XB360 hasn't got a scaling chip?

[Shifty Geezer]

Eurogamer are reviewing XB360 Elite, and have this to say...

The only other major change under the bonnet is the new HANA video display chip, replacing the old ANA version in the classic 360. This chip has erroneously been described as the silicon that deals with the 360's inbuilt hardware scaling. In truth, Microsoft has now confirmed to us that it's merely a video output chip - a means of transferring the framebuffer into all of the different signals: composite, s-video, RGB SCART, component, VGA and - the key addition with HANA - HDMI. Scaling itself is actually performed by the Xenos GPU (most likely using a variation of Lanczos resizing) so in that respect the Elite performs identically to the original Xbox 360.

Scaling's on the GPU?! Is that something I've bizarrely missed, or are Eurogamer reporting wrong? Or is this news to everyone else too?!

 

[Blade47167]

I have always heard that ana was a hardware scaling chip. People have quoted Microsoft saying this many times. Perhaps thats were the rumored upscale trickery came from. There for awhile people said that it wasn't true upscaling.

Link to an article
http://www.xbox365.com/news.cgi?id=GGHiLLriir01032026

 

[rekator]

Referred to arstechnica Ana is a scaler chip…

http://arstechnica.com/articles/headstart.ars/2

 

[infinity4]

sorry if this is off topic but i didn't know that HDMI output can work over non HDCP supporting monitors

by the way what does this mean?

The 360 apparently renders everything internally in the component colourspace, so maybe the translation into RGB for output over HDMI is causing this.

 

[Mmmkay]

I think they're echoing Amir Majidimehr's recent comments on AVS.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10791437&&#post10791437

Hana (or ANA) is not used for scaling in 360. Instead, the graphics processor (GPU) is used to do the scaling. I won't disclose the internals of the filter but it is not bilinear at all. It is much more sophisticated than that with far more taps. Given where the hardware is, the scaling logic is the same in both products.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10796096&&#post10796096

The [Ars Technica] article is wrong unfortunately. HANA/ANA are video encoders, not scalars.

 

[Tap In]

Referred to arstechnica Ana is a scaler chip…

http://arstechnica.com/articles/headstart.ars/2

"We call it Ana. This is the scaling chip that's in the 360," he tells me.
It's odd to see it—a tiny little chip—but this may be one of the secret weapons the 360 has against the PS3. The PS3 has no internal hardware scaler, which means games that are 720p native can only be shown in 720p or 480p; there is no scaling up to 1080p or 1080i. This causes people with older HDTVs to have issues with the available resolutions, and keeps them from playing the games in anything but 480p. It's a vexing problem for a system that's supposed to be HD, and this issue is one of the most challenging that Sony faces. I ask the Microsoft guys how important it was for them to include a scaler in the 360.


"It was a critical design decision; we wanted the 360 to be high-definition, not just 1080p or some other standard. That's why we included component cables in the box; there is no HDTV that doesn't have a component in," said Greenberg.

 

[Tap In]

I think they're echoing Amir Majidimehr's recent comments on AVS.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10791437&&#post10791437


http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10796096&&#post10796096

interesting contradiction

 

[cthellis42]

If this pans out, I'm going to have quite the headache, because...

"We call it Ana. This is the scaling chip that's in the 360," he tells me.
It's odd to see it—a tiny little chip—but this may be one of the secret weapons the 360 has against the PS3. The PS3 has no internal hardware scaler, which means games that are 720p native can only be shown in 720p or 480p; there is no scaling up to 1080p or 1080i.

...would essentially have the situation REVERSED!


Of course, in the end, the whole situation makes the distinctions pretty meaningless. It was not "lack of a dedicated hardware scaler" that kept the PS3 from converting before (and from performing certain conversions even still), and would not be because OF a dedicated hardware scaler that the 360 has the features it has. It'd simply be which company leverages what hardware, how, and when.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

No confirmation either way then? We have two MS spokespersons stating two opposite positions! A lack of hardware scaler would by quite a deal IMO. It was one fo the clever additions to XB360, so if it's not there, that's a missing tick to the XB360 box. It also means XB360 is in the same position as PS3 in scaling, in that scaling eats into what's available for games. This might explain why some (certainly early) titles didn't downscale to SDTV res. Dunno what the situations like now, but if you are rendering at 720p and downscaling on the GPU, that'll take more resources than rendering at 480p, and perhaps those resources weren't available so they went with lower resolution rendering instead?

