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HD graphics. Will Revolution be better off without them?

dark10x is a fairly trustworthy fellow and a graphics nut probably running the most recent cards. Wanna run some benchmarks for us? =)
 
According to matt it won't even have the power to make much of an improvement at 480p... so that get's back to my original questoin... what are we paying for????
 
border said:
dark10x is a fairly trustworthy fellow and a graphics nut probably running the most recent cards. Wanna run some benchmarks for us? =)
I'm only in 6800 territory, so not the latest. :P

Just fairly? Not a strong vote of confidence
It's the internet. Kinda tough to TRULY trust anyone...
 
border said:
dark10x is a fairly trustworthy fellow and a graphics nut probably running the most recent cards. Wanna run some benchmarks for us? =)


Just fairly? Not a strong vote of confidence. :lol
 
Gahiggidy said:
No it can't. Playing through RE4 made me realize that there is nothing you can do to improve the graphyx beyond the immediate area by the character-player. The view in the distance won't look much better without a resoution upgrade. It doesn't matter how much you improve detail if their isn't enough pixels to make the image out.

Notice that computer-animated movies have the characters and scenery up close?


Lighting and bumpmapping can be improved.

compare.jpg
 
Monk said:
Lighting and bumpmapping can be improved.

compare.jpg
That's close. I'm talking about stuff 50+ feet away from the camera.
 
border said:
Even the Xbox1 can "do HD", but doing it without having visual fidelity or performance take a big hit is something different altogether. Excluding HD allows Nintendo to bump up graphics quality in areas that more gamers can appreciate. HD costs money or it costs performance....if it were free, of course Nintendo would do it.

If Revolution more powerfull than Xbox1 to any degree, it should be fine with HD. Xbox1 did fine with plenty of games at 720p. If the focus is going to be on the interface and not so much on graphical effects, why not have the higher resolution ?

Online was hardly a factor at all in the console wars, really. The "buzz" was limited to message board arguments and it seems pretty clear that online was not a factor for the mainstream. 80-90% of Xbox owners don't bother with it. Adoption rate is even lower on PS2. Sequels with online modes mostly don't even sell as well as their offline prequels. Most games that focus themselves on online don't do particularly well either. Most of the "huge titles" that determined the flow of the console wars were offline (GTA3, Halo 1, MGS, Splinter Cell, etc).]

Didn't Xbox beat Gamecube by about 10%? So those 10-20% of Xbox owners that DID bother with Live may have been the ones that pushed Xbox to number 2. Also, the viral marketing affect of the online buzz cannot be discounted.

Being able to "see stuff more clearly" is a a pretty marginal difference (in terms of how the game is actually played) when comparing HD to standard definition. Halo in 720p is essentially the same game as it was in 480p. HD does not open up entirely new modes of play like online support does, which is why comparing HD to online play is not particularly helpful.

I'm not a developer, but I'm also not going to say that for sure HD support will not introduce anything new in gameplay. Who the heck knows what else may come from it?

HDTVs are getting cheaper, but then again prices on home theatre systems have plummeted, but still nobody seems to care that they are poorly supported by PS2 and GameCube.

HDTVs are "the next big thing" and people will most deffinately care when the next systems do/or don't support it. When "everyone else" is playing in HiDef, the average Joe is going to notice. If it was just Xbox360 at HiDef, maybe it wouldn't be so noticable that Revlution won't have it. That's not the case.

What benchmarks are you looking at? It's getting tough to find sites that still do benchmarks for 640x480, but even looking at stuff like this card review you can see a pretty huge performance differential between 800x600 and 1280x960. The benefit of lower resolution would only be more pronounced if you benchmarked at 640x480.

Just my thoughts
 
Distance detail is really the only way I can see gameplay benefitting from HD. And that's for games that pretty much require you to discern objects very far ahead of you....Burnout being the only example I can think of.

I guess it helps in an FPS if you are trying to snipe objects far in the distance without using the scope, but then what game has a sniper rifle without a scope? If you're talking about aim precision at the pixel-level, then any benefit essentially gets negated by the imprecise analog pad and overbearing auto-aim that most every console developer is throwing in.
 
