KoL Veteran Posted January 26, 2007 Veteran Share Posted January 26, 2007 hmmm seems that the PS3 have a hardware scaler. I'm cofused :huh: IntroductionSince its launch last November, Sony's latest gaming platform has given early adopters trouble when attempting to play certain titles in 1080i/p. The console did not automatically upscale its video output to desired resolutions; it was up to either the game software to support these resolutions natively or the internal scalers of users' HDTVs. This forced many people, developers and owners alike, to question the very existence of scaling hardware in the PlayStation 3. Worse, it created a sour taste in the mouths of owners of older CRT-based HDTV sets, many of which are not capable of accepting a 720p signal at all, and thus only capable of displaying 480i/p and 1080i video signals. If they wanted to run their games in HD resolution, the solution for these disgruntled owners until now was to hope that developers would release their games with 1080i/p support --not a walk in the park for the developer-- or, simply, to buy a new HDTV. As one can imagine, the latter was not the most well-received solution in the history of CE devices. The key words in that last paragraph would be “until now,” because with the latest PlayStation 3 software development kit (SDK) update, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) has finally exposed part of the built-in hardware scaler to developers. Will this mean that most, if not all, future games will support output at 1080p/i resolutions? Moreover --and this is the question that owners of 1080i-only CRT HDTVs crave to see answered--does this mean that current PS3 games may eventually support the native HD resolution of their televisions? Well, the answer requires some good old-fashioned explanation, so let’s start already! Continue here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheppard Posted January 26, 2007 Share Posted January 26, 2007 Nice, the sooner they get this out the better. Its a shame they didnt delay all release dates till March then they would have had time to fix a lot of the problems the PS3 has been having. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DELTETHISACCOUNT Posted January 26, 2007 Share Posted January 26, 2007 I swear, it's like US is Sony's beta testing spot for Europes release. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dior_addict Posted January 26, 2007 Share Posted January 26, 2007 Sounds promising for a 1080i-only owner like me. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlphaPrime Posted January 26, 2007 Share Posted January 26, 2007 Good to see they're finally including a scaler. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironman273 Posted January 26, 2007 Share Posted January 26, 2007 So does this mean that it had the scaler all along or that new machines will have a scaler? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CY:G Posted January 26, 2007 Share Posted January 26, 2007 Nice, the sooner they get this out the better. Its a shame they didnt delay all release dates till March then they would have had time to fix a lot of the problems the PS3 has been having. Yeah and have better launch titles :p Good news thought, what i really want to see is those PS1 and PS2 games upscaled to HD :shiftyninja: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KoL Veteran Posted January 26, 2007 Author Veteran Share Posted January 26, 2007 So does this mean that it had the scaler all along or that new machines will have a scaler? means that the PS3 already have a scaler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon Live Veteran Posted January 26, 2007 Veteran Share Posted January 26, 2007 I'm incredibly skeptical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TDQuiksilver Posted January 26, 2007 Share Posted January 26, 2007 I'm not.. and I don't see any real reason to be. Could be a good thing and hell, maybe even Sony is using North America as guinea pigs before they launch in Europe and release the "big firmware update." Scaler problems being fixed is obviously a priority on their list as of late. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danrarbc Posted January 26, 2007 Share Posted January 26, 2007 If it had a chip to do this wouldn't it be doing it already? It's not the hardest thing in the world to code directly into the system in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreqFace Posted January 26, 2007 Share Posted January 26, 2007 More improvements, always nice. If not for the price tag, I'd be getting one of these. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shift4 Posted January 26, 2007 Share Posted January 26, 2007 Priority? Why wouldn't they have exposed the API to the developers at the beginning? Now all old games are the same and only new games yet to be released will get scaled. I wonder if they'll start rereleasing games with scaler support.. What a way to get double the money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soniqstylz Posted January 26, 2007 Share Posted January 26, 2007 Nice, the sooner they get this out the better. Its a shame they didnt delay all release dates till March then they would have had time to fix a lot of the problems the PS3 has been having. Could be a reason why so many games recently are getting delayed. Maybe trying to build that in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corris Veteran Posted January 26, 2007 Veteran Share Posted January 26, 2007 Maybe they didn't want to tell developers so that they would do 1080p instead of scaling? Scaling issues and the backwards compatibility image issues resolved in the same week? hell must of frozen over or something, lol. :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToneKnee Posted January 27, 2007 Share Posted January 27, 2007 Why the hell didn't Sony mention this before and not **** off those customers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soniqstylz Posted January 27, 2007 Share Posted January 27, 2007 Why the hell didn't Sony mention this before and not **** off those customers? and developers... