By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Gaming Discussion - Native 4K or Checkerboard "uprendered" 4k

Intrinsic on 10 September 2016
SvennoJ said:

Yes, that's what I meant by interpolate the non rendered squares using the rendered squares. But I also thought I had read something about temporal interpolation in the Eurogamer article. In static scenes the info from the previous frame can also be used.

Btw I doubt that Scorpio can do native 4K when the same game uses checkerboard 4K on ps4 pro. The ratio between pro and scorpio is about the same as between ps4 and One. Either the pro version will run smoother with more effects or the scorpio version will need to upscale somewhere too. The equivalent checkerboard 1080 is only 72% of 900p, or by the same ratio Checkerboard 4K and about 3264x1836 on Scorpio.

Thats something I have been thinking of. The power diff. between the scorpio and the PS4pro is abiut the same as the PS4 to XB1. Whats funny about t is that if MS goes for native 4k, then the Pro veesion of games will actually run smoother with more effects. And we will hsve a new argumemt on our hands. Where people look at both and say, the scorpio looks a little bit sharper but the Pro has better overall effects and maintains  a higher average framerate. 

mutantsushi said:
JRPGfan said:

I wish PC graphics cards could do this tbh.

Games just need to be coded to use this upscaling technique.  That applies to PS4 Pro as well, they need to use the technique.
I believe I saw a quote from developer Jonathan Blow saying that in fact it isn't 100% free in terms of GPU resources, it's just very efficient, and that depending on the game engine design being used, alot of the data needed to support the calculation will already be generated.

And while PS4 Pro currently has custom hardware which makes it more efficient to use this technique, I'm guessing that even without that hardware, it may still be worthwhile to use, as in more effective than trying to render 2x the number of pixels.   So it will probably show up in PC too.  AMD or even NVIDIA will probably make the fixed-function hardware available, and even those without said video cards could enable the technique if they wish.

I think if it was something that could just be done in software with ease Sony wouldn't have bothered customizing their GPU and even going as far as patenting it just to do it. And what's really interesting is that every implementation of the tech we have seen so far on the PS4pro is still pre-release software. When devs start pushing out their Pro patches or games with the pro mode already baked in then we can see just how good this tech is. And like eveything with consoles, in time devs will find even better and more efficient ways to do it. 



Around the Network
ChristianTheAtheist on 10 September 2016
Guitarguy said:

PS5 I have no doubt will do native 4K proper.

Or even better, native 4k + the option of checkboard 4k at 60fps!



Guitarguy on 10 September 2016
SvennoJ said:
Guitarguy said:

I don't think this is how it works. What you are referring to is similar to field rendering which is what the early PS2 games used(also why alot of early PS2 games looked jagged). It renders two alternating fields of scanlines(odd and even) per frame and combining the two to create a smooth motion. This allowed developers to render games internally at half the resolution(say 240i/p) and output at 480i/p(the standard back then) with enhanced frame rates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGTR0G2xC1E

Checkerboard rendering is this:



It essentially  averages the neighboring two pixels(diagonal from eachother) and reconstructs one parallel to both. I think this is the basis of it, although I have read it reconstructs 2 pixels for every 2 native pixels which makes sense as 4K contains 4 times the amount of pixels as 1080P(1080P is 1920 by 1080 whilst 4K is 3840 by 2160). There are no alternating pixels popping in or out like with field rendering. So you fill in the black empty areas with reconstructed pixels, giving you 4 times(as 4K/2160P has 4 times the amount of pixels as 1080P) the amount of pixels at much less expense to the GPU compared to native 4K

Yes, that's what I meant by interpolate the non rendered squares using the rendered squares. But I also thought I had read something about temporal interpolation in the Eurogamer article. In static scenes the info from the previous frame can also be used.

Btw I doubt that Scorpio can do native 4K when the same game uses checkerboard 4K on ps4 pro. The ratio between pro and scorpio is about the same as between ps4 and One. Either the pro version will run smoother with more effects or the scorpio version will need to upscale somewhere too. The equivalent checkerboard 1080 is only 72% of 900p, or by the same ratio Checkerboard 4K and about 3264x1836 on Scorpio.

Ahh understood :)

Native 4K is difficult, especially at 6TF. I don't think we will be seeing The Witcher III at a solid native 2160P on Scorpio. So if we had the same game on Pro and Scorpio running on checkerboard 4K(Pro) then the Scorpio version would theoretically be at maximum 3264x1836 due to the power difference ratio?



KBG29 on 11 September 2016

This is a nice little Cerny touch. It definitely makes the Pro do things that even the most jaded PC journalist came away shocked by.

I just want to see where else Sony takes this tech. Could they possibly bring out a PlayStation Phone and PlayStation Handheld next year that can render PS4 games at 540p and checkerboard them to 1080p? If so, I would love to see that. Just think, the only place you can play Rocket League, Call of Duty, and GTA6 online on the go next year is the PlayStation Phone and Handheld units. That would be huge, and could be Sony's chance to make an impact in the mobile space while also combating Scorpio with one copy plays everywhere.



