Not so High Definition

By Richard Leadbetter Published 3 October, 2009

Tekken 6 and the sub-HD phenomenon.

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Digital Foundry's shock of the week: Tekken 6, one of the most anticipated fighting games of the year, has an ugly secret. Blocky, blurred and clearly upscaled, it is the latest example of the "not so high definition" generation: games designed for HD consoles that fall short of the visual quality we should be expecting from our hardware.

The rumours surrounding Namco's flagship fighting game - going cross-platform for the first time - have been floating around tech forums for the last couple of weeks, based on screenshots from various sources, none of them conclusive. Analysis of Xbox 360 screens released to date reveals native resolutions of anything from 1280x720, to 1360x768 to full-on 1080p. On the other hand, PS3 assets released so far reveal a disappointing 1024x576 resolution - over 33 per cent of the 720p detail gone, just like that.

The disparity between the available Xbox 360 shots was enough for Digital Foundry to suspect that something was clearly amiss, and based on the preview code we have available, direct HDMI dumps reveal a 1024x576 framebuffer on default settings. All of which sounds like another cross-format catastrophe, but the reality is somewhat more intriguing and, at the same time, rather bizarre.

On a more general level, controversy has surrounded the issue of sub-HD gaming since around the time the Xbox 360 actually launched, but some eagle-eyed journos were quick to notice that something wasn't quite right even before the console hit the streets. Working on the UK's Official Xbox Magazine at the time, UK: Resistance writer Gary Cutlack was probably the first to realise that something was amiss. Way before the online press caught on, Cutlack had figured out that the HD revolution hadn't quite begun quite yet.

"I first noticed it while reviewing launch game Project Gotham Racing 3 a few weeks prior to the console's release," Cutlack told me. "The Xbox 360 debug grabbing software - which dumps images onto a PC direct from the console's memory as you well know - was leaving me with in-game screen grabs at 1024x600, while the menu screens were the proper 1280x720. 'That's not quite the 720p Microsoft has been endlessly banging on about,' I remarked, probably to myself then to you in an email. Little did I realise this was a downsizing output scandal that could've generated sizeable Internet traffic had I 'gone public' with it. Numerous games did it in the early days - including pretty much everything from Activision."

In short, the tools supplied by Microsoft itself to games journalists gave writers the ability to get a direct dump of the Xbox 360's framebuffer, in its original format. Simply by looking at the resulting file's dimensions, you got an accurate reading of the game's actual resolution before the scaler in the Xenos GPU got to grips with upscaling the image to proper 720p. Project Gotham Racing 3 came in at a disappointing 1024x600. Perfect Dark Zero measured up at 1152x640. Tony Hawk's Project 8 achieved a measely 1040x585.

At the time, Microsoft's TRCs (the Technical Requirement Checklist) could have effectively put all of these games back to the drawing board. Pre-launch, Microsoft had promised that native 720p would be minimum, and that 2x multisampling anti-aliasing - used to smooth off jagged edges - would be mandatory. These requirements were put on hold during the launch period simply due to the fact that the game-makers only had final silicon for a few months before the system launched. Prior to that, G4 Macs with ATI graphics cards were used to emulate the console. One rumour has it that Need for Speed: Most Wanted ran on an overclocked version of this set-up for its debut on "360" at the 2005 E3.

As development on the console gathered pace, Microsoft's resolution and AA requirements seemed to relax still further, up until the point where recently, Black Rock Studios' David Jefferies interpreted his NDA somewhat differently to most other 360 coders and revealed that Microsoft had dropped these particular TRCs completely.

"We are making a trade-off and saying that the screen resolution is more important to us than the quality of the anti-aliasing," Jefferies told Develop magazine. "This isn't necessarily an entirely voluntary move because, until recently, Microsoft had a TCR insisting that games run at 1280×720 - providing you weren't one of the lucky ones like Halo, who got it waived and ran at 1152×640, that is."

So what's the score with sub-HD gaming on Xbox 360? Why can't we have full 720p and 4xMSAA, as seen on very clean-looking games like DiRT 2 or Fight Night Round 4? The answer, ironically, is all down to one of the architecture's greatest strengths. The Xenos GPU is able to achieve massive throughput due to the fact that 10 megabytes of so-called eDRAM is attached directly to the graphics core. An effectively infinite level of bandwidth is available to cope with "expensive" effects such as transparent (alpha) textures and of course anti-aliasing. It's one of the key reasons why Xbox 360 cross-format titles often have a graphical edge over the PS3 versions.

Unfortunately, that 10MB limit is the 360's Achilles heel. It's enough to contain a 720p image, but with no anti-aliasing. To incorporate 2x anti-aliasing simultaneously, resolution needs to drop to the 1024x600 or thereabouts seen in titles like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Project Gotham Racing 3 or Oblivion. If you want to go higher, a process called tiling kicks in, where the framebuffer is split into chunks and swapped out into normal memory, impacting performance. Geometry that spans tiles has to processed twice, or even three times. Some developer estimates put the cost of using two tiles (enough for 720p, 2xMSAA) at around 1.4 times the level of keeping everything in the eDRAM. Three tiles, as used for a 720p, 4xMSAA image, or a non-AA 1080p framebuffer, up that requirement to 1.6 times the overhead.

Capcom's Framework MT technology, as used in most of its Japanese titles from Lost Planet through to Resident Evil 5, adopts an interesting - and unique - solution. By default, it uses the three tiles for a maximum quality 720p, 4xMSAA framebuffer. However, when the engine needs that extra level of performance, it'll drop down to using two tiles (2x) or even no tiling at all (no AA). To put things more simply, Capcom adapts its engine dynamically, and very well too - it's extremely unlikely that in a truly action-packed scene that the gamers will notice "teh jaggies".

In short, the processing cost of tiling can seem prohibitive to some developers, so they either lower the resolution, or drop the anti-aliasing completely. Often, computationally less expensive effects like blurring are added instead which rarely helps overall image quality, hence the term coined by Eurogamer editor Tom Bramwell: the Vaseline effect. [Not sure I invented this, but I'll take it. - Ed]

The advent of Halo 3 brought the whole sub-HD issue back to prominence when it was discovered that Microsoft's key tentpole title of 2007 was in fact in contravention of its own technical requirements for game developers. By this time, the journalist screenshot trick no longer worked. Developers were internally scaling their lower-res framebuffers back up to 720p, then overlaying text and HUD data at proper HD resolutions before supplying the result to the video output - Halo 3 is a case in point. Text and HUD detail looks terrible upscaled, so this technique ensures readability of key information without requiring the whole framebuffer to be rendered at 720p. Curiously, Microsoft itself patched the screenshot code in their own tools too, so that even older games like PGR3 still output 720p shots.

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Comments (122) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • KiLlerKnight #1 2 years ago

    ...in stupidity

  • schachmatt #2 2 years ago

    It's probably easier to cheat console users.
    Explains a lot of current production politics.

  • smelly #3 2 years ago

    Oh FFS! What a pointless fucking article. If you actually care THAT much about the resolution the game is running in then it says a lot about how FUN those games are doesnt it?

