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[C- Warrior]

The trailer was 1080p, but I don't think Ninja Theory has confirmed the resolution the game will be at. Also, I think they're aiming for a solid 30fps.

No, they have said Heavenly Sword will be at 1080p native resolution. I know GAF lives in a world where we have to have links to whatever, but I know that Tameem (one of the development heads at NT) have stated "Heavenly Sword will be in full 1080p" glory. Maybe a lost in translation (from English to English ) is going on here but somebody from NT said that.

As to 60 fps, I'll call you on that one. You could be right, we'll see.

If not, then it still bodes well. Heavenly S. looks amazing, it runs at 1080p--and so what if it's at 30 fps, that just tells us creating a game that runs in 720p at 60 fps is more than possible. (and ofcourse looking amazing)

 

[FightyF]

Oh and uh...




:lol :lol :lol :lol :lol

What's so funny?

It was either one, excuse me for not remembering!

But it was 1080i, I double checked.

 

[mckmas8808]

No, they have said Heavenly Sword will be at 1080p native resolution. I know GAF lives in a world where we have to have links to whatever, but I know that Tameem (when of the development heads at NT) have stated "Heavenly Sword will be in full 1080p" glory. Maybe a lost in translation (from English to English ) is going on here but somebody from NT said that.

As to 60 fps, I'll call you on that one. You could be right, we'll see.

If not, then it still bodes well. Heavenly S. looks amazing, it runs at 1080p--and so what if it's at 30 fps, that just tells us creating a game that runs in 720p at 60 fps is more than possible. (and ofcourse looking amazing)

I just had to say great post.

 

[byproduct]

I don't know Xbox games like Ninja Gaiden seem high-res enough for me thanks to the anti-aliasing. I'd prefer extra power to go into 60fps and additional effects to getting an even clearer picture with less effects and frame rate than it could have had, especially since I have an ordinary TV.

I think the higher res will be wasted on a lot of people and just make the hardware look less capable than it is. I don't think MS should have made it compulsory for 720 to be the minimum. I am sure we'll see stuff in 480 on the PS3 that the X360 just wont be able to do because it has to do it with twice the resolution even if the machines have the same power.

Res mattered when changing from 320 by 200 to 480p - that's a big difference - but the leap from 480p to 720p just isn't as dramatic. Diminishing returns.

Meanwhile a new type of lighting or other effect might really make a difference.

 

[Ryudo]

Res mattered when changing from 320 by 200 to 480p - that's a big difference - but the leap from 480p to 720p just isn't as dramatic. Diminishing returns.

Ke ? Its literally jumping from 640x480 to 1280 x 768 . Thats massive !

 

[TAJ]

>>>I don't know Xbox games like Ninja Gaiden seem high-res enough for me thanks to the anti-aliasing.<<<

Ninja Gaiden has no anti-aliasing. I haven't seen Black, but the original version definitely doesn't.

 

[Stinkles]

Fuckin' luddites. New resolutions are available, they look fantastic, ergo games should support them.

The 20 times more powerful to 10 times more powerful example given is meaningless, since "power" includes the resolution. The system is 20 times more powerful and you use some of that power to make games sharper and better looking.

The real argument is the fact that only a small percentage of households have an HD set- and less in Europe - but that forgets the fact that every motherfucker has a VGA monitor. VGA cables are gonna sell faster than one-armed T-Shirts at a Def Leppard concert.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

Bungie guy wins.

 

[Beer Monkey]

PS: As that one GAFer said, creating games in higher native resolutions also benefits SDTV owners, it's a method of Anti-Aliasing I hear or something.

Let's suppose a game runs in 720p at 30fps. Would you rather they render that game at an internal 720p frame buffer and downsample to 480i/p, or would you rather they try to get the 480i/p mode running at 60fps?

A single target resolution can mean that lower resolutions get compromised. We need multiple target resolutions and choice.

 

[Tain]

I can only hope and assume that MS wouldn't mind developers making 480p an option for the sake of a framerate boost.

 

[Agent Icebeezy]

I can only hope and assume that MS wouldn't mind developers making 480p an option for the sake of a framerate boost.