Stop hate, let others live the life they were given. Everyone has their problems, and no one should have to feel ashamed for the way they were born. Be proud of who you are, encourage others to be proud of themselves. Learn, research, absorb everything around you. Nothing is meaningless, a purpose is placed on everything no matter how you perceive it. Discover how to love, and share that love with everything that you encounter. Help make existence a beautiful thing.

Kevyn B Grams
10/03/2010 

KBG29 on PSN&XBL

Chazore on 11 September 2016
KBG29 said:
This is a nice little Cerny touch. It definitely makes the Pro do things that even the most jaded PC journalist came away shocked by.

I just want to see where else Sony takes this tech. Could they possibly bring out a PlayStation Phone and PlayStation Handheld next year that can render PS4 games at 540p and checkerboard them to 1080p? If so, I would love to see that. Just think, the only place you can play Rocket League, Call of Duty, and GTA6 online on the go next year is the PlayStation Phone and Handheld units. That would be huge, and could be Sony's chance to make an impact in the mobile space while also combating Scorpio with one copy plays everywhere.

Just think if the everything in the world could only be played only on Sony devices...

Think of how amazing it would be for choice if everything was made and owned by Sony.

I'm sorry but I just don't love seeing a world ruled or a market owned by a single corp, it's just bad choice for everyone tbh.



Step right up come on in, feel the buzz in your veins, I'm like an chemical electrical right into your brain and I'm the one who killed the Radio, soon you'll all see

So pay up motherfuckers you belong to "V"

Around the Network
SvennoJ on 11 September 2016
Guitarguy said:
SvennoJ said:

Yes, that's what I meant by interpolate the non rendered squares using the rendered squares. But I also thought I had read something about temporal interpolation in the Eurogamer article. In static scenes the info from the previous frame can also be used.

Btw I doubt that Scorpio can do native 4K when the same game uses checkerboard 4K on ps4 pro. The ratio between pro and scorpio is about the same as between ps4 and One. Either the pro version will run smoother with more effects or the scorpio version will need to upscale somewhere too. The equivalent checkerboard 1080 is only 72% of 900p, or by the same ratio Checkerboard 4K and about 3264x1836 on Scorpio.

Ahh understood :)

Native 4K is difficult, especially at 6TF. I don't think we will be seeing The Witcher III at a solid native 2160P on Scorpio. So if we had the same game on Pro and Scorpio running on checkerboard 4K(Pro) then the Scorpio version would theoretically be at maximum 3264x1836 due to the power difference ratio?

Yes, if we follow the numbers XBox One 1.31 tf to ps4 1.84 tf, that's a 1.4x increase which usually comes down to 900p vs 1080p, a 1.44x increase in pixel count. The ps4 pro 4.2 tf x 1.4 = 5.88 tf. Scorpio has a target of 6 tf is all we know, 1.43x increase, pretty similar difference. Maybe it can push 3296x1854 a 1.47x increase in pixel count over checkerboard 4K, yet that's still under 75% of what's needed for native 4K. Some scaling will be needed.
So indeed, a game that runs at 1/2 4K on ps4 pro can run at about 3/4 4K on Scorpio.

Of course all this might be pointless speculation when games are made for the 70 million base ps4 owners and ported to the niche pro and more niche Scorpio. Yet the pro comfortably doubles the ps4, while the Scorpio falls short of quadrupling the ps4. Stable checkerboard vs unstable native 4K might be the result. Now any XBox One game that comfortably runs at 1080 should be able to reach native 4K on Scorpio I would think.



JRPGfan on 11 September 2016
KBG29 said:
This is a nice little Cerny touch. It definitely makes the Pro do things that even the most jaded PC journalist came away shocked by.

I just want to see where else Sony takes this tech. Could they possibly bring out a PlayStation Phone and PlayStation Handheld next year that can render PS4 games at 540p and checkerboard them to 1080p? If so, I would love to see that. Just think, the only place you can play Rocket League, Call of Duty, and GTA6 online on the go next year is the PlayStation Phone and Handheld units. That would be huge, and could be Sony's chance to make an impact in the mobile space while also combating Scorpio with one copy plays everywhere.

This tech could be big for phones yes! A place where you need to cut down power (both used by gpu, and how much watts your gpu draws), but still want awesome looking games.



Peh on 11 September 2016
Intrinsic said:
Peh said:

The image is originally rendered with half the resolution of 4k. Then they fill the missing dots with their patented mathematical algorithm *cough* marketing bollocks *cough* to upscale the image on a 4k TV / Monitor. An upscalled image always tends to appear blurry.

http://www.red.com/learn/red-101/upscaled-1080P-vs-4K

It's one thing to be spitting marketing BS, it's another thing to customize a GPU and add components to it that allows the GPU do a specific task that GPUs typically don't have the hardware to do and patent the tech. 

And there is no doubt that an upscaled image is always gonna be blurrier than a native image. But the point is this;

It's one thing to upscale from 1080p yo 4k (that's making up for 6M absent pixels), it's another thing to upscale from 2*1080p to 4k. In that case you only have to account for 4M pixels. If the results are such that you have to freeze frame and zoom in to spot differences isn't that at the very least somewhat commendable?

