Ps3 games 720p instead of 1080p?

[vr6wantsr20det]

Just wondering why a good majority of Ps3 games are in 720p (Uncharted, Tomb Raider: Underworld, Ratchet & Clank, Little Big Planet etc.) Instead of 1080p? Now i have GT5p and MGS4, Socom which are 1080p. Since the ps3 is HDMI and can get the full 1080p why aren't these games made/available in the highest resolution? Don't get me wrong most of the games in 720p are beautifull, in my mind i feel like i'm being cheated out of the best possible graphics etc and use of the PS3's abilities, my 1080p hdtv, hdmi cable etc.

I thought maybe it was a programming thing but these games are Blu-ray discs, which can hold Tons of information. Just wondering if there's a reason behind this? I tried searching and didn't find any info. 👍

-Robert

 

[boiltheocean]

Developers can't be bothered I would guess or have decided that those games don't need 1080p graphics. Although some do lie. ie the orginal Motorstorm (claimed 1080, came out 720). I never find it too big a deal anyway.

 

[vr6wantsr20det]

Developers can't be bothered I would guess or have decided that those games don't need 1080p graphics. Although some do lie. ie the orginal Motorstorm (claimed 1080, came out 720). I never find it too big a deal anyway.

it's not a big deal, just curious as to why they wouldn't want to get the full-resolution the system could support. Although most of the 720p games i've played do look great. I just imagine what they would be like in 1080p. 💡

 

[hamstrings]

1080p requires far more resources than 720p to implement since there are 125% more pixels to push. It's not trivial to do. Sony has been pushing 1080p, but not all developers feel it is cost effective to do so. You're more likely to see 1080p support in simpler games or AAA exclusive titles like Gran Turismo 5.

 

[Jeremy Ricci]

Unless you own some PSN games, it's unlikely you've played any 1080p games at all. Even GT5: Prologue is upscaled 1080p.

That said, unless your set is larger than 50", you won't notice the difference between 1080p and 720p.

 

[s15specr]

I think one of the reasons why is because the xbox limits the PS3. Most games are made for xbox and it runs 720p

 

[Digital-Nitrate]

Unless you own some PSN games, it's unlikely you've played any 1080p games at all. Even GT5: Prologue is upscaled 1080p.

GT5P is rendered at 1080p at all times. However, unlike most of the 25 or so native 1080p games for the PS3, GT5P does go back and forth between rendering at 1920x1080 and 1280x1080 depending on what you are doing. While there has not been an official reason given, speculation is that this is to compensate for having so many cars on the track.

Regardless, even at 1280x1080, that's still 1.4 million natively rendered pixels per frame, scaled to 2.1 million pixels, compared to 720p, which has only 900,000. That's a difference of about 500,000 native pixels. By comparison, the most number of pixels on DVD is less than 400,000 per frame.

That said, unless your set is larger than 50", you won't notice the difference between 1080p and 720p.

This is absolutely untrue, and unfortunately one of the most commonly shared myths, often passed on by unscrupulous salesman trying to get someone to buy a bigger TV then they really need.

Rather than just keep repeating myself, here are the most recent responses to this same incorrect assumption and related myths, like 1080i vs 1080p and 1080p support vs 1080p native, etc:

Most importantly though, the size of the screen does not limit you to how much detail you can see. It is strictly dependent on how much space the images from a display are filling your field of vision. This is why professionals in the AV industry always refer to the D:W ratio, the ratio between the viewing distance and the display width.

For instance, typically people sit 2-3 feet away from their PC displays. So if they have a 22" display, they have a D:W ratio of 1.3-1.9 (the smaller the number the more your field of vision is being used).

However, most people sit at least 10 feet away from a typical TV in a family room. So let's say it was a 40" TV, then their D:W would be 3.4

This means the 22" display is filling up more than twice their field of vision than the 40" display. For obvious reasons, the 22" display at a D:W of around 1.5 is going to allow the viewer to notice much more detail than a 40" display at a D:W of 3.4

So yes, even a 4" hand held display would benefit by having a native 1920x1080 panel, if you were watching it from only a foot away.

