Senior software design engineer clarifies “TRUE HD”

PS3 1080pResistance: Fall of Man developers recently admitted the game won’t be hitting the 1080 target. Despite Insomniac Games‘ statement that such is the case because they’re saving runtime dynamic memory for characters and environment, some still won’t let up and throw stones at our beloved Sony.

To be quite honest about it, we don’t know anymore the REAL score between the 720p, the 1080p or even the1080i. It was a good thing though that we came across one article over at Ozymandias. One of the company’s senior software design engineers, Bruce Dawson, discussed and game a few clarifications regarding the matter.

“They think that 1080p is somehow more challenging for game developers than 1080i, and they forget that 1080 (i or p) requires significant tradeoffs compared to 720p,” Dawson explained. He further shared that it doesn’t actually matter what your preferred console is, rendering 1920×1080 compared to 1280×720 will still result to a 55.5% less time per pixel.

The engineer then revealed that when you really think about it, any game could be made to run at 1920×1080…for a price. It may allow you to show more details but running complex pixel shaders will definitely suffer. When it comes to TV’s frame buffers, it is true that 1080p is a higher bandwidth connection than 1080i. But one has to remember that the buffer itself is identical. “ItÂ’s just different settings on the display chip,” he quipped.

A couple of other clarifications that Dawson made are as follows:

  • 2.25x: That’s how many more pixels there are in 1920×1080 compared to 1280×720
  • 1.0x: That’s how much harder it is for a game engine to render a game in 1080p as compared to 1080i—the number of pixels is identical so the cost is identical.
  • There is no such thing as a 1080p frame buffer. The frame buffer is 1080 pixels tall (and presumably 1920 wide) regardless of whether it is ultimately sent to the TV as an interlaced or as a progressive signal
  • 1280×720 with 4x AA will generally look better than 1920×1080 with no anti-aliasing (there are more total samples)

Bruce Dawson believes that such discussions would inevitably end up about field rendering. He doubts this is possible as it requires to maintain a solid 60fps. Since interlaced formats display the even lines on one refresh pass and then the odd lines on the next refresh pass, missing just one frame would certainly create a disaster.

There. After knowing all that jazz, we can’t help but still remember fans reactions at certain PS3 demo kiosks. They all seem happy and satisfied with what Sony’s next-gen baby has to offer. At the end of the day, one has to remember that the industry exists and thrives because and for the fans. So if they are liking it, by all means, let us not talk about resolutions anymore and just bring it on!

Via Ozymandias

PS3 1080pResistance: Fall of Man developers recently admitted the game won’t be hitting the 1080 target. Despite Insomniac Games‘ statement that such is the case because they’re saving runtime dynamic memory for characters and environment, some still won’t let up and throw stones at our beloved Sony.

To be quite honest about it, we don’t know anymore the REAL score between the 720p, the 1080p or even the1080i. It was a good thing though that we came across one article over at Ozymandias. One of the company’s senior software design engineers, Bruce Dawson, discussed and game a few clarifications regarding the matter.

“They think that 1080p is somehow more challenging for game developers than 1080i, and they forget that 1080 (i or p) requires significant tradeoffs compared to 720p,” Dawson explained. He further shared that it doesn’t actually matter what your preferred console is, rendering 1920×1080 compared to 1280×720 will still result to a 55.5% less time per pixel.

The engineer then revealed that when you really think about it, any game could be made to run at 1920×1080…for a price. It may allow you to show more details but running complex pixel shaders will definitely suffer. When it comes to TV’s frame buffers, it is true that 1080p is a higher bandwidth connection than 1080i. But one has to remember that the buffer itself is identical. “ItÂ’s just different settings on the display chip,” he quipped.

A couple of other clarifications that Dawson made are as follows:

  • 2.25x: That’s how many more pixels there are in 1920×1080 compared to 1280×720
  • 1.0x: That’s how much harder it is for a game engine to render a game in 1080p as compared to 1080i—the number of pixels is identical so the cost is identical.
  • There is no such thing as a 1080p frame buffer. The frame buffer is 1080 pixels tall (and presumably 1920 wide) regardless of whether it is ultimately sent to the TV as an interlaced or as a progressive signal
  • 1280×720 with 4x AA will generally look better than 1920×1080 with no anti-aliasing (there are more total samples)

Bruce Dawson believes that such discussions would inevitably end up about field rendering. He doubts this is possible as it requires to maintain a solid 60fps. Since interlaced formats display the even lines on one refresh pass and then the odd lines on the next refresh pass, missing just one frame would certainly create a disaster.

There. After knowing all that jazz, we can’t help but still remember fans reactions at certain PS3 demo kiosks. They all seem happy and satisfied with what Sony’s next-gen baby has to offer. At the end of the day, one has to remember that the industry exists and thrives because and for the fans. So if they are liking it, by all means, let us not talk about resolutions anymore and just bring it on!

Via Ozymandias

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