1Up compares PS3 and Xbox 360 graphics

[Gary Whitta]

And, uh, they look exactly the same...

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3155393

[McBain]

I honestly can't see a difference in quality there.

I have to ask, though. Is there a difference in framerate?

[MatthewF]

Like I've said in previous threads, the only way you can compare the two is with exclusives, and that's somewhat of a paradox, since you can't do a side-by-side with an exclusive. Do any of those games claim enhancements for either system? If not, why is this surprising?

edit: also, how do you expect to be able to pick out differences in minute details with image sizes at 400x300?

[Moore]

I honestly can't see a difference in quality there.

I have to ask, though. Is there a difference in framerate?

Yes, the ps3 has more chop according to reviews in a lot of multi platform games, but I'd seriously assume it's just that its a pain to program for and devs need to get used to it.

[mouselock]

I DL'd the high-res video of the Ridge Racer comparison, and I'd give a slight nod to the PS3 in terms of quality there. Things I noticed:

Better road textures, better lighting in the tunnel.

However, whether this is a system difference or a matter of them having more time to work with the PS3 is pretty unclear. Since they seem to have used the same courses on both system, it could simply represent them having time to worry about the little details for an extra year on the PS3.

One thing I did notice in the side-by-side pictures was that the XBox seems consistently darker. Not sure why; could be as simple as having the gamma set differently.

I think the relevant comparison would be resistance to GoW. Comparing EA games which all have the same base assets anyway is pretty pointless.

[Charles]

Actually, there ARE differences. On a bunch of the screens, the PS3 appears to be using slightly lower res textures and missing some shaders. The only one that looks better on the PS3 is Fight Night -- they've obviously increased the texture res on the characters and futzed with the shaders.

[Charles]

One thing I did notice in the side-by-side pictures was that the XBox seems consistently darker. Not sure why; could be as simple as having the gamma set differently.


Seemed to be a contrast issue. Contrast was higher on the 360 by default, making the PS3 look slightly washed out and brighter by comparison.

[MatthewF]

Actually, there ARE differences. On a bunch of the screens, the PS3 appears to be using slightly lower res textures and missing some shaders. The only one that looks better on the PS3 is Fight Night -- they've obviously increased the texture res on the characters and futzed with the shaders.

A bunch of screens? I've only seen one that looked like the PS3 had lower-res textures, and that's Madden.

[Charles]

A bunch of screens? I've only seen one that looked like the PS3 had lower-res textures, and that's Madden.


Most of them looked like there was a difference to me, but it could've simply been a lack of shaders, making them seem less detailed.

[MatthewF]

Most of them looked like there was a difference to me, but it could've simply been a lack of shaders, making them seem less detailed.

One thing I have seen is that normal map saturation appears to be lower on the PS3, which gives it a flatter look. There's no real performance gain from doing this, so I think it might be related to how the graphics card processes certain shaders.

[Moore]

Seems a bit silly to compare sequels like rr6 vs. rr7 and FA1 vs. FA2. rr7 and fa2 could look just as nice on the 360

[stusser]

360 is a x1900xt with 512MB of RAM vs the PS3's 7800GTX with 256MB of RAM, basically. Neither side is really exploiting their weirdo CPUs. If anything I would expect the 360 to look somewhat better at this point since it has double the memory for high res textures and such. Anyway, not surprising.

[Jake Plane]

Yeah, there was a great story that went into details on the pros and cons of each machine and basically came to the same conclusion stusser did.

[Jason Cross]

360 is a x1900xt with 512MB of RAM

Not really. It shares a certain number of similarities with the X1900's dispatch processor and pixel shaders, but the shader units in the 360 itself are different. They perform somewhat different operations, there's no vertex shader units (there are on all the ATI PC cards), there's direct memory export functions, etc. Not to mention that the 10MB of RAM on the graphics chip with absolutely insane bandwidth between it and the GPU logic, and AA resolve functions implemented in that RAM daughter die.

From an API perspective, it's DX9 with a couple of tweaks and memory export. From a GPU microarchitecture perspective, the 360 can't really be directly compared to PC graphics.


vs the PS3's 7800GTX with 256MB of RAM, basically

This one is basically true. They've discovered that the chip seems slightly bigger that that simple formula would suggest, but the extra transistors could be something as simple as an integrated PCIe to FlexIO bridge or something.

Note that both the PS3 and 360 have 128-bit memory controllers, too. The PC counterparts you listed have considerably more graphics memory bandwidth to the main bank of RAM (again, the embedded RAM in the 360 throws a monkey wrench into the equation).

Right now developers aren't really getting much out of the flexibility of the 360 GPU - most titles are treating it like any 'ol DX9 GPU and then doing a few small tricks to optimize for it. But it's actually quite more adept at doing things like tesselation, creating and manipulating particles, and other "CPU tricks on the GPU" stuff than PC-style DX9 hardware is. I bet we'll see more of that kind of stuff in the 3rd/4th year 360 titles.


Neither side is really exploiting their weirdo CPUs. If anything I would expect the 360 to look somewhat better at this point since it has double the memory for high res textures and such. Anyway, not surprising.

Agreed there. There's lots of headroom, optimization, and learning to be had on both systems in the CPU department.

In the end, "Cell potential" or no, the typical PS3 game is going to have less of a difference from it's 360 counterpart than there was between the PS2 and Xbox. Nit-pickers might be able to pull out differences where one or the other is "better" but the general market won't see any difference.

Frankly, a whole lot of it is going to come down quality of artwork and art direction.

[stusser]

Yep, agreed. Unlike last generation, 360 games aren't going to look significantly better than ps3 ones. Hardware capabilities are roughly equivalent.

[tromik]

The 360 Fight Night boxers look like boxers. The PS3 Fight Night boxers look like underwear advert models.

[jim crawford]

I can see Blu-Ray plausibly having an effect on visual quality in games with a wide variety of textures. That certainly seemed to be what Ted Price was getting at when he said Resistance would've been hard to implement as-designed on any other platform.

[tromik]

There's one thing you can't see in these screenshots: emotion. PS3 owns it in that category.