Gahiggidy said:
According to matt it won't even have the power to make much of an improvement at 480p... so that get's back to my original questoin... what are we paying for????

A system that lets you play all your snes, nes, n64 and gamecube games legitimately and can provide new gameplay experiences?
 
Monk said:
A system that lets you play all your snes, nes, n64 and gamecube games legitimately and can provide new gameplay experiences?
And how much cost does that feature add?
 
Monk said:
The price of admission :p
Also known as, nothing extra.
So to ask his question again, what are we paying for?
Oh, yeah....


1.gif


I MIGHT be able to accept just that. (once I see what it can do)
 
I love that gif. I would probably take it over to one of my nephews house to see how a 12 year old plays with the Rev. :lol
 
$200 for a sub-hdtv console is a RIP-OFF in this day and age.
 
Monk said:
No its not. Optical media really limited devs and what they could fit inside games.

most a n64 game held = 64 MB
most a psx game held =~ 2.5 GB

That like 40 times more space.

It is really not the same thing.

Hate to pull out a technicality card on such a good point, but N64 games topped out at 128MB of content (64MB with 2X lossless compression).
 
Can't wait till E3....If i see impressions like "Didn't even want to play mario it looked so crappy at 480p, so I played PS3" then nintendo was wrong. I'm pretty sure that won't be the case.
 
Mook1e said:
If Revolution more powerfull than Xbox1 to any degree, it should be fine with HD. Xbox1 did fine with plenty of games at 720p. If the focus is going to be on the interface and not so much on graphical effects, why not have the higher resolution ?
Because HD cripples their ability to make games that look comparable at SD resolutions. If a game doesn't have to run in HD, then they can bump up the other effects and it will at least be a fair(er) fight.
Didn't Xbox beat Gamecube by about 10%? So those 10-20% of Xbox owners that DID bother with Live may have been the ones that pushed Xbox to number 2. Also, the viral marketing affect of the online buzz cannot be discounted.
C'mon, that's totally dubious reasoning that ignores every single other factor that might have made people choose Xbox over the Cube, and relies only on some ridiculous similarity between the two percentages. PS2 beat Xbox 500%, so maybe that means people don't give a shit about an all-encompassing pay-to-play online service?

People ignored Cube because it didn't have the games, didn't have DVD, and it looked like a little girl's lunchbox. Online seems like it was on the minds of very few people.
I'm not a developer, but I'm also not going to say that for sure HD support will not introduce anything new in gameplay
This is where it's nice to remember that PC games have been running at HD-or-better quality for 7-8 years. And what new gameplay has it introduced? By and large, it is a purely visual upgrade.

BlueTsunami said:
But wouldn't the Revolutions control scheme benefit from HD resolutions?
Depends on two things:

A.) The sensitivity and precision of the wand. How often does it update the onscreen movement?
B.) People's ability to wield the wand in a precise way.

I am kind of doubting the "B" factor here, even if the wand is as precise as a mouse. Just seems like it would be more difficult to "stop on a dime" in mid-turn like mouse-FPS'ers do. But we'll see.
 
border said:
Depends on two things:

A.) The sensitivity and precision of the wand. How often does it update the onscreen movement?
B.) People's ability to wield the wand in a precise way.

I am kind of doubting the "B" factor here, even if the wand is as precise as a mouse. Just seems like it would be more difficult to "stop on a dime" in mid-turn like mouse-FPS'ers do. But we'll see.

I can tell you from experience that if Nin is indeed using Gyration's standard tech for the wand, A is gonna pretty much suck.
 
My bigest frear is that Nintendo may loose Miyamoto to Microsoft when he realizes that he can't acheive his vision for a new mario game without hd.
 
Gahiggidy said:
My bigest frear is that Nintendo may loose Miyamoto to Microsoft when he realizes that he can't acheive his vision for a new mario game without hd.

AHAHAHAHAHA If anything it was from Miyamoto urging that Iwata chose the SDTV Resolution. Just like it was Miyamoto that urged Yamauchi to go with carts :p.


I have to say though, this is a very good way to differentiate Nintendo from the others. They are making their product as uncomparable to the others.