If PGR3 is going to look like that, supposedly at 60fps. They(Microsoft) don't need to make concessions and subsequently cater.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

I don't get it...wasn't there a drive toward more resolution in later games this generation with much increased pixel shader effects and detail than a decrease to up framerates? And the framerates didn't really drop through the floor, either. The consoles' static hardware, ever-maturing tools, and increased mastery (through hacks and real optimization) over the hardware itself should overcome any initial concerns about loss of performance due to increased detail and effects that are expected by the people buying the titles...and it happens every single console generation on every single console. This coming generation of console hardware is all about pure programmability and massive computational capability...things that allow devs to more easily tackle problems that would otherwise block them from making massive improvements in previous generations. To not shoot for higher definition to make use of the very things some of you would argue you'd have to drop in resolution to better support is pointless, IMO. You want more rez to actually be able to make those extra details worth creating. With the scaler that's built-in to the X360, a higher native resolution will benefit all...HDTV or not. As for PS3, who knows but I'm sure there's a similar solution with the same benefit.

 

[byproduct]

Ke ? Its literally jumping from 640x480 to 1280 x 768 . Thats massive !

It is massive, but in reality you'll see a bigger difference in jaggies and detail between 320 by 200 and 640 by 480 than you will between two higher resolutions.

I'm not against having a clearer picture/higher res, but *at this level* since there is bound to be a trade-off I would prefer smoother movement and more polish to the lighting and effects. Resolution has only just gotten high enough for me to hold that opinion though.

Ninja gaiden has no anti-aliasing? Really?

 

[sangreal]

We all know by now (or should) that one of the main obligatory requisites for any Xbox360 game is the "you have to develop games to work at least in 720p". Relating to this i've read an interview by Phantagram (if i'm not mistaken) on how at that resolution Xbox360 is 10 times the power of the present Xbox, but most importantly, if it were to run solely in a 480i/p resolution it would be roughly 20 times more powerful. That is a very significant figure!

Well, that figure (from From software, btw. Not Phantagram) sounds like pure hyperbole. There is an obvious advantage to working at lower resolutions because you have 1/3 the number of pixels to work on. A number of developers have complained about this: Carmack, From Software, even ERP@b3d.

Is it a shortcoming? From a technical standpoint, sure. Any lack of flexibility is a shortcoming. From a marketing standpoint I think its great. Knowing that every game I play on the xbox 360 will be HD has me interested in finally investing in an HDTV. We tried the optional-HD era last gen. Think about retail for a moment. Forcing HD will help push HDTVs to go along with new console purchases and (more importanly/likely) vice-versa. When someone aks about what content is available for the HDTV they are considering stores can point out the new consoles. Of course, it is only important that a significant portion of the games are HD for this example, but its something to think about.

I won't play PC games at 640x480 even if I can turn up the effects, so I can't see why I'd want to do that on consoles. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who would.

To summarize my post since the above my not be coherent: I think its not smart to force things on the developer. Developers should be the ones who decide how to use the available power. On the other hand, I'm still very happy they made this (possibly unwise) decision because I'm a resolution whore .

The best solution is to allow developers to add effects at 480p if they wish and let the user decide. It remains to be seen if that will be allowed.

 

[byproduct]

Is it a shortcoming? From a technical standpoint, sure. Any lack of flexibility is a shortcoming. From a marketing standpoint I think its great.

Well said.

 

[Beer Monkey]

I won't play PC games at 640x480 even if I can turn up the effects, so I can't see why I'd want to do that on consoles.

I normally wouldn't do that, but I typically wouldn't need to.

I'd play an online FPS at 640x480 if it was the only way I could get it over 30fps. FPS whores like 60fps or even higher, for good reason.

 

[sangreal]

I normally wouldn't do that, but I typically wouldn't need to.

I'd play an online FPS at 640x480 if it was the only way I could get it over 30fps. FPS whores like 60fps or even higher, for good reason.

Thats true. I happen to own a fairly decent PC, so I don't tend to have to worry, but if 640x480 was the only way I could get decent framerates I obviously would go there.

