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HD graphics. Will Revolution be better off without them?

Mrbob said:
Depends if Nintendo allows access to the 512MB for saves or not. They may only allow access to it for game downloads.

Even so, it is still under a 100 dollars difference.

Nintendo fans still haven't learned their lesson from the N64 and GC it seems. Cheap is good in the portable market since parents buy products for their kids. Cheap is not good in the console market because it makes you look weak. Be ready for another round of disappointment.

Oh and MS first party games are still $49.99.

Unless of course you want wifi, which is extra for the Xbox360 but included in the revolution, so that's another $99 for the 360 if you go the official adaptor route.
making a just under $200 difference.

So 1 basic Xbox360 with wifi and memory card or 2 Revolutions with wifi and memory and your own LAN party included.
 
borghe said:
ah yes, back to the "I see a huge difference" etc. Well, it is all subjective, and I'll leave it at that, but virtually every person I have actually talked to says the same thing. You see a big difference with TV, but their DVDs look great. And provided they have Rev in store on the same LCD panels as PS3 and X360 and at 480p, it is likely still going to look great..

Dude, if you've got the set to resolve the detail, and the proper viewing distance, the difference is huge, period. It's not even up for debate.

Mandy Moore 480p
Mandy Moore 1080p
 
Mario 128 on Revolution:
mario2.gif
 
I don't think the argument is about whether or not resolution is important. It is always a good thing. It is the trade off between cost and performance. Also, resolution is less noticable the higher you go. The jump from 480p to 720p is not as big as a jump from 240p to 480p.
 
xabre said:
Just to prove it go watch Monsters Inc.

High resolution doesn't equal high quality graphics.
Good god almighty, please don't tell me you don't understand that Monsters Inc and every other CGI movie is rendered first at INSANE resolutions before being converted to the lower-res film (and then even lower res DVD) format?
(each frame is rendered to AT LEAST 2048x1556 since that is film resolution)
 
beermonkey@tehbias said:
Dude, if you've got the set to resolve the detail, and the proper viewing distance, the difference is huge, period. It's not even up for debate.

Mandy Moore 480p
Mandy Moore 1080p
omfg. you do know that this post is wrong on SO MANY LEVELS, right?

you can't just fucking take a pic, blow it up and say "that's the difference".

the only way you can represent it with computer grahpics is to take a 480p png and 720p png and try to discern differences on the 720p one that you can't see on the 480p one... or just realize that it is impossible to show the difference between resolutions using image files.

but I'll play this game. I'll take a picture with my camera of CSI on my TV at native 1080i and scaled down to 480p and ask you to tell me which picture is which. will be the exact same scene at the exact same pause point, just hit the up arrow on the Tivo to change resolutions.

Will post it tonight.
 
borghe said:
omfg. you do know that this post is wrong on SO MANY LEVELS, right?

you can't just fucking take a pic, blow it up and say "that's the difference".

You don't get it. It's all about screen size, resolving ability, and viewing distance.

You can't say that the difference between DVD and HD isn't huge when you are using an inferior display device or sitting too far away.

I'll take a picture with my camera of CSI on my TV at native 1080i and scaled down to 480p

10 bucks says your TV can't even resolve full 1080i.
 
listen fucknut. my TV resolves over 1500 vertical lines (measured when it was calibrated), my sofa is 7 feet (give or take an inch) from my screen giving me around a 51.6 degree viewing angle, my set was calibrated by CraigM from HomeTheaterSpot (I can even give you forum links confirming the tour and my appointment from the milwaukeehdtv.org forums), and my set runs with a soft light hitting the back of the wall and magnetically shut shades across the windows. I know how the fuck all of this works.

but really, I am just going to post the pictures.

edit - and as long as I'm bragging, I might as well add in that I spent extra to line the inside of the set with Duvetyne. so yeah.
 
beermonkey@tehbias said:
You can't say that the difference between DVD and HD isn't huge when you are using an inferior display device or sitting too far away.


considering how few people have hdtvs.. (hell, most people cant handle 480p yet).. its very reasonable why nintendo cut that feature from the rev when trying to lower costs. for the general public 480p is more than enough. if it bothers you that much.. then dont get a revolution and be done with it.
 
Revolution hardware isn´t finished and I believe that if some games can have an HD mode and run well they are going to have it.

The Non-HD situation is a pure facade.
 
borghe said:
but really, I am just going to post the pictures.
Unnecessary. Iwata said "you will say wow". And it has nothing to do with HD vs non HD. It has to do with the experience as a whole. Nobody will care about HD once they have the revmote in the hand, rediscovering video games as if it was their first time, with a smile on their face.
 
borghe said:
listen fucknut. my TV resolves over 1800 vertical lines (measured when it was calibrated),

Toldya it couldn't do it. :D

EDIT: Now you say 1500...