And look at XB1 to PS4, 900p to 1080p.... it's already hard enough telling them apart as it is. When looking at 4k and faux4k it's gonna be even harder. 

To customize the GPU and adding components is for the sole purpose of lowering the necessary resources to upscale the image. Nothing more.

That so called "checkerboard" algorithm is Sony's research of accomplishing the "probably" best image quality by upscaling it while only rendering with half the resolution of 4k.

An upscaled 4k image from whatever resolution is still not true 4k. But that's probably nothing anybody is argumenting for.

The link only describes the process of upscaling. Being 1080p on that site doesn't make the argument less appealing.

If you don't see the difference, well, good for you I guess? Some people do and they see the blurry screen as I do. The game is still being rendered only with half the resolution of 4k. You can upscale and try all the magic you can come up with to make the picture look nices and fill the empty dots with made up informations. But the result is still a lower rendered image with doesn't come close to 4k.

So far as I heard, there will be games on the PS4pro which will be rendered at native 4k. But this will be material for another discussion.



Intel Core i7 8700K | 32 GB DDR 4 PC 3200 | ROG STRIX Z370-F Gaming | RTX 3090 FE| Crappy Monitor| HTC Vive Pro :3

ICStats on 11 September 2016
Conina said:
Miguel_Zorro said:

I really don't see it - any specific spots where I should be looking?  Which one are people claiming is "better"?

The hair strains on the left, the jaggies on the right shoulder, the more detailed skin texture...

 

The more detailed textures of the skull and the stones, the jaggies on the arrow shafts, the feathers on the arrows...

The jaggies on the shoulder show some limit in the resolution, or in the type of antialiasing used.

Many of the other details, look like better textures as opposed to display resolution issues.  I wonder if they increased the texture resolution or not?  If not I wonder why not.  It may be a technical reason like insufficient RAM, but PS4 has quite a lot of RAM, so I would suspect they just haven't uprezzed the textures as that would mean a rebuild of all the assets and a large download.




My 8th gen collection

KBG29 on 11 September 2016
Chazore said:
KBG29 said:
This is a nice little Cerny touch. It definitely makes the Pro do things that even the most jaded PC journalist came away shocked by.

I just want to see where else Sony takes this tech. Could they possibly bring out a PlayStation Phone and PlayStation Handheld next year that can render PS4 games at 540p and checkerboard them to 1080p? If so, I would love to see that. Just think, the only place you can play Rocket League, Call of Duty, and GTA6 online on the go next year is the PlayStation Phone and Handheld units. That would be huge, and could be Sony's chance to make an impact in the mobile space while also combating Scorpio with one copy plays everywhere.

Just think if the everything in the world could only be played only on Sony devices...

Think of how amazing it would be for choice if everything was made and owned by Sony.

I'm sorry but I just don't love seeing a world ruled or a market owned by a single corp, it's just bad choice for everyone tbh.

I just want the option to stay in my lane. Sony needs competition, they need Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nintendo, Amazon, Comcast, Netflix, and on, and on, and on. Competition is great, and it is because of competition that the later days of PS3 and early PS4 has been so great. Sony as an entire company has had to fight for survival for the last decade, and because of that, and they have developed some of the best products they ever have, and have some of the biggest leads in tech they have had since their heyday.

Thanks to the lack of UHD Blu-ray and 4K HDR content on the PS4 Pro, I am going to be re-subscribing to Netflix and Amazon Prime for a while tell Sony catches up to the competition with PS Video. So, I am very glad there is competition out there, and I have absolutly no problem using it, if Sony can not provide me with the services and features I either want or need. That is also why I begrudgingly have an Xperia X Performance, and it is also why I built PC's when I could no longer do my day to day activities on PS2's Linux and PS3 Linux and/or OS.

So, to wrap it all up. I am in no way saying I want Sony to be the lord of all things electronics. That would not be good for them, or for consumers, or for me personally, because we all need peers to keep us in check. All I am asking, is the ability to have one Sony OS, across all Sony devices, that run off the same ecosystem. So whether I turn on my TV, my phone, my reciever, my DSLR, or my console/computer, I have the same experience. I don't want to personally have to use any other OS but this one single OS, and this one single store front. I feel like that should be the goal of every company that makes devices across ranges of elctronics, and I hope if for some reason Sony ever crashes and burns, there will be another complete all in one ecosystem for me to jump on. Hopefully that will never happen, but if it does I hope I have the option of Amazon, Google, Apple, Samsung, and many more ecosystems to choose from, and I will find the one that most closely aligns with my wants and desires and go full in on that.



Stop hate, let others live the life they were given. Everyone has their problems, and no one should have to feel ashamed for the way they were born. Be proud of who you are, encourage others to be proud of themselves. Learn, research, absorb everything around you. Nothing is meaningless, a purpose is placed on everything no matter how you perceive it. Discover how to love, and share that love with everything that you encounter. Help make existence a beautiful thing.

Kevyn B Grams
10/03/2010 

KBG29 on PSN&XBL