What resolution looks best?

  • Thread starter slicecom
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I'm sure 99,5 % of all ps3 owners still think that gt5p is 1920X1080.
What was all this crap about the 360 not being able to handle 1920X1080?
This should be on CNN
It's ALL LIES.
Thanks to those who posted us these facts.
This is EXACTLY like the 1080i option in PS2 GT4.
But quite the opposite.
ps2 games usually run @ 480i. gt4 had 480p and 1080i options.

Now with ps3 and gt5p they tell us the game is running at 1080p, but it is actually not at all, it is running at a much lower resolution.

I feel vey foolish! Right now gt5p still looks the biz, but only because we cannot really compare it to anything else that's running 1080p natively.
I feel so naive, I feel so violated. Kids watch it. This is what time does with you. You accept more and more and you get screwed over more and more.
My set is 720p native! so the horizontal lines are actually untouched!
 
nick09
When ever I play GT5:P on my CRT HDTV some of the hud(like the tire wear) is not displayed.

Think there is some option to select to fix?(TV info posted before in this topic)
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This is due to overscan on CRT HDTV's. I have one myself (Sony 36") and being so old (nearly 6 years old), it has quite the amount of overscan on HD signals and SD signals.
 
panjandrum
This isn't quite as complex as it sounds. Some general tips will help:

The correct HD resolutions are:

720p = 1280x720 pixels, not interlaced (NOT 1366x768 - those sets have more pixels than 720p dictates, and thus must slightly UPSCALE 720p to display an image without a small black boarder - upscaling is almost always a BAD thing - see notes below)

1080i / 1080p = 1920x1080 pixels, either interlaced or not, depending on the "i" or "p".

And finally, it is always best to have a set which displays the exact number of pixels being sent to it. That is, if you have a 720p signal, you'll want a set that can display exactly 1280x720 pixels without any upscaling or downscaling. Unfortunately, most consumers don't understand this, thus most common 720p HDTV sets are now 1366x768 - because people automatically think that is "better," which means you get a worse display from a 720p source.

To see the problems I'm talking about with scaling, go to any computer with an LCD display and set the screen's resolution to anything other than the "native" resolution. Thus, if you have a 1600x1200 display, try setting it to 1280x960 instead. Notice that everything is much, much fuzzier?

But then it gets a bit more tricky, because DOWNSCALING - or reducing the number of pixels is much better than UPSCALING. So, the rule of thumb, if possible, is to match the EXACT resolution of your devices. So if you're playing nearly all 720p games, then a 720p set will be perfect for you - but be sure and buy one which can display 1280x720 pixels without scaling. You'll get a very small black bar on each edge of the screen, but your picture will be sharper. If, however, you want to get the best possible display Blue-Ray movies and those few games which do support 1080p, then go with a 1080p set. Also, the smaller your screen, the less difference this will make, so if you're buying a small set you'll probably be fine with 720p.

Some of the 1366x768 sets will allow you to display 720p at the native resolution rather than upscaling the image by 88x48 pixels. Be absolutely sure the set you buy supports this function if you want the best-quality 720p display.

Furthermore, some products have far better scalers than others. Do some research first and make sure that the scaling technology built into the set you get is a good one (unless you never intend to run it at any resolution other than the set's native resolution).

Hope that helps a little...
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My 1366x768 LCD TV doesn't allow for a 1:1 pixel ratio, but my dad's does, and for the life of me, I can not see ANY difference between 1280x720 with the black bars around the picture and 1366x768. I tried many different types of inputs, from far away to sitting directly infront of the TV and there was seriously ZERO visible difference. So I've come to the conclusion that TV's can upscale 720p to 768p incredibly well and the small upscale is pretty much irrelevent. Thus the real question is still 1080i vs 720p on a 1366x768 TV, and I think we've come to the conclusion that in the case of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, 720p is the way to go.
 
MustangSVT
This is due to overscan on CRT HDTV's. I have one myself (Sony 36") and being so old (nearly 6 years old), it has quite the amount of overscan on HD signals and SD signals.
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Yep, it's overscan. If you feel like messing with your TV to fix it, you can find out how to get into the service menu and mess with it. Make sure you record all the values before you change anything because you can completely destroy your TV by messing with the service menu!
 
steve30x
It should in reality look better in 1080P because the pixels are smaller on the screen that way and the lines are doubled.
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The pixels your display shows is dictated by its native resolution. If you're feeding a native 720p display, which has exactly 720 vertical rows of 1280 pixels each, any signal that is displayed full screen, the resolution will always remain the same, 720p. If you feed it a lower resolution, let's say standard NTSC SD television (704x480), some of the pixels will be duplicates of the adjacent ones, the display must fill the picture with something from the available information (upscale), though the picture will not have any additional picture information compared to the original. Same way, feeding it a higher resolution signal like 1080p, some of the original resolution is lost since the display needs to throw out some of it to fit it all on the screen (downscale). In either case the size of the pixels on the screen are always identical, since in flat panel displays each pixel is a physical "led" (well not really, but close enough for this analogy), there's no way to dynamically change their size.