[Charles]

I can see Blu-Ray plausibly having an effect on visual quality in games with a wide variety of textures. That certainly seemed to be what Ted Price was getting at when he said Resistance would've been hard to implement as-designed on any other platform.


Ehhh... if they are being meaninglessly wasteful, maybe. But your visual quality is limited more by your video memory than by your storage space.

[Moore]

"Not to mention that the 10MB of RAM on the graphics chip with absolutely insane bandwidth between it and the GPU logic, and AA resolve functions implemented in that RAM daughter die."

I swear I got a spam email with that as the junk text.

[jim crawford]

Ehhh... if they are being meaninglessly wasteful, maybe. But your visual quality is limited more by your video memory than by your storage space.
Per frame, certainly. But I would imagine, especially if you take MegaTexture and friends into account, that artists could come up with enough content that it'd have to be stored at lower quality to fit on a dual layer DVD. This is mostly a guess, of course; I don't have enough information to run actual numbers on it.

[Xaroc]

Despite the fact Bluray can hold more isn't there an issue with the BD player in the PS3 not being able to stream data off of it any faster than the Xbox 360 DVD drive? The point I am getting at is even if you can put double resolution textures on a BD doesn't it take 2x as long to get them off of there? This is a real problem unless you preload everything and the PS3 has less memory than the 360. Am I missing something here?

[MatthewF]

From what I can tell, the drive in the PS3 actually delivers data faster than the drive in the 360, if the 360 game uses dual layer discs. I may have misunderstood that, though. Either way, these things have hard drives. You can at least cache some data to the HD before loading a level, and pull it from there instead of the disc. It wouldn't be much of an issue if it came down to that.

[tromik]

Despite the fact Bluray can hold more isn't there an issue with the BD player in the PS3 not being able to stream data off of it any faster than the Xbox 360 DVD drive? The point I am getting at is even if you can put double resolution textures on a BD doesn't it take 2x as long to get them off of there? This is a real problem unless you preload everything and the PS3 has less memory than the 360. Am I missing something here?
The PS3 can load a lot of it onto the hard drive, though. You can even install entire games to the HDD. Then it can quicklyly move it into RAM. Right? I could just be talking outta my ass here.

[stusser]

No, you're absolutely right. 360 games have to run without the hard drive. But they got oblivion to work OK, so it can't be as much of a problem as we all thought.

[Moore]

they could squeeze in some 128x128 textures for the assholes who ruined everything by not owning a HD (I know it's MS's fault but if absolutely noone bought anything but the HD version we'd be sitting pretty, even if it is ridiculous to expect *noone* to buy a core. So.. assholes.)

[ElGuapo]

Yeah, the hard drive should have been required on the 360. It's really dumb it wasn't.

Also, with the HD videos, TV shows and movies available now, I find myself deleting a lot of content (game videos, and demos) in order to fit everything I need on the drive. Kinda sucks. 20 GB is just far too little. They really need a good 60-100 GB model.

[Tom McNamara]

I wish they'd just let us plug in external HDDs already.

[Jason Cross]

Per frame, certainly. But I would imagine, especially if you take MegaTexture and friends into account, that artists could come up with enough content that it'd have to be stored at lower quality to fit on a dual layer DVD. This is mostly a guess, of course; I don't have enough information to run actual numbers on it.

Well, id Software is doing a Wolfenstein game (with Raven, I think) where supposedly there's all kinds of unique texturing as well as no loading - the whole game is streamed as you play.

And it's a 360 exclusive, so... ??

[Moore]

Aye, and Carmack is on record as saying he's super impressed w/ the 360 hw and it's dev tools, isnt he?

[Beach123456]

No, you're absolutely right. 360 games have to run without the hard drive. But they got oblivion to work OK, so it can't be as much of a problem as we all thought.
Am I the only one that thinks the framerate in the 360 version of Oblivion could've been a lot better? Especially when on horse back, it slows down quite a bit.

[stusser]

You really have a 360 without the hard drive? I thought you were a myth, like leprechauns and the tooth fairy.

[RepoMan]

Who are you talking to, stusser?

[Moore]

I dont know, but beachLOTSOFRANDOMNUMBERS is right, the framerate in oblivion was kinda lame on the 360. But it isnt exactly GoW so it doesnt hurt the game much.

I'd say it was on par with the lame framerate of the entire GTA series on ps2.

[Beach123456]

You really have a 360 without the hard drive? I thought you were a myth, like leprechauns and the tooth fairy.
No, i have a hard drive. Doesnt really change anything, though.........

[Moore]

Yes it does, oblivion is waaaay worse without one from all accounts.

[jim crawford]

Well, id Software is doing a Wolfenstein game (with Raven, I think) where supposedly there's all kinds of unique texturing as well as no loading - the whole game is streamed as you play.

And it's a 360 exclusive, so... ??
So they're going to limit themselves to content that fits on a DVD, runs acceptably and looks suitably impressive. Doesn't mean they couldn't have made something better with the same budget if they had had more storage space.

(Doesn't mean they could've, either. I'm just sayin'.)

[Dave Weinstein]

So they're going to limit themselves to content that fits on a DVD, runs acceptably and looks suitably impressive. Doesn't mean they couldn't have made something better with the same budget if they had had more storage space.

The big development cost is content, not technology. That's why you see a lot more artists, designers, and scripters listed than programmers.

So, saying "they could have made enough content to require more than DVD storage for the same cost as would fit on DVD storage" seems to be oxymoronic.

[Coca Cola Zero]

It is a given that all things considered, more space available on the disc is always better, even if for no other reason than it means developers can spend more time on gameplay logic and less on clever compression techniques.

The real question is: are the other PS3 tradeoffs (shipping a year later, having only half the memory, etc) going to negate the benefits of a large disc format?

Everything is a trade-off when it comes to development, the PS3 is clearly better than the 360 in some ways and the 360 is clearly better in other ways. Honestly, over the life of the consoles I happen to think the 360's superior memory size is going to give it a slight edge over the PS3 in terms of delivering great graphics, but as has been repeated over and over, the systems will end up being virtually the same with exclusive software and services (like Live) being the only differentiators.

