Digital Foundry PS4 Pro Launch Coverage Begins

rakanishu said:
It is upscaling in the sense that it makes up shit.
It typically reprojects "shit" from previous frames, which is also why static-image resuts are basically identical to native render. It's obviously not ideal, but unlike usual upscaling, the data is not actually made-up, which is where most of the quality benefits come from.
 
The amount of people who's not even gonna buy the PS4 Pro but come into all these threads just to downplay anything of it as much as they can through multiple threads is ridiculous lol

Yeah it's pretty pathetic. What a waste of time lol. It's frustrating that a bunch of people seem to be hellbent on damaging the image of the system, and who knows why they're doing it.
 
Yeah it's pretty pathetic. What a waste of time lol. It's frustrating that a bunch of people seem to be hellbent on damaging the image of the system, and who knows why they're doing it.

It's kind of sad that you think "the image of the system" is something that matters. It's a box.
 
It typically reprojects "shit" from previous frames, which is also why static-image resuts are basically identical to native render. It's obviously not ideal, but unlike usual upscaling, the data is not actually made-up, which is where most of the quality benefits come from.

I'll retract my statement of "shit" because it seems to trigger something that I didn't intend to do. I understand what you are saying. I'm agreeing with it not being ideal. The problem I originally had was the topic stating 4k. It was a copy/paste, but still, it is misinformation. It is comparable with upscaling or a codec, but it doesn't look like the real thing. That is my point.
 
I'll retract my statement of "shit" because it seems to trigger something that I didn't intend to do. I understand what you are saying. I'm agreeing with it not being ideal. The problem I originally had was the topic stating 4k. It was a copy/paste, but still, it is misinformation. It is comparable with upscaling or a codec, but it doesn't look like the real thing. That is my point.

You disagree with me (and the general industry) on this It seems, but I think that's fine. Just like how Netflix 1080p isn't actually native 1080p and no one really seems to have a problem with it, I would consider calling this simply 4K fine by the same logic. Calling it native 4K would be wrong though of course.
 
So much misinformation here. The term scaling is being thrown around, but it's such a broad term that it's actually confusing and missing the point. Scaling can literally be the decices ability to scale an image to another resolution, higher or lower. The Xbox one s scaled to my 4K TV and the output is native, the image being used is not. This is not what the PS4 pro is doing. The IQ of the image has no improvement in this case.

The fact is, 4k requires aporximately 4 times the rendering power of the PS4. Sony wanted to keep cost down, so they doubled the rendering power instead, added ram and some other extra tricks.

From my understanding...

Checkerboard is 2 frames of data being used to produce a 4K image by means of a checkerboard, i.e. Alternate pixels take from the first and second frame. Each frame requires the power of 2 ps4s, hence why the pro is speced as such. Usually this sounds like a bad idea.... However the PS4 pro has special hardware to track geometary at 4K and I put that data somehow into the rendering process to make an image similar in quality to 4k. It is my understanding that looking at the images if you are not moving, produces an almost native 4 image. When the game moves, quality is still excellent but is compromised slightly.
 
You disagree with me (and the general industry) on this It seems, but I think that's fine. Just like how Netflix 1080p isn't actually native 1080p and no one really seems to have a problem with it, I would consider calling this simply 4K fine by the same logic. Calling it native 4K would be wrong though of course.

So checkerboard rendering is comparable to stretching pixels and using compression-like techniques. Okay. So I should compare it to Onlive.
 
Probably because Infamous is developed by a Sony studio...

That and it sold more, and had its also patched DLC free on PSN+.

Doubtful about that.

Bloodborne is probably somewhere near the 3 million mark.

Bloodborne probably made more money ,because it most likely cost less to make.(while selling nearly as many copies as infamous)
 
So much misinformation here. The term scaling is being thrown around, but it's such a broad term that it's actually confusing and missing the point. Scaling can literally be the decices ability to scale an image to another resolution, higher or lower. The Xbox one s scaled to my 4K TV and the output is native, the image being used is not. This is not what the PS4 pro is doing. The IQ of the image has no improvement in this case.

The fact is, 4k requires aporximately 4 times the rendering power of the PS4. Sony wanted to keep cost down, so they doubled the rendering power instead, added ram and some other extra tricks.

From my understanding...

Checkerboard is 2 frames of data being used to produce a 4K image by means of a checkerboard, i.e. Alternate pixels take from the first and second frame. Each frame requires the power of 2 ps4s, hence why the pro is speced as such. Usually this sounds like a bad idea.... However the PS4 pro has special hardware to track geometary at 4K and I put that data somehow into the rendering process to make an image similar in quality to 4k. It is my understanding that looking at the images if you are not moving, produces an almost native 4 image. When the game moves, quality is still excellent but is compromised slightly.