A shame you aren't above personal insults.

my set was calibrated by CraigM from HomeTheaterSpot

Mine was calibrated by David Abrams who works for Joe fucking Kane! I also have it on good authority that MY PENIS IS BIGGER THAN YOURS. :lol

Look, if you don't think a six-fold spatial increase (which, with film-based sources, is also a six-fold temporal increase) in resolution isn't 'HUGE', then I don't know what to tell you.

I give up. You make no sense. You 'win'.

quadriplegicjon said:
considering how few people have hdtvs.. (hell, most people cant handle 480p yet).. its very reasonable why nintendo cut that feature from the rev when trying to lower costs. for the general public 480p is more than enough. if it bothers you that much.. then dont get a revolution and be done with it.

I agree 100 percent. See my past post about what kinds of typical 'HD ready' display devices most 'adopters' will have by 2010.
 
borghe said:
or just realize that it is impossible to show the difference between resolutions using image files.

This I think is pretty true, because the X360 screenshots generally do not accurately portray how they look on the screen. I wonder though, you've obviously spent a lot of money on your setup yet you seem lukewarm on the value of HDTV (or HDDVD/Bluray). I understand that business-wise you potentially side with Nintendo's decision (if their 480p specs match up). but personally are you not disappointed that their not supporting the full power of your expensive setup? I can't imagine the 100-200 dollar difference in systems to include hi-def would make a difference to someone who has a fancy HDTV setup...
 
beermonkey@tehbias said:
Look, if you don't think a six-fold spatial increase (which, with film-based sources, is also a six-fold temporal increase) in resolution isn't 'HUGE', then I don't know what to tell you.
six fold? where the hell do you get that. ASSUMING X360 is rendering at full 720p, it isn't even a 66% spatial increase. It is a 2.66 times pixel count increase, but for a spatial increase to even hit 100% you generally need a 4x pixel increase. Taking into account a 1.2 pixel aspect ratio for 480p widescreen compared to 1.0 for HD rezzes, still only gives you 3.2 times total area which in spatial terms is still only 75% more.. where the hell you get six times from is beyond me. and film sources are beyond relevant, because at the end of the day their quality is determined solely by the HD camera capturing the film for transfer.

anything else?

beermonkey@tehbias said:
EDIT: Now you say 1500...
umm.. it's called being honest. the 1800 was a typo.

GitarooMan said:
but personally are you not disappointed that their not supporting the full power of your expensive setup?
excellent question. truthfully? no. My DVD player is the ever venerable Panasonic RP56K. It outputs a GORGEOUS image at 480p. I mean the first time I powered that sucker up I was blown away. Now was I blown away the firstime I watched CSI? NFL? Hell yes!! But this is directly related to broadcast TV looking like ass. Was I blown away by DirecTVs first PPV showing of LOTR:FOTR? Not really. I could see some subtle differences from the DVD (mostly in gollum and large panned areas) but it came nowhere near the impact of CSI or NFL. That's my point here. Will 720p systems look a little better? Absolutely. Is it enough to make me look down on another system with the same graphics quality only at 480p? No. Much in the same way there are still gorgeous DVDs being released, Rev games will potentially look gorgeous at 480p also (if they contain comparable hardware at 480p).
 
I don't see how anybody could possibly say that Nintendo is "better off" without HDTV on Revo, but I think that a lot of people are definitely overstating the importance of HD. I'll be perfectly happy as long as all Revo games support widescreen @ 480p resolution.
 
borghe said:
six fold? where the hell do you get that. ASSUMING X360 is rendering at full 720p, it isn't even a 66% spatial increase. It is a 2.66 times pixel count increase, but for a spatial increase to even hit 100% you generally need a 4x pixel increase. Taking into account a 1.2 pixel aspect ratio for 480p widescreen compared to 1.0 for HD rezzes, still only gives you 3.2 times total area which in spatial terms is still only 75% more..

There you go not following the discussion.

All of my comments regarding DVD versus HDTV resolutions were a response to your comments about MOVIES, not GAMES, and I sure as hell didn't say anything about XBOX 360!

borghe said:
the bottom line is you take a look at some gorgeously mastered DVDs (Shrek 1/2, any Pixar disc, most SuperBit discs, Saving Private Ryan, Episode 2/3, Charlie and the Chcolate Factory, LOTR Trilogy, etc) and compare them to the HD versions of those movies (when available) and you really don't see THAT dramatic of an improvement.

borghe said:
where the hell you get six times from is beyond me.