    Besides, if the devs are making a game run at a lower resolution, it means they can put in EXTRA effects and make it actually look better than it would've done in a higher resolution. Especially in the case of halo 3, where the game looks stunning - no doubt running at higher resolutions would've meant fewer filters and other effects - so in "true" hi def it could've looked WORSE!

    The telling part of this article is that the writer himself admits that he needs a tool to grab the frame buffer to be able to tell what resolution it's running in! Surely if it was THAT important and noticeable, you should be able to tell just by looking at the fucking game!

    It's complete nonsense thing to get even slightly worked up about! Does the game look good? Does it run at a decent framerate? Is it fun? All valid questions.. Does it run in full 720p? Isnt.

    As for the "lazy developers" quote above.. come back when you've written a game which looks great, plays at a decent frame rate, and is really fun... Only to have people bitch about A few lost pixels they wouldnt have noticed if they hadnt been told about it.

    The whole thing really is the emperors clothing.. Where gamers are told their games are "better" if they run at higher resolutions, thanks to fewer "jaggies" (like they make games play worse), simple fact is - lower resolutions with good anti-aliasing can look just as good.. AND leave you with more gpu power to do even more cool stuff to make your game look good!

    A game can look good without all the tech stuff anyhows, as long as you have good art direction. Mario galaxy is imho one of the better looking games of this gen and (shock!) it's not even in low def, and you can notice jaggies while playing it! *shock!*.

    EDIT : two negatives already? Well I guess gamers really have bought into the marketing hype that "true" hi def makes your games "better" (somehow). I challenge anyone to look at halo 3 and tell me it ISNT a stunning looking game... And I also challenge them to HONESTLY tell me they noticed it wasnt running in pure 720p before being told by the websites, and that noticing it made the game less fun!

    If you're noticing stuff like this while you're playing your games.. I suggest you pick games which are more fun.. Or maybe another hobby - like trainspotting or something equally anal.
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/09 @ 06:49

  • Charlie_Miso #4 2 years ago

    I missed the bit where this was explained to be a big deal.

  • INSOMANiAC #5 2 years ago

    o_ci2007 You are a cock of the highest order

  • Machiavellian #6 2 years ago

    I have to say Smelly that the person who missed the point is you. I personally do not read DF because I am concerned about resolution and stuff like that but I do like knowing how developers come make their decisions on how they build their games. I develop software but totally different from games but I encounter the same type of decisions all the time. The key to this article is that Namco was able to produce a game without having to worry about resolution and still produce results that can best the higher resolutions portion of the game.

  • Beano #7 2 years ago

    Incredible... especially when Tekken DR was native 1080p running 60fps on PS3 at launch 2½ years ago.

    Well... I'm not buying then.
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/09 @ 07:16

  • Machiavellian #8 2 years ago

    @Beano
    I guess you are not a tekken player if the resolution of the game means that much to you. I have played Tekken since it first released and the series is still my favorite. I totally do not care if the game runs at 568 or 1080P as long as the gameplay is fun and all my buddies get the game and play online. Definitely one of the least things I care about is the resolution of the game especially if the end results look just as good if not better than the HD native res.

  • MattyD #9 2 years ago

    I actually wish more games would support 1360x768. If you have a 720p HDTV like most HD owners, chances are it's native resolution is actually 1360x768 rather than 1280x720. Most such sets have crap upscaling that makes text and HUDs look awf, and also introduces image lag since the image must undergo additional processing before being displayed. If you use a VGA cable to connect your machine to the tv, you can eliminate this by setting the proper resolution in the dashboard. Sadly the only games I think will actually output this res rather than upscale to it, are Valve's titles.

  • dominalien #10 2 years ago

    Now that was an interesting article. Keep it up, DF :-)

  • ukgamer #11 2 years ago

    It seems like Japanese devs are lagging behind in software tech.

  • Moz #12 2 years ago

    yet more reasons to hope they don't wait too long before releasing next gen of consoles. The current batch are just that little bit under powered tp perform as devs want. Plus the improved shaders you get on new graphics cards take graphics to a new level with out need much more power from the CPU. Quite happy to stick with 720p but with better AA and lighting.

  • Freek #13 2 years ago

    Verry interesting stuff.

    And to all the nay sayers: why visit a blog about the technology behind games, when you have no interest in the subject? The point of DF is not to claim gaming is no longer fun, does it say that anywhere on the site? No. The point is to shine a light on the often overlooked technical side of things. The succes stories of technical master pieces and also the unfortunate trade offs that are often necessary to get the game working.

  • Pro_Gamer #14 2 years ago

    LOL! MY COMMENT GOT DELETED COZ I MENTIOEND THE WORDS FLASHED PSP LOL! 0_0

    there was another time when cencorship was practised - we CALL IT NAZI GERMANY

  • Geordiemp #15 2 years ago

    Maybe naughty dog should go to japan and help poor capcom

    Actually, insert most other developers xxxxx here...
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/09 @ 08:41

  • DDevil #16 2 years ago

    Pro_Gamer just Godwinned himself. Nice going retard.

  • flanker22 #17 2 years ago

    @Geordiemp

    tekken 6 is made by namco dumb fuck. and soul calibur iv ran HD on both consoles.

  • stampax #18 2 years ago

    flanker 22 - your argument becomes less intelligent when you use the words dumb fuck. You know, normal people dont really speak like that when discussing stuff.
    Interesting article anyway - does kind of seem it wont be fully hd games as the developers want until the next gen of consoles come - though not convinced it will make the games any better.
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/09 @ 09:36

  • TheJuriel #19 2 years ago

    Hmh. Resolution doesn't matter if the game looks good. It's all about compromises, and I'll take fancy effects over just having higher res that looks worse.

  • flanker22 #20 2 years ago

    @stampax

    its cause he's belittling developers when he himself doesn't know anything. i think developers are somewhat lucky about resolutions since HD television adoption rate is still relatively low and even then many people are using 720p displays which are 1366x768 naively anyways.

    hmmm that brings up an interesting point. considering many people have 1366x768(720p LCD/Plasmas) displays how good will tekken 6 look on those displays since there will be very little scaling (1360x768 by xbox scaler). wouldnt that mean this game is made specifically for those displays?
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/09 @ 09:56

  • superjag86 #21 2 years ago

    Glad you're back Richard. Good article, looking forward to see how it runs on the PS3.

  • neems #22 2 years ago

    Surely the point isn't so much about enjoyment vs visual fidelity, as it is about expectations, and marketing, and (possible) hypocracy from our old friends MS? Do you need HD graphics to enjoy a game? No. Has the consumer had the 'HD Revolution' rammed down his throat? Yes he has. Did MS promise a minimum 720p for all x360 games? Yes they did. PS3 was supposed to be 1080p across the board - well at least you've got WipeOut. If you had spent a lot of money on an enormous 1080p television, you might expect the HD consoles to at least be HD.

  • Nightster #23 2 years ago

    I don't think developers are to blame for these type of compromises. It must be hell trying to get decent performance and image quality without losing focus on making a playable and fun game. Shift the blame to Microsoft and Sony for making ridiculous claims about the capabilities of their consoles. This generation should be renamed HD Lite!