The system can output in most cases 1440p at 60fps which is the same amount of pixels as 4K at 30fps roughly. So your getting two passes to produce 4K image by alternating pixels at each pass, at the end of the second pass the composite is shown on screen.
 
So checkerboard rendering is comparable to stretching pixels and using compression-like techniques. Okay. So I should compare it to Onlive.

There are obviously major quality differences in that live streaming tech transmits no where near even half the pixels so in terms of quality it doesn't compare at all with common streaming compression algorithms. But as very broad concepts they are similar, so I'm making the comparison mostly for the sake of establishing terminology than making any statements about quality.

You seem to be trying way too hard to try to simply cb and fit it into boxes of already established technologies. There's no single thing it's going to be exactly like that you can completely compare it to. It's not revolutionary but it's still pretty new tech.
 
It's kind of sad that you think "the image of the system" is something that matters. It's a box.

Yeah totally. A simple inert box. Oh wait, no...it plays games and serves a function. Its image impacts on its sales. Those adopting the system would rather people don't deter adoption based on fiction and therefore depress developer support.
 
The system can output in most cases 1440p at 60fps which is the same amount of pixels as 4K at 30fps roughly. So your getting two passes to produce 4K image by alternating pixels at each pass, at the end of the second pass the composite is shown on screen.

That's not how it works, either. It doesn't composite anything. An algorithm uses color and motion data from multiple previous frames, color data from neighboring frames and the polygon ID buffer to estimate the color of the missing pixels. You get a large percent of the accuracy of traditional rasterized samples but at a tiny fraction of the rendering time and any artifacts that manifest are very small because your overall resolution is so high.
 
I understand that checkerboarding is generating a part of the image that isn't actually there. It is upscaling in the sense that it makes up shit. It doesn't matter how it does it. It is a 4k image of something that isn't 4k. That is the whole point.

The idea is that it's avoiding making up stuff as much as possible. In an ideal case(no movement, or light movement with no occlusion), no information is made up at all.
 
The problem I originally had was the topic stating 4k. It was a copy/paste, but still, it is misinformation. It is comparable with upscaling or a codec, but it doesn't look like the real thing.
Except if the view doesn't move, CBR can produce results exactly like "the real thing" (i.e. native 4K).

So checkerboard rendering is comparable to stretching pixels and using compression-like techniques. Okay. So I should compare it to Onlive.
Still not a very good comparison, but at least you've admitted you were wrong to call it "upscaling".

The essential point is that in technical discussions nuance matters. For example, I would be remiss not to mention that, while CBR is not upscaling, PS4 Pro is sometimes using upscaling in addition to CBR.
 
Not including a 4k Blu-ray player, especially when x1 does is the biggest deal breaker in gaming history. I was gonna get one until I found out
 
Not including a 4k Blu-ray player, especially when x1 does is the biggest deal breaker in gaming history. I was gonna get one until I found out

Maybe it's just me, but I have bought only 1 UHD Blu-ray for my one s, everything else I have streamed. I feel like the UHD Blu-ray missing on the pro isn't such a huge deal.
 
Not including a 4k Blu-ray player, especially when x1 does is the biggest deal breaker in gaming history. I was gonna get one until I found out

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latest
 
Great reply.

Well, i wasn't serious.

The result of checkerboarding does give a better result than just straight up scaling via a TV scaler and such, but it is still scaling. I'm not arguing with results here.


I understand that checkerboarding is generating a part of the image that isn't actually there. It is upscaling in the sense that it makes up shit. It doesn't matter how it does it. It is a 4k image of something that isn't 4k. That is the whole point.

ITT: People who don't understand technology.

Very, very odd that you didn't say anything to Elios 83 or onQ123, instead you "attacking" others and trying so hard to prove your point. In that case, C'MON, SON! GIVE IT A SHOT :

Problem is that people are not understanding what checkerboard is.
1800p checkerboard is not 1800p native upscaled to 2160p.
It is a an equivalent resolution of 1800*1600 rendered pixels on an alternated checkerboard pattern that is used to reconstruct a 1800p image (1800*3200) which then gets upscaled to 2160p (2160*3840).
At the same time 2160p checkerboard is an equivalent resolution of 2160*1920 pixels that is used to fully reconstruct a final image of 2160*3840 pixels that do not requires further upscaling.

I tried to tell people it wasn't upscaling from the beginning but so many was stuck in their ways yelling that it was upscaling & it caused a long lasting effect on people who was on the outside looking in because they thought the crowd yelling "it's upscaling!" was right, that plus Richard having a bad habit of calling it upscaling has caused a lot of damage.
 