(Very begrudgingly as my monitor has a native res of 1600x1200)

 

[Kleegamefan]

I was thinking that it was possible. I mean, volumetric lighting when it comes to computation is resolution independant. You could have a game run at any resolution and it's all good.

The eDRAM daugher chip in Xenos/C1 (which one is it for gods sake?) alleviates some of the bandwidth intensive processes found on normal GPU (such as HDR rendering and Antialiasing)

Xenos/C1 has logic that performs AA nearly "for free" (very small BW hit) but that is not the same thing as shading pixels...the chip has a limit to how many pixels it can shade.....4Gigapixels/sec or 16 Gigasamples/sec...

Check it out for yourself

http://www.beyond3d.com/articles/xenos/

 

[mrklaw]

What're your thoughts on this? IMO, this could be a shot in the foot for Microsoft.

Simple answer is NO. Because they are competing against Sony, and their games will also be 720p minimum (most likely)

And although you will get fewer operations per pixel compared to 480p, you get more compared to 1080p. And more compared to common PC resolutions like 1280x1024, or 1600x1200.

So 720p is a good compromise between improved image quality over last gen, and still keeping it small enough to get good shading.

 

[xexex]

It would be nice if we can get to the point where things like resolution, framerate and anti-aliasing are all the same across the board--on every system--on every game

60 FPS - 720p - 8x FSAA is an example of what I expected for this coming generation

 

[JMPovoa]

This thing about in order processors and out of order processors has given me a headache aswell. What is the real deal on this. It seems a given fact that out of order processors give you less of a headache and you get a better performance out of it with not as much work as in a in order processor.

Carmack said something along the lines that Next Gen processors were half the power of today's top tier PC processors. Is it related to the in order / out of order thing?

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

ugh my tv only has s video ports on it, and from the sounds of it, all of GA has $2000 Home theatre set ups

 

[mrklaw]

This thing about in order processors and out of order processors has given me a headache aswell. What is the real deal on this. It seems a given fact that out of order processors give you less of a headache and you get a better performance out of it with not as much work as in a in order processor.

Carmack said something along the lines that Next Gen processors were half the power of today's top tier PC processors. Is it related to the in order / out of order thing?

AIUI, OOOE simply allows more flexibility in coding. If you take standard code from an OOOE chip and port it to one without OOOE, then it will be slower - possibly significantly so.

But if you code bearing in mind the environment, then it shouldn't matter. CELL isn't suddenly going to go from 100GFlops to 2GFlops (half a P4) if you code for it. But if you port stuff, it will lose a lot of that potential power

 

[Juice]

..demands scale linearly with resolution...

Quoted for truth and how horny it makes me whenever someone says that something else scales linearly.

Whatever happened to Microsoft being all about the developer and offering them as much freedom as was in their power to do so? That was the whole point of the Xbox, with how liberating the toolset and hard drive and ease of Live were supposed to be. It seems that the 360 is just trying to get all the developers in line, and I'm sure it means that some games will come out at a quality less than their potential.

If a developer wants to require the hard drive for use in their game, they should be allowed to do it. If a developer wants to make a game lock out custom soundtracks for the sake of maintaining the integrity of the story they're telling, they should be able to do that too.

But it really pisses me off that, not even for launch, will Microsoft let developers cater to the 95% of the market that actually need to be buying the system for Microsoft to succeed. Almost anyone watching a DOA4 commercial on their SDTV will think they're looking at an Xbox1 game. I'm positive the game could have been made a whole lot more beautiful for the vast majority of potential consumers, rather than a slowly growing niche.

With Xbox, MS slightly limited the userbase by saying "broadband only" for online, but it really didn't have an effect for the first year, since Live wasn't even out yet. And by then, most gamers had found a way to get broadband. This is completely different. Microsoft is tuning out the great majority of the market during the one year it has to sell a fuckton load of consoles before the PS3 hits.

This is some really fucking foolish marketing.

 

[Lord Error]

I wish all the next gen games running at 30FPS at least had an option to drop to 480p and increase the framerate from 30 to 60 (an example scenario)

Some of you have to realize that most people will still have regular TVs with these consoles and they will not benefit in any way from 720p. On the other hand they will benefit from potential 2x increase in framerate.

