1080i Scaling

[juanleche]

The below was posted on a different gaming new site. Will we see Sony responding to this issue in the future? If not what is your reason? Why has there been no comment by Sony on this subject at all?


" That is correct. One of the most noticeable ones was just a few weeks ago, I had put a blog entry up on the US PlayStation blog, and I got a bunch of responses asking me about the resolutions we support. Up until that day, we were only supporting 720p and it never really crossed our minds to support anything else. In the US, we have this issue where a lot of early adopters with HDTVs have TVs that only support 1080i. So if you have a TV that supports 1080i and the game only supports 720p, the PS3 will default to 480p, which isn't even high-def and is not the way Uncharted should be experienced. So they bought that to my attention--I mean, it was kind of embarrassing that we didn't know that before--and literally within the hour we had 1080i support up to take care of all those people. "

http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/action/u...1783&mode=news

[stockstar1138]

within an hour they made the entire game support 1080i???? clearly this is upcaled 1080i.

[juanleche]

Originally Posted by stockstar1138

within an hour they made the entire game support 1080i???? clearly this is upcaled 1080i.

which clearly meets the needs of the group of HDTV owners he describes. THe game will defaul to 720, but upscale to 1080 for those HDTVs that do not accept 720

[Iceman_II]

I thought Sony had already fixed this issue with one of the firmware updates, the one where they also enabled DVD upscaling...

Remember, the whole reason Sony did this was because there were some "less than reputable" software developers who would advertise that their games were high definition, however, they were only coded to something like 520 or such garbage... yes it was higher than 480, but they relied on the system to upscale them to high definition.

Sony left that feature out to force the developers to code their games to HD, not fudge it.

Again, isn't this rather old news that was already resolved?

[Amon37]

My guess is sony will leave it up to each game developer. For AAA first party titles I expect 1080i scaling, for 3rd party games probably not.

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by Iceman_II

I thought Sony had already fixed this issue with one of the firmware updates, the one where they also enabled DVD upscaling...

Remember, the whole reason Sony did this was because there were some "less than reputable" software developers who would advertise that their games were high definition, however, they were only coded to something like 520 or such garbage... yes it was higher than 480, but they relied on the system to upscale them to high definition.

Sony left that feature out to force the developers to code their games to HD, not fudge it.

Again, isn't this rather old news that was already resolved?

No. Sony leaves support of resolutions up to the developers even now. There's still no vertical upscaling endemic to the hardware or OS as far as I am aware, but it's really not "that" big a deal to support multiple resolutions. PC games have been doing this for ages; it's truly not that big a deal once developers are aware of what they need to do.

[Cyan]

I think it's bullshit that these developers aren't learning the system enough to run the games in 1080P. That's what the system is meant for, and the few games that are in 1080P are amazing.

[LynxFX]

What flaw? They just proved that adding scaling to games is a piece of cake. So why haven't 80% of the other PS3 devs taken that hour and included it? I finally upgraded my 1080i only tv to a nice 1080p but this issue still burns me. I never bought any 720p only games and even now I'm hessitant.

[Shin-Ra]

Misleading thread title of the day award goes to...!

The only flaw is that it's not done automatically for every title, or a technical requirement yet for all games.

As you can probably tell from Evan Wells' response, upscaling isn't difficult to implement now. Few developers know it's even important to some gamers because such a small minority have 1080i-only sets. As time goes on even fewer will have them.

[statikcat]

Hm.. My TV is 1080p but my dad's is 480p/720i/1080i. When I put resistance on his TV it only did 480p. Is this related/similar issue to what they are saying?

[androvsky]

Originally Posted by Cyan

I think it's bullshit that these developers aren't learning the system enough to run the games in 1080P. That's what the system is meant for, and the few games that are in 1080P are amazing.

Trust me, they know the system well enough. Supporting a native resolution like 1080p is as easy as adding a checkbox. Unfortunately, once you've hit that checkbox, you need to have the extra video ram for the framebuffer, a bit of a problem if you've already filled up video memory with textures. Then you have the even larger issue of the game running much slower at 1080p.