The important thing is that if RyanGee's 22" display does not have a native 1080p display, or more importantly, it is only a 720p/768p display (even if it "supports 1080i"), then the best thing to do is to disable 1080i/p output from the P3, and only output 720p.

Anyone know why this game refuses to run in anything higher than 720p even though it supports higher than that? GT5 and Call of Duty both run in 1080i on my tv. (32 inch sharp)

I think you'll find the answer(s) you are looking for just a few posts above yours (#2105)


To sum it up, neither COD4&5 nor GTAIV are rendered natively in 1080p. [Of the three games you listed] Only GT5P is. In addition they are certainly not rendered in 1080i. All current games are rendered natively in progressive format. If you choose to you can set the PS3 to convert the signal to a 1080i, but that is not native.

It's extremely important to understand the difference between rendered and scaled resolution, progressive and interlaced video, and native and supported resolution.

Based on your comments and questions I think you have several of those confused with the other.

Depending on the type of display you have, just because it says it "supports 1080i" doesn't at al mean it can actually display a 1080i signal. If it's a fixed panel display (LCD, DLP, PDP, LCoS, OLED, etc) then it has a fixed pixel panel (native resolution). If it is a 720p/768p panel, then even though it "supports 1080i", all it is doing is taking that signal and downscaling the image to the native resolution of the display. Not only that, but because they all are progressive displays, they also have to deinterlace the 1080i signal. All of this is a quick way to lower the quality of the original 720p source.

So unless you have and analog TV (CRT), or if you don't have a 1080p TV, then you should make every effort to avoid feeding your TV a 1080i signal. I realize this is not always possible, as many HD broadcasts are only available in 1080i, but at least in terms of the two games you mentioned, GTAIV and COD, then by all means you should not be forcing your PS3 to upscale to 1080i or even 1080p.

What it is saying is that it is receiveing a 1920x1080 signal... but it can't display 1920 vertical lines of resolution. That monitor can only display 1630. Digital displays have FIXED pixels. A display simply can not activate pixels it doesn't physically have on the panel.

Now depending on the video processor of the display, it is possible to display 1630x1080 and simply "chop off" 290 lines of resolution... but that also means you wont be seeing the whole image.

Another possible option is to scale the 1920x1080 signal to 1630x917, thus you'll see the whole picture, but will lose a little bit of both vertical and horizontal detail, as the native resolution will have to be scaled down.

Basically though, you are going to be limited by what your display allows you to do, and or by what the source allows you to do.

I can't speak for the service, as I have never used it, but as mentioned already, download speeds are almost entirely dependent on your network and the amount of bandwidth your ISP has available for you at the time you are downloading.

Resolution and scaling though are things I can try and help shed some light on.

It is my understanding that all the SD videos are 480p and from DVD masters. Just like playing a DVD on a 720p or 1080p display, ALL video, no matter what the resolution of source is, has to be upscaled or downscaled to match that display... this in no way should be considered an improvement of the original image. A DVD upscaled to 1080p has the exact same amount of original detail as the original 480p/i source... all that has happened is that the image is "blown up".

To put it another way, if you take a digital photograph say at 850x480 resolution, and blow it up to 1920x1080, it still has the same detail as the smaller photograph. However, if you then took a new photograph of the same subject, but this time at a resolution of 1920x1080, and then compared it to the one you blew up, you would see a huge difference - as much as six times more detail!

In fact, just to show what can go wrong when you scale images, if you were to now take that photo that you blew up, and shrunk it back down to 850x480, while one might expect it to look just like the original 850x480 photo... most of the time it won't, because it has had to go through two differnt levels of scaling, and with the exception of really high end scalers, image quality often suffers.

So bottom line, unless you own a digital display that has no scaler, like some PC monitors, or if you believe the scaler in your display is not as good as the one from the source (PS3, DVD player, DVR, Satellite Receiver, etc), then you should just let your display handle all the scaling.