  • 43n1m4 #24 2 years ago

    Resolution may not be that important - but there is a lower limit. IMO the focus on games and gameplay is the strength of console playing - as long as games don't look as hideous as Wii games does on any large flatscreen tv, and the lack of resolution is compensated by higher geometry detail/textures/fps/complex AI etc. then I'll be fine. Halo 3 actually being case in point - as well as Oblivion.
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/09 @ 10:26

  • octavedoctor #25 2 years ago

    Look, this is all very well n good... but do I really care? I still can't afford an HDTV and many people I know can't either.

  • mkreku #26 2 years ago

    Hey, Richard, I would love to see a scathing analysis of the difference between Risen Xbox 360 version and Risen PC version. If you find the time.

  • GamerG #27 2 years ago

    Very interesting thanks DF!

    And to those complaining about "the pointless article" why bother readining it?

    Oh yer you didn't!

  • Stormflood #28 2 years ago

    SDTV owners must be quietly chuckling to themselves.

  • ParanoidZombie #29 2 years ago

    I'm not sure Tekken6 is really an appropriate "guinea pig" for DF's experiment: it's a fighting game, which means frame rate, collision detection and controls' responsiveness have priority over resolution. Soul calibur4 was actually in HD and had stellar graphics, but it kinda sucked in every other aspects, and that's why most people jumped ship when SF4 was released...

  • Pirotic #30 2 years ago

    Shouldn't this just be in the PS3 category?

  • cjb110 #31 2 years ago

    All this

  • GamesConnoisseur #32 2 years ago

    MS promises of 720p looks silly but then Sony's true HD (1080p) when PS3 is usually behind X360 graphic horsepower outputs looks more far fetched!!

    Sure only PC nowdays have better claim and capacity to do true HD and we will see this probably on the next generation HD consoles, but the slant of this well written article is that resolution is not always the most important point when working with the constraints of the hardware. Getting the game to looks and plays beautifully is far better than getting max resolution, great if you can do all of above but never at the expense of making game unplayable or fugly!

  • dirk_aircool #33 2 years ago

    That was ineresting but I didnt understand it . am I loosing framerate or picture quality on my 360 'cos I use the Pc VGA output rather than the HDMI or composite ( whatever composite means .)and are we been ripped off ? I care about framerate in games , I guess its 'cos I'm an ex Pc type.

  • Stegofreak #34 2 years ago

    Very interesting article and something I've wanted some explanation about for some time. I know a few 360 gamers as well as PS3 gamers who'll reluctantly admit that some games look better on the 360 than the PS3. Always struck me as weird that PS3 exclusives looked so much better ("Giant Enemy Crab" type games aside) than 3rd party games.

    Always thought that Microsoft were masters of smoke and mirrors (not saying Sony are 100% honest.) My issue with the whole thing is that I'd rather developers be honest about their specs rather than hyping it up. Do I still play Final Fantasy VII or the original Halo knowing I have Halo 3 and Killzone 2 lying around? Yes. For some people graphics make a game but it is possible to make a great game with a bit of sacrafice. Indeed, I point your attention to the eurogamer review rating guide

    "Does 10/10 represent perfection?

    No. However, a 10/10 score does mean that we recommend a game to everyone."

  • cianchristopher #35 2 years ago

    "The next-gen starts when we say it does"..... hahahahahaha!!!!!

    The only people who post comments like "I don't care about resolution" are PS3 boys....

    If the tables were turned these are the same dickheads who'd be gloating about "The Power of the Cell".....

    But, i should say that Tekken is shit, so in this case the only winners are those who don't buy this pathetic excuse for a game (in 2009)
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/09 @ 12:07

  • Retroid #36 2 years ago

    @dirk_aircool: No, you're not. Myself and a lot of friends used VGA cables with their PC monitors when the 360 first came out, they were great ^____^

    Component (which is what I think you meant) is comparable for HD output, HDMI (or DVI-D) is the cleanest because they're nice'n'digital. But they can manage the same resolutions.

  • Lexx87 #37 2 years ago

    I still can't agree with people boycotting a game because of this. If it's fun it's fun right?

  • Retroid #38 2 years ago

    For some reason the comments posting on here seems to be going a little mental with double or triple posts. I've tidied them up a little.

  • knightmt #39 2 years ago

    Tekken 6 looks like it moves in a different direction, the platform fighting mix could be a winner?
    The magnitude of the Resolution is not the only defining quality.
    If the underlying physics is shit, the graphics are shit anyway?
    There are loads of shortcuts taken with consoles, it is all part of the package.
    Isn't VGA automatically SVGA?

  • Lave_from_PA #40 2 years ago

    Dear Eurogamer,

    Please write more articles about why computer games are awesome and fun and pew pew and broom and wow and laughter and suprise and giggles and struggle and satisfaction and joy and explosions and little animals and golden coins and exploding heads and roast chickens in bins and full of friends and high fives.

    And fewer 3 PAGE articles about how the-resolution-for-Tekken-6-is-slightly-lower-than-expected- unless-you-turn-motion-blur-off for 3 ENTIRE PAGES before concluding:

    Quote: "The end result is that the two modes look much the same in motion"


    Oh and also

    Quote: "keep your eyes peeled for a more in-depth Tekken 6 update coming in the next couple of days"


    Because 3 pages just isn't enough space to talk about everything about the game bar how fun it is to play.

    Best Regards,
    Lave Station.

    P.S. This isn't meant to be an attack at Richard - his articles are typically a novel and informative look at computer games. But I just feel that Eurogamer is slipping away from the enthusiasm it used to have.

  • Stegofreak #41 2 years ago

    @Lave_from_PA - This is digitalfoundry. ;-)

  • Retroid #42 2 years ago

    @Lave_from_PA: But technical analysis is the bread and butter of Digital Foundry. It's what they do. There's the rest of the EG for that.

    Isn't it a bit like complaining that BBC Four doesn't show Bring On The Wall at the same time as BBC One on Saturday nights; it's 'aswell as', not 'instead of'.

  • Collymilad #43 2 years ago

    Who gives a crap?

    No-one cared before this was brought into the mainstream. The games still look brilliant. Bitching for bitchings sake to be honest.

    And yes, I know this is DF - but they seem to concentrate only on stupid things - maybe do a tech piece on something... I dunno... Interesting?
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/09 @ 12:33

  • Lave_from_PA #44 2 years ago

    @Retroid.

    It very much is. So much so that I didn't post that. But taking that analogy further it is like complaining about the BBC only showing BBC 4 whilst shutting down BBC 1. This isn't a complaint at DF. It does exactly what it says on the tin. But it was (I hope) meant as an addition to EG. whilst the rest of Eurogamer (bar Ellie) seems to have lost their focus.

  • Retroid #45 2 years ago

    Fair enough then! :)

    But there are usually too many people posting comments on these articles saying they're too technical, too boring or shouting BIAS when there isn't any. So mine was a general comment as well as a response.