720x480 = 345,600 pixels
1920x1080 = 2,073,600

DVD to full-resolution HD is a sixfold increase in resolution.

I'm done with this bullshit.
 
beermonkey@tehbias said:
720x480 = 345,600 pixels
1920x1080 = 2,073,600

DVD to full-resolution HD is a sixfold increase in resolution.

I'm done with this bullshit.
except it doesn't work like that. first off, you said spatial, not resolution, which are two different things. the fact is you need an equivalent of 4 times the pixel count to double your spatial area. second off, we are a WAYS away from games being rendered at 1080p. X360 isn't even rendering all games at 720p yet, and outside of a few on PS3, I doubt we will see many games at 1080p. finally, numbers don't mean shit in the face of actual perception. 35mm film has a resolution of an estimated 4000 lines. do you really go to the theater and say "OMG this looks so much more detailed than my TV." Our eyes perceive increases in clarity much differently than the math on the page does. Take into account all of those people who sit further back than SMPTE recommended viewing distances, all of the people with lower than true 20/20 vision, you name it..

but this has been gone over too many times. the people who want to make a big deal out of it will use their math (because in the face of the subjectivity of quality that's all they have) and the rest of us will just anjoy next-gen gaming.

edit - and for the record, film only has 40% the temporal resolution of a progressive scan TV image. I don't know where you got that other number from, unless you just don't understand what temporal resolution is.
 
marc^o^ said:
Unnecessary. Iwata said "you will say wow". And it has nothing to do with HD vs non HD. It has to do with the experience as a whole. Nobody will care about HD once they have the revmote in the hand, rediscovering video games as if it was their first time, with a smile on their face.

heh, well said :)
 
marc^o^ said:
Unnecessary. Iwata said "you will say wow". And it has nothing to do with HD vs non HD. It has to do with the experience as a whole. Nobody will care about HD once they have the revmote in the hand, rediscovering video games as if it was their first time, with a smile on their face.

Do you really believe that?
 
SolidSnakex said:
Do you really believe that?
Don't you?

Edit: I had a smile on my face when I played Nintendogs, Kirby CC or Wario Ware Twisted. I expect Revolution to give me more of that "wow I never played such a thing before!" feeling.
 
except it doesn't work like that. first off, you said spatial, not resolution, which are two different things.

Spatial is a modifier, an adjective.

Spatial versus temporal resolution is what I was discussing. In this realm, the former is two dimensional while the latter adds the dimension of time; how much visual information is displayed in an interval as opposed to a single field or frame.

the fact is you need an equivalent of 4 times the pixel count to double your spatial area.

Good thing the movies you describe in your example where you say that HDTV isn't a big improvement get 6 times the pixel count! And stop dragging games into this discussion, that's not what we were talking about! I was simply correcting your wholly wrong statement that high-def movies aren't a major improvement over DVD!

film only has 40% the temporal resolution of a progressive scan TV image.

Film by itself has no temporal resolution! Now, choose a particular filming/projection speed (24fps is typical but not the only one) and it has some.

But the spatial resolution is so much greative that 'progressive scan TV' still has less temporal resolution.

You can say that 24fps theatrical film is slower than 60fps video, but you have to factor in the spatial resolution to even determine the temporal resolution and have a basis for comparison!

Where's the smiley for beating ones head against the wall...
 
SolidSnakex said:
Do you really believe that?
Do I really believe that if the rev has games that are OMFGWTFBBQ fun, that no one will care it is not in HD?

I thought this thread was on the gaming board? Was it moved to OT? Or did the gaming board just stop caring about the quality of the games themselves?
 
Can I ask you guys a question? Do you really factor in calculus and temporal resonance or whatever the fuck it's called (sounds like a Half Life episode) when you go to see a movie? I don't know how many degrees of spatial viscocity a theater projector spits out, but I know that the image isn't that much better than the one on my home TV.
 
borghe said:
Do I really believe that if the rev has games that are OMFGWTFBBQ fun, that no one will care it is not in HD?

I thought this thread was on the gaming board? Was it moved to OT? Or did the gaming board just stop caring about the quality of the games themselves?

We are all Mark Rein whores :D

“You know, people are such snobs, with this "oh, it's not about graphics" thing. That's such nonsense. It's totally about graphics!"
 
borghe said:
Do I really believe that if the rev has games that are OMFGWTFBBQ fun, that no one will care it is not in HD?

