Topic: Did HDTVs actually hurt the current gen of consoles?

[idolminds]

HDTVs were coming out and people were buying them, consoles or not. It obviously made sense to support them (as in inputs and such), but to mandate that games support 720p as a minimum probably wasn't such a hot idea. Yes, Halo 3 made me think of this. Note the funny that MS said 720p minimum but their flagship game doesn't even do that. Pretty telling.

I don't suggest that everyone go the Wii route (minimal graphics upgrade/controller innovation), but there is a middle ground no one covers: powerful graphical hardware outputting to SD resolutions (640x480), and then upscale the image to HDTVs.

The problem is this generation had to make two jumps for graphics. Not only are the expected to look much better than last gen, they also have to render it at ~4 times the resolution while still keeping a playable framerate. Thats quite a jump. What if you had 360 hardware having to only spit out SD resolution? They could pile on so many more effects, AA, AF, motion blur, HDR...whatever they wanted. Image quality would improve, you could throw even more polys around. It would look awesome even if it wasn't "HD".

Obviously devs are coping with the situation, and some amazing looking HD games have come out (Gears of War). Its just an inevitable growing pains, and a chicken/egg situation. Gamers want more detail, and you had to support the new HDTVs. What do you do? If you do SD resolutions your competition uses it against you since they do HD. If you go HD and your competiton creates better looking games in SD then you're also kinda stuck. Its like lose-lose, where doing both simultaniously was the only option.

Remember when Nintendo said they were avoiding the graphics debate? Well...this is exactly the problem they were facing with graphics.

I'm just a little sad there was no middle console, the powerful one that allowed games to pour on effects at a lower resolution. Anti-aliasing should be standard and just a given in any and all games. Things like that can do more for image quality than zomg HD!

I'm rambling...ignore this.

[Quemaqua]

To be honest, I don't have that much of an opinion on the subject.  I just think the move to HD went too far.  *Most* of the people I know don't have widescreen displays, and now I have to fucking letterbox games just because developers are too fucking lazy to program properly?  That annoys me.  You could argue that it would be crippling to go full screen and keep the aspect ratio because you'd cut off so much vision on the non-WS display, but at least give me the option to do that if I want to unless the gameplay is centered around a particular amount of visible space (or if you have cinematic elements that truly require WS).

But the rest of it doesn't mean much to me yet.  You raise interesting points, I just haven't really thought about any of it.  I think maybe the reason that route hasn't been taken is just... how many effects do you need before things get cluttered?  You could work on improving the individual effects and make them more beautiful, but how big a difference would that truly make?  Sort of hard to say without someone sitting down and actually doing it so that we could see the results.

[gpw11]

YEah, I'm kind of where Que is.  HD can add a lot, but is it worth the extra power needed?  I do think we had reached the point where the graphical abilities of the consoles were about to surpass the capabilities of SD displays.  I mean, Ninja Gaiden looked great in SD, but how do you use the power of the PS3 to make it look better?  More effects, more detail, but how much more detail can you have in the lower resolution before it just starts to look a bit like a jumbled mess than a game?

HD is a great way to easily make games look a lot better.  One of the main reasons I liked PC games better when I first started playing them a few years ago was the crispness of the higher resolutions available.  I personally think it adds a lot.  I guess this generation could have stuck with SD and just normal mapped the shit out of everything on screen, I just don't know if it would be any better. 

[beo]

where is this info that halo3 doesn't run in high def? we had a couple of 360's round a mates last night, one on a standard tv, and one on a high def, and the difference was very noticeable, it was most assuredly in high def. the hd tv was about double the size of the sd one but still looked infinitely crisper.

i have noticed it impact games though, not at all in single player games, but playing ghost recon 4 player in high def slows the system to a crawl. i'd be suprised if we got 15fps out of it.

[idolminds]

Its in the Halo 3 thread. The game runs under 720p and is upscaled. Its not much under, mind you.

