Native Resolution vs. Supported Resolution...What's the difference?

[Ascended_Saiyan]

What does it all mean (native vs. just supported)? I'll define the differences between the two (in a very simple manner) and give a history as to why it was done.

Native vs. Supported

Native resolution means the developer created the game at that particular resolution (it's what the consoles render/create the images to be displayed at internally). In other words, the game is at it's best (the way it was meant to be seen) at that resolution. Anything higher than that native resolution is, basically, just stretching the image out. Anything lower is shrinking the image.

Supported resolution means the developers allow the game to be upscaled or down-res'ed to the resolutions listed on the back of the game.


The Last-Gen to Next-Gen (This-Gen now) Supported Resolution History Summary

Last-Gen almost everyone just had a SDTV (standard definition television...480 res). A handful of people had a HDTV. They wanted to let people know that the game will work with their TV set. The best way to do that was to list ALL the resolutions the game will work (display) under. At that time, the highest resolution listed was, generally, what the game's native resolution was.

Next-Gen started with the Xbox 360. ATI and MS promised that all Xbox 360 games will be 720p resolution with 4xAA. Developers did not even start out with EVERY game created at 720p with 4xAA (see link to Beyond 3d pixel counter). It was allowed, so it continued. That meant that instead of the highest listed resolution being a native resolution, it was, possibly, an upscaled image (blown up image like a picture). So, games created by developers for the Xbox 360, that weren't created at 720p, could sneak under the radar.

Now, the PS3 enters the Next-Gen game boasting about HDMI and 1080p graphics. MS called BS (). An MS exec. said 1080p graphics was, basically, impossible. Once, the PS3 had a 1080p or two, MS needed to find a way to not look outclassed. They worked on a work around. They upscaled to 1080p (even the dashboard interface)! Then, ANY game that was released under the Xbox 360 banner, now, had a 1080p added to their game boxes. Consumers were fooled, again. Of course, MS does have a small collection of less demanding native 1080p games (around 3 games).

On the other hand, Sony disabled the ability to upscale at first. It was rumored that a scaler didn't even exist in the PS3. It seemed like this was their way of making developers create games for their consle in, at least, 720p or higher, though this has NOT been confirmed. The 3rd party developers, that weren't creating 720p games on the Xbox 360, were pissed. Sony got yelled at from developers. Being that the PS3 didn't command a large install base, they caved in for the good of their sales. They allowed developers to use the vertical scaler in the PS3 for upscaling. It is believed by some that to compete with the Xbox 360's appearance of providing 1080p on every game, Sony started putting supported and not native resolutions on most game boxes.

That's why you have supported resolutions on the PS3 and Xbox 360 game boxes and not native resolutions most of the time.

Next time...we will learn the difference between 1080p and FULL 1080p!


Links:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/x...defdetails.htm

http://www.nforcershq.com/article3041.html

http://games.kikizo.com/news/200603/101.asp

Native Resolution

Video Upscaler (Basically the same definition for upscaling)

PS3 upset at developers...hardware scaler discovered

Beyond 3D Pixel Counter Thread (for accurate native resolutions of games)

[Blu-Generation]

Good stuff Ascended_Saiyan, thanks for the information.

That article about Microsoft calling PS3 HDMI and 1080p gaming impossible got me laughing. I always did wanted to go back and find that article.

MS is hilarious. Sony sure prove them wrong.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Thanks!

Hopefully, it'll help those that think what's on the back of the box is always the native resolution, or that supported resolution and native resolution is the same thing.

[crackinhedz]

somebody get this man a sticky.

nice job.

[foots]

Originally Posted by crackinhedz

somebody get this man a sticky.

nice job.

I agree.

[player2006911]

Originally Posted by Ascended_Saiyan

You are right, Shin-Ra. I can't prove the first statment beyond a shadow of a doubt. Would you say it's a reasonable assumption, though?

However, I might be able to with the second statement you listed. I just have to remember where....it...is. I might look for it later. I'm on my PS3 right now.

i have a question what about pc games what native resolution are they? i know that game developers can't possib ly build all games at 2600X1900 or whatever the highest pcs go. or do they i wanna know cause im tired of hearing oh my comp can run crysissy at so& so resolution. Can your piece of shit 3 do that basterds lol i hate them more then xbox fans lol sorry for the rant.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Originally Posted by player2006911

i have a question what about pc games what native resolution are they? i know that game developers can't possib ly build all games at 2600X1900 or whatever the highest pcs go. or do they i wanna know cause im tired of hearing oh my comp can run crysissy at so& so resolution. Can your piece of shit 3 do that basterds lol i hate them more then xbox fans lol sorry for the rant.

I'm not absolutely sure why, so I won't try to say one way or the other. I DO know that there can't be assets on a PC game disc that size or you would need a LOT of DVD9s. Those sized assets have HUGE space requirements.

