Will Next Gen games have better Framerates on 480i/p TV's?

[BenQ]

Most people playing next gen consoles ( atleast at first ) will be playing their next gen games/consoles on standard 480i TV's, not getting the benefit of HD resolutions at all.

But won't that improve the framerate by lowering the resolution? I would imagine that if a game was running at 60 FPS at 720p, then lowering the resolution to 480i/p could very well send the framerate up around 100FPS ( not that TV's are even capable of displaying that many frames per second but..... ).

That's all fine and dandy, but what about next gen HD games that aren't running at 60FPS at 720p/1080i/p?

I don't know about you but it would leave a sour taste in my mouth if I have to make decisions such as "I can play it at 30 FPS at 720p or 60 FPS at 480p", or even worse, having to lower the resolution to 480p just to eliminate the occational slowdowns/choppyness of games that run at 30FPS at 720p.

PC gamers have had to balance resolution issues with framerate issues since...ever, but console gamers shouldn't have to make those kinds of decisions for games on consoles hyped up as ushering in "The HD era."

 

[kyleb]

The plan for the 360 anyway is to always render at least 1280x720 and then rescale the output for anything between 480i and 1080i.

 

[PARANOiA]

Two points:

• It's not been officially announced how this will be handled this gen, especially since Sony doesn't have a "minimum resolution" specified, only a recommendation. I'd suggest that games will be, much like the XBox, targeted to run at fullscreen first, then widescreen later next gen as a compatibilty feature, since the ration of Widescreen to 4:3 is very weighted at the moment. Ie, make it work so everything fits on 4:3, then change your viewport to 16:9.
• It's a bit rich for you to tell us what we "shouldn't have". I support choice, thank you very much.

 

[BenQ]

The plan for the 360 anyway is to always render at least 1280x720 and then rescale the output for anything between 480i and 1080i.

What's the difference between taking a game that's rendered at 720p and changine the resolution to 480p ( just as you can change the resolution for any PC game )..... and taking a game that's rendered at 720p and rescaling the output for 480p?

 

[BenQ]

Two points:

• It's not been officially announced how this will be handled this gen, especially since Sony doesn't have a "minimum resolution" specified, only a recommendation. I'd suggest that games will be, much like the XBox, targeted to run at fullscreen first, then widescreen later next gen as a compatibilty feature, since the ration of Widescreen to 4:3 is very weighted at the moment. Ie, make it work so everything fits on 4:3, then change your viewport to 16:9.
• It's a bit rich for you to tell us what we "shouldn't have". I support choice, thank you very much.

Choice is a good thing but I don't see it the way you do in this context. I would use the word "sacrifice" , as in you have the "choice" to "sacrifice" higher resolutions for better framerates.

I would very much hope that in next gen consoles, playing the games at 480p does NOT offer a better framerate as compared to 720p. I could see this being missused.

I would simply HATE, in the future, to see statements such as "Our game runs at a crisp 60 FPS.... at 480p", in a gen that is dubbed "the HD era." And IF playing next gen games at 480p produces better framerates than at 720p, I could very much see this sort of thing happening, eventually. = (

 

[London Geezer]

The point is that in most cases, reducing the resolution will not give you double the framerate, simply because there can be other factors limiting the framerate other than a relatively trivial matter such as resolution. Especially on the new GPUs, which can render whatever they want at high resolution. Sure lowering resolution will give better framerates, but it needs to go from 30 to 60 and stay there locked. And locking the framerate is hard enough as it is.

Also, choice is good, but consoles have always been about running a game the same way on every singe one of them, unlike on PC where everyone has different performance.

I think the X360 system of rendering everything at 720p and scale it up or down is the best for now, and i'm pretty sure Sony will go for that too.

 

[DotProduct]

I hope that rescaling down to 480i will mean super sampling. Because that would dramaticly increase image quality.

Actually 480i with 720p ss should give you the same quality as 700i naturaly.

 

[kyleb]

What's the difference between taking a game that's rendered at 720p and changine the resolution to 480p ( just as you can change the resolution for any PC game )..... and taking a game that's rendered at 720p and rescaling the output for 480p?

The difference is that you don't get any performance improvement from downsampling the image after it is rendered, but you do get supersampling when downsampling and you also get consistency between various resolutions which you asked for. Also, there is an advantage in that the developers only have to worry about codeing their games around one resolution, and the hardware handles the rest.

Two points:

• It's not been officially announced how this will be handled this gen, especially since Sony doesn't have a "minimum resolution" specified, only a recommendation. I'd suggest that games will be, much like the XBox, targeted to run at fullscreen first, then widescreen later next gen as a compatibilty feature, since the ration of Widescreen to 4:3 is very weighted at the moment. Ie, make it work so everything fits on 4:3, then change your viewport to 16:9.