I thought this thread was on the gaming board? Was it moved to OT? Or did the gaming board just stop caring about the quality of the games themselves?
this is GAF, people don't exactly care about the games, they just talk about it.
 
beermonkey@tehbias said:
You can say that 24fps theatrical film is slower than 60fps video, but you have to factor in the spatial resolution to even determine the temporal resolution and have a basis for comparison!
ok, first off, temporal resolution is strictly based on time. when people talk about film, in relation to motion pictures, they are talking about 23.97fps 35mm film. second, spatial resolution refers to exactly as it says, the amount of space given, entirely regardless of clarity or quality. spatiotemporal resolution is a combination of the two.

now, all of that crap out of the way, film transfers to hd don't abide by any of that because all of it is done by shooting the film into a box and capturing it with an hd camera (usually a 1080i one except for ABC/Fox). so spatial and temporal resolution is still utlimately determined by the camera as it is effectively filming a solid light. in effect, the temporal resolution is higher and even exceeds the original's. but this is because the way the transfer occurs and the fact that you are dealing with effectively solid light.

but again, all of this is limited to the subjective constraints of human perception. THAT is the only true determination of quality, as the human eye can't see the difference between 1280x720 or 1296x729, even though the difference is there plain as day on paper.
 
borghe said:
Do I really believe that if the rev has games that are OMFGWTFBBQ fun, that no one will care it is not in HD?

I thought this thread was on the gaming board? Was it moved to OT? Or did the gaming board just stop caring about the quality of the games themselves?

So people have just suddenly stopped caring about graphics because a game is fun or different? I don't think so. If that were the case why do so many Nintendo fans get upset at the rumors that the Rev won't be all that much powerful than the GC? Afterall graphics don't matter, right?
 
SolidSnakex said:
So people have just suddenly stopped caring about graphics because a game is fun or different? I don't think so. If that were the case why do so many Nintendo fans get upset at the rumors that the Rev won't be all that much powerful than the GC? Afterall graphics don't matter, right?
we are not talking about graphics here, we are talking about resolution. it is still possible at 480p to crank out 100,000 fully textured, anti-aliased, and shaded polygons per second with shader 3.0 effects.

if the rev turns out to not be able to render the exact same scene as X360 and PS3, THEN you people will have a leg to stand on. THAT can inhibit actual game development.
 
I think everyone realizes that adding HD would have made the system better, but it's obviously a business decision by Nintendo not to add it. They're market is still kids and now non-gamers. Kids usually don't have HD screens in their bedrooms, and non-gamers aren't technophiles. SD is still the mainstream and will be for a while.

It's a simple cost/benefit analysis on Nintendo's part. They can produce a cheaper product at a lower price to a market they're aiming that that won't notice the difference. Of course it's gonna rub HD gamers the wrong way and of course the games will look dated compared to the other two oh HD sets. But Nintendo doesn't care, because those people are a minority of their market.
 
borghe said:
we are not talking about graphics here, we are talking about resolution. it is still possible at 480p to crank out 100,000 fully textured, anti-aliased, and shaded polygons per second with shader 3.0 effects.

You don't think resolution has anything to do with graphics? We're talking about making games look better, resolution does that which means its part of graphics.
 
SolidSnakex said:
You don't think resolution has anything to do with graphics? We're talking about making games look better, resolution does that which means its part of graphics.
does resolution prohibit any of what I just said? does it stop developers from doing anything?
 
SolidSnakex said:
So people have just suddenly stopped caring about graphics because a game is fun or different? I don't think so. If that were the case why do so many Nintendo fans get upset at the rumors that the Rev won't be all that much powerful than the GC? Afterall graphics don't matter, right?
I know quite a lot of xbox fans on GAF switched to "it's all about the games" mode in PS3 threads :lol
 
borghe said:
ok, first off, temporal resolution is strictly based on time. when people talk about film, in relation to motion pictures, they are talking about 23.97fps 35mm film. second, spatial resolution refers to exactly as it says, the amount of space given, entirely regardless of clarity or quality. spatiotemporal resolution is a combination of the two.

You got me there, in the respect that my semantics were off. I was saying spatial when I should have been saying spatiotemporal.

What you still haven't explained in any way is how the sixfold increase in both spatial and spatiotemporal resolution from DVD to high-def is not a major increase. Or are you still denying that it's a sixfold increase?
 
monkeyrun said:
I know quite a lot of xbox fans on GAF switched to "it's all about the games" mode in PS3 threads :lol



It's still about the games in PS2 threads. One good double standard deserves another.
 
borghe said:
does resolution prohibit any of what I just said? does it stop developers from doing anything?