The simple fact of a matter is that no matter how well devs know a system, 720p will let them have better graphics than 1080p (more polygons, more textures, more complicated shaders, better lighting, and so on). Same with 30 fps vs. 60 fps. If a game runs at 720p at 30 fps, that means that's the best the game can look with what the developers know. If a game runs at 1080p and 60 fps, that means the game could look better if they didn't set the resolution and framerate bar so high.

Same deal with the xbox 360, except MS lets devs drop below even 720p when desperate (see Halo 3).

[BeenThereDoneThat]

Originally Posted by androvsky

Trust me, they know the system well enough. Supporting a native resolution like 1080p is as easy as adding a checkbox. Unfortunately, once you've hit that checkbox, you need to have the extra video ram for the framebuffer, a bit of a problem if you've already filled up video memory with textures. Then you have the even larger issue of the game running much slower at 1080p.

The simple fact of a matter is that no matter how well devs know a system, 720p will let them have better graphics than 1080p (more polygons, more textures, more complicated shaders, better lighting, and so on). Same with 30 fps vs. 60 fps. If a game runs at 720p at 30 fps, that means that's the best the game can look with what the developers know. If a game runs at 1080p and 60 fps, that means the game could look better if they didn't set the resolution and framerate bar so high.

Same deal with the xbox 360, except MS lets devs drop below even 720p when desperate (see Halo 3).

Dude,

I'm pretty sure I didn't miss your point on this; but I'm fair, how bout trying to describe your concept a different way? For us plebs?

It appears you are implying that 720p looks better than 1080p...but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and offer you a chance to delve deeper into the concept and the techincal aspects of what you're talking about for the benefit of us all...

[juanleche]

Originally Posted by Amon37

My guess is sony will leave it up to each game developer. For AAA first party titles I expect 1080i scaling, for 3rd party games probably not.

http://boardsus.playstation.com/play...43717#M1543717

Heres a list of what games do and don't support 1080, you may be supprised

[juanleche]

Originally Posted by statikcat

Hm.. My TV is 1080p but my dad's is 480p/720i/1080i. When I put resistance on his TV it only did 480p. Is this related/similar issue to what they are saying?

yes

[juanleche]

Originally Posted by androvsky

Trust me, they know the system well enough. Supporting a native resolution like 1080p is as easy as adding a checkbox. Unfortunately, once you've hit that checkbox, you need to have the extra video ram for the framebuffer, a bit of a problem if you've already filled up video memory with textures. Then you have the even larger issue of the game running much slower at 1080p.

The simple fact of a matter is that no matter how well devs know a system, 720p will let them have better graphics than 1080p (more polygons, more textures, more complicated shaders, better lighting, and so on). Same with 30 fps vs. 60 fps. If a game runs at 720p at 30 fps, that means that's the best the game can look with what the developers know. If a game runs at 1080p and 60 fps, that means the game could look better if they didn't set the resolution and framerate bar so high.

Same deal with the xbox 360, except MS lets devs drop below even 720p when desperate (see Halo 3).

This isn't the point, the point is that without SCALING to 1080 (not native) for TVs that do not accept 720, the game drops to 480.
The question is do you think 480p is better than 1080i for games?

[statikcat]

Originally Posted by juanleche

This isn't the point, the point is that without SCALING to 1080 (not native) for TVs that do not accept 720, the game drops to 480.
The question is do you think 480p is better than 1080i for games?

I have not compared that but Resistance looked crappy in 480p on the above tv. I imagine 1080i would be a lot sharper. And almost every HDtv at least supports 1080i.

[juanleche]

Originally Posted by SPIN-Ra

Misleading thread title of the day award goes to...!

The only flaw is that it's not done automatically for every title, or a technical requirement yet for all games.

As you can probably tell from Evan Wells' response, upscaling isn't difficult to implement now. Few developers know it's even important to some gamers because such a small minority have 1080i-only sets. As time goes on even fewer will have them.

Everything in your post from "because" forward, is meaning you added to the developers statement.

The logic to follow from the developers statment is better read is this:
We did not know this was imporatant to people so we did not add it.
When we knew it was important to people we then added it.
Therefore if a developer knows this is important to people then thay are more likely to add it.
Sony should do a better job to let developers know that this is important to people, as they have knowledge of this issue.