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadFerIt Posted January 27, 2007 Share Posted January 27, 2007 Something tells me this is vastly different then the scaling chip in the 360. Perhaps it's a special addition to the RSX chipset (I mean some type of hardware based solution, not software via the RSX), or a sort of software solution using resources set aside for the O.S.? An SPU and a good chunk of RAM is used up by the O.S., so maybe as they started getting more efficient (using less resources for the O.S.) they were able to use a bit of it for an incomplete scaling solution (eventually to become complete as the efficiency increases)? Obviously the details aren't there but.. I'm a tad doubtful a true scaling chip is in there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon Live Veteran Posted January 27, 2007 Veteran Share Posted January 27, 2007 Heck it might just be a software-implemented API, maybe they found a good way to have one of the SPEs do it or something. From what they've said, it doesn't sound like there is any real hardware scaler inside the system - which is consistent with its performance / behavior thus far. The whole point of the scaler in the 360 is that developers don't have to do a single thing. You write your game for whatever resolution you want to target (and support whatever optional modes you want), and the scaler magically makes whatever you output look as good as possible on the TV it's connected to. Unfortunately it sounds like Sony couldn't afford to go that route. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xerxes Posted January 27, 2007 Share Posted January 27, 2007 Nice, the sooner they get this out the better. Its a shame they didnt delay all release dates till March then they would have had time to fix a lot of the problems the PS3 has been having. Ironically I feel if they did delay NA/Japan to March, more then half these problems probably wouldn't of been found. So in that sense, even though I'm annoyed NA/Japan always get stuff ages before everyone else, they act as our BETA testers so we (Australia/Europe etc) get a slightly less problem filled experience :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TDQuiksilver Posted January 27, 2007 Share Posted January 27, 2007 Ironically I feel if they did delay NA/Japan to March, more then half these problems probably wouldn't of been found. So in that sense, even though I'm annoyed NA/Japan always get stuff ages before everyone else, they act as our BETA testers so we (Australia/Europe etc) get a slightly less problem filled experience :p Ha... the American guinea pigs... bah! :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironman273 Posted January 27, 2007 Share Posted January 27, 2007 Heck it might just be a software-implemented API, maybe they found a good way to have one of the SPEs do it or something. From what they've said, it doesn't sound like there is any real hardware scaler inside the system - which is consistent with its performance / behavior thus far.The whole point of the scaler in the 360 is that developers don't have to do a single thing. You write your game for whatever resolution you want to target (and support whatever optional modes you want), and the scaler magically makes whatever you output look as good as possible on the TV it's connected to. Unfortunately it sounds like Sony couldn't afford to go that route. It would make no sense if it had a hardware scaler, why only put out the information now? This is really confusing news. Hopefully it'll be cleared up soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToneKnee Posted January 28, 2007 Share Posted January 28, 2007 It would make no sense if it had a hardware scaler, why only put out the information now? This is really confusing news. Hopefully it'll be cleared up soon. like Brandon Live said, sounds like a Software API, Microsoft said it would be difficult to fix the scaler issue using Software, but it can be done - at the sacrifice of CPU power. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
profets Posted January 28, 2007 Share Posted January 28, 2007 this is somewhat off topic regarding hardware scaler for games, but does the 360 or ps3 upscale dvds at all ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToneKnee Posted January 28, 2007 Share Posted January 28, 2007 this is somewhat off topic regarding hardware scaler for games, but does the 360 or ps3 upscale dvds at all ? I believe the Xbox360 only upscales DVD's through the VGA output. The PS3 can upscale, but it's got some scaling problems for people who don't support TV's with 720p. So, if you have a 720p game or move and your HDTV doesn't support 720p, it'll down scale to 480p rather than upscale to 1080i. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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