I actually hope Sony at least will not limit devs about this 720p support. Even though they are touting the 1080p horn, they have not been explicit about the minimum requirement. If the developer wants to go batshit crazy with some insane shaders and fillrate at lower resolution like 480p, let him do it. I'll have an HDTV any day now, and I still wouldn't mind this. You'd see a simillar comment/concern from Carmack's keynote, btw.

High resolution is great and all, but I don't think anyone would argue that a film DVD footage and film CGI at 480p still looks craploads better than any next gen game at 720p or 1080p, so resolution in itself is not a magic bullet.

 

[Zaptruder]

Think about it this way; a single sheet of A4-sized paper @ 300DPI (photo printing) is 2480x3508 pixels. There is a limit to the average human's visual acuity (see: vision charts) but the cap is a good deal higher than 7600x4300.

4000 dpi is about the cap for a person with a visual acuity of 20/20 at their focal points. The visual resolution drops sharply away from the focal point though.

Also, a much lower definition can still be adequate for a display that could probably fool most human visual senses... I'd guess in the region of 1000-1500 dpi is fine.

 

[MrSingh]

this thread is so retarded my anus is starting to throb horribly.

 

[dark10x]

Detail is directly linked to resolution.

I disagree here...

There is still a world of difference between what we will be seeing on upcoming consoles and extremely high-end CG work. You can still throw around loads of detail without high resolution. A standard analog TV can still put out an incredibly detailed picture...

Higher resolutions are better, but we have yet to reach the limit of low resolutions.

 

[Stinkles]

this thread is so retarded my anus is starting to throb horribly.

This thread is polluted with people saying less is more.

Which is stupid, it's not like anyone's going to make a future console that CAN'T do HDTV resolutions. That would make NO sense.

 

[Lord Error]

This thread is polluted with people saying less is more.

It's not that cut and dry. Take a look at Carmack's keynote if you think people are just rambling over nothing. Or just read my post above and see why the "less being more" is by no means a bad thing for anyone who owns a regular TV set, if less resolution means more performance.

this thread is so retarded my anus is starting to throb horribly.

At least address the issues you find retarded instead of making wisecrack comments

 

[Juice]

This thread is polluted with people saying less is more.

No, this thread is polluted with people who think that serving the desires of the many outweigh serving the desires of the few, even if it's the futuristic and far-sighted thing to do. There is absolutely no question that the 360's games would look better on a SDTV if they were optimized for 480p. AA doesn't cut it, it's the per-pixel operations that could be done at that resolution that won't be. (And if you've been following graphics cards even casually for the last 5 years, everything is about pixel operations.)

Which is stupid, it's not like anyone's going to make a future console that CAN'T do HDTV resolutions. That would make NO sense.

Nintendo might be. Zing! And its technically inferior system hosting games looking better in 480p than 360's would be quite the coup, hence this discussion.

 

[Lord Error]

I don't think what Nintendo is doing is a good idea either.

Just a simple 720p (30FPS) / 480p (60FPS) switch, would make all the non-HDTV owners very happy. And seeing how many next gen games seem to be targeting 30FPS, maybe it would not be such an unrealistic scenario at all.

 

[Juice]

I don't think what Nintendo is doing is a good idea either.

Just a simple 720p (30FPS) / 480p (60FPS) switch, would make all the non-HDTV owners very happy. And seeing how many next gen games seem to be targeting 30FPS, maybe it would not be such an unrealistic scenario at all.

Well, other than not emphasizing HD resolution, we really don't know what they're doing (or if the console's visual element is entirely traditional at all).

But I have a feeling that making that 30fps/60fps thing for downscaling some automatic switch would lead to unoptimized graphical code. I don't think the frames per second is nearly as big a deal as the tripled number of layers of shaders that you could have afforded at 480p.

I think the wisest move would have been to allow developers to do whatever they want. Make the console plenty powerful enough for higher resolutions, but let games start being released for the higher resolutions as there is a demand for them. Right now the problem is that the demand for HDTV is still remarkably weak. The FCC started this ten years ago by promising to enforce a false demand on the market by requiring all signals to be broadcast digitally exclusively. Now Microsoft is creating the same artificial demand on HDTV by requiring the higher resolution. It just doesn't make sense out of the gate, forcing games to be optimized for a TV that most of the consumers don't even own.