Basically if any kind of processing by the display is required to correctly display the picture, it will always look worse than the original signal, hence the optimal choice is always to feed your display its native resolution.
If that isn't possible, generally its best to feed it the largest possible resolution. If that does not look better than the lower one, as in 720p will look better than 1080p on a 768p display, it means the scaler on the display somehow manages to screw up scaling 1080p, but does an ok job with 720p. This is why you should try both.

This is where a lot of the confusion comes from. The so called "HD-ready" displays are typically native 720p or 768p displays, and claim to "support" 1080i/p. What this means is that they can accept the feed, not that they can show the signal in its original form. For that you'll need a native 1080p display, or "Full HD".
 
@cold fusion, tbh I don't know about how GT5:P is rendered but it is quite possible to render an image at 1280*1080 so that if it's viewed at that resolution with 1*1 scaling it looks squashed but when scaled to another resolution it looks right, the example you gave with those images doesn't really apply here.
 
MustangSVT
This is due to overscan on CRT HDTV's. I have one myself (Sony 36") and being so old (nearly 6 years old), it has quite the amount of overscan on HD signals and SD signals.
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Next time my parents get a new tv, they should get a LCD.

I do play Assassin's Creed and the weird thing is the game's highest resolution is 1080i and I never get overscan from it.

I think the problem with GT5:P is that the hud and gameplay are at different resolutions and thus my TV can't downsize the resolution because it's stuck at screen mode: full.
 
Stonemonkey
@cold fusion, tbh I don't know about how GT5:P is rendered but it is quite possible to render an image at 1280*1080 so that if it's viewed at that resolution with 1*1 scaling it looks squashed but when scaled to another resolution it looks right, the example you gave with those images doesn't really apply here.
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Of course it's possible. That's how DVD's work too. A lot of DVD's are 2.35:1 ratio but they are encoded at 720x480 or whatever it is on a DVD disc, so how does it show up properly on a 16:9 TV with the top and bottom bars? It's encoded as squished in, and the DVD player stretches it back out to a 16:9 output properly.
 
fasternfaster
i have that tv too.
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Yes my bad, 1920x1080. I have the one with the Vyper Drive game engine, which noticeably cuts rendering lag (compared to another HD I've played GT5p on). I'm also using monster's top end HDMI cable. Huge difference (in price and picture quality) between that and the low end monster HDMI cable we have for the cable box.
 
I have a 32" Samsung, it takes 720p and 1080i and for gaming I don't see much difference, I did have an LG that took a 1080p input and downscaled which was better for blu-ray movies but it didn't seem to have the colour range of the samsung which showed up in games especially in darker regions of an image where there was gradient colouring, there was bands of solid colour rather than smooth gradients.

One thing I don't like about the samsung is the staggered pixels, again not noticable in movies but in things like game menus it shows up.

EDIT:
Game sold me an HDMI cable when I bought my PS3, the only ones they had were for xbox360 and I thought there can't be much difference. How wrong I was, the signal kept failing which was particularly annoying during online racing as pressing pause isn't really an option.
 
slicecom
My 1366x768 LCD TV doesn't allow for a 1:1 pixel ratio, but my dad's does, and for the life of me, I can not see ANY difference between 1280x720 with the black bars around the picture and 1366x768. I tried many different types of inputs, from far away to sitting directly infront of the TV and there was seriously ZERO visible difference. So I've come to the conclusion that TV's can upscale 720p to 768p incredibly well and the small upscale is pretty much irrelevent. Thus the real question is still 1080i vs 720p on a 1366x768 TV, and I think we've come to the conclusion that in the case of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, 720p is the way to go.
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Most likely one of two things is happening here:

1) You are actually feeding 1080p to the set, which is DOWNSAMPLING to 720p. Unless you have a truly horrible scaler in your set, then downsampling 1080p to 720p will look great whether you are scaling to true 720p or to 1366x768. (Which, for those who keep calling it this is NOT 768p - there is NO 768p, it doesn't exist in the HDTV standards).