[Moore]

Are you saying the guys coding gameplay are usually the same guys coming up with the compression tech for textures and sound and fmv?

Do they re-invent the wheel to drive to work, too?

[jim crawford]

It is a given that all things considered, more space available on the disc is always better, even if for no other reason than it means developers can spend more time on gameplay logic and less on clever compression techniques.
Mhm. The stricter a platform's limitations, the more effort developers have to expend working around the limitations.


Honestly, over the life of the consoles I happen to think the 360's superior memory size is going to give it a slight edge over the PS3 in terms of delivering great graphics, but as has been repeated over and over, the systems will end up being virtually the same with exclusive software and services (like Live) being the only differentiators.
I tend to agree, storage issue aside. Even with the PS3's purported CPU advantage, it would take a minor miracle for programmers to get their parallelism act together in order to utilize it.

In the meantime, though, Sony can ask developers to implement Folding@Home clients into the PS3 versions of multiplatform games.

[Jazar]

I dont know, but beachLOTSOFRANDOMNUMBERS is right, the framerate in oblivion was kinda lame on the 360. But it isnt exactly GoW so it doesnt hurt the game much.

His numbers aren't that random.

[Beach123456]

His numbers aren't that random.
I was going to let him figure that out himself, but they are indeed in some sort of order. I will let you figure the order out yourself.

[Doug Erickson]

I thought the RSX in the PS3 was closer to a 7600GS than a 7800, much less a GTX. Doesn't it have a lower clock and like half the pixel pipelines of the 7800?

[stusser]

The RSX is 500Mhz core where the 7800GTX was like 450Mhz. As for pixel pipelines and whatnot, sony never got into that much detail, and the only people that are under NDA and, I suspect, less likely to break it than the erstwhile LOTRO players on this board.

[Moore]

His numbers aren't that random.

I've developed this filter with the internet, where I don't read any numbers in any names, because I decided for asthetic reasons, that names do not have numbers in them. Apologies for missing the very clever sequence of numbers.

[Coca Cola Zero]

Are you saying the guys coding gameplay are usually the same guys coming up with the compression tech for textures and sound and fmv?

Do they re-invent the wheel to drive to work, too?

Well, the compression tech already exists in the form of published compression algorithms. I doubt anyone is going to write their own replacement for DXTC or JPG or PNG or OGG or FLAC or whatever they wind up using, but even if you go with an established compression technology and even if you use an existing library to do it, there is always a lot of integration work you have to do both on the actual game and *especially* on tools programming and build management. And this isn't even getting into the complex issues that occur when you need to balance decompression of streaming content with cpu cycles for other things. Compressing things is always much more of a pain than leaving them uncompressed.

[Incendiary Lemon]

I thought the RSX in the PS3 was closer to a 7600GS than a 7800, much less a GTX. Doesn't it have a lower clock and like half the pixel pipelines of the 7800?

Something of the sort. The 50mhz underclock is probably a yield thing.

[K0NY]

I call shenanigans. I played Ridge Racer 7 today for like three hours and it didn't look like the Ridge Racer in that video. It was much sharper and clearer. Also, it was in 1080p, which I'm pretty sure the 360 version wasn't doing last year. So if they have to lower the resolution on PS3 games to match the resolution of 360 games, how is it a fair comparison?

1up says: "We captured images and video of several games and their Xbox 360 counterparts - using the same exact capture device, with same type of connection cables, running at the same exact resolutions."

So yeah, turn down the resolution, use analog instead of digital cables, then show off how the two systems look the same. I can't wait for them to do the comparison of PS3 to PS2 using a coax connection. They should be virtually indistinguishable.

[Brad Grenz]

The RSX is 500Mhz core where the 7800GTX was like 450Mhz. As for pixel pipelines and whatnot, sony never got into that much detail, and the only people that are under NDA and, I suspect, less likely to break it than the erstwhile LOTRO players on this board.

The speculation on Beyond 3d, based on the size of the die, is that the RSX design has 28 pixel shaders with 4-8 of them disabled. Other than that, still aren't a lot of specifics. But it's definitely more than a 7600.

[Jason Cross]

So they're going to limit themselves to content that fits on a DVD, runs acceptably and looks suitably impressive. Doesn't mean they couldn't have made something better with the same budget if they had had more storage space.

(Doesn't mean they could've, either. I'm just sayin'.)

That's not really my point. My point is, if blu-ray was the huge advantage in doing lots of texture variety, unique texturing, streaming worlds, etc., wouldn't they choose PS3 as the platform? I know Carmack has been very vocal about how totally awesome the 360 development tools apparently are, but it's not like he's gonna shy away from PS3 development if it really opens up the kind of technology he feels he needs.

My guess is that, with 512MB of RAM, you're going to want to do quite a lot of texture compression on either platform. And with those compressed textures, you're going to have plenty of space on a dual-layer DVD.

The games that run long are going to be ones that use lots of video, or don't bother to efficiently compress audio and such. Hence Blue Dragon - there's lots of video cut-scenes, and it ends up on three discs.

K0NY - you're right. They should compare those year-apart games using the cables that come in the box. That would be fair. ;)

Re: Oblivion - I didn't think the frame rate itself was that bad. If you stopped moving and looked around, it was fine. It's just that it stuttered as it loaded in the environment, and it was at its worst when you moved quickly (on horseback, etc.). Didn't stop me from playing about 80 hours of it, though.

It's a poor example of what can be done on the 360, methinks. It's a licensed graphics engine not really well optimized for the kind of GPU in the 360 (at least, not when Oblivion was made), and the entire game design was built for PCs with a hard drive install, lots of RAM, and more scalable graphics. If you were going to build a game of that type for the 360 from the start, I think you would handle a lot of the code differently (witness Mass Effect, or maybe Fable 2 will be a better example when we see what that is like).

[K0NY]

K0NY - you're right. They should compare those year-apart games using the cables that come in the box. That would be fair. ;)
If that's the case, the headline of the article should be "Xbox 360 games look just like PS3 games, as long as you gimp the video output."