It'd be like Disney opening a few new rides in each of its parks and then requiring people to be 21 years old to ride them on the "super fun" track. For the minority of 21+ year olds still going to Disney, it'd be a fucking sweet time I'm sure, but the kids won't only be missing out, they'll feel like they're missing out.

 

[TTP]

I don't think what Nintendo is doing is a good idea either.

Just a simple 720p (30FPS) / 480p (60FPS) switch, would make all the non-HDTV owners very happy. And seeing how many next gen games seem to be targeting 30FPS, maybe it would not be such an unrealistic scenario at all.

I think you should also put online play into the equation. 720p (30fps) players and 480p (60fps) players wont meet online. I think there lies the reason behind MS decision to impose 720p.

I also think you gotta do some extra work on the server side if you wanna offer both a 60fps and a 30fps experience.

 

[WrathOfOtaibah]

Kick ass. I just bought a 1080i TV.

 

[Phoenix]

7680 × 4320??


That's just about the limit the human eye is capable of resolving, right?

The human eye is not measured in pixel resolution.

The eye is not a single frame snapshot camera. It is more like a video stream. The eye moves rapidly in small angular amounts and continually updates the image in one's brain to "paint" the detail. We also have two eyes, and our brains combine the signals to increase the resolution further. We also typically move our eyes around the scene to gather more information. Because of these factors, the eye plus brain assembles a higher resolution image than possible with the number of photoreceptors in the retina. So the megapixel equivalent numbers below refer to the spatial detail in an image that would be required to show what the human eye could see when you view a scene.

Based on the above data for the resolution of the human eye, let's try a "small" example first. Consider a view in front of you that is 90 degrees by 90 degrees, like looking through an open window at a scene. The number of pixels would be
90 degrees * 60 arc-minutes/degree * 1/0.3 * 90 * 60 * 1/0.3 = 324,000,000 pixels (324 megapixels).
At any one moment, you actually do not perceive that many pixels, but your eye moves around the scene to see all the detail you want. But the human eye really sees a larger field of view, close to 180 degrees. Let's be conservative and use 120 degrees for the field of view. Then we would see
120 * 120 * 60 * 60 / (0.3 * 0.3) = 576 megapixels.
The full angle of human vision would require even more megapixels. This kind of image detail requires A large format camera to record.

 

[Phoenix]

why can't we go back to the old days of 160 x 120 resolution? the pixel detail would be incredible.

Pick up your cell phone, download some games, and you are there man!

 

[Pimpwerx]

Going with 720p is fine IMO. If you can't produce outstanding visuals at that resolution, with these GPUs, then you have no talent. Most PC games run at XGA resolutions (1024x768). 720p isn't much more than that (17%). So a 17% bump in pixel resolution shouldn't be a big deal IMO. There's no reason not to support HDTV resolutions. Sticking with 480p (even with improved shader util) is a step backwards IMO. PEACE.

 

[gofreak]

Going with 720p is fine IMO. If you can't produce outstanding visuals at that resolution, with these GPUs, then you have no talent.

Or you're just trying to push things harder than these GPUs will go at hi-def at acceptable framerates I mean, we're certainly not at a stage where these GPUs provide all the power you could ever want.

 

[Excelion]

I think you should also put online play into the equation

no, PC and Xbox games (50/60Hz) are doing fine.

 

[C- Warrior]

Can anyone give me a list of all Xbox games that run native @ 720p...

For some reason I want to say Advent Rising.. >.>

 

[sangreal]

Can anyone give me a list of all Xbox games that run native @ 720p...

For some reason I want to say Advent Rising.. >.>

http://144.92.43.200/hdg/

 

[scarybore]

Can anyone give me a list of all Xbox games that run native @ 720p...

For some reason I want to say Advent Rising.. >.>

I finally got round to playing Soul Calibur 2 in 720p, and dispite the bizarre way its implimented (it doesnt use the full width of 720p so its a 4:3 image inside a 16:9 image with black borders at the side) it still looks quite lovely and with the improvements such as AA with Xbox 360 along with greater general power im looking very much forward to the next gen.