[beo]

ah yes, just saw some info about all this on joystiq. it's still very much high def in that it's a hell of a lot higher res than SD (regardless of upscaling), but yeah, that sucks. apparently it's not the first incident of this either.

having seen how beautiful hd gaming can look, i'm all in favour of it. playing a game on my 360 on a 28" sd screen, and then on my mates 42" hd, you can tell the difference instantly. to be honest, the graphical difference of the 360 over the first gen xbox can only really be appreciated if you've got a hd output. a lot of the graphics are lost in 640x480 res. i wouldn't think a simple resolution change could make a game look so much better, but it really does.

[iPPi]

HD is amazing.  The difference is absolutely night and day.

Needless to say, you need to have the hardware for it, and that requires $$$.

[Pugnate]

Exactly what iPPi said. If you've seen a game running on HD, then you'd have the answer to this thread.

But I am pretty damn sure the next gen of consoles will not be the monstrous leap in hardware they were this gen. The Xbox 360 is selling well, but despite this has given a lot of grief to Microsoft. It is a complex piece of hardware, and from the estimates that I've read, one in three ends up malfunctioning. Apparently Microsoft has lot a ton on money on the thing, despite it selling well. I'll probably not buy one till I get back to Canada, because in this part of the world, their warranty doesn't carry (obviously).

We all know how Sony's PS3 is doing. I genuinely believed that the PS3 would leave everything behind eventually, but it hasn't happened yet. In fact I was reading that Sony was pretty worried about the console's sales in Japan as well, and had recently signed a contract to sell their chip tech. God knows what the heck is going on there, but we all know the only thing that sells a console is its games, but then that wouldn't make sense as far as the Wii is concerned. The Wii hasn't had an outstanding exclusive title, yet is selling like hot cakes.

Nintendo have a massive margin on the Wii, and could easily afford to cut the price by $50 and still be happy. Unfortunately there is zero pressure on them to do so, which sucks.

In the end I think Microsoft and Sony probably overestimated how much a console gamer is willing to pay for a system. Sony obviously more so than Microsoft.

Wait... we were supposed to be talking about HDTVs. I am sorry.

[Cobra951]

If Halo 3 runs under 720p, then Microsoft cheated.  People will bitch and moan about it, but in the end, the ones that are going to buy it will buy it anyway.  Sucks when someone can get away with barefaced lies like that.  What are you going to do?

Aside from dishonesty, the problem really is nothing more than growing pains.  I can't imagine 1280x720 pixels being too big a deal for systems as powerful as the 360 and the PS3.  I'd say the aspect ratio change poses a bigger challenge.  Games have been designed for 4:3 for so long, and now the display space is arranged differently.  That brings new layout and FOV issues.  Adding support for the legacy TVs only compounds the problems.

This transition stage in TV dimensions and technology is painful for everyone.  Consider the resolution of so many LCD panels: 1366x768.  What?!  Who the hell dreamed that up?  It doesn't match any standard TV res.  That means that every single TV program and console game showing on it is going to have to be scaled to fit--every one.  The only thing that gets native support is the ever-flexible PC.  Everybody needs to get on the same page, and that will take some more time.  In the meantime, it's all compromises and half-assed solutions.

I don't see how HDTV could have hurt the latest consoles any more than it has hurt anything else.  The switch is reality, government-mandated even.  I think ignoring it would have hurt even more.

[idolminds]

Well...hurt was probably the wrong word to use. Didn't know how else to phrase it.

All I'm thinking is, maybe there was another, better path. Look at DVD movies. They look goodon SDTVs, and even scaled up to HDTVs. We don't have games that look anywhere near movies even in low res. And it shows you can improve image quality without raising image resolution. Its not necessarily throwing more effects on screen and make it look cluttered. Theres lots to do. Sub-surface scattering shaders for better skin tones, better water shaders and physics, and hey, maybe we can move away from helmet hair.

Just saying HDTVs threw a monkey wrench in there. They were coming, no stopping them, the consoles had to support them. Just kind of threw off the generation cycle a bit.

