_dementia said:
Is it true one of the levels runs in sub-HD in the PS3 version? It seems weird to me the game would dynamically change resolution for just one arena.
Yep. The arena is Shao Kahn's Throne Room. Apparently it seems to be related to the kind of anti-aliasing they used (but even Digital Foundry wasn't sure about it); but the result was better than in DC Universe. The PS3 version also had pixelated effects because of the filtering they used (like Scorpion's victory pose/going to hell, any kind of fire and lighting effect also looking pixelated).
Mortal Kombat operates at 720p on both platforms with neither getting any form of anti-aliasing. Instead, what we have here is a distinct 1x1 pixel wide edge blur that only partially smooths over edges successfully, but at the expense of giving the game a slight sub-HD look to it. Aliasing isn't an issue regardless, although having no blur filter and no AA would have been a preferable alternative.
Interestingly, on one particular stage - Shao Kahn's Throne Room - the overall impression is of a sub-HD presentation on PS3 around the 680p area. We're not entirely sure about the reasoning behind this, as it does seem localised to just this stage, which doesn't look to us like the most taxing in the game.
Moving on, it's clear that both versions are visually very close with regards to the baseline art, save for a few mild texture and normal map differences on some stages, and perhaps the odd rendering bug - for example, the texture work on Reptile looks very odd on PS3.
On the other hand we see that texture filtering is better on the 360, sporting higher levels of anisotropic filtering (AF), whilst the alpha buffers - smoke, fire and so on - are rendered in quarter resolution on the PS3. However, only some of these effects are actually filtered, leading to visible pixellation in some scenes.
Link
And yep, there's currently no firm date for Arcade Kollection. Gamestop still has the sticks for August 31st; but nothing official yet.
I should also mention, that I won't be able to make the Arcade Kollection OT; whenever it ends been released. Too many weird things going on around here; so..guess it's open to anyone to make one.