And what chump voted the thread one star?! What's so bad in asking questions about hardware on a hardware forum? Everyone's being civil.

 

[Tap In]

And what chump voted the thread one star?! What's so bad in asking questions about hardware on a hardware forum? Everyone's being civil.

I bumped it up best I could for you :smile:

 

[Dave Baumann]

Scaling is generally part of a display pipeline functionality. Irrespective of where that pipeline is (GPU or ANA/HANA) its not likely to have any performance implications.

 

[Tap In]

as much as I trust Amir, I'd say the Arstech interview is more accurate considering they went out of their way to display the chip and discuss it within the context of scaling

 

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

I bumped it up best I could for you :smile:

Same.

I shall keep tabs on this topic.

 

[Dave Baumann]

sorry if this is off topic but i didn't know that HDMI output can work over non HDCP supporting monitors

There is no requirement from the HDMI forum itself that HDCP must be there. Given the applications HDMI will be used in, though, its unlikely that you will see many HDMI implementations where HDCP isn't included.

HDCP is triggered by the content not the devices, so a non-HDCP compliant system will be able to operate fine on no protected content (i.e. PC applications / desktop, PC / console games, etc.) but of the content is protected (i.e. Blu-ray / HD DVD movies) and there is a break in HDCP down the chain then there will be no content displayed.

 

[Blade47167]

Aren't Fox & Sony Blu-rays the only things to require HDCP so far?

 

[DudeMiester]

Perhaps the ANA chip deals only with real time scaling for games, whereas the GPU does upscaling for DVDs. That makes more sense to me anyways.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Scaling is generally part of a display pipeline functionality. Irrespective of where that pipeline is (GPU or ANA/HANA) its not likely to have any performance implications.

That's not what came out of discussion with PS3's scaling, and indeed doesn't common sense tells us otherwise. If you have an extra chip in there to perform a function, you'll have more system performance than without that chip!

If scaling isn't handled on one specific scaling chip, then it requires an extra display buffer in RAM, an amount of RAM BW consumed, and GPU cycles. If it works, it works and who cares and the impact shouldn't be high. But at the same with our usual low-level analysis of these hardwares, it's a surprise to learn that hardware believed to be in the machine isn't, and from that it's worth considering how that affects the end-user experience versus if that hardware had been included, just like the discussion of PS3's scaling options. In the comparative case, the advantage XB360 had over PS3 in including a scaler chip - none of the graphics system hit that PS3 has when scaling - seems to have vamoosed.

 

[betan]

Perhaps the ANA chip deals only with real time scaling for games, whereas the GPU does upscaling for DVDs. That makes more sense to me anyways.

What DVD upscaling are you talking about? I thought DVD Forum didn't allow upscaling over analog output.

 

[Zassk]

The DVD forum does allow upscaling over analog VGA, hence the popularity of the XBox 360 VGA cable.

 

[Blade47167]

If scaling isn't handled on one specific scaling chip, then it requires an extra display buffer in RAM, an amount of RAM BW consumed, and GPU cycles. If it works, it works and who cares and the impact shouldn't be high. But at the same with our usual low-level analysis of these hardwares, it's a surprise to learn that hardware believed to be in the machine isn't, and from that it's worth considering how that affects the end-user experience versus if that hardware had been included, just like the discussion of PS3's scaling options. In the comparative case, the advantage XB360 had over PS3 in including a scaler chip - none of the graphics system hit that PS3 has when scaling - seems to have vamoosed.

Since this is the case would it be possible to upscale PS3 games via 1 of the SPU's. Does anyone remember exactly how much memory is required for a 1080p buffer? Would it be less now that the internal scaler within the PS3 has been revealed to bring 1080i down to 720p requirements? I'm hoping to see something like the 360 has that is controlled by the OS.

Also on games like Ninja Gaiden Sigma & VG5 that supposedly use this new scaling option to reach 1080p why does it revert to 720p if you have it set on 1080i if you have all 3 available. I figured one reason might be that the PS3 prioritizes 720p as being better than 1080i. Any thoughts?