You can tell your friend those people that they CAN'T play at that resolution on ANY TV. You can tell them that they are limited to the same top resolution (or less) that you are on a TV. You can have a MUCH large screen than a CRT PC monitor (they have pretty narrow size limitations).

On top of that, they aren't gaming with lossless audio either. Personally, when people say that to me, I say you can't game on a 70" screen WITH lossless audio. They seem to like that one a lot.

Originally Posted by crackinhedz

Ascended,

edit the post.

Ok.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

It's been updated with the changes.

[A-PHI-A]

So how do you determine the games native resolution with so many listed, i found out that uncharted was not full 720p when i did a one to one ratio on my tv, i may be wrong, but help if anyone can.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Uncharted in 720p mode, the resolution is native 1280x720 with AA (Anti-Aliasing). That is 720p resolution (according to the ATSC standard). In 1080p mode, it's resolution is native 980x1080 with AA.

Your TV is most likely 1366x768 (768p resolution). That's why 1:1 pixel mapping doesn't fill your entire screen.
The TV industry still calls that resolution 720p, but resolutions are usually calculated via horizontal lines.

Ex. 480p = 480 horizontal lines
720p = 720 horizontal lines
1080 = 1080 horizontal lines

That's why I call it 768p. I forget why LCD, Plasma, etc have 768 lines of horizontal resolution. I think it has something to do with their pixel structures.

A pixel counting solution is the best way to determine a native resolution.

[quexos]

Anyone knows why Sony insists on releasing most of its games with a 720p resolution when its rival releases almost all games on 1080p ?

Why do they insist on being only second best when the powerful processors of the PS3 can certainly handle 1080p stuff ?

[Blu-dock Saint]

It's "rival" does not actually run games at 1080p, it "upconverts" in fact many games on the "rival" console run below 720 around 640 such as halo 3, so really on some games ps3 does do more than its "rival".

[hellmonkey]

Uhh, well those games on the 360 are upscalled and not actually 1080p. And ill take 720p with better frame rates, textures, and more stuff on the screen. a lot of games upscale to 1080p on the ps3 too as well.

[Shin-Ra]

There are many more native 1080p games on PS3 than the Xbox 360.

If you have a 1080i-only-HD HDTV you may have some issues but as time goes on that minority of users are moving onto new tv's and more developers are working upscaling into their games.

[stockstar1138]

Originally Posted by Shin-Ra

There are many more native 1080p games on PS3 than the Xbox 360.

If you have a 1080i-only-HD HDTV you may have some issues but as time goes on that minority of users are moving onto new tv's and more developers are working upscaling into their games.

Shin-ra can you please post the native 1080p games, I was under the impression there are only about half a dozen on PS3. (RR7, Street, Lair, POTC 3, Virtua Tennis are the only ones I can think of)

[hellmonkey]

Originally Posted by stockstar1138

Shin-ra can you please post the native 1080p games, I was under the impression there are only about half a dozen on PS3. (RR7, Street, Lair, POTC 3, Virtua Tennis are the only ones I can think of)

Dont forget GT5:P silly goose.

[Shin-Ra]

There's at least a dozen or so PSN downloadable native 1080p games. And some between 720 and 1080p games like GT5:P.

[Heidern]

So I think I know the answer to the question but I thought I'd ask. Say we are playing our games on a tv set with a native resolution of 1080p. And let's take Grand Theft Auto IV as a sample game, since we know that its native resolution is actually below 720p. If I set my PS3 up in a certain way the game will output a supported resolution of 1080p. Or, I could leave the PS3 settings at the auto-detected values and the game will output at 720p.

So the question is, which way is better? I would expect that the tv is automatically taking the 720p input signal and displaying it at its native resolution, so it scales the image, whereas the other option has the PS3 upscaling the graphics to 1080p and then outputting to the TV. I would think that the latter would require more work from the PS3 (to what extent, I'm not sure), but that both would produce a comparable image.

Thoughts?

[ryoohki]

The real problem with current gen is lack of 8xAF. Most games use Bilinear or Trilinear. If you play on a big screen it totally ruin the texture of the game. I have a gaming PC (2x9600GT SLI) and i run pretty much everything at 4xFSAA, 16xAF + Transparency at 1920x1080p. Of course my setup costed 1000$ but i got 4gig of ram, 750gig HDD, Dual Core and 2x9600GT totally 1gig of Video Ram.

Still play with console tought, some game aren't avalaible to PC, but if they get release in both world i usually take the PC version

Not to count at quite a few game doesn't even render at 720p and use lower rez..

[richieb1971]

If you have the choice of choosing the resolution. Choose the resolution that closest meets the standard resolution of your TV. My TV is 1024x768 I think, so 720p is the nearest.

So now you have two options -

1) Do you set the game to 1080p and let the TV downscale to 768?

or

2) Do you choose 720 and let the TV upscale to 768?


If you have a 1080p TV obviously the choices are simpler. Just go with 1080p whenever you can.