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/K0NY/720p.gif
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/K0NY/1080p.gif

The video signals from 360 and PS3 are apples and oranges. PS3 is designed for digital video output. So much so, that people were saying the 20gb model was useless before they put an HDMI jack on it. This test used analog cables and was run at a resolution favorable to the 360. If they ran it through HDMI and at a resolution favorable to PS3 (1080p), the 360 side of this comparison would be blank because it supports neither.

The article is trying to make the point that there appears to be no power advantage on the PS3 side. To make that point, they had to gimp the PS3's video output. Once again, SHENANIGANS I say!

[BobJustBob]

Those boxes are one quarter the size, not half the size. They're half along each dimension.

[forgeforsaken]

How many of the games showed actually support 1080p?

[skedastic]

Is KONY kidding, or does he not realize that PS3 games aren't rendered at 1080p?

[Linoleum]

You can do a PS3 game in 1080p, but performance limitations means most developers aren't going to.

[Charles]

It doesn't matter what internal resolution games are rendered at. All that matters in the end is what your TV can do. I look forward to an HDMI connection for my PS3 simply because it's digital. But 720p is 720p. After that, all the image quality issues rest in the guts of the machine.

[skedastic]

Nonsense. If the game is rendered at 720p, it will make very little difference, if any, whether the PS3 scales it to 1080p or your TV scales it to 1080p.

[stusser]

Umm, no. If you have a 1080p TV, games internally rendered at 640x480 will look like shite compared to games internally rendered at 1920x1080.

[tromik]

K0NY: None of the PS3 launch games are 1080p. What the fuck are you talking about?

[Jazar]

K0NY: None of the PS3 launch games are 1080p. What the fuck are you talking about?

Ridge Racer 7 is 1080p native.

[Gary Whitta]

K0NY: None of the PS3 launch games are 1080p. What the fuck are you talking about?
That's not true. Ridge Racer 7 and NBA 07 are both 1080p.


VERY VERY FEW PLAYSTATION 3 GAMES ARE MADE FOR 1080P

Fixed.

[Kevin Grey]

That's not true. Ridge Racer 7 and NBA 07 are both 1080p.


Marvel Ultimate Alliance is also 1080p, I believe, and maybe Untold Legends as well.

[Gary Whitta]

Yeah. The point is that I doubt many games will be in 1080p once we get away from the launch, if any at all. No doubt Sony insisted on 1080p support from some launch titles in order to prevent any embarrassment after all the racket they raised about it being the only "true" HD console (flagship title Resistance not supporting it is embarrassment enough), but as we move on I believe you'll see developer support for that res slip away to zero. When we had Pete Hines from Bethesad on the NG podcast, he confirmed that Oblivion - a graphical showpiece title - would not support 1080p because it's not worth putting all that extra strain on the system just for a marginal improvement that only the tiny number of people with 1080p TVs would even get any benefit from.

[Moore]

but but K0ny said ps3 = 1080p!!! 720p isnt HD! EMOTION RIIIIDGE CRAAAB-DAMAGE!

[Jazar]

Time will tell. Factor 5's Julian EGHHHHHHHggebrecht stated that as more devs become familiar with the architecture he expects to see more and more 1080p titles.

edit: Also FWIW, all downloadable games will be in 1080p.

[tromik]

That's not true. Ridge Racer 7 and NBA 07 are both 1080p.
I could have sworn the only games that were supposed to be 1080p were Resistance, which shipped at 720p, and NBA Live '07, which was cancelled. My mistake.

[SpoofyChop]

I dont know, but beachLOTSOFRANDOMNUMBERS is right,

Actually, those are the only numbers that kids from Chalfont know. The kids from New Britain can count to 8 though, but the kids from Colmar can only count to 4 sadly.

[Erlend Grefsrud]

Time will tell. Factor 5's Julian EGHHHHHHHggebrecht stated that as more devs become familiar with the architecture he expects to see more and more 1080p titles.

edit: Also FWIW, all downloadable games will be in 1080p.
Seeing as Factor 5 is Sony second-party right now, there's no reason he would go on record stating otherwise.

The only devs that go on record saying stuff like this, are those who have a vested interest in it. And John Carmack, obviously, because he controls the universe.

[K0NY]

Yeah. The point is that I doubt many games will be in 1080p once we get away from the launch, if any at all.
Actually that isn't the point at all, Gary. The point is that 1up is doing a dishonest comparison to be provocative. If they were interested in reporting the news instead of making it, they would post the truth instead of trying to mold it to fit their agenda.

BTW: It's pretty funny how ignorant some of you are about these resolution issues. Next time do a bit of homework before calling me out there, Tromik.

[forgeforsaken]

But back to 1up, which games did they comapare that supported 1080p on the PS3? Ridge Racer and....?

[Podunk]

Actually, we don't know what resolution 1UP used for the comparison, do we? It could just as easily be 1080p as anything else, couldn't it?

[Moore]

I love how 1up has some 'agenda' re: the ps3. Like everyone else who ever points out the shitty bits and/or bullshitty bits about it.

Write more k0ny, I cannot stand the suspense for the next exciting chapter is this conspiracy thriller.

[K0NY]

Actually, we don't know what resolution 1UP used for the comparison, do we? It could just as easily be 1080p as anything else, couldn't it?
If the resolutions are different, they would have to adjust one or the other to make them line up and be the same size. Since they can't adjust the 360 to run at 1080p or through HDMI, they would have had to run the PS3 in a lower resolution through component or maybe even composite cables.


But back to 1up, which games did they comapare that supported 1080p on the PS3? Ridge Racer and....?
As I've already said; Ridge Racer 7, NBA 07, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance.

[K0NY]

I love how 1up has some 'agenda' re: the ps3. Like everyone else who ever points out the shitty bits and/or bullshitty bits about it.

Write more k0ny, I cannot stand the suspense for the next exciting chapter is this conspiracy thriller.
You're right. They probably don't have an agenda. They must just be too stupid to know the difference between analog and digital video or the various resolutions in which it can be sent to a display.

[Moore]

Or they, like the american consumer, dont give a fuck about those differences.