    /Tips hat

  • GreyBeard #46 2 years ago

    Its all about making trade-offs. All games PS3/X360 *could* run at 1080p native but ultimately frame-rate, scene complexity and texture detail would need to take a hit. You'd have more pixels to count but more of the them would be the same ;D

    Fighting games like Tekken are an interesting case as most of the avenues for optimization get closed off:

    A constant high-framerate is a must, so observing the limit imposed by the "worst case" (most to draw) scenario needs to be more strictly adhered to than in most titlles. Basically the hard-limit should never be exceeded.

    The view is up close and relatively static, so you can't use a variable-sized framebuffer invisibly like you can on a racing game like Wipeout, and pre-culling graphic data won't do much because most of the action is happening at the front of the screen...

    Obviously adding a heavy post-effect like motion blur is going to cause major spikes in the amount of draw-time, so the whole frame-buffer needs to be shrunk to handle the worst-case scenario without frame-drops or tearing.

    To be honest I'd say that Namco's engineers hands were tied on this one; they'd either have to simplify the graphics (drop the motion blur, reduce model poly-count and texture detail) or reduce the framebuffer size.

    I know what I'd choose under those circumstances.

    Uncharted/Killzone2 do what they do not because they use the GPU more, but because they back-end as much as they can on the CELL's SPE's, which is obviously fine for PS3, but not applicable for 360 so they'd need to find another way to handle it on that platform - and that's a lot of extra time, effort, and expense.

  • Lord_Gremlin #47 2 years ago

    Wow... Just wow. They port a game from arcade machine, which essentially has PS3 hardware (Tekken 6 BR!!!), it takes YEARS (to port from PS3 to PS3!!!) and they can't even manage 720p? Too lazy developer. TOO lazy.

  • uiruki #48 2 years ago

    Just to say - the motion blur effect, if the 360 version of it is identical to the PS3/arcade one, is probably the best motion blur I've seen in any game, looking at Tekken 6 BR in the arcades. It adds smoothness to a game already running at 60fps. Since the entire game is spent watching the animation for the two characters, it's a good tradeoff to make.

  • davisorle #49 2 years ago

    In the pics it looks sharper but you can tell the resolution difference. But in action on the video I sorry but as many times as I watch it it looks better without the blur while on higher resolution to me no matter how it does look on the pics. Unless I got it confused which I dont think so. Dont you guys seriously think it looks better on the video on the right than the blur on the left..? o.O And btw that video is on the PS3? I got kinda lost as in them having even close to analysed it more than a bit on the PS3 and at all on the 360 so far :/

  • Doobiedo #50 2 years ago

    Slight correction on:
    "...in the case of Black Rock Studios' game, they drop the anti-aliasing completely"

    from the develop article:
    "...most games, including our games here at Black Rock, drop down to 2xMSAA at 1280x720"
    http://ww w.develop-online.net/blog/44/Mi...

  • Skinme #51 2 years ago

    Great article! Informative and relevant for us tech geeks.

    It seems odd now, looking back, that MS had the TRC enforce 720p and 2xAA when their GPU chips (if I read the article correctly) are not actually capable of doing both at the same time. Or at least do both and keep up 30fps.

    It also seems more than a little ironic that cross-platform PS3 games often come with lower resolutions to ensure playable frame-rates. Especially when you take into account Sony's early marketing material which was at pains to point out that it was the only "true" HD console (at launch the 360 didn't have an HDMI port).

    Hopefully all such issues will have been sorted by the next gen. I think 1080p will probably be the highest res (on TVs at least) for the foreseeable future, as 3D-TV seems to be the focus of the next tech boost. And luckily (if Nvidia 3D vision is anything to go by) 3D-TV doesn't look like it will cause a huge performance hit.

    Please note this all personal opinion and I don't feel strongly in favour of either Sony or MS. In fact when I look at this gen it reminds me of Roy Walker from CatchPhrase "It's good, but it's not quite right!"

  • Charlie_Miso #52 2 years ago

    Whats with all the down voting for those declaring they couldn't give a fuck?

    I think DF should bugger off back to the sad corner of the internet where people enjoying discussing such things as PC graphics cards and leave the front page for important shit, like games and how they play.

  • Lukus #53 2 years ago

    So, it seems you can have two or three of the following at any given time, but no more:

    Steady 30 or 60fps
    High resolution textures
    Full 720p or 1080p native resolution output
    Proper multi sampled AA

    I want them all damn it. Compromise sucks.*


    *not necessarily true.
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/09 @ 18:32

  • des #54 2 years ago

    More like pixel-counting phenomenon...its a bit sad that some people can't enjoy games if some arbitrary number of pixels is not met,luckily those people live in small minority

  • Skinme #55 2 years ago

    @Charlie_Miso

    As a general rule I don't like to bitch about individuals on here as I believe in freedom of speech, but I really need to say this.

    If it wasn't for people like those that work at DF or us (those people that are interested in such things), we'd all still be living in caves beating each other round the head with rocks. Exploration and understanding of technology is what has allowed us to use tools, create machines and extend our lifespan. It's also thanks to such people that you are able to post a comment on the internet using sophisticated technology. Perhaps you should think about that before bitching about the types of people who gave you that ability.

  • ScottyXTUK #56 2 years ago

    @ Smelly

    What a brilliant post mate. I could not agree more. Who the feck cares about a few jaggies here or there or if a game runs in less than 720p? I hate all this comparison crap between ps3 and xbox 360 screenshots. Like someone will say, look at that jaggie in one screen. It's in a racing game ffs, who the heck is going to notice a still screen when you are racing at break neck speed. I'm sick of people pointing out something that joe public just would not see. Like in the article, the guy saying the difference in the pantaloons, I cannot see any difference!! And even if there is it will be miniscule, not like you will notice it while playing. I can hardly see any difference in comparison shots anyway, like you said if it's that glaring you will notice it.

    Why people are so anal at checking out the minutest flaw is beyond me, get a life and play the bloody games don't sit there analysing them.


    Like you said, if a game looks good and plays good and is fun then that is all that matters. Bet post I've read on here in ages.

  • TRUTH #57 2 years ago

    I didn't even notice the blur effect!...I saw this in the arcade and didn't think nothing above Tekken 5(PS3), in improved graphics and sure didn't notice any of this blur effect ?...what the hell is it?

  • BillyBrush #58 2 years ago

    Interesting...i think the resolution of COD4, PGR3 and Oblivion is good though, if all games looked as sharp as MW or PGR...that's not a poor standard to set.

    Re 360's issues with it....accepted, but given Sony's insistence on 1080p being their standard and the amount of games that do that (3? 4?), i can't see that the 360 is particularly 'handicapped' in the resolution stakes....at least in terms of what the consumers end up with.

  • Cannibal #59 2 years ago

    There's a severe lack of beat-em-ups this generation and even that is relying on old established franchises. No one new has really tried to enter the market.
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/09 @ 15:37

  • Darren #60 2 years ago

    "Microsoft had promised that native 720p would be minimum, and that 2x multisampling anti-aliasing..."