I'm pretty sure I heard the plan is to have all games run at 16:9, with 4:3 displays running letterboxed for all 360 games.

 

[Apoc]

I'm pretty sure I heard the plan is to have all games run at 16:9, with 4:3 displays running letterboxed for all 360 games.

I bought xbox because games didn't have black bars (i play lots of ntsc games in my pal console), and because I liked its games. If they (MS) will blackbar me I will made the sacrifice of not playing their exclusive games. In no way I'm buying a 16:9 tv, or a HDTV, so if that is true they will lost LOTS of purchasers.

 

[BlueTsunami]

I bought xbox because games didn't have black bars (i play lots of ntsc games in my pal console), and because I liked its games. If they (MS) will blackbar me I will made the sacrifice of not playing their exclusive games. In no way I'm buying a 16:9 tv, or a HDTV, so if that is true they will lost LOTS of purchasers.

Wow...thats a pretty tough stand on Letterbox mode. I don't really mind it, makes it seem more cinematic for some reason (well...to me atleast).

16:9 games on 16:9 TV's look real cool...I honestly wish I bought the 16:9 version of my Samsung 27" HDTV (4:3 Screen Ratio)....I'll probably trade in the TV I got for a 16:9 version once the 360 or PS3 comes around....

 

[ERP]

I'm pretty sure I heard the plan is to have all games run at 16:9, with 4:3 displays running letterboxed for all 360 games.

The requirement is native support for 720P 16:9, how a developer chooses to support 4:3 is up to them I believe.

 

[Apoc]

The requirement is native support for 720P 16:9, how a developer chooses to support 4:3 is up to them I believe.

I think it will be easier to support a proper 4:3 and to "expand" the view area for those using 16:9.

 

[BTOA]

Wow...thats a pretty tough stand on Letterbox mode. I don't really mind it, makes it seem more cinematic for some reason (well...to me atleast).

16:9 games on 16:9 TV's look real cool...I honestly wish I bought the 16:9 version of my Samsung 27" HDTV (4:3 Screen Ratio)....I'll probably trade in the TV I got for a 16:9 version once the 360 or PS3 comes around....

Did you buy this HDTV from Costco, because what other store would allow people to trade in old TV sets?

 

[BlueTsunami]

Did you buy this HDTV from Costco, because what other store would allow people to trade in old TV sets?

I believe Circuit City would allow me to do that and I would get store credit (far less than what I payed for the TV) and use the credit towards a newer TV. If not, i'll just get a new one....but yeah...thats the plan.

 

[Xenus]

Ah if you have their warranty plan you can say that there is something wrong with the t.v. and if the repairman cannot fix it. You get a new t.v. but if they do not carry that t.v. anymore they give you one of equal value pricewise. I had a surge kill my t.v. and got a new Samsung 27" 4:3 for $40 more after reinstituting the warranty plan on the new t.v. for 3 years.

 

[BlueTsunami]

Ah if you have their warranty plan you can say that there is something wrong with the t.v. and if the repairman cannot fix it. You get a new t.v. but if they do not carry that t.v. anymore they give you one of equal value pricewise. I had a surge kill my t.v. and got a new Samsung 27" 4:3 for $40 more after reinstituting the warranty plan on the new t.v. for 3 years.

WOW..thats pretty cool!

*stares at the wall outlet

hmmmmm

 

[SanGreal]

The requirement is native support for 720P 16:9, how a developer chooses to support 4:3 is up to them I believe.

This is correct

Paul: Is it scaling down to the same aspect ratio? Or is it scaling it down to 4:3?

Jeff: We will actually give the game developers a choice. They can either have the Xbox 360 automatically crop or scale. Or, they can render a different aspect ratio scene of their game if they want to. Or, a game developer can say, "let the user choose." And there will actually be a setting in Xbox 360 to tell the box what it should do. And game developers can just hand it over to the box to decide what's best from a user's perspective.

 

[AlNom]

I sure won't mind letterbox for a wider field of view...even if the image is slightly smaller. I just need to know if some bugger is in that area and then...BOOMHEADSHOT!

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I need to ask a question.

Is NTSC(16:9 & 45fps) 720P and PAL(4:3 & 30fps) 480i?

Also .. how is the Xbox360 HDTV gonna be resovled for NTSC and PAL?

Sorry for the stupid ?

Thx
US

 

[Apoc]

I need to ask a question.

Is NTSC(16:9 & 45fps) 720P and PAL(4:3 & 30fps) 480i?

Also .. how is the Xbox360 HDTV gonna be resovled for NTSC and PAL?

Sorry for the stupid ?

Thx
US

Pal = 50 Hz
Ntsc = 60 Hz.
720p (there is no pal/ntsc in 720p) = 60 Hz