs or not. The latter doesn't require a high-end display to be noticed at all. Of course that is only if the source is full 4:4:4 (games and PC desktop for example).

Maybe you just haven't seen a direct comparison of the difference?