[Gary Whitta]

Why the fuck would 1Up, or indeed any independent editorial outlet, have a hidden agenda against the PS3? What possible benefit could that be to them?

Maybe the PS3 should have shipped with a motion-sensing tin foil hat.

[ProStyle]

The Zionists occupy Redmond and stage their disinformation campaigns from within its mighty walls. 1UP is a puppet publication of their agenda, obviously. Let my people go!

[mono]

Yeah. The point is that I doubt many games will be in 1080p once we get away from the launch, if any at all. No doubt Sony insisted on 1080p support from some launch titles in order to prevent any embarrassment after all the racket they raised about it being the only "true" HD console (flagship title Resistance not supporting it is embarrassment enough), but as we move on I believe you'll see developer support for that res slip away to zero. When we had Pete Hines from Bethesad on the NG podcast, he confirmed that Oblivion - a graphical showpiece title - would not support 1080p because it's not worth putting all that extra strain on the system just for a marginal improvement that only the tiny number of people with 1080p TVs would even get any benefit from.

I heard that interview. Not only was there a marginal return on the investment, but further, neither console has the hardware to run a game like Oblivion without lapsing into terrible frame rate issues. I don't expect any cutting edge "next-gen" 360 or PS3 titles to support 1080p.

[Kyle Wilson]

You can do a PS3 game in 1080p, but performance limitations means most developers aren't going to.

Likewise, you can do an Xbox 360 game in 1080p, but performance limitations mean that most developers aren't going to. The only differences between the platforms are:
1. The fast EDRAM video memory in the Xbox 360 gives it higher fillrate, which makes 1080p games marginally more feasible. But in most cases they're still not worth the memory cost and framerate hit.
2. The PS3 has HDMI out, which should give a slightly crisper image.

So what's all the fuss about?

[skedastic]

If the resolutions are different, they would have to adjust one or the other to make them line up and be the same size. Since they can't adjust the 360 to run at 1080p or through HDMI, they would have had to run the PS3 in a lower resolution through component or maybe even composite cables.

Yeah, they probably have the PS3 connected with composite. They were paid to do so by the International Anti-PS3 Conspiracy.



As I've already said; Ridge Racer 7, NBA 07, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance.

In which post did you already say that? All I can see is the claim that PS3 GAMES ARE MADE FOR 1080P. This would appear to be a claim that all PS3 games are 1080p.

[Podunk]

If the resolutions are different, they would have to adjust one or the other to make them line up and be the same size. Since they can't adjust the 360 to run at 1080p or through HDMI, they would have had to run the PS3 in a lower resolution through component or maybe even composite cables.

Yeah, but doesn't the 360 upscale to 1080p now?

[Gary Whitta]

Yeah, but doesn't the 360 upscale to 1080p now?
In the dashboard and for HD-DVD on certain TVs over component, but I don't think you can get a game into 1080p unless it supports that resolution, can you?

[MatthewF]

Yeah, but doesn't the 360 upscale to 1080p now?

Upscaling to 1080p doesn't change the resolution. It just scales it up to take advantage of more pixels. It may even look worse too, depending on how good the scaler is, but chances are it will only look marginally better.

[Podunk]

In the dashboard and for HD-DVD on certain TVs over component, but I don't think you can get a game into 1080p unless it supports that resolution, can you?

Yeah, I dunno. I was under the impression that the 360 would scale up to 1080p the way it scales to other resolutions, but I certainly could be wrong.


Upscaling to 1080p doesn't change the resolution. It just scales it up to take advantage of more pixels. It may even look worse too, depending on how good the scaler is, but chances are it will only look marginally better.

Sure, I understand that.

[Coca Cola Zero]

Yeah, I dunno. I was under the impression that the 360 would scale up to 1080p the way it scales to other resolutions, but I certainly could be wrong.

You aren't wrong. If you set the 360 to 1080p, it upscales everything* to 1080p, including games. AFAIK, no game actually uses a frame buffer bigger than 720p, but the 360 does scale every game up to the resolution you set in the dashboard. I've double checked this by looking at the signal info on my tv when playing Gears, Jewel Quest, etc, they are all getting a 1080p signal from the 360.



(* Exception: it won't upscale DVDs to 1080p over component, but that's because of the stupid copyright restrictions, it does upscale DVDs to 1080p over VGA)

[Gary Whitta]

Do the games actually look any better in 1080p?

[Podunk]

You aren't wrong. If you set the 360 to 1080p, it upscales everything* to 1080p, including games. AFAIK, no game actually uses a frame buffer bigger than 720p, but the 360 does scale every game up to the resolution you set in the dashboard. I've double checked this by looking at the signal info on my tv when playing Gears, Jewel Quest, etc, they are all getting a 1080p signal from the 360.

Thanks, that's good to know.

[Jason Cross]

Yeah, I dunno. I was under the impression that the 360 would scale up to 1080p the way it scales to other resolutions, but I certainly could be wrong.

Correct, it will. If you hook the 360 up via VGA or Component to a TV that does 1080p over VGA or component, and you set the 360 to 1080p, you'll get 1080p output on the dashboard, games, downloaded videos, you name it. It will always scale everything to 1080p.

Except HD-DVD movies, which supposedly are limited to 1080i if you don't have a digital connection with HDCP by the AACS copy protection rules. But 1080i won't really look different on your 1080p TV than native 1080p for movies at 24 or 30Hz.

However, the 360 isn't magically turning all your games and the dashboard and everything into 1080p rendered titles. It's rendering a 720p frame buffer, and just "stretching" it up to 1080p. Kind of like how you may have a 1600x1200 LCD monitor, and when you send it 1280x960 resolution the monitor stretches it up to fill the whole 1600x1200 pixels. It's just scaling. The PS3 currently has major problems with this seemingly simple task.

The dashboard update allowed game developers to produce native 1080p games if they want to - ones with 1080p frame buffers that don't scale at all to display at 1080p.

We've beat the 1080p horse to death. I'll only say that the word on the street is that Ridge Racer plays fine at 1080p, but the NBA game is pretty choppy and gets a lot smoother if you force the PS3 output to 720p.