    Microsoft should NEVER ever have been such a claim IMO since it's pretty clear now that the Xbox 360 could not honour it. It's a nice machine and is capable of churning out nice looking games but that 720p resolution plus 2x AA often comes with compromises, e.g. screen tear and sub-720p resolutions.

    If Microsoft had kept their traps shut and just promised BETTER graphics for those with HDTVs, which IS true, then all of this sub-720p crap would be perfectly acceptable and no-one would question the decision to make 1024x576 games. The same goes for Sony too by the way and their ludicrous claims that 1080p is true HD for gaming, something very, very few of their PS3 games achieve because like the 360 not all of them run at 720p either.

    Both Microsoft and Sony have been gobby and boastful this generation, making exaggerated claims about what their consoles can do when the truth is we'll have to wait for the NEXT generation before 720p and AA becomes the standard for ALL games.

  • Darren #61 2 years ago

    Also the decision to make Tekken 6 sub-HD with motion blurring is an odd one considering Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection on the PS3 runs at 1920x1080 @ 60 fps. It certainly looks like a step backwards when the newest game doesn't look all that great anyway. Certainly it doesn't look as lush as SoulCalibur IV from what I've seen and that's 18 months old. Disappointing really.

  • Darren #62 2 years ago

    @Lukus - If you want all those things and more then buy a PC; it's as simple as that.

  • smelly #63 2 years ago

    @Digital~Orgasm :

    >Bet post I've read on here in ages.

    But yet 33 negatives!

    So obviously everyone else is more interested in being anal about whether a game is running properly in hi-def or not rather than just enjoying the game.

    I feel sorry for their game choices, i really do.

    Im not against what DF is TRYING to do ... Talking about tech behind games is a good thing. But this entire article is just a "not hidef is bad m'kay" rant. If you're going to have articles like these, it'd make more sense having someone write it who actually has coded or knows the techinal reasons behind such choice.

    Such quotes from the article like "We can only hope that it doesn't open the doors for more games with sloppy code making their way to gamers".. Is just plain fucking nonsense. It's not "sloppy code" which means the games arent running in "pure" 720p, it's almost definately the exact opposite - i.e. the developer has said "if we run in this lower resolution, we can do more effects, turn Anti Aliasing and have the game run faster - so it'll look BETTER than if we ran in hidef"..

    .. Then some geeky game "journalist" (and i use the term loosely here) takes a frame buffer capture, notices it's not in pure 720p then rants in a article like this that it makes ALL The difference (despite him not noticing until he took said framebuffer capture).

    It's complete nonsense - the emperors clothing. It's the 60hz/50hz argument over again.. Where games weren't deemed as good unless they ran at full 60fps.. Nowadays, it's more a 60hz/30hz argument .. But in reverse. Actually it seems 20fps is okay, as long as it's running in 720p!

    And of course the gamers lap this bullshit up.

    Before going back to their 1080p Gran Turismo, marvelling over the graphics.. And ignoring the fact the car is floating around on the road, stopping dead for small fucking obsticles and sliding around the fucking walls... But hey, at least it's in 1080p - That's ALL That matters - right kids?


    Edited by 2 at 03/10/09 @ 17:13

  • freakzilla #64 2 years ago

    They don't deliver what they promise but they still moan about the costs of game development? (game devs and publishers in general)
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/09 @ 17:07

  • smelly #65 2 years ago

    @freakzilla : WTF are you talking about?

    See.. this is exactly the point i was making. Gamers dont notice, game website runs a tool, tells everyone it's not "true 720p".. Gamers go up in arms saying "The developers havent delivered on their promise"

    .. The only promise they had being that they'd try to make the game fun.. And lets ignore the fact that gamers wouldnt be able to ACTUALLY FUCKING TELL unless some "journo" tells them!

  • miiiguel #66 2 years ago

    Tekken is a brawler for girls right?

  • feistycheese #67 2 years ago

    Some ridiculous comments on here.

    I have a 360, a ps3 and a big hi-def spanky TV. Ive paid a lot of money for them and a pay a lot of money for games, so yes, I care that those games are of a highest def as possible, I want my games to look good as well as play good, at the end of the day if Im shelling out 40 quid a time its important.

    A lot of comments on here saying 'I dont care' are coming from people who own next gen machines but dont have hi-def TV's. Now Im sorry if you cant afford one, but having a 360/PS3 without a decent telly is like shagging a supermodel with your eyes closed, your missing half the picture.

    You may as well go back to playing ps2's . . . .

  • miiiguel #68 2 years ago

    @feistycheese : generalization is fail. I have a 46" 1080p TV and a 40" 720p, and the number of pixels onscreen is not important to me. I don't care how many of them are in front of me, really. I want the game be good/fun/imersive, now the way devs do it I really don't care. Example: ODST looks/plays/sounds/etc way better that Terminator Salvation, which runs at a higer res. You have countless examples similar, no high resolution will save a game from being mediocre, no low resolution will criple a game from being a good one, imo. Then again, I do like to play them games.
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/09 @ 17:42

  • smelly #69 2 years ago

    @feistycheese : You want the game to look "as good as possible".. but what if the game looks BETTER because its running at a lower resolution? Because the developer can put in more stuff because of that?

    Look at halo 3 - (not played odst, because i dont actually enjoy halo games) .. absolutely stunning looking - not in pure 720p. If they'd ran in pure 720p, chances are it could've looked WORSE!

    A few extra pixels does not suddenly make a game look or play better.

  • pinochet_cz #70 2 years ago

    great that someone care..I thought that I am alone in fight for real HD.

  • smelly #71 2 years ago

    Sometimes i wonder why game developers actually bother trying to make games fun.

    They should just make one of those non-interactive 3d-mark tests for gamers to sit at home and wank over.

  • IronCladChicken #72 2 years ago

    I'm confused why people keep posting that it's 'how fun a game is rather thanit's resolution thats important' & 'why is this article about screen resolution when it's makes no difference when the gameis in motion'?

    Fro me, this is purely a technical article about how & why the actual screen resolution used by developers doesn't match the resolutions promised by MS at the 360;s launch.

    It doesn't appear to be suggesting that games would be more fun/visually exciting if higher resolutions were used - It just seems to be saying that most developers don't use the MS-hyped 720p settings & this is why.

    I'm sure the guy who wrote the article would agree with people completly that gameplay is more important that graphics - but if he wrote about that, it wouldn't make a technical article.

    I guess what I'm saying is that if your not interested in how/why sub-HD resolutions are used in most games, then don't read it - Theres no need to take offence.

    (Though I did notice a lot of the guys posting about how graphics res isn't important are the same people who put the Wii down becasue of it's graphical capabilities ;) )

  • old_skool #73 2 years ago

    I think it's safe to say that we CAN have at least 720p resolution in this generation that still look good and play great, there are games out there that can do this. It all boils down to available resources and time invested. If it's a cross platform game chances are very good it will be sub 720p.

    Lukus mentioned:
    Steady 30 or 60fps
    High Resolution Textures
    Full 720p or 1080p native resolution output
    Proper multi sampled AA

    The above is directly proportional to the amount of resources and time available. Time and resources is inversely proportional to experience and software tool assets.

