DKC: Tropical Freeze is Native 720p @ 60fps (Upscaled to 1080p)

[forethought14]

kekrot said:

That's not true. 1080p TVs can show 720p content just fine. Upscaling just means that it'll maybe look a little better and crisp on a 1080p screen.

If the 720p game doesn't upscale its content on a 1080p TV, it will run natively at 720p on the TV, therefore not use up all of the pixels (it won't just "stretch" automatically without a scaler). Video scalers are there to make non-1080p signals fill up the screen, otherwise there will be unused pixels. It doesn't just make it look better and crisp. I've ran Wii in 480p native resolution (without upscaling) on my 1080p TV, and only the 854 x 480 resolution is showing, the rest of the pixels are in black. Here's a definition:

Upscaling is a process that mathematically matches the pixel count of the output of a standard or non-hi-def signal (such as standard DVD) to the physical pixel count on an HDTV or video projector, which is typically 1280x720 (720p) or 1920x1080 (1080i or 1080p)

http://hometheater.about.com/od/hometheaterglossary/g/upscalingdef.htm