I mean look at it this way $200 verus $400
SDTV versus HDTV
$50 games versus $60 games
remote versus controller.


It is a big risk because it may be seen by the regular public as an inferior product, if anything its the latter if you go by GAF, but Iwata has some real big balls to do this.
 
border said:
This is where it's nice to remember that PC games have been running at HD-or-better quality for 7-8 years. And what new gameplay has it introduced? By and large, it is a purely visual upgrade.
The difference is, console games have introduced innovative gameply with plenty of PC-type components that never came out on PCs either.

I still say online and the promise of online was a big factor in Xbox selling well (not as big as Halo, but meh)
 
I havnet read all the replies in this thread so...here's a dumb question...

Is it too late for Nintendo to just make the Rev HD? How much would it delay the release, if at all?

I know some developers have kits already and I dont think it would that much of a step back to just rework stuff to high res. I mean no ones gonna be playing a game on Rev till Fall of '06 anyway. :\

Sure they would have to bite the bullet about their previous statements but I wouldnt give a shit.

for the record, I dont think this will happen. :(
 
tapedeck said:
I havnet read all the replies in this thread so...here's a dumb question...

Is it too late for Nintendo to just make the Rev HD? How much would it delay the release, if at all?

I know some developers have kits already and I dont think it would that much of a step back to just rework stuff to high res. I mean no ones gonna be playing a game on Rev till Fall of '06 anyway. :\

Sure they would have to bite the bullet about their previous statements but I wouldnt give a shit.

for the record, I dont think this will happen. :(


Are you soundwave???
 
Monk said:
AHAHAHAHAHA If anything it was from Miyamoto urging that Iwata chose the SDTV Resolution. Just like it was Miyamoto that urged Yamauchi to go with carts :p.


I have to say though, this is a very good way to differentiate Nintendo from the others. They are making their product as uncomparable to the others.

I mean look at it this way $200 verus $400
SDTV versus HDTV
$50 games versus $60 games
remote versus controller.
Only one of thoe for things is a negative, the no hdtv one. I still can't underdatand why a $200 piece of kit is not able to do HDTV.
 
the Hollywood GPU for Nintendo could be only as powerful as the R3xx series of GPUs and it would still be able to pump out incredible visuals at 480p compared to Gamecube.
 
Gahiggidy said:
Only one of thoe for things is a negative, the no hdtv one. I still can't underdatand why a $200 piece of kit is not able to do HDTV.

It can. Nintendo chooses not too.
 
Monk said:
Are you soundwave???

Yep. Ive been gone for awhile, when I came back I saw that theres like 4 different soundwaves on this forum now...
 
Gahiggidy said:
Only one of thoe for things is a negative, the no hdtv one. I still can't underdatand why a $200 piece of kit is not able to do HDTV.

Its not that it cant, it can by most reports. But it was a consious choice by Nintendo. By forcing 480p devs can design games for 480p which would look better at 480p than if they were designed for 720p for example. Unlike where you get the idea of free HD, high resolution really does come at a price.
 
Sounds an awful lot like when the DS and PSP weren't out yet.

"PSP specs destroy the DS. What's Nintendo thinking?"

Blah blah blah.
 
theirs no excuse really for no HD, Nintendo continue to make mistakes in the home console sector they will end up only making Gameboys what would be a very sad day for me.
 
Hero said:
Sounds an awful lot like when the DS and PSP weren't out yet.

"PSP specs destroy the DS. What's Nintendo thinking?"

Blah blah blah.

Expect for one huge difference, that was Nintendo's dominant territory this is Sony's.
 
Hero said:
Sounds an awful lot like when the DS and PSP weren't out yet.

"PSP specs destroy the DS. What's Nintendo thinking?"

Blah blah blah.
Yes, because like in the handheld space, Nintendo has been dominating the console market for the past 15 years and PS3 will be Sony's first console.....
 
Gahiggidy said:
My bigest frear is that Nintendo may loose Miyamoto to Microsoft when he realizes that he can't acheive his vision for a new mario game without hd.


ahhahahhahahah Miyamot has sworn his life to Yamachi and he is not allowed to dream about going anywhere else.
 