    What Microsoft is unfortunately doing is in essence ensuring that sub 720p becomes the standard for this generation, at least on their console.

    @Smelly
    I don't think anyone disputes the fact that a game should deliver a good entertaining experience. That is the the number one aim of making a game. But there are developers that aim to deliver this experience in the best technical manner possible and some will realise that their vision can only be delivered by pushing the technological envelope. I feel we as gameplayers should encourage this. If I was content with just "fun" why upgrade to the next console?

  • GreatBlackthorn #74 2 years ago

    What I find hard to understand is why the best looking games of this generation, the likes of Gears of War 2, Killzone 2 and Uncharted 2 manage to run at 720p with anti-aliasing and v-sync, yet other games that aren't pushing anywhere near the same number of effects can't manage this. It would be understandable if the very best looking games couldn't run at full 720p, and the less graphically impressive ones could, but for the reverse to be true is simply baffling.

  • captainrentboy #75 2 years ago

    Wow, all that writing and yet when I played the game a couple of weeks back I thought it looked lovely and played like one smooth and sexy beast.
    Ignorance really is bliss :)

  • Darren #76 2 years ago

    @GreatBlackthorn - Killzone 2 and Uncharted 2 are v-synced, yes, but Gears of War 2 isn't. It drops v-sync at times to maintain as near to 30 fps as possible and when it does you'll see screen tearing, typically during heavy combat and explosions. The other two games have no tearing.

  • photoboy #77 2 years ago

    @GreatBlackthorn

    The reason the games you listed are all 720p is because they were published by the platform holder (i.e. MS or Sony) and so the developers would have had access to the engineers who designed the console as well as the teams that maintain the software dev kits and the compilers. It's much easier for them to find out where the bottlenecks might be in their code and how to mitigate against them by having access to the people who know the system inside out.

    A crude analogy would be a car mechanic speaking to a car's designer and the men who built it in the factory to find out how to fix a problem, it's a lot quicker than the mechanic taking the whole car apart to look for a problem!

    In a way I'm saddened that MS have dropped the 720p/2xAA requirement, I don't think it was that onerous on developers considering I've never heard any devs complaining about it, plus it seems MS were never overbearing about it considering they bent the rules whenever a developer asked. On a big screen the sub-720p games always look a little blurry from the upscaling.

    Speaking as a programmer myself, there's never enough time when you're programming, and you often have to make sacrifices to meet your deadlines. If you're making a game and the engine is still lagging in the sub-20 fps range, dropping the resolution is always a good way to get some speed back when you're on a deadline.

  • Loghorn #78 2 years ago

    Photoboy, I don't think there were any requirements from MS about all games being in 720p at all, especially when games like Halo 3 & Star Ocean 4 weren't in real 720p, anyhow.

  • smelly #79 2 years ago

    Thanks everyone! I was beginning to wonder why i ever stopped making games..

    This thread reminded me again!

    Thanks!

  • Waldo #80 2 years ago

    Graphics whores unite!

  • ukgamer #81 2 years ago

    The only reason 360 multiplats look better is because devs don't take the time to properly port to PS3. Just look at oblivion and red alert 3; they had a delayed release on PS3 and they came out better looking.

    It's all up to the devs folks. 360 and PS3 are close in terms of raw power.

  • JamieR #82 2 years ago

    its looks quite good to me lol and i saw no difference in the video I'm kinda confused by this maybe eurogamer is been a bit nit picky i don't know i don't like tekkon my self anyways

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #83 2 years ago

    "Microsoft had promised that native 720p would be minimum, and that 2x multisampling anti-aliasing..."

    Microsoft should NEVER ever have been such a claim IMO since it's pretty clear now that the Xbox 360 could not honour it.

    Plenty of games do manage it. Certainly the 'AAA' Xbox 360 game that I worked on managed it. It seemed a realistic goal in 2005 and 2006, but in the end the demands of rendering tech outstripped the resolution goals.

    But to be fair to Microsoft, they never missed their goal by the distance Sony did. Remember TWO 1080p displays simultaneously?

  • Number1Laing #84 2 years ago

    Was the arcade version like this? I know the arcade version was built on System 357, which, based on info on the internets, is made out of a Cell CPU, a RSX GPU, and 512 megs of RAM. It would be very odd indeed if the arcade version ran at 720p and the PS3 version did not.
    Edited by 2 at 04/10/09 @ 00:15

  • Weezer #85 2 years ago

    God, who cares. If it plays well it plays well. Wii can barely reach PAL resolutions. This stuff is way too nerdy even for me. And I'm a nerd.

  • Buran #86 2 years ago

    Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection Online: 1920 x 1080p x 60 fps (no AA). But I'll chose Tekken 6 BR all the day.

  • Gormless #87 2 years ago

    Analysis of Xbox 360 screens released to date reveals native resolutions of anything from 1280x720, to 1360x768 to full-on 1080p. On the other hand, PS3 assets released so far reveal a disappointing 1024x576 resolution - over 33 per cent of the 720p detail gone, just like that.

    Have you played the original Tekken you fuckin apparent noobs? Does Tekken 6 look better? Have you plyed the original Ridge Racer, does it lookd shit? does it play like a dream? Get over it you HD spolit cunts.

  • electrolite #88 2 years ago

    Just goes to illustrate the 'emperors new clothes' aspect to this generation that's been obvious for a while. The vast majority of people couldn't care less about HD Gaming.
    Edited by 1 at 04/10/09 @ 01:25

  • smelly #89 2 years ago

    They care about HD gaming - in that obviously going from 480i to 720p is a big difference.

    HOWEVER - they dont care about whether or not Halo 3 (for example) runs in PROPER HD because it makes F-ALL difference! And most people couldnt tell the difference, unless they were told by a game site like this one that it doesnt!

  • bloodflowers #90 2 years ago

    Couldn't care less about the resolution - I wish they'd put more effort into making games move at full frame rate - which gives a MUCH nicer effect when playing.

  • richyroo #91 2 years ago

    @smelly

    Please stop usuing the Halo3 example. To me, Halo3 looks blurry and only slightly better than Halo2 ever did. Graphically, Halo3 is the most dissapointing game on the 360. But graphics arent everything, it plays good and thats what matters

  • AOFanboi #92 2 years ago

    "If you had spent a lot of money on an enormous 1080p television, you might expect the HD consoles to at least be HD."

    Back when I was deciding on whether to splurge on a 1080p set or get a cheaper 720p set, I read that at the time, TVs took 1080 signals and downscaled them to 720p (or even lower) for processing then upscaling them for display, in effect "losing" the real 1080i/p signal. Things do have improved since then, though, but at the time it was like the TV manufacturers were just as bad when it came to "tricking" the consumer. And the reason was much the same as in the article: Processing speed vs. buffer size, where maintaining FPS was most important.

  • Transcendent #93 2 years ago

    Motion blur is cool. It's like blurry and all, removing detail and making things harder to see. I hope more games sacrifice resolution for it.