Do the games actually look any better in 1080p?

On the 360, where it's just scaling the output, no. Not really. Maybe the slightest marginal "golden eye" difference depending on a bunch of factors like the pixel pitch of whatever 1080p display you're using. The scaling is just a good way to tell the 360 "always send this output to my TV, so it doesn't switch modes or anything on me."

Native 1080p games look a little bit sharper than native 720p games, but the difference is fairly small. You gotta have sharp vision and sit pretty close to the screen to see the difference, unless you have like a 60"+ display.

Other visual factors in games like texture resolution, frame rate, dynamic lighting and shadowing, and so on are vastly more easily recognized by virtually everyone. The "sweet spot" argument says that if you render at 720p, you still get a lot more resolution than standard-def and you have more GPU horsepower and memory space and bandwidth available to spend on all those other things.

[Coca Cola Zero]

Yeah, what Jason said. I use 1080p because my monitor is true 1920x1080. I use p instead of i on the idea that it is better to have the 360 do any needed scaling or deinterlacing than it is to have the monitor/TV do it because the 360 is a gaming machine and therefore it should be understood that no noticable lag is acceptable in the deinterlacing/scale process, whereas some TVs introduce noticable lag. The scaler/deinterlacer in my Westinghouse is known to be good and after doing some A/B tests, I can't tell which is better at scaling, the 360 or the TV, but I've left the 360 to do it just because. If your tv is like most HDTVs and has a native display closer to 720p, there is really absolutely no reason to use anything higher, you're just introducing more scale/shrink steps which won't help and may, in some cases, hurt (both in terms of image quality and introduced lag).

[Podunk]

So the important thing to take away from this discussion is that 1UP could very well have compared PS3 and 360 graphics at 1080p so K0NY is full of shit.

[Moore]

Do the games actually look any better in 1080p?

not much really, but neither does anything else.

[Damien Neil]

I'd just like to say that my brand new (Sony!) TV only goes up to 720p, and that I officially don't give a flying fuck whether the PS3 and 360 support 1080p or not.

[K0NY]

So the important thing to take away from this discussion is that 1UP could very well have compared PS3 and 360 graphics at 1080p so K0NY is full of shit.
You're an idiot. Ridge Racer 7, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and NBA 07 are rendered in native 1080p on the PS3. First of all, there isn't even a RR7 game available for 360. Second, RR6, M:UA and NBA 07 for the 360 are rendered in native 720p.

The article claims there's no visible difference between PS3 games and 360 games, but in order for that to be true, they needed to drop the resolution of the PS3 output to have it match up in size with the 360. There's no speculation about it. The definitely did this. If you look at the videos they posted, it's pretty clear that neither of the games are running in 1080p.

Generally speaking, I see that most of the "ports" released on the PS3 at launch look no better than their 360 counterparts. That isn't the issue here though. My problem is the misrepresentation of several examples in that article.

It would make far more sense to compare video of the games captured using optimal conditions for each system. However, that would give the PS3 an advantage since its hardware is designed for higher resolutions while the 360 is just faking it in software.

[forgeforsaken]

Which NBA are you talking about? NBA 07 is a PS3 exclusive published by Sony and supposed to be crap. NBA 2k7 is the multiplatform one.

[MatthewF]

Jesus K0NY, just give up. It's a retarded article, nobody really knows how they configured their setup to perform their "test," I mean for fuck's sake they tried to use 400x300 images to let the end user decide, except they had already decided for us in the opening text. You're starting to sound frothy.

[Gary Whitta]

Which NBA are you talking about? NBA 07 is a PS3 exclusive published by Sony and supposed to be crap. NBA 2k7 is the multiplatform one.
The way I hear it, NBA 2K7 is the good one and NBA 07 is the shit one that also happens to be in 1080p. Proving once again that good design is more important than hardware dick-waving. The sad thing is there will be plenty of tech chumps out there who will buy the shitty game just because it has 1080p graphics.

[John Merva]

I was going to let him figure that out himself, but they are indeed in some sort of order. I will let you figure the order out yourself.

Is it the Fibonacci sequence? Can I go on a grail quest with a fat american and a gay English lord?

[Linoleum]

It would make far more sense to compare video of the games captured using optimal conditions for each system. However, that would give the PS3 an advantage since its hardware is designed for higher resolutions while the 360 is just faking it in software.

Incorrect. Good thing you're not writing articles I guess. If only you weren't posting on message boards...

[stusser]

Nice little flame, but I don't see where he's wrong. If a crossplatform game runs at higher res on one platform, it's just as valid an advantage as any other.

[worm]

The way I hear it, NBA 2K7 is the good one and NBA 07 is the shit one that also happens to be in 1080p. Proving once again that good design is more important than hardware dick-waving. The sad thing is there will be plenty of tech chumps out there who will buy the shitty game just because it has 1080p graphics.
Counterpoint: Basketball games.

[Desslock]

Nice little flame, but I don't see where he's wrong. If a crossplatform game runs at higher res on one platform, it's just as valid an advantage as any other.

Certainly agree, and I'm all in favour of higher resolutions -- but as we know from PC Gaming, higher resolutions are not "free" -- they require additional processing power. Since the 360 and PS3 seem to be of comparable power, and the cross-platform games already seem to suffer in framerate on the PS3 compared to their 360 counterparts, it doesn't seem to bode well for games that'll require even more computer power - i.e. 1080p games, even if natively developing for the platform has some efficiency benefits.

[Linoleum]

It's not necessarily an advantage if you lose HDR and AA. Or have to drop more texture detail (ironic when you're running at a higher resolution) due to the larger buffer sizes.

[Gary Whitta]

I can't remember if I read it here or elsehwere that NBA 07 has choppy performance at 1080p and runs much better under 720p. Which seems to suggest that 1080p is a gimmick that is pushing the PS3 hardware too much.

[K0NY]

Certainly agree, and I'm all in favour of higher resolutions -- but as we know from PC Gaming, higher resolutions are not "free" -- they require additional processing power.
This is my point exactly. The 1up article says 'We don't see all the power that Sony was talking about." But they are discounting that it takes more power to generate the same game in 1080p instead of 720p.

