Kyros said: I got the impression you thought 30 fps was the be-all-end-all framerate No. I don't want to wade into the human physiology war. All I say i that when I optimize PC games for my a little bit older computer I generally use 1024*768 and push every setting up as long as I have >20 fps in heavy settings and more during normal gameplay. That's the best use of limited resources for me. And since consoles are per se also a fixed resource I imagine developers make similar adjustments. But I agree that this is different for some games. RPGs like Oblivion can stomach less fps, hectic games like spacesims need more fps. But to say developers are lazy because they dont use 60fps is a bit simplistic. Its simply a question of priorities. And I still think the interesting question is not 30FPS or 60FPS but what the game does in extreme situations (like whole city views in Assassin's, lots of enemies on the screen in FPS ...)

Yes, as with everything it's a matter of making the appropriate trade-offs.

Regarding your remark about what games do in extreme situations, that's actually linked to the 30/60 fps thing. As you said, PC games often run at full speed, frame-rate varying with time. In console games, framerate is often locked to a maximum 30 or 60 fps (depending on the game), and developers then make the remaining decisions in order to fulfill that framerate at all times without slowdown. I suspect one of the biggest reasons for this is that consoles have fixed and known specs, unlike PCs. That means developers can plan in advance and say "in this game, we're shooting for a stable X frames per second", something they can't easily do on PC games. Another reason is that unlike PC monitors, most TVs don't go higher than 60 fps, so there's no reason to enable higher frame-rates.

 

smbu2000 said: TheBigFatJ said: If this is running 585p or 576p, either way, it's not HD. HD is defined as 720p, 1080i, or 1080p. The game may output at 720p, but if it's not rendered at one of those three resolutions, it's not HD. That said, it could still look fine. So by your definition the PS3 version of GTAIV is NOT HD because the resolution is a bit lower than 720P (what was it 630P or 640P? I forgot) and the only 360 version of GTAIV is in HD because it is at 720P, even though the games look and play very similarly?

As NJ5 stated, nope, GTA 4 for the PS3 isn't rendered in HD.  It's outputted in HD, but in the same way you could argue Wii games are in HD as my TV automatically upscales everything to its fixed resolution of 1080p.

There are lots of games this generation for the PS3 and Xbox 360 that aren't HD.  Ninja Gaiden 2 looks very good and plays very smooth though.  In terms of action games, I'd compare it to God of War 2 for play style, although it's faster (Ninja-style) and it looks, of course, a world better.  But God of War 2 is still a sweet game. 

Bitmap Frogs said: JaggedSac said: Bitmap Frogs said: I noticed the fuzzy quality of NG2 visuals, must be the crazy uprezzing going on - no matter how companies try hard to sell it, interpolation is a croc of shit. Well, if you think things looks bad with interpolation, try it without it. Why would I care what NGS looks like? It is an update to an old game. NG2 has new shit for me to do, and I love it. The gameplay is much better this time around with the better AI(I love how the group works together to fuck you up) and slicker controls. Not once have I played and thought, man where the fuck is the stitching on his armor? The animation is slicker than whale shit and so is the gameplay(which is all I care about). Interesting! How exactly could I do that? The game renders at 585 lines and the 360 outputs are either SD (interpolated downwards) or HD (interpolated upwards). If you know a way to force the 360 to output exactly at the same resolution the framebuffer is rendered, I'd like to know it.

LOL, you do understand what the interpolation is doing, right? The image would be blocky as hell because the source data does not contain enough information for the amount of pixels needed to generate the image at high resolutions. So by means of interpolation(there are several kinds and I am not sure what most use, maybe quadratic) pixels are generated based on what the most likely color will be, given it's surroundings. It is in no way reducing the quality of the image. It is just creating more pixels than what is given. Almost like anti-aliasing.

 

For an example on what an image would look like without it, just open a picture in any image editing software and zoom in.  The more you zoom, the more pixelated it becomes. 

LOL bullshit. Its rendered in 1152*640. I think we can count that as high definiton. Its a bit different to the 640*480 of the Wii and PS2 ( I think thats the Wiis render resolution before getting stretched to 854*480 but I can be wrong)

It is not rendered in 720p that is true. If for you HD is 720p then it isnt rendered in HD.

Maybe HD should stand for Higher Definition

Kyros said: GTA 4 for the PS3 isn't rendered in HD LOL bullshit. Its rendered in 1152*640. I think we can count that as high definiton. Its a bit different to the 640*480 of the Wii and PS2 ( I think thats the Wiis render resolution before getting stretched to 854*480 but I can be wrong) It is not rendered in 720p that is true. If for you HD is 720p then it isnt rendered in HD.

At what point does it become HD? If the Wii rendered at 481p would it be HD? The official definition of HD is 720p or above. In Europe, SD is 576i.

 

NJ5 said: Kyros said: GTA 4 for the PS3 isn't rendered in HD LOL bullshit. Its rendered in 1152*640. I think we can count that as high definiton. Its a bit different to the 640*480 of the Wii and PS2 ( I think thats the Wiis render resolution before getting stretched to 854*480 but I can be wrong) It is not rendered in 720p that is true. If for you HD is 720p then it isnt rendered in HD. At what point does it become HD? If the Wii rendered at 481p would it be HD? The official definition of HD is 720p or above. In Europe, SD is 576i.

 Exactly, it is all semantics.  If the Wii output 481p, congrats to them, it is greater than 480p so it will look better.  If people have to sacrifice true 'hd' in the name of gamplay, then so be it.  I would still rather have 640p than 480p.

JaggedSac said: Exactly, it is all semantics. If the Wii output 481p, congrats to them, it is greater than 480p so it will look better. If people have to sacrifice true 'hd' in the name of gamplay, then so be it. I would still rather have 640p than 480p.

All I'm saying is that it's dishonest to say 640p is HD. If someone tried to sell you a 640p-capable TV as if it was a HDTV, you would feel cheated. I don't see any reason why we should have a different standard for games, unless of course we are fanboys who can't sleep at night if we haven't been playing HD games for the last hour.

 

NJ5 said: JaggedSac said: Exactly, it is all semantics. If the Wii output 481p, congrats to them, it is greater than 480p so it will look better. If people have to sacrifice true 'hd' in the name of gamplay, then so be it. I would still rather have 640p than 480p. All I'm saying is that it's dishonest to say 640p is HD. If someone tried to sell you a 640p-capable TV as if it was a HDTV, you would feel cheated. I don't see any reason why we should a different standard for games, unless of course we are fanboys who can't sleep at night if we haven't been playing HD games for the last hour.

 There was a grammatical error in the last sentence that could completely change the meaning.  Could you edit it so I can respond.

When is pasta al dente, when is it overcooked? What is slow and what is fast driving? People have learned to live with sliding scales. Something is HD when it has a high resolution. 1920*1080 is definitely high resolution, 640*480 definitely isn't. In between you can choose. I say something is HD if it looks sharp on my TV. And 1152*640 looks pretty good on my TV although Devil May Cry and Uncharted indeed look sharper than GTA4.



No it isn't. Who says that? Incidentally HD-Ready devices often have 1376*768p but most plasma TVs have 1,024x768. AFAIK nobody ever described HD as 720p and above. (Would be pretty stupid anyway because then 55*720 would also be HD. I think this is another example of the unhealthy obsession with fixed targets in this forum.