Uh...cut short because I have to go. More later.

[Quemaqua]

I guess I see what you're saying.  Instead of taking what we have and simply making it look better and sharper, you're saying we could have focused all the power into not making a current thing better, but in a sharp evolution.  Take the power you're throwing at making things run at higher resolutions, and channel that into working more interesting technologies into your games.  Which I guess would sort of be the same kind of thing as HD resolutions, just a different tradeoff.  So it would still look a little bit "current" because the resolution issues might still get in the way at least a little (when compared directly to HD), but the substance of what was there would have a much greater chance of being heavily evolved over current design/physics/etc. tech and other dynamic tech trends.  And you could be right.  Depending on how the new trends developed, how well AA was used, etc., upscaling might matter less and more horsepower being thrown into physical substance could make more of a difference than simply showing off sharper images.  I mean, technology is obviously still going to make leaps regardless of HD, but not having to deal with that could certainly accelerate the process.

[Cobra951]

No doubt that rendering into 640x480 would take some load off compared to 1280x720.  The difference would not be dramatic, though.  The bottleneck is in the 3D work, not the 2D work.  In all intensive 3D games I've played, I can always find a small room or other corner of the geometry where the frame rate soars far above the need.  In others, it will chug.  This will happen without regard to the screen resolution.  Filling the screen is no big deal.  The bitch is getting all that 3D geometry projected and lighted correctly into the 2D frame.  2D fillrates are out of this world on modern video hardware.  It's simply not the issue.  Why sacrifice what you know is going to be at least a strong selling point to gain back single percentage points in 3D and physics power?  One valid answer would be hardware cost, which is why I really think Nintendo did it.  They stayed back a generation under the hood to reap the economic benefits of old silicon.

[idolminds]

Yeah, that occurred to me. The performance gain from rendering to a lower resolution probably won't give you back that much processing time. You might be able to get free AA in every game, but that'd be about it. Though, AA should have totally be a standard feature this gen. I expect the next round of handhelds to have AA for all their 3D as well. Especally for a small screen like that. Like the DS, if it had AA the 3D would look so much nicer overall even without improving the overall 3D performance (AA added to Animal Crossing:WW and I'd be totally happy without any further graphical improvements).

Oh well, just one of the strange things I think about when I'm bored.

[Cobra951]

Yeah, but don't dismiss your thoughts entirely.  The Halo-3 thread got me thinking about obscure system limits.  Every system has some resource or other which becomes strained or unavailable if you exceed certain parameters.  I wonder if it was impossible for Bungie to do what they wanted with HDR at 720p.  Having 2 frame buffers that large to combine on the fly might have exceeded some basic limit somewhere.  Not saying that's what happened, but it's a possibility.  In such a case, even a small increase in res can lead to unacceptable losses in performance or display quality.

[idolminds]

Well you notice that the resolution in Halo 3 isn't *that* much lower to get it into the acceptable range, so you might be right. Though I wonder if they could have gone with a better solution than rendering twice (once for highlights, once for darks) and then combining. I'm going to guess the current setup renders both, and then compares the overall scene. If there is a majority of highlights then it blends the dark render in stronger to even it out. If it sees the scene is very dark overall with few highlights then it blends the highlights in to make things more visible.

Obviously it works, but theres probably a better solution such as look at the last frame and adjust before you render the current. If the last frame was dark, then this frame will most likely be dark as well, so brighten it up. If you suddenly get a bright scene (explosion, or stepping into a bright room) then you'll get the same "blow out" since the engine was expecting dark and now the highlights are oversaturated. This gets adjusted in subsequent frames because now the previous frames are bright and are darkened before rendering. And then instead of sampling the previous frame you average it out over the last 10-60 frames to smooth out the transitions. I wonder if that would offer better or worse performance.

The funny part about HDR is how backwards it seems compared to photography. In games they are trying to make it more like a cameras exposure, and in photography creating an HDR image makes the image look almost like a videogame where everything is exposed well and nothing is blown out or too dark.