And by the way, 1up is right to a certain extent. Many of the games are running at 720p and look the same on both consoles. I don't think that reflects the nature of the hardware, as much as development time for a launch title. However, I believe the fact that a few games were actually able to run in 1080p without having to sacrifice the textures and detail of the 360 version, indicates that the PS3 does have some more power than its competitor.

But you'd never know that from the article.

[Podunk]

And by the way, 1up is right to a certain extent. Many of the games are running at 720p and look the same on both consoles. I don't think that reflects the nature of the hardware, as much as development time for a launch title. However, I believe the fact that a few games were actually able to run in 1080p without having to sacrifice the textures and detail of the 360 version, indicates that the PS3 does have some more power than its competitor.

No, K0NY, it doesn't indicate that at all. It indicates that during development of those cross-platform games 1080p was supported for PS3 and unsupported for 360. You're making the same mistake that the 1UP article makes, just in the other direction.

[Podunk]

Also, I just wanted to savor this one again, since K0NY called me an idiot.


If the resolutions are different, they would have to adjust one or the other to make them line up and be the same size. Since they can't adjust the 360 to run at 1080p or through HDMI, they would have had to run the PS3 in a lower resolution through component or maybe even composite cables.


If you hook the 360 up via VGA or Component to a TV that does 1080p over VGA or component, and you set the 360 to 1080p, you'll get 1080p output on the dashboard, games, downloaded videos, you name it.

For the purposes of the article--comparing screen shots of crossplatform games--I honestly don't see how it matters if the 360 is upscaling to 1080p or rendering the games at native 1080p. We're not comparing the raw output of the frame buffer, we're comparing screenshots. Do natively rendered 1080p games on PS3 look superior to their upscaled counterparts on 360? Seems like a valid question to me.

Of course, PS3 won't upscale content to TRUE HD!!11! from lower resolutions, so they'd need to drop back to 720p at some point anyway.

[Islanti]

This is my point exactly. The 1up article says 'We don't see all the power that Sony was talking about." But they are discounting that it takes more power to generate the same game in 1080p instead of 720p.If you're using the same textures for 1080p and 720p the graphical difference will be entirely in the resolution of polygons. Depending on the display device size and viewing distance the difference may not even be noticeable. This was very obviously with Xmen Legends on the original Xbox. Yes you could run it at 720p instead of 480p, but all it did was make the lines in the image slightly sharper in an obvious (bad IMO) way. It really needed some AA.

Anti-aliasing needs to be considered in this. Smoothing out rough edges at 720p (AAx2 or AAx4) may do more for percieved visual quality than increased resolution. Other considerations, such as framerate, also play into the percieved quality.


However, I believe the fact that a few games were actually able to run in 1080p without having to sacrifice the textures and detail of the 360 version, indicates that the PS3 does have some more power than its competitor.It indicates that the PS3 developers chose to sacrifice other things to get 1080p resolution. If the 720p output looked better (maybe more effects or something) you could backup this claim. In any case the larger potential RAM pool for textures makes the Xbox 360 MORE suitable for 1080 textures. The 1080 demands on the rest (AKA sacrifices) of the system aren't worth it for developers. If not for Sony's marketing push for 1080p you'd probably see all PS3 games in 720p with better effects and AA.

Finally, although "Ridge Racer 6" and "Ridge Racer 7" have a different number, they 're the same game by all accounts. Claiming it's not a valid to compare them is silly.

[Charles]

Alright, so with all this goddamned fud, I'm not hopelessly confused.

If a PS3 game supports 1080p, and I set it to 720p output because that's what my TV does best, will the PS3 render that game at 720p or render at 1080p and scale down the picture to 720p?

Cause if it's the latter, that's going to lead to some shit image quality, because the same problems will exist with playing a 360 on an SDTV.

[Jazar]

I believe if you have 720p on the PS3 the game will render in 720p and not scale. That's why those with 1080i only TVs are screwed at the moment - without a scaller the game has to render specifically for that output.

[Linoleum]

Correct, if you have a TV that only supports 480p and 1080i, and the highest resolution a game supports is 720p, you'll be stuck running it at 480p.

Clearly the solution is to buy a new Bravia.

[Charles]

Good to know.

Are there any situations in which the PS3 will not output 720p native?

[Linoleum]

It currently does not play Blu-Ray movies at 720p, you'll get 1080i output.

[Charles]

It currently does not play Blu-Ray movies at 720p, you'll get 1080i output.

That's fine, cause until either blu-ray or hd-dvd dies off, I'm not going to be buying any of either. I suspect that both of them are going to basically end up as laserdisc was.

[K0NY]

Also, I just wanted to savor this one again, since K0NY called me an idiot.
I called you an idiot for calling me a liar. Unless you can post something I'm "full of shit" about, that assessment stays.


For the purposes of the article--comparing screen shots of crossplatform games--I honestly don't see how it matters if the 360 is upscaling to 1080p or rendering the games at native 1080p. We're not comparing the raw output of the frame buffer, we're comparing screenshots. Do natively rendered 1080p games on PS3 look superior to their upscaled counterparts on 360? Seems like a valid question to me.
The purpose of the article was to say, "Look, PS3 doesn't have more powerful hardware than 360 because we were able to make screenshots of games look similar on both systems." Forget about the other reasons this makes no sense. They achieved similar looking screenshots by dropping the resolution of PS3 games. To me, that's dishonest.

[Michael Fortson]

Since the 360 and PS3 seem to be of comparable power, and the cross-platform games already seem to suffer in framerate on the PS3 compared to their 360 counterparts, it doesn't seem to bode well for games that'll require even more computer power - i.e. 1080p games

My take on this, after reading Insomniac's lengthy interviews, is that early cross-platform games are pretty much guaranteed to be like this. Because they're cross-platform and early, they will not have gameplay that takes advantage of things you can do well with cell since they will not have the luxury of creating the systems and content suited for the platform, and cell isn't as good at un-optimized general purpose computing as just having more cores (a la 360). So they will have to choose between spending more time optimizing for cell, going with a lowest-common-denominator approach, or letting the PS3 suffer a bit in the more intense scenes.