  • napoleon_ist #94 2 years ago

    what about the "NOT SO HIGH DEFINITION" XBOX360 Ninja Gaiden 2 (585p) ?!

    why is there no article about this since the PS3 version is 720p (1080p compliant) ?!

    you guys always complain about sub-HD on PS3 but don't talk about the XBOX360's own sub-HD like Halo ODST (640p) PGR3 (600p), COD4 (600p), Star Ocean 4 (702p/496p) ??

  • lukaz #95 2 years ago

    @GhenghisNaan: 60fps are more than just nice to have. They make a huge difference in immersion.

  • malmer #96 2 years ago

    I'd rather have high a quality image than high resolution. Wall-e on DVD (720x576 anamorphic) looks amazing, even at that low resolution. If every game had the option of running in SD but with four times the visual quality I would not complain. HD is overrated. Anti-aliasing is much more important for perceived visual quality.

  • intpleeus #97 2 years ago

    When videogame journalists -- who spend hours per day playing -- don't notice the lack of resolution until they make screen shots on their PC, why should anyone else care? And wtf is "true HD" anyway? The fact that my 360 games are higher resolution than what came before is quite enough for me.

  • photoboy #98 2 years ago

    @napoleon_ist

    You mean this article, that clearly highlights all the aspects of Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 that are superior to the 360 version?

  • smelly #99 2 years ago

    @intpleeus & malmer
    +1
    Edited by 1 at 04/10/09 @ 19:06

  • smelly #100 2 years ago

    @richyroo "it plays good and thats what matters"

    kinda my point

  • smelly #101 2 years ago

    >If I was content with just "fun" why upgrade to the next console?

    Because generation increases tend to bring more than just graphical upgrades.

    Mario 64 wouldnt have been possible on a snes
    Tomb raider wouldnt have been possible on a megadrive
    GTA3 wouldnt have been possible on a ps1
    etc etc.

    None of those are "just" graphical upgrades.. all of them bought gameplay which just wouldnt have been possible the generation before.

  • denis09 #102 2 years ago

    The article poses questions it doesn't answer satisfyingly; "Why can't we have full 720p and 4xMSAA, as seen on very clean-looking games like DiRT 2 or Fight Night Round 4?" If this is due to the sustained fps, the article forgets to state so explicitly?

    And implied is also the question as to how some developers manage to deliver perceived high quality images whereas many deliver sub-par results (vaseline effect, jaggies, frame drops, torn frames). I guess that is a question for further exploration and explanation in future articles though..

    Overall an interesting take and dissemination of the upscaling-"issue" though, thanks for the still brilliant blogposts. How does one go about subscribing only to the DigitalFoundry articles via RSS?

  • smelly #103 2 years ago

    Has this Richard LeadBetter ever made a game? In not - i doubt very much that he could answer your questions.

  • Loghorn #104 2 years ago

    Update:

    If you read the article carefully, they actually said that in which both versions have motion blur & run at Sub-HD resolutions. But, when you turn the motion blur off on the 360 version, the resolution jumps to true 720p HD. If you turn the motion blur off on the PS3, it'll stay at a Sub-HD resolution. In other words, the PS3 version loses to the 360 version.

    Hopefully, that clears things up. I overreacted at first about it, heh.
    Edited by 2 at 05/10/09 @ 06:55

  • menschenfracht #105 2 years ago

    2 Loghorn - the words 'We'll be producing a more in-depth report once we've taken a closer look at the PlayStation 3 version of Tekken 6' gave you that feeling? Could you specify where DF checks the PS3 version without motion blur?

  • Geordiemp #106 2 years ago

    Because the GPU's of both Xbox360 and PS3 are not good enough to do 720 P with good framerate. Easy really.
    The GPU is slightly better on the 360 with its EDRAM for some effects and easy programming.

    So, the only games that can do it have to do the graphics work in the CPU - PS3 is good at this when SPU's are used for graphics (Killzone, UIncharted2 etc)...

    Can Xbox do the same thing with CPU graphics, it has 3 cores ?

  • funkateer #107 2 years ago

    I think the most important thing to realize regarding the sub-HD phenomenon is that it turns out that the number of pixels is not as important as the overall aesthetics of the game.
    You know, quality over quantity, the artistic side of things.

    As long as technology is not at a point where we have processing power to spare (we have a long way to go there, also on PC), there will be trade offs like this.
    Personally, I'm glad when devs trade off the number of pixels for better looking pixels when necessary.

  • StooMonster #108 2 years ago

    Can Xbox do the same thing with CPU graphics, it has 3 cores ?

    Runs two threads per core too, so is in effect six PowerPC cores in parallel; which is prolly better than your PC for parallel tasks, unless you have an octo-core setup or run CUDA code.

    However, I am not sure the CPU can directly help with GPU's work on Xbox as the six SPEs in the Cell do; but the Xbox's CPU does have a VMX128 vector unit which is different to VMX unit in Cell (VMX derivatives were called AltiVec by Apple when the used PowerPC chips) because it has hardware support for 3D graphics and physics (some VMX compatible features were removed in lieu) and this might be able to do that (but I'm not an Xbox game developer).

  • StooMonster #109 2 years ago

    I read that at the time, TVs took 1080 signals and downscaled them to 720p (or even lower) for processing then upscaling them for display, in effect "losing" the real 1080i/p signal.

    That's just wrong. I doubt there is or was any 1080p display that did such a thing, I don't know of any OEM video processing chipset that behaves that way, what possible benefit would there be?

    Some displays used to not be able to deinterlace 1080i to 1080p and treated 1080i as 540p, but these were not 1080p displays more like your cheap-as-chips 1024x768 panels.

  • Mooglepies #110 2 years ago

    I play Vib-Ribbon on the PS1 and like it. Is there something wrong with me?

    Also, while the whole Sub-HD thing is annoying, being an owner of a 1080p telly, I just have to sit much farther back than usual. Annoying, at the very worst. Not rage-worthy. Not scandalous (although you could argue that it should at least so what it's running in on the back of the box).

    What they need to sort out are screen tearing issues, which are far, far more important than how many polygons you can flit around the screen.

  • Darren #111 2 years ago

    I don't think sub-HD (below 720p) resolutions are the problem, it's the lack of AA in some of these sub-HD games that is the real issue IMO. Halo 3 and ODST look ugly and jaggy IMO because of the lack of any AA whereas the current gen Call of Duty games don't because, despite being sub-720p, they have 2xAA.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #112 2 years ago

    However, I am not sure the CPU can directly help with GPU's work on Xbox

    Xbox 360 has a facility they called Procedural Synthesis which is some sort of system for squirting data from the CPU to the GPU quickly, and is intended for having the CPU help out with graphics work. Apparently it's an evolution of a system IBM developed for the CPU in the GameCube.

    I don't know how much people bother with it though. The CPU generally has more than enough to do in modern games.

  • onyxbox #113 2 years ago

    I enjoy reading these types of article over the Face Offs... I feel like I'm learning something when I read these.