2) You may have a set with a truly exceptional scaler built into it, and you aren't terribly susceptible to noticing the slight quality difference. Just like many other things, there are some people who more easily detect differences like this than others. I'm very susceptible to it, and can instantly tell if any LCD is running at the proper resolution. The wrong resolution literally makes my eyes water from trying to force the image into focus. But, I have plenty of clients who run their LCD monitors for years at the wrong resolution and literally can't see the difference if you show them how it is suppose to look. Likewise, a lot of people can't notice the aspect ratio of a 16x9 display (HDTV) improperly scaled to fill a 16x10 screen (like a widescreen computer monitor), but it drives me up the wall immediately. If you can't see the difference, that's great, because frankly it is annoying as heck to notice these things.

That said, any LCD which is upscaling will ALWAYS reduce the quality. Even the best of scalers reduce quality in that situation, there just isn't any way around it. It has to do with the way LCDs work (they can only display a single resolution, and other resolution, even if the difference is only few pixels, has to be "faked". Downsampling on the other hand usually looks good unless your set has a horrible scaler chip. This is because instead of having to create fake pixels to fill the display up, they just have to scale the image down and your LCD still gets to run at the native resolution (no "fake pixels").

Hope that explains it a little better...
 
kensei
1080p @ 1920x1200 on a 32" Sharp Aquos looks pretty good to my eye.
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1080p on a 52" Sharp Aquos looks pant-wettingly good in my living room.

Quite simply, I have never seen anything look this good (on this television or otherwise). Just incredible. No jaggies, incredible texture and lighting, and the reflections :crazy:

If you have a 40"+ television, set it to full 1080p, and then go change your shorts.



;)
 
panjandrum
Most likely one of two things is happening here:

1) You are actually feeding 1080p to the set, which is DOWNSAMPLING to 720p. Unless you have a truly horrible scaler in your set, then downsampling 1080p to 720p will look great whether you are scaling to true 720p or to 1366x768. (Which, for those who keep calling it this is NOT 768p - there is NO 768p, it doesn't exist in the HDTV standards).

2) You may have a set with a truly exceptional scaler built into it, and you aren't terribly susceptible to noticing the slight quality difference. Just like many other things, there are some people who more easily detect differences like this than others. I'm very susceptible to it, and can instantly tell if any LCD is running at the proper resolution. The wrong resolution literally makes my eyes water from trying to force the image into focus. But, I have plenty of clients who run their LCD monitors for years at the wrong resolution and literally can't see the difference if you show them how it is suppose to look. Likewise, a lot of people can't notice the aspect ratio of a 16x9 display (HDTV) improperly scaled to fill a 16x10 screen (like a widescreen computer monitor), but it drives me up the wall immediately. If you can't see the difference, that's great, because frankly it is annoying as heck to notice these things.

That said, any LCD which is upscaling will ALWAYS reduce the quality. Even the best of scalers reduce quality in that situation, there just isn't any way around it. It has to do with the way LCDs work (they can only display a single resolution, and other resolution, even if the difference is only few pixels, has to be "faked". Downsampling on the other hand usually looks good unless your set has a horrible scaler chip. This is because instead of having to create fake pixels to fill the display up, they just have to scale the image down and your LCD still gets to run at the native resolution (no "fake pixels").

Hope that explains it a little better...
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I understand your logic, and technically it makes sense, but practically it's negligible IMO. I'm highly susceptible to LCD's running at improper resolution as well. It annoys me running GT5:P at 1080p on my 1600x1050 resolution computer monitor as, to my eye, it looks blurred slightly, and I've been anal about picture quality since I was a child tinkering with my dads old tube TV, hence why I started this thread in the first place!

One thing you fail to take into account is that the PS3 is outputting a better looking game at 720p than it is at 1080p or 1080i. 720p has 4x MSAA rather than the 2x MSAA that 1080p and 1080i have, which will affect which one looks better (slightly upscaled but better anti aliased 720p or downscaled 1080i with less anti aliasing).
 
Doesn't matter what the techno jargon is

The simple fact is, on my TV 1080i and 720p look pretty much identical when looking at a still image
Here's something I found to be different and I'd like someone else with the capability to try: Drive very slowly on a track with the bumper-cam on both the 1080i and 720p settings and see if the track surface has a wavy pattern in it's texture about 3-4 feet in front of the car

On my Sharp Aquos, in 1080i it looks wavy and in 720p it's very solid
 
Delphic Reason
1080p on a 52" Sharp Aquos looks pant-wettingly good in my living room.

Quite simply, I have never seen anything look this good (on this television or otherwise). Just incredible. No jaggies, incredible texture and lighting, and the reflections :crazy:

If you have a 40"+ television, set it to full 1080p, and then go change your shorts.