It doesn't, I was responding to someone saying that people are going to suddenly stop caring about graphics (resolution) because the Rev is different. That's not going to happen. That's not to say the resolution will make or break the Rev, but people will care about it even if its a small percentage of them.
 
Since we are on the topic of HD res.... Is 1080i better than 720p?

When looking at them side by side i didnt see much difference; aside from some text being more clear.
 
Nutter said:
Since we are on the topic of HD res.... Is 1080i better than 720p?

It's...different.

For fast moving action at 60fps, 720p is arguably better.

If playing a 360, where most games are rendered at 1280x720, 1080i has some moire artifacts from the conversion, but still looks very nice.
 
beermonkey@tehbias said:
What you still haven't explained in any way is how the sixfold increase in both spatial and spatiotemporal resolution from DVD to high-def is not a major increase. Or are you still denying that it's a sixfold increase?
this is the last post on this I'll make. if you are interested in continuing, we can go to PM.

It is a six times increase in PIXEL RESOLUTION only. spatial resolution is just that, space. taking into account square pixels, an 8mpixel image only has twice the spatial resolution of a 2mpixel image, despite having 4 times the pixel resolution.

that is the same problem you have with HDTV. everyone likes to tout the 2.6 times pixel count of 720p over 480p. but in spatial resolution (taking into account the differen pixel aspect ratios) it is only around a 75% spatial resolution increase. THIS is much more meaningful in regards to human perception that pixel count, because THIS is how we see. so a 720p image is (for lack of a better term) 75% clearer than than a 480p image at the same size as far as we see. 1080p is roughly 100% clearer (again not a great word) than a 480p image. So the difference is there. I never said it wasn't.. but it is hardly as dramatic as "260% the difference". and when everything is flying on the screen, a screen that has just as many polys and effects on it as x360 and ps3, that 75% clarity increase isn't gonna make a whole helluva difference to most people.
 
beermonkey@tehbias said:
It's...different.

For fast moving action at 60fps, 720p is arguably better.

If playing a 360, where most games are rendered at 1280x720, 1080i has some moire artifacts from the conversion, but still looks very nice.
Ah, TY.

I guess ill try PDZ and COD2 on 1080i tonight and see.
 
Nutter said:
Ah, TY.

I guess ill try PDZ and COD2 on 1080i tonight and see.
this is different on X360. X360 is rendering at 720p (or close to) no matter what. playing at 1080i only changes what the system's analog scaler outputs the video at.

SolidSnakex said:
but people will care about it even if its a small percentage of them.
this is like the people who went into a tizzy when DirecTV started lowering it's channels to 1440x1080, despite the fact that the lost resolution was actually more than made up for with the increase in effective bits per pixels. people will bitch when they don't think they are getting all they should be. luckily system specs as bullet points become irrelevant after they launch. because at the end of the day, no matter what a system has for features, it's the games that make or break it. if a system sold (or attracted developers) on features alone, the XBox and GCN should have killed the PS2 this gen.
 
marc^o^ said:
Don't you?

Edit: I had a smile on my face when I played Nintendogs, Kirby CC or Wario Ware Twisted. I expect Revolution to give me more of that "wow I never played such a thing before!" feeling.
So what you're really saying is that I'll say "wtf is this SD garbage?" when I plug in the Rev at launch, and then ~7-10 months later (or more if you count twisted, and I suspect the dry spell that plagued the DS will be much worse for the Rev, given the massive control change) I'll have a game that makes me smile? The Rev isn't launching in a vacuum like the DS, you know.
 
actually you could go to Quicktime's trailer page, they have all sizes (480p-1080p) of HD Trailers there, see if you see any difference in full screen.
 
Here is a comparison I made with a game that is available on a nextgen console (Xbox 360) the game is Quake 4 for the pc. All images where taken using the highest ingame settings (ultra quality textures) 4xAA and 16xAF. Images were compressed and resized from .tga's to .jpg using save quality 96% and disabled color subsampling. I would have saved to .png but imageshack has a 1024KB limit :\

Quake 4 - 480p 4xAA 16xAF:

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/2649/q4480p4xaa16xaf3ci.jpg

Quake 4 - 720P 4xAA 16xAF

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/2817/q4720p4xaa16xaf2nl.jpg

Quake 4 - 1080p 4xAA 16xAF

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/8982/q41080p4xaa16xaf8qr.jpg

Quake 4 - 480p scaled to 720p 4xAA 16xAF

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/611/q4480pto720p4xaa16xaf3wo.jpg

Quake 4 - 480p scaled to 1080p 4xAA 16xAF

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/6234/q4480pto1080p4xaa16xaf9sq.jpg

Judge for yourselves :)
 
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