  • Loghorn #114 2 years ago

    2 Loghorn - the words 'We'll be producing a more in-depth report once we've taken a closer look at the PlayStation 3 version of Tekken 6' gave you that feeling? Could you specify where DF checks the PS3 version without motion blur?

    Who knows? The end result would probably come out to be the same thing, anyway.
    Edited by 1 at 05/10/09 @ 18:15

  • old_skool #115 2 years ago

    If I was content with just "fun" why upgrade to the next console?

    Because generation increases tend to bring more than just graphical upgrades.

    Mario 64 wouldnt have been possible on a snes
    Tomb raider wouldnt have been possible on a megadrive
    GTA3 wouldnt have been possible on a ps1
    etc etc.

    None of those are "just" graphical upgrades.. all of them bought gameplay which just wouldnt have been possible the generation before.

    @smelly
    What you are forgetting is that for certain games, let me iterate this part again, FOR CERTAIN GAMES, good graphics is part of an immersive and entertaining experience. Your argument can be put on it's head by saying we could have drawn Lara Croft as a stick figure with two circles showing boobs and all that matters is just the gameplay mechanics.
    Mario 64 might have been possible on the SNES, albeit not in the N64 graphical presentation (Remember, 3D games existed before the Playstation/Saturn era). Would it have delivered the same "fun" immersive experience?

  • intpleeus #116 2 years ago

    I still don't understand what all the controversy is about.

    Resolution is one variable of an image. It's an important variable, but not all-important -- it's a trade-off.

    Given the lacklustre up-take of HD sets, the subset of HD sets that can output at 1080i/p, the number of people who own HD sets and don't know how to use them, and the diminishing return of HD as it approaches perceptual limits, there is precious little incentive for developers to make the trade-off necessary to output the highest definition possible. It would merely benefit a minority of customers at the expense of the many -- not a good business strategy.
    Edited by 1 at 05/10/09 @ 19:23

  • dagas #117 2 years ago

    Wow! I had no idea so many games used costum settings. I thought Halo 3 was the only exception to the rule of 1280x720 and 2xMSAA promised by MS. Being flexible is a good thing, but it seems that neither PS3 nor 360 are true HD consoles after all. Hopefully for the next systems we will see true 1080p with 4xMSAA and still have all the nice effects such as HDR and such.

  • Simplex #118 2 years ago

    Could someone explain this bit to me?
    "The Darkness got full 720p visuals on Xbox 360, but a paltry 960x540 on PS3 - not good, especially in light of other cutbacks in texture detail and lighting. Beyond3D has a comprehensive list of game resolutions, regularly updated, and is pretty much the definitive resource for Xbox 360 and PS3 games. "

    The same beyond3d page that is being linked to in this sentence lists PS3 demo version of The Darkness as having 1024x576 res - stil bad, but not as bad as 960x540 mentioned in the quote. What gives?

  • Darren #119 2 years ago

    @Simplex - 960x540 = 518.400 pixels. 1024x576 = 589,824 pixels. So there isn't really that much difference between the two anyway. If I had to take a guess at why there's two different resolutions, I'd say one was calculated from a pre-release screenshot and the other was taken from a framebuffer image from the actual game. Which is correct? I don't think it matters really; both are sub-720p with no AA compared with the 720p + 2xAA of the 360 version.

  • dryden555 #120 2 years ago

    Sorry but some of these posts are short0sighted. The 720p 'requirement' by MS was basically bogus since launch, which is a pretty significant issue that translates into stuttery framerates and fuzzy graphics on even major release games. Its not just abot how one game like Tekken looks folks.

  • gonefishing #121 2 years ago

    "PlayStation 3 bandwidth to the GPU is often cited by developers as a reason why working with RSX can be challenging - while the graphics hardware is equivalent to an NVIDIA G71 chip like the 7800GTX, it only has a 128-bit bus to communicate with the rest of the architecture. In short, it's often the case that information to and from the GPU to Cell is held up due to the size of the pipe connecting them."

    I don't understand the above, doesn't CELL have direct access to main memory & RSX also has direct access to video memory? Doesn't the 360 CPU & GPU both share bandwidth to UMA? How then can the RSX pipe to ram be a disadvantage?

    Please don't bring the bandwidth between EDRAM & Xenos into this because at the end of the day the results are written into UMA & that happens to be a shared bus. Perhaps thats also a reason why we're not seeing any triple buffered games on the 360.

  • robinthakur #122 2 years ago

    I don't think a lot of people who read this article understand it, its author or its purpose and are instead getting defensive about what consoles they own. Its a technical article, and if you can't even understand that it has no bearing on gameplay then it goes way over your head. Tekken is great and fun and I play it all the time. However I'm also very interested in graphics tech especially as my history took in PC gaming where resolution and FPS optimisation is part of the landscape (my dream was of running Quake 1 at 1600x1400 with a playable framerate instead of a slideshow when I was 13) as well as the good old dreamcast where nearly all games ran at a minimium 480p resolution and were locked to 60Hz. Back in the SNES days, everything was 60fps and fluid...

    Because of these expectations from the days of the SNES, Dreamcast etc, I'm always put off by games that don't run at 60fps. They just don't seem perfectly fluid to be honest and I can detect them from a mile away. I can detect differences running up to about 100fps beyond which my eyes can't see the difference. If you're used to spotting it then its not difficult. My benchmarks are things like Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter, VOOT, SF2 all fast moving games made exciting by their fluidity and movement.

    Resolution I'm not so impressed by, but where you have an HD generation of consoles and HD standards like 720p (the more realistic one) and 1080p marketed as such, the average person on the street who consults the materials available to them would conclude that to be HD ready, content and devices need to conform to one of the standard resolutions greater than 720p. My TV is a 1080P 46" LED Samsung, but I dare say quite a few people do not even run on HD ready tv's, even in this day and age.

    As with broadcast HD however, a lot of stuff is going to be upscaled because the more effects you have going on within a frame, the less likely it is going to be able to hit 60fps and most members of the gaming public only seem to be able to notice frame-rates when they drop below 30fps, which these days is now acceptable. To notice these things is admirable for tech-geeks like me, if only to be able to discern what in Sony and Microsoft's PR is just bs, and also if you own multiple platforms to know which version is better technically. I, like another poster also remember when Sony's PS3 was announced to be able to output 2 or 3 1080p streams simultaneously. Maybe if you're playing pong on it LOL

    The fact that Tekken 6's arcade hardware is based on the PS3's architecture and that the conversion is 2-3 years late to the PS3 AND that techhnically its still not making the most of the machine is definitely a source of disappointment, if only because the Tekken team have a really good history of delivering arcade perfect or better than arcade conversions dating all the way back to the PS1. 1080P native might be unrealistic, but 720p at a bare minimum surely shouldn't be that difficult to achieve. I also think that quite a few of those commenting are being quite hypocritical by allowing the 360 and the PS3 a free pass on graphic misrepresentation when the only ones even close to being accurate on their graphics declaration is Nintendo!

    Nice article Rich as always, I used to read your stuff back in the days of 'Mean Machines' when I was at school in the 90's!
    Edited by 1 at 04/11/09 @ 14:30