In the case of the PS3, it does have a very good scaler, but at least in my case, the TV I use it on the most has a better one, so I make sure whenever I am using it with that specific TV I turn off all scaling option on the PS3.



I mention all of this as there are a lot of bad myths about "magically" turning DVD quality video to HD simply by upscaling it to 720p or even 1080p, and that's simply not true. While there are some very high end scalers that do a much better job than others, at the end of the day though, they can only try and interpret how to fill in all those missing pixels when an image has to be scaled up to match a display... and do it in fractions of a second.

Bottom line, when comparing identical images recorded in 1080p, 720p, and 480p... the higher the original resolution, the more detailed the images will be, and it is simply impossible to reproduce by upscaling a lower resolution image to match a higher resolution image. Anyone who tells you differently is mistaken.

The day I no longer hear someone say...

• you need a big TV to notice the difference in 1080p...
  
  
• or that a display that "supports" 1080i or 1080p, but doesn't have a 1080i or 1080p native resolution is still displaying it in 1080i/1080p...
  
  
• or that upscaled 720p is just as good as native 1080p...

... is the day I treasure, as they are some of the worst myths about displays.

 

[vr6wantsr20det]

I think one of the reasons why is because the xbox limits the PS3. Most games are made for xbox and it runs 720p

well the xbox360 does display 720p/1080i/1080p on almost ALL of the games i've had. I just traded in Tomb Raider:Underworld today. Out of curiosity i downloaded the Underworld Demo for xbox360. When i played it this morning it was in 1080p! There was a HUGE difference in color, picture quality and overall smoothness to the game. I have a Samsung LN32A550p3.... It's a 32".

Now on my xbox360 it's the component HD cables, not the HDMI, and i hear i don't get the "FULL" 1080p without it. But it still looks amazing.


And that was some very good information. I not very little about audio/video just the basics. Thanks for sharing that. 👍

-Robert

 

[Digital-Nitrate]

well the xbox360 does display 720p/1080i/1080p on almost ALL of the games i've had.

As explained above, if the video's native resolution or the game is rendered in 720p resolution then even if you select it to putput a 1080i or 1080p signal it isn't displaying native 1080i or 1080p images... all it is doing is blowing up the 900,000 pixels that make up a native 1280x720 720p image in order to fill a 1080p 2.1 million pixel display. Blowing up an image adds no additional detail then the original 720p image. The same goes for videos and games rendered in resolution less than 720p... which you can always output those signals at higher resolutions, you are not adding any new original detail to the image. All you are doing is blowing up the original native image.

If you are still not sure what that means, just take any picture off the web that matches the resolution of your display, then use any photo viewing software to shrink it down to half and save that new image. Now with the newly saved image, blow it back up to the original size and compare the two images. You'll clearly see that despite both being displayed as the same size, the original image has more detail... because it was not scaled up.

It is extremely important to understand the difference between native resolution and scaled.

As far as I know, there is no game on the Xbox360 that currently is rendered at a higher resolution than 1280x720, where as there are several games for the PS3 that are rendered in 1080p. Yes, the 360 can scale the 720p rendered video to 1080i as well as 1080p, but it's meaningless as pointed out above in terms of no added detail.

In fact, if you have a 1080p TV (not one that just supports 1080p, that's VERY different), then that TV is already scaling all the incoming signals no matter what their resolution is to 1080p, but it doesn't make them look any where near as detailed as signals that have a native 1080p resolution.

I just traded in Tomb Raider:Underworld today. Out of curiosity i downloaded the Underworld Demo for xbox360. When i played it this morning it was in 1080p! There was a HUGE difference in color, picture quality and overall smoothness to the game. I have a Samsung LN32A550p3.... It's a 32".

I'm not sure how or what you were comparing, as the PS3 version of Tomb Raider:Underworld is rendered at 1280x720 (900,000 pixels per frame), while the 360 version is rendered at only 1024x576 (590,000 pixels) . That means the PS3 version has 33% more native resolution than the 360 version. Again, absolutely do not get fooled by scaled resolution numbers, they mean very little in terms of video quality.

