Kinect Sports Rivals at 1080p - resolution is "important, but not the whole story"

[BajiRav]

Kinect Sports Rivals runs at 1080p - resolution is "important, but not the whole story", says Rare

 

Kinect Sports Rivals runs at 1080p and 30 frames a second on Xbox One, OXM can confirm. According to Rare's executive producer Danny Isaac, earlier versions of Rivals offered a maximum resolution of 720p, but the developer was able to upgrade the game over the months to run at 960 and finally 1080p.

Speaking to OXM at a preview event today, Isaac also offered his thoughts on the tempestuous next gen resolution debate at large. The gist, for those heartily sick of the subject? Technical specifics matter, especially during a console's launch, but there's a lot more to a game than how many pixels it can push at once.

"We're at 1080p, but to be honest that was because our rendering guys just wanted to be at 1080p," he said, when I asked whether Rare had been affected by recent controversies. "I think when you look at the platforms, now more than ever it's going to be about - OK, the graphics and resolution are part of the story, but there's also the service you have, the intuitiveness of the sharing, the multiplayer aspects of it.

"Years ago, when I was a kid, it was all about how many polygons you could push around, and everyone was pixel-counting," he continued. "I think that's still important, but it's much less of the story than it used to be."

Last week it was discovered that neither Call of Duty: Ghosts nor Battlefield 4 run at native 1080p (often referred to as "true HD") on Xbox One - they run at 720p, upscaled to 1080p. This has caused no small amount of upset, despite Infinity Ward's reassurance that native 1080p is "very possible" on Xbox One, but just how much of the debate will really be felt at street level, I asked?

"I think everybody always looks at numbers," responded Isaac. "If you think about photography and cameras, it's just megapixels, megapixels, megapixels. Can anyone really tell the difference between a 41 megapixel shot and a 21 megapixel shot? Probably not.

"So there's that part, but I think ultimately it's going to be the whole experience [that people think about], and I think while Microsoft's done well with the Xbox previously, what they've done with Xbox One is to build out that service.

"It's going to be about supporting that box as it goes through its life, delivering those services and experiences, outside of just playing the game. With things like Game DVR, where you can upload your clips to the cloud. Stuff that we could only dream of last generation is going to be a reality this generation. I think that's really where the battle will be, but obviously initially everybody just wants to compare the numbers."

That's not to dismiss those for whom resolution is the more significant consideration, he qualified. "For some people that's going to be really really important. Some people will want to get high end PCs, and run at the highest settings they can, buy multi-thousand pound rigs to do that. But for myself personally, I'm more interested in the experience all around."

Xbox One games confirmed to run at 1080p include Fantasia: Music Evolved from Harmonix and Turn 10's near-offensively pretty Forza Motorsport 5.

For more on Kinect Sports Rivals, read my first look at the game's Preseason trial, which will be available alongside the Xbox One at launch on 22nd November.

[trooper11]

Of course the easy way to brush this off is to remark that a game like Rivals does not do as much as say BF4 or COD and therefore is much easier to hit 1080p.

The reality is just as this article points out: resolution and even framerate are not the only pieces to the puzzle.

So while the arguments explode over 720p,900p, or 1080p, we will see games that are developed and target resolutions all over the map and yet they can still be great looking games.

Both consoles will always be inferior on paper to high end pcs, but they can still offer an enjoyable experience for those interested in consoles at all. As far as comparing the two consoles, its quite simple. Look at videos, use your own eyes, and decide based on that. Don't worry about what people are saying, just worry about what you think.

[George P Global Moderator]

It's once again about the frame rate, I've said it a few times already.  If your game is fine at under 60 frames per second and you can hit 1080p then fine.  A game like this will play just fine at a locked 30 frames per second I bet.   Other developers want their games to have a higher fps so they either try as much as they can to do 1080p@60 or if they can't and are out of time they'll do 900p@60 or 720p@60.  Having a smoother gameplay experience is better overall in the end compared to just hitting 1080p and then having frame rate drops and stutters and so on.

 

I'm sure with the 2nd batch we'll see more games inching closer to 1080p@60 on both systems till finally the majority of games are at that point and this whole argument has become moot. 

[Blackhearted]

Of course a title like this can hit 1080p. If it couldn't those devs working on it would be pretty bad.

 

It's once again about the frame rate, I've said it a few times already.  If your game is fine at under 60 frames per second and you can hit 1080p then fine.  A game like this will play just fine at a locked 30 frames per second I bet.   Other developers want their games to have a higher fps so they either try as much as they can to do 1080p@60 or if they can't and are out of time they'll do 900p@60 or 720p@60.  Having a smoother gameplay experience is better overall in the end compared to just hitting 1080p and then having frame rate drops and stutters and so on.

 

I'm sure with the 2nd batch we'll see more games inching closer to 1080p@60 on both systems till finally the majority of games are at that point and this whole argument has become moot. 

 

Your theory about 60fps being the reason the xbox one can't do 1080p in games kinda breaks down when you look at ryse and how it's 900p30.

[trooper11]

Of course a title like this can hit 1080p. If it couldn't those devs working on it would be pretty bad.

And there it is, on cue.

 

Your theory about 60fps being the reason the xbox one can't do 1080p in games kinda breaks down when you look at ryse and how it's 900p30.

The X1 can do 1080p/60, hence Forza, so that throws a wrench into all the arguing.