To me this means I need to avoid cross-platform games until the companies involved have time to get their cell libraries up to speed (unless it's a desirable game that I just won't be able to play any other way), and even when they've gotten up to speed, they should really put work into taking advantage of the platform (like companies are doing with the Wii). Until then, exclusives are where it's at.

[Michael Fortson]

But of course, the exclusive needs to not suck :)

[Gary Whitta]

It currently does not play Blu-Ray movies at 720p, you'll get 1080i output.
To be fair, only the most eagled-eyed AV nut would notice the difference.

[tromik]

The purpose of the article was to say, "Look, PS3 doesn't have more powerful hardware than 360 because we were able to make screenshots of games look similar on both systems." Forget about the other reasons this makes no sense. They achieved similar looking screenshots by dropping the resolution of PS3 games. To me, that's dishonest.
Maybe they played on a 1080i TV?

[Podunk]

I called you an idiot for calling me a liar. Unless you can post something I'm "full of shit" about, that assessment stays.

Okay. (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=822586&postcount=107)

You're full of shit because you assert that the 360 cannot be adjusted to 1080p when several posters personally reassure us that it can.

I understand that you still think the comparison is invalid because the 360 uses "software fakery" or something to output non-native games in 1080p. My point is simply that your original objection is at least partially based your incorrect assumption that I guess you are just pretending never happened.

[Charles]

This is my point exactly. The 1up article says 'We don't see all the power that Sony was talking about." But they are discounting that it takes more power to generate the same game in 1080p instead of 720p.

Actually, all that takes is fill rate.

[bago]

The cell can handle linear data like a monster. Nobody disputes that. The only problem is that for much software the data is not accessed in a linear fashion. This means a lack of branch prediction hurts, smaller cache sizes hurt, and many CPU/spu cycles are burned while waiting for data access. Having hard limits between GPU and CPU for memory access is also a major flaw, especially when your core is designed for running through massive amounts of data thatis pre-cached. 8 parallel threads doing linear data access can eat through 256 mb of ram faster than the 5 ns latency can refill it.

The silicon limit was hit years ago, which is why everyone is running multi-core and multithreaded. This leads to sync issues, which require flexibility. Hard coded limits are not flexible.

[Kyle Wilson]

Actually, all that takes is fill rate.

Which the Xbox has more of.

[Linoleum]

8 parallel threads doing linear data access can eat through 256 mb of ram faster than the 5 ns latency can refill it.

Not that you'll get there before the bus contention eats you alive.

[bago]

Well, I guess that would also contribute to measuring output in Flops.

[K0NY]

You know this kind of bullshit is why 1up has no credibility in my book:


Those really looking for PS3-vindication will be able to cite slightly improved lighting as an improvement, as well as what some swear is more realistic-looking perspiration. Yes, people, the sweat looks better. The change is so small that you'd be forgiven for not noticing&but at this time in the system's life, the "mine's better than yours" brigade needs every scrap of ammunition it can get, no matter how insignificant.

This quote taken from the Fight Night Round 3 review (http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3155695) at 1up.com. After running a comparison piece where they skew the results then point to minute differences in graphics for the purpose of putting down the power of a new consoles, they have the balls to include a dismissive statement like this when a game actually does look better on it.

These guys suck.

[quatoria]

Oh, man. Could you have picked an example better tailored to making it appear as if you were grasping for any minute reason to discredit a dissenting opinion? "THEY WERE DISMISSIVE ABOUT THE REALISTIC SWEAT! THEY'RE CLEARLY CLUELESS!" Hee hee. A work of art. A++, would mock again.

[forgeforsaken]

As to Fight Night there's this as well
http://www.smartmoney.com/news/PR/index.cfm?story=PR-20061207-000880-0858

[Linoleum]

The price of a massive hype machine is that, when your console is not in fact significantly more powerful/capable of much better visuals, you're going to get savaged.

[Podunk]

And actually, in the Gamespot graphics comparison they call the PS3 version out as having inferior lighting and less detailed crowds. Weird.

I haven't seen either one in action, but with the extra development time on the PS3 version I'd be really surprised if it looked worse than the 360 version.

[K0NY]

Oh, man. Could you have picked an example better tailored to making it appear as if you were grasping for any minute reason to discredit a dissenting opinion? "THEY WERE DISMISSIVE ABOUT THE REALISTIC SWEAT! THEY'RE CLEARLY CLUELESS!" Hee hee. A work of art. A++, would mock again.
I'm not talking about them being dismissive of the sweat, though dismissive of lighting improvements is sort of stupid. I'm point out how their statement is pot calling kettle "black" after doing a piece in which they look for tiny details to put down PS3. It's hypocrisy at its finest and you quatoria, have missed it in your zeal to jab at my side yet again.

[Coca Cola Zero]

Expecting complete agreement in ideas between different reviews and articles on 1up is like expecting everyone on Qt3 to tow the same line. The site isn't written by one guy, of course there will be all sorts of internal inconsistency.

[Matthew Gallant]

TOE the line. Put your toe on the line so you line up with everyone else.

TOE.

[Tom Chick]

Sheesh, Gallant, sounds like you've been chomping at the bit to correct someone's idiom usage. I don't have a bull in this fight, but it seems to me it's perfectly legitimate to pull a line behind you, hence "tow the line".

-Tom

[Coca Cola Zero]

I'll spell it however the damn hell I want. I don't have to tow the line on your way of spelling it.

[RepoMan]

Oh Christ, Gallant is right on this one and Tom and Coca are wrong.

Uf kawrs uu dun't hawf tew beeleev mee, uu kan zpell itt anee damm wai uu wannt.

Doesn't make it right, though.

And on a site with such a high proportion of professional writers, spelling / grammar / idiom nitpickery has both precedent and place here.

[Tom Chick]

Hey, don't lump me in with Coca Cola Zero's willful ignorance! I was just riffing on a completely unrelated thread. When it comes to spelling and correct idiom usage, I'm all about toeing the line.

-Tom