Now on my xbox360 it's the component HD cables, not the HDMI, and i hear i don't get the "FULL" 1080p without it. But it still looks amazing.

Technically speaking it's possible to send a 1080p signal over component. the problem is most 1080p TVs do not accept a 1080p signal over component, but not all:

I feel special. The AQUOS accepts 1080p flawlessly over component from the Xbox 360 (something that few people believe is possible).

👍

I too have a display that accepts a 1080p signal via component:

However these are both rare exceptions, and the unfortunately reality (at least for those with X360's with no HDMI and 1080p TVs) is that the vast majority of 1080p displays can not except a 1080p signal via component, and many have poor deinterlacers, thus why many owners of those displays when feeding a 1080i signal to their TV find it doesn't look any better, and sometimes worse than a 720p signal.

In fact, the first couple generations of AQUOS 1080p displays from Sharp also could not accept a 1080p signal via component, and that feature was limited to only the very best video processors.

Even today, 1080p via component is still generally limited to only the higher end displays featuring the latest video processors.

However, as were are dealing with digital data, ideally you don't want to use analog component any way, so for those with displays with HDMI and DVI, unless they have to use component and the signal is from a native 1080p source, there should be no reason to fret over whether or not it accepts a 1080p signal via component.

And that was some very good information. I not very little about audio/video just the basics. Thanks for sharing that. 👍

I'm glad to share what I know, especially if it helps minimize the spread of so many myths about these AV topics.

 

[hamstrings]

As explained above, it isn't
As far as I know, there is no game on the Xbox360 that currently is rendered at a higher resolution than 1280x720, where as there are several games for the PS3 that are rendered in 1080p.

As I pointed out in PS3 discussion thread, there are games on the Xbox 360 rendered at 1920x1080 native resolution. They are few in number, but they are there.

EA Claims First Xbox 360 1080p Game Crown
List of Xbox 360 1080p games

 

[Digital-Nitrate]

As I pointed out in PS3 discussion thread, there are games on the Xbox 360 rendered at 1920x1080 native resolution. They are few in number, but they are there.

List of Game Rendering Resolutions + some info on the hardware scaling, Beyond3D

From that link:

1920x1080 = PS3: Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3
1280x 720 = 360: Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3

But your are correct, and I was wong, and that there are apparently a few games for the 360 that are rendred in 1080p, just not any of the ones that were discussed. Thanks for the heads up though. I have never seen and didn't realize that Street Home Court and Virtual Tennis 3 were also rendered in 1080p on the PS3 as well. That at least dispels any myth that there are no multi-platform disc based games that are rendered in 1080p on both platforms. 👍

 

[vr6wantsr20det]

that makes perfect sense about the upscaling and just "blowing up" a 720p resolution to fit into a 1080p resolution. Back the the Tomb Raider Underworld comment, wutever the reason the xbox360 version was much clearer/smoother and overall nicer looking. once again good info and hopefully others will benefit from it as well.

 

[hamstrings]

The PS3 version of Tomb Raider Underworld uses Quincunx AA to smooth out jaggies with minimal performance hit, but it ends up blurring the image. The Xbox 360 version has a lower resolution like D-N mentioned, but it uses 2x FSAA to smooth things out without blurring. That might be why the Xbox 360 version looks crisper for you.

 

[Jeremy Ricci]

Digital-Nitrate, with all due respect, you're blowing smoke up some folks behinds if you think they're going to sit that close to their set to notice the difference. The average viewing distance for a household is 4 to 6 feet from the set. With that type of separation between the viewer and the set, you absolutely have to have a large set to notice the differences between 720p and 1080p. Not to mention there are a lot of folks out there who do not have 1080p native sets that support "1080p" resolutions (like myself).

I understand your information, and it's correct, but you leave quite a bit out, somewhat misleading the already misled. I bet if you took something 720p and tossed it on the display and asked him (or anyone) to guess what resolution it was from 6" on a screen smaller than 50", you'll have a 50/50 chance to guess correctly, but you will be guessing.