;)
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Have to agree, sharp aquos are great TV's, I have a 42" at full 1080p. But seeing this game through my full 1080p panasonic projector on a 100" screen puts the TV to shame :)
 
Comatosed
Have to agree, sharp aquos are great TV's, I have a 42" at full 1080p. But seeing this game through my full 1080p panasonic projector on a 100" screen puts the TV to shame :)
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100" Projector?

I officially hate you.





;)
 
I have to say, projectors are definitely the way to go for Gran Turismo. I also run an HD projector, and it is just amazing. Mine is not 1080p, it is an old 800x600 infocus X1 with a good home-made anamorphic lens so that my 800x600 is scaled properly to 16x9 instead of 4x3. Overall a very good picture, but obviously not as good as a true 1080p projector would be. I have, however, seen several 720p projectors which don't look any better at all, and one that I thought was worse even though they are higher resolution. Resolution isn't everything when it comes to picture quality...

You can get a good 720p projector and a decent GreyWolf II screen for much less than any decent-sized HDTV.
 
fasternfaster
i would say if you have a 1080i tv.. you are basically screwed since you will always have to deal with interlaced picture, so when you dont move GT5 will look just as good as a 1080p set, but when you start driving you will see flickering etc.. cant do anything about that.. BUY A NEW TV..

Ummm, no. My Panasonic PT47WX42 does NOT flicker or have running quality issues. It does exhibit a bit of "dragginess" (my term) with moving images, if it were sitting next to a nice 1080p TV I would undoubtably notice the difference, but it doesn't detract from playing the game. I think it makes a bigger difference when viewing replays than during gameplay. This TV has a progressive scan doubler, maybe that's why I don't have issues?

What does detract from gameplay is that my image is severely clipped on all sides, and I don't know what to do about it. My screen measures 41" x 23", when racing from 10th on back I can only see the second digit of my position, and any text at the borders of the screen is clipped. This is an older rear-projector 1080i HDTV without HDMI.

Is there something I can do to correct this? My PS3 is set to output at 1080i.
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superwally
fasternfaster
i would say if you have a 1080i tv.. you are basically screwed since you will always have to deal with interlaced picture, so when you dont move GT5 will look just as good as a 1080p set, but when you start driving you will see flickering etc.. cant do anything about that.. BUY A NEW TV..

Ummm, no. My Panasonic PT47WX42 does NOT flicker or have running quality issues. It does exhibit a bit of "dragginess" (my term) with moving images, if it were sitting next to a nice 1080p TV I would undoubtably notice the difference, but it doesn't detract from playing the game. I think it makes a bigger difference when viewing replays than during gameplay. This TV has a progressive scan doubler, maybe that's why I don't have issues?

What does detract from gameplay is that my image is severely clipped on all sides, and I don't know what to do about it. My screen measures 41" x 23", when racing from 10th on back I can only see the second digit of my position, and any text at the borders of the screen is clipped. This is an older rear-projector 1080i HDTV without HDMI.

Is there something I can do to correct this? My PS3 is set to output at 1080i.
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See the answer I gave someone else with the same problem earlier in this thread:

slicecom
Yep, it's overscan. If you feel like messing with your TV to fix it, you can find out how to get into the service menu and mess with it. Make sure you record all the values before you change anything because you can completely destroy your TV by messing with the service menu!
Click to expand...
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d123456
I'm sure 99,5 % of all ps3 owners still think that gt5p is 1920X1080.
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I'm sure 99.5% of all ps3 owners don't care about if it's 1920x1080 or 1280x1080 upscaled, and that's good because racing (and smashing into your opponent's read) is the only thing to care about :)

this kind of comments appart, scaling's been used for a long time in many ps3 and 360 games, and probably before. It's commonly used nowadays. i.e. Halo 3 has the upscaling, and Bungie confirmed it.
 
slicecom
superwally
See the answer I gave someone else with the same problem earlier in this thread:
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Crap, I thought I read the whole thread, too. I hate it when people do that, sorry. :guilty:


I just downloaded the service manual (17 USD), only to realize I had downloaded it for free about 3 years ago. I think I should just go back to bed.

Thanks for the prompt reply.
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dark_ruffo
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1078611&postcount=583

He is the man of the internet, and thus, he is never wrong.
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Er... sorry to interfere but all we have here is a man (or a woman, or a kid, or some grandmother) coming out of nowhere and testing the GT5P demo of November 2007 that was released on the PSN. :ill:

Even if this guy claims he is Chuck Norris himself where are the evidences about the pixels he found? And where is the release version test?
 

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