I'm going to be in the minority and say I think this is a smart move for Nintendo. The way they are trying to compete is produce a low-cost console with low development costs. For them personally it is a good strategy to take - people enjoy their franchises regardless if they spend $20 million or $40 million on them. In fact, I think it's debatable if LoZ:TTP will recoup its dev costs - didn't someone from Nintendo talk about how they were going to try to sell a $70 premium edition of that game to get it in the black? I doubt that even more expensive Zeldas and Metroids are the way they want to go.

If low cost games are the way to go then HD support can cause problems because the graphical quality of non-HD games will be compared to HD games. While hardware wise HD support comes for free, it definitely adds costs to the dev pipeline. Textures now require more work, shader effects become clearer at a given distance to an object (especially things like subsurface scattering which are hard to see even in SD video without close-ups) and so to compete on a graphical level you are throwing money at something that's not the system's core competency.
 
HomerSimpson-Man said:
Expect for one huge difference, that was Nintendo's dominant territory this is Sony's.
Nintendo isn't competing for the same market as Sony any more. I would hope that people would realize that by now.

I think they absolutely believe they can replicate what they did with the DS in Japan by "expanding the market." You're not going to expand the market with a $400 box, so what they are doing has inherent logic.
 
antipode said:
I'm going to be in the minority and say I think this is a smart move for Nintendo. The way they are trying to compete is produce a low-cost console with low development costs. For them personally it is a good strategy to take - people enjoy their franchises regardless if they spend $20 million or $40 million on them. In fact, I think it's debatable if LoZ:TTP will recoup its dev costs - didn't someone from Nintendo talk about how they were going to try to sell a $70 premium edition of that game to get it in the black? I doubt that even more expensive Zeldas and Metroids are the way they want to go.

If low cost games are the way to go then HD support can cause problems because the graphical quality of non-HD games will be compared to HD games. While hardware wise HD support comes for free, it definitely adds costs to the dev pipeline. Textures now require more work, shader effects become clearer at a given distance to an object (especially things like subsurface scattering which are hard to see even in SD video without close-ups) and so to compete on a graphical level you are throwing money at something that's not the system's core competency.

very much agreed, antipode
 
Akia said:
Stop posting please. They were in pre-production stages. Give them a break. How long did it take to develop SSBM? They know what they're doing.

SSBM took 2 years and they started right away after finishing SSB64. And that was without the online components and stuff. And I won't stop posting until somebody can console me. :(


I want HD too, obviously, but here's a question. Do any of you honestly think that If Nintendo did have HD and that the console does manage to beat the Xbox360 in graphics, hell, even the PS3 in graphics, the mainstream gamer is gonna know about it? There are still fucking people who think the PS2 was the most powerful console this gen and the GC still had N64 grafix or something. And most of those who think so write gaming articles, no less. :lol
 
you know all this talk about HD and crap is really pointless at the end of the day.

Mainstream has adopted the "worst" hardware (no texture filtering with PSone - TEH JAGGIEZ on PS2) thanks to the GAMES.

IF there are compelling games on the Rev for the mainstream to enjoy, the rev will sell HD or not.
 
I still think there's time for Nintendo and ATi to hopefully impliment a work-around to this problem.

Nintendo doesn't want the main unit to incur the cost of HDTV, since they want to sell the main system for as cheap as possible to casual shoppers.

That's why there's no HD as of right now. Nintendo sure as hell is not going to eat the cost of a feature that a lot of people may not even use, especailly the type of audience they're going for.

Perhaps ATi can design the GPU in such a way to accomodate an external add-on which overclocks the GPU and upconverts games to 720p/1080i. That way the people who want HDTV support can have it if they're willing to pay say $40-$50 more.

That's fair IMO.
 
GitarooMan said:
This is pretty much how I feel. Lack of HD isn't a deal-breaker, but after playing some hi-def stuff now with X360, I think it's going to be a bit of disappointment and a lot of what-if. I agree it lacks foresight and is a pretty sizable mistake, but won't kill the system.

I was always confused by that logic and I now have to ask you if you haven't got a computer? I've been playing with PS2, Xbox and GCN for the last years and I never had the feeling that there SD resolution was a disapointment for me compared to my 19" TFT display.
 
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