So, I turn on my PS3 to see if I'm in the warhawk beta, and low and behold an update. Now, the real thing I'm interested in is PS2 upscaling, so I naturally had to try it out.
And now I'm disappointed...
It appears as though they are just upscaling the image, not rendering it at 1080p. I compared settings, both upscaling and filtering, and find myself hard pressed to notice any difference. And yes, my TV did state that it was at 1080p/60 when I was playing the games in upscaling mode. Granted, I only tried a handful of games, but these are my findings.
Katamari Damacy: First game I tried. When I started, I honestly thought the settings were somehow f'ed up and quite just to check. Compared to without upscaling, the edges look a little bit softer and the textures are a little bit smoother. Outside of that, it looks like the edges have been smoothed since you can still see alaised "stairs", although now these stairs have rounded edges.
Ridge Racer: The PS2 launch title that was infamous for jaggies, and this update has done nothing to rid them.
SoTC: The game I was most looking forward to playing in ultra sharp 1080p. More or less the same story as Katamari, but this game has so much alaising that it still looks like a mess with upscaling. This is a little strange since I'm looking at pics on Neogaf where SOTC looks quite a bit better.
Vice City: This game still looks like vaseline was poured over the screen, and the same with jaggies that are a little round on the edges.
God of War: Jaggies less apparent, but this game does look fairly blurry. Since this was the last game I tested, I didn't feel like going back and trying it out without upscaling/filtering.
Now, this was all done on a 1080p tv over HDMI, and my tv did state that the upscaled sources were at 1080p. My PS3 is a US launch console, so maybe the hardware does do the emulation and upscaling is then applied. It could also be that I was just unlucky and picked titles that arent fully software emulated - but given those games popularity, I doubt it. Then again I have no clue whats on that compatibility list.
Honestly, I can barely tell a difference and its definitly not rendering games at 1080p.
I'll post some comparison pics tomorrow of PS2(component, 480p) vs PS3 upscaled and not upscaled, so give me an idea of games you want to see. I'll also do MGS on the Playstation, and maybe a few others. This way you can see I'm not kidding, and I was really looking forward to this feature. I'm not meaning this as some fanboy flame at sony, honestly, I'm just a disappointed PS3 owner right now who isnt trying to start a war.
Now, with that being said, let the inevitable flame war begin.
Leo-j said: If a dvd for a pc game holds what? Crysis at 3000p or something, why in the world cant a blu-ray disc do the same?
ssj12 said: Player specific decoders are nothing more than specialized GPUs. Gran Turismo is the trust driving simulator of them all.
"Why do they call it the xbox 360? Because when you see it, you'll turn 360 degrees and walk away"