What it all means is that its more than just resolution and framerate, otherwise people wouldn't be arguing that the fact that Froza is running as it is doesn't prove anything.

[francescob]

The reality is just as this article points out: resolution and even framerate are not the only pieces to the puzzle.

 

All lies! I want to see those low-resolution textures stretched ad infinitum.

[spudtrooper]

All lies! I want to see those low-resolution textures stretched ad infinitum.

 

Textures are typically hi res to begin with and are easily scaled.  In fact, one could argue that you could have better textures at 720p and may have a sharper image when scaled appropriately rather than having lower res textures to meet some artificial 1080p definition.

 

Back in the early home theater days when 480p was a big thing, there was a company Faroudja with DCDi that did scaling and de-interlacing better than content that was supposedly 480p to begin with.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faroudja

 

but hey, its cool.. lets pretend we all know what the devs were thinking and we all know the specs of the hardware and how skillfull people are..  and lets keep forgetting most PC gamers can't even reach 1080p/60 in full detail either.

[the better twin]

I wouldn't expect anything less from a Microsoft mouthpiece. Take with a pinch of salt.

The funny thing is if Rare were allowed to do more of the stuff that set them apart like kameo, banjo, viva or conker as opposed to shameless Wii sports rip offs I might be more interested in the Xbox one and they certainly know how to push consoles to their limit. Banjo was beautiful. Kinect sports is just devoid of any soul though. A real shame.

[the better twin]

Isaac only joined Rare at the end of 2011 too so he's probably part of the problem.

[spudtrooper]

I wouldn't expect anything less from a Microsoft mouthpiece. Take with a pinch of salt.

The funny thing is if Rare were allowed to do more of the stuff that set them apart like kameo, banjo, viva or conker as opposed to shameless Wii sports rip offs I might be more interested in the Xbox one and they certainly know how to push consoles to their limit. Banjo was beautiful. Kinect sports is just devoid of any soul though. A real shame.

 

Is anyone left at Rare? I thought all the people behind Banjo and the other Rare games left during the buyout... They did Kameo on Xbox 360

 

Kinect sports is fun though. at 14 bucks a game for season 1 or 2 i can hardly call it soulless unless you mean its just not full of silly re-hashed mario characters.

[BajiRav]

Of course a title like this can hit 1080p. If it couldn't those devs working on it would be pretty bad.

 

 

Your theory about 60fps being the reason the xbox one can't do 1080p in games kinda breaks down when you look at ryse and how it's 900p30.

Kinect Sports Rivals looks much much better graphically than CoD:Ghosts. :/

[trooper11]

I wouldn't expect anything less from a Microsoft mouthpiece. Take with a pinch of salt.

The funny thing is if Rare were allowed to do more of the stuff that set them apart like kameo, banjo, viva or conker as opposed to shameless Wii sports rip offs I might be more interested in the Xbox one and they certainly know how to push consoles to their limit. Banjo was beautiful. Kinect sports is just devoid of any soul though. A real shame.

I don't get it, what's wrong with what he said?

[123456789A]

Does the Xbox One have an expansion port? Like to add a GTX Titan for graphics boost?

[Blackhearted]

Kinect Sports Rivals looks much much better graphically than CoD:Ghosts. :/

 

Topping CoD and its ancient modified quake engine has never really been all that hard.

[BajiRav]

Topping CoD and its ancient modified quake engine has never really been all that hard.

Then explain this post: https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1183797-call-of-duty-ghosts-and-titanfall-to-run-at-720p-on-xbox-one/?view=findpost&p=596045805

[George P Global Moderator]

Of course a title like this can hit 1080p. If it couldn't those devs working on it would be pretty bad.

 

 

Your theory about 60fps being the reason the xbox one can't do 1080p in games kinda breaks down when you look at ryse and how it's 900p30.

 

 

Not at all, I said it's about the frame rate the developer wants.  Ryse being a 3rd person slasher  looks like it plays just fine at a lower framerate and Crytek is using the gains from going 900p on something else.  It's a tradeoff,  from the gameplay I saw they have lots of enemies on a large field fighting.  Compare that to a more closed off area like in CoD with a smaller number of enemies on the screen at any given time.  It's like night and day,  if you want to compare those two.     If Crytek wanted to cut down on that they could've done 1080p and a higher framerate I'm sure.     

[JonnyLH]

Of course a title like this can hit 1080p. If it couldn't those devs working on it would be pretty bad.

 

 

Your theory about 60fps being the reason the xbox one can't do 1080p in games kinda breaks down when you look at ryse and how it's 900p30.

Well according to the mass of fanboys raging all over this console generation iteration the single problem it can't achieve 1080p is because of eSRAM not being big enough to hold a full 1080p frame for post-processing and frame filling. 

 

If this 'bottleneck' was true then there would be no 1080p game. At all.

 

Spoiler, there's 4 DMA's in the X1 (hardware which moves memory artifacts between RAM modules) and ROP's are fueled by solely RAM input (which ESRAM is faster on the X1 compared to GDDR by a big amount) so these ROP's will not be saturated. ROP's also can be fueled from DDR (albeit much slower for frame filling) so its not a problem.

 

With the resolution debate, the evidence of it being a non-problem are right in the faces of the people who are raging about this, Ryse. Whereas COD is a different story.