Some 1080p Clarifications

Now, we' ve all heard about the " wonders" of 1080p (in games). With Sony and now Microsoft flaunting the term around like no tomorrow, it' s hard to not get caught up in the hype surrounding it. The tech oriented of us know that rendering true 1080p games will be extremely hard, if not impossible for most games on current hardware. Some information I came across helps to clarify some things about 1080p that myself and others probably didn' t know. Straight from a software design engineer' s mouth:

Link

The really interesting statistic that popped for me is how much less time a game console has to render a 1920x1080 scene versus a 1280x720 scene. (Remember this is on the same console, whichever one you like. This is not a comparison of different console' s rendering capabilities to each other.) Simply put, for a 1080i/p game the console has 55% less time per pixel to render any special effects, anti-aliasing, illumination, etc. than for a 720p game. Yes, even Resistance has fallen off the bandwagon and admitted they can' t hit 1080i/p as previously claimed. (It also helps explain why Gran Turismo HD is so underwhelming.)

Anyway, Bruce' s text is below. Hope it helps clarify a few things for you!

Many developers, gamers, and journalists are confused by 1080p. 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. Some facts to remember:

2.25x: that’s how many more pixels there are in 1920x1080 compared to 1280x720

55.5%: that’s how much less time you have to spend on each pixel when rendering 1920x1080 compared to 1280x720—the point being that at higher resolutions you have more pixels, but they necessarily can’t look as good

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.

1280x720 with 4x AA will generally look better than 1920x1080 with no anti-aliasing (there are more total samples).

A few elaborations:

Any game could be made to run at 1920x1080. However, it is a tradeoff. It means that you can show more detail (although you need larger textures and models to really get this benefit) but it means that you have much less time to run complex pixel shaders. Most games can’t justify running at higher than 1280x720—it would actually make them look worse because of the compromises they will have to make in other areas.

1080p is a higher bandwidth connection from the frame buffer to the TV than 1080i. However the frame buffer itself is identical. 1080p will look better than 1080i—interlaced flicker is not a good thing—but it makes precisely zero difference to the game developer. Just as most Xbox 1 games let users choose 480i or 480p, because it was no extra work, 1080p versus 1080i is no extra work. It’s just different settings on the display chip.

Inevitably somebody will ask about field rendering. Since interlaced formats display the even lines on one refresh pass and then the odd lines on the next refresh pass, can’t games just render half of the lines each time? Probably not, and even if you could you wouldn’t want to. You probably can’t do field rendering because it requires that you maintain a rock solid 60 fps. If you ever miss a frame it will look horrible, as the odd lines are displayed in place of the even, or vice-versa. This is a significant challenge when rendering extremely complex worlds with over 1 million pixels per field (2 million pixels per frame) and is probably not worth it. And, even if you can, you shouldn’t. The biggest problem with interlaced is flicker, and field rendering makes it worse, because it disables the ‘flicker fixer’ hardware that intelligently blends adjacent lines. Field rendering has been done in the past, but it was always a compromise solution.

It' s interesting stuff to hear about the specifics and generally they' re hard to come by. Take this information as you will, but it seems clear that 1080p isn' t the holy grail that we' ve been seeking. At least not this current generation.

i think the jump to 720p is clearly enough of a jump this generation! and maybe even for the next again! the details that are in the 720p as so rich that the jump to 1080p isnt necesarry, i mean if i can already make out details on a characters skin, what more do i need?

Well Liar its allready running in 1080p as full auto, GTHD, Virta Tennis and NBA 07, and BTW Resistance was pretty close, i guess that if they would have 2 more months they could set the game 1080p 30 FPS, whitout troubles, so i really belive sony its gons deliver on the 1080p front

totally agree, besides the uptake of HD isn' t that amazing yet, let alone 1080p tv' s.

So to put a game into 1080 means the game design would suffer for a feature not many users would experience.

According to ign also, the benefits of 1080p are on displays of at least 50in and up. and within a short distance to get the benefit of the extra detail... A waste of time imo.

NiGHTS into Dreamcast

I would rather have better graphics and 720P than much worse and 1080P.

When people talk about how " hard" it is to do 1080P and have high frame rates it makes me want to punch them. It is very simple, they have less polygons and textures (worse graphics) and they can get as high fps as they want.

What you should say to avoid looking like an idiot that has no idea what he/she is talking about is that it is hard to achieve 1080p or x FPS while maintaining the same level of detail as 720p at 30 fps or whatever you are comparing it to.

kthxbye

"If you knew how good I am you would think I'm modest."