While you may post up numbers and facts, reality and the human eye are very different. Specifications are one thing, but what people actually see is another, and pretending that posting up numbers somehow validates your side of the story is a bit OTT, considering all of the variables that can come into play when discussing resolution, viewing distance, etc.

Just saying, it's likely that even if the OP wanted all games to be 1080p, he wouldn't know the difference between the two unless he was clued in somehow.

 

[Digital-Nitrate]

Digital-Nitrate, with all due respect, you're blowing smoke up some folks behinds if you think they're going to sit that close to their set to notice the difference. The average viewing distance for a household is 4 to 6 feet from the set.

Go back and read what I said... the example I gave was 10 feet away and again it still has NOTHING to do with the size of the screen but the ratio between the distance and the screen size. The ability to discern detail between two identical images of different sizes has to do with how much the image fills your field of vision.... PERIOD.

If you suggest anything else you are absolutely not right, and are indeed simply passing on a myth that is false. It isn’t even a subjective view... science proves this!

You do not have to guess, as the human vision system is quite scientifically proven, and a human with 20/20 vision (corrected or by nature) can discern more detail from ten feet away, than just 2.1 million dots on a 5 sqft area (the same as a 40" TV).

More to the point, for which you seem to have ignored, is that from 2-3 feet away from a 22" monitor, you can see even more detail... which is also why PC monitors have had high resolution screens long before HDTVs.

Thus that alone proves your statement that you need to have a 50" screen to tell the difference completely and utterly untrue.

As far as consumer displays, I have held countless projector and display shootouts, many times doing 'blind' testing between identical displays and identical images and test patterns with the exception of the resolution, where the participants do not know which display is showing 1080p, and which is 720p scaled to 1080p, and they always pick the 1080p set, even at D:W ratios as high as 5:1 and I have reported as such in the past, and most recently with the latest Vizio PDP I bought.

I understand your information, and it's correct, but you leave quite a bit out, somewhat misleading the already misled.

Huh?? I was quite specific.

If you are seeking an example of misleading and unspecific:

"That said, unless your set is larger than 50", you won't notice the difference between 1080p and 720p."

I bet if you took something 720p and tossed it on the display and asked him (or anyone) to guess what resolution it was from 6" on a screen smaller than 50", you'll have a 50/50 chance to guess correctly, but you will be guessing.

I will GLADLY take that bet in a heart beat! In fact, you are welcome to join me next time I host another shootout, which I do regularly, and I'll let you help me set up the blind test exactly as you say, two identical 50" displays (which I have access to), viewed from 6' away (a D:W of 1.7 - close to THX's recommended ratio), and I guarantee what ever size bet you want to make that at least 75% will tell the difference between identical 1080p and 720p images.

Easy money!

In fact, if you are really serious I'll set up a shootout just for this test. 👍

While you may post up numbers and facts, reality and the human eye are very different.

That makes no sense. It sounds like you think the human eye is magical, and no one understands how it works and what we are capable of seeing?

While you may post up numbers and facts, reality and the human eye are very different. Specifications are one thing, but what people actually see is another, and pretending that posting up numbers somehow validates your side of the story is a bit OTT, considering all of the variables that can come into play when discussing resolution, viewing distance, etc.

Please read your comment and mine... I gave very specific details that eliminate variables... you have not. By making blanket statements proclaiming that unless your set is larger than 50", you won't notice the difference between 1080p and 720p is leaving out all the necessary details and not accounting for any variables.

Seriously JR, you simply are not right, and if a monetary bet on that exact set of variables you have already listed is the only way to change your mind, I'm all for it, and 100% confident in the results, as it would not be the first time I've seen them. 👍

At the very least I'll gladly stake my professional reputation and experience in the film, AV, and HT industry, and as a certified ISF calibrationist.

 

[Scaff]

At the very least I'll gladly stake my professional reputation and experience in the film, AV, and HT industry, and as a certified ISF calibrationist.

Jeremy Ricci - you may want to google the bit I put in bold before posting up a reply.



Scaff