 

[C- Warrior]

http://144.92.43.200/hdg/

Okay, well I limited the search to games that have 720p support. I don't know if it's native, but quite a few games showed up for 720p and some for 1080i.

And Steel Batallion for instance, was at 720p, and that game is gorgeous.

Again: a statement to end this thread:


If an Xbox game can do 720p and look head and shoulders above many 480 games, this certainly implies the 720p standard for next-fuckin gen (you know, the reason why you'll be spending 250-500 dollars in the next coming months)--is not only reasonable, but expected.

Many people are in the argument that there are only like 10% of Americans who have a HDTV capable TV (that number is less btw if you include the number of those who have it hooked up properly) and it's not worth it to support them. But, with next-gen consoles full supporting High-def (for the most part, assuming Sony will let some devs make 480 games) than it will become the norm.

Cable/network TV is now broadcasting in HD. Movies, games as well.

The switch from SDTV to HDTV is the same thing as VHS to DVD. The same as black and white to color TV's.

If everyone and their mom creates content that supports High-Def, people will buy. Furthermore, the price for HDTV's will drop. I say this more and more, I just saw a 28 or 30 (some shit) inch TV that was 1080i capable (converts 720p to 1080i) High-Def TV that was 250-350 dollars at Best Buy. It was some pretty damn big 16:9 shit my fellow GAFers! Given...the brand was "Advent" but who fucking cares, HD will be the norm as Color tv became the norm 40 or so years ago.

1080 native resolutions...okay--that's pushing it. I think it's dumb for a developer to make a game that's native 1080i/p. But, 720p--yeah, certainly sounds reasonable.

 

[scarybore]

If an Xbox game can do 720p and look head and shoulders above many 480 games, this certainly implies the 720p standard for next-fuckin gen (you know, the reason why you'll be spending 250-500 dollars in the next coming months)--is not only reasonable, but expected.

Agreed, its also good to take note that MS will be releasing a VGA cable (unless they have changed their plans) which can only be good for people like me who own PCs (I currently use a component progressive signal to VGA converter) but live in countries where HDTV penetration is next to non existant.

 

[Lord Error]

Many people are in the argument that there are only like 10% of Americans who have a HDTV capable TV (that number is less btw if you include the number of those who have it hooked up properly) and it's not worth it to support them.

I'm not saying it's wrong to support those 10%, but I think it's also wrong to ignore the potential and basic improvement in framerate that could be given to those other 90% if the game could be switched to render on 480p. Keep in mind that many of these next gen games seem to be targeted to only 30FPS, and people with regular TVs won't see any advantage of those games being in hi-def but would see advantage in framerate increase.

 

[Mrbob]

I don't think what Nintendo is doing is a good idea either.

Just a simple 720p (30FPS) / 480p (60FPS) switch, would make all the non-HDTV owners very happy. And seeing how many next gen games seem to be targeting 30FPS, maybe it would not be such an unrealistic scenario at all.

Sounds like Sony may let developers scale with PS3. May let you lower resolution to increase game speed.

But, at the same time, if we have problems with fill rate going to 720P this generation should just pack it in.

 

[sangreal]

Developers can render their games at 480p if they want. They are required to render at 720p, how they handle other resolutions is up to them.

HDTV adoption in the US may only be 10%, but I bet its higher when you narrow it down to xbox owners.

 

[mrklaw]

low HDTV penetration doesn't make 720p a bad idea. Simply downsampling that to 480p will look great. You don't need an HD set for HD to look great.

 

[C- Warrior]

Yeah, that argument was made before.

Games in 720p resolution will also benefit SDTV owners. Smoothing things out, a method of anti-aliasing via downsampling or some shit like that.

Marconelly: again, look at my post and bolded statement.

If a solid chunk of XBox games can look damn good at 720p resolution (even to SDTV owners) at 30 fps, wouldn't it seem reasonable for next gen (the hoopla of all hooplas) to bust out the same specs but a faster frame rate and a good ass load of more poly's and textures?

We shouldn't be demanding it, that shit is expected.