Not including a 4k Blu-ray player, especially when x1 does is the biggest deal breaker in gaming history. I was gonna get one until I found out

You were literally in line to pre-order, but when you found out about the biggest deal breaker in gaming history, you threw your hands up in the air, shrieked, ran past the endcap with the twenty-five UHD Blu-rays in it and then made this totally truthful post.
 
Not including a 4k Blu-ray player, especially when x1 does is the biggest deal breaker in gaming history. I was gonna get one until I found out

In my whole gaming life, i watched 2 movies on consoles. And that console was PS2. I don't buy consoles for watching movies. I use PC instead for that.
 
Not including a 4k Blu-ray player, especially when x1 does is the biggest deal breaker in gaming history. I was gonna get one until I found out

Well, xbox one now have the "best" movie watching game system and "best" tv watching game system.

I guess the majority sticking with the "best" gaming system(playstation) are idiots.

/s
 
These types of threads always attract the people who have no interest in said product but need to tell everyone in said thread why.
 
There is no smaller resolution involved in checkerboard rendering. Pixels are instead rendered using different techniques, half rasterized and half reconstructed.

Someone earlier said that the starting resolution is 1600x1800 that is then reconstructed through chequerboard rendering to 3200x1800 and then upscaled to 4k. Is that not the case?

Edit: Elios83.
 
So checkerboard rendering is comparable to stretching pixels and using compression-like techniques. Okay. So I should compare it to Onlive.

What we really need is the highest quality pixels.

Hopefully Jesus comes back with them in a year or so or is there another saviour that you're expecting?
 
These types of threads always attract the people who have no interest in said product but need to tell everyone in said thread why.
It usually has to do with them not being able to afford it and then marginalizing the product to justify not having it right away or at all. This goes for most tech.
 
The result of checkerboarding does give a better result than just straight up scaling via a TV scaler and such, but it is still scaling. I'm not arguing with results here.
I'm quite sure that in this case the correct term is interleaved rendering.

Someone earlier said that the starting resolution is 1600x1800 that is then reconstructed through chequerboard rendering to 3200x1800 and then upscaled to 4k. Is that not the case?

Edit: Elios83.
In case of 1800p checkerboard this is the case.
Some games use higher resolution to get directly to 4k. (Comparable to 1920x2160)
 
Checkerboard is 2 frames of data being used to produce a 4K image by means of a checkerboard, i.e. Alternate pixels take from the first and second frame. Each frame requires the power of 2 ps4s, hence why the pro is speced as such. Usually this sounds like a bad idea.... However the PS4 pro has special hardware to track geometary at 4K and I put that data somehow into the rendering process to make an image similar in quality to 4k. It is my understanding that looking at the images if you are not moving, produces an almost native 4 image. When the game moves, quality is still excellent but is compromised slightly.

Pretty close.

For some (hopeful) clarity;

The important difference is that it is a reconstruction algorithm, not an upscaling algorithm.

The best upscale algorithms will analyze an image in isolation, attempting to find known patterns - e.g. a high contrast edge - and upscale those element based on what it thinks it is. A high contrast edge is a pretty easy case to upscale if you can trace along the edge accurately enough.
This is actually how fxaa works, fwiw.

A reconstruction algorithm differs by having partial knowledge of the full image - there is a mix of native data and some missing data. E.g. you already know there is an edge and you know it's precise shape - you don't need to detect it or trace a guess of it - but you may not know some of its color. This is a much easier situation to reconstruct that will always produce a closer result to the ground truth because you have more data.
Compared to fxaa, you can actually think of MSAA as doing this in a way.

In the case of checkerboard, the missing pixels still have native 4k depth and 'id' (a unique value to identify their source). This allows you to know with certainty if neighbor pixels (or temporally reprojected pixels) come from the same object or not - so there is far less guess work involved in reconstructing the missing data, thus the result is going to be dramatically better than a pure upscale.
 
Yea gotta be honest, since owning my XB1 S I've yet to watch a UHD disc. Always nice to have the option but in reality they may have actually made the right call.
 
Yea gotta be honest, since owning my XB1 S I've yet to watch a UHD disc. Always nice to have the option but in reality they may have actually made the right call.

This would be a big deal to me if you could still rent Blu-Rays or if I had a 4k Tv. I'll hopefully have one in the next 12-16 months but UHD aint cheap, no rent = limited use. I swear I rented a Bluray every week starting in 2006 and 1080p sets were way more common than 4k at the time, yet it was less of a big deal than UHD...go figure.
 
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