PS4 and Xbox One resolution / frame rate discussion

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

It's 1920x800. But instead of stretching the image they display black borders. I think calling this 1080p native is a little misleading even if it's not necessarily false. I'm not sure how it is going to work in a game. They should give the option to run the game at 1920x1080 with FXAA or 1920x800 with 4x MSAA and black borders.

 

They will tweak/change the FOV for the ratio. Imagine something like below with you "seeing more" with a wider FOV.

 

 

Whether or not they manage to pull off some cinematic experience remains to be seen (think the gameplay embargo lifts on the 12th). Very few if any more titles are even going to go down this route, it's quite a "unique" situation in gaming.

 

To be fair though we've already seen a last gen title do this, Beyond! I've played the whole thing and didn't even realize till I seen this posted lol

 

 

edit: Here's a better example showing off a wide FOV from the concept art

 

 

4x MSAA is going to look absolutely amazing, but maybe the devs would consider your options, or not if this tweet is anything to go by

 

[trooper11]

4x MSAA is going to look absolutely amazing, but maybe the devs would consider your options, or not if this tweet is anything to go by

 

 

 

Its weird that in one tweet he says that going this route allows them to use 4xMSAA, hyping that up and then here he is downplaying that as not really crucial.

 

So they did not go this route thinking it would buy them more performance. 

 

Either way, I really don't care at this point.  I was perfectly fine with this style in Beyond, so that is not a problem.  Although I think I liked it more in Beyond because that game is already a cinematic experience being an adventure game and not a heavy action game. If the Order is going to be a cinematic adventure game like Beyond, then I think the style works great.  If it isn't, then we will have to see.

 

The Order is currently my most anticipated ps4 exclusive next to Infamous, so I cant wait to see some gameplay.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Its weird that in one tweet he says that going this route allows them to use 4xMSAA, hyping that up and then here he is downplaying that as not really crucial.

 

So they did not go this route thinking it would buy them more performance. 

 

Either way, I really don't care at this point.  I was perfectly fine with this style in Beyond, so that is not a problem.  Although I think I liked it more in Beyond because that game is already a cinematic experience being an adventure game and not a heavy action game. If the Order is going to be a cinematic adventure game like Beyond, then I think the style works great.  If it isn't, then we will have to see.

 

The Order is currently my most anticipated ps4 exclusive next to Infamous, so I cant wait to see some gameplay.

 

I think what he means is they'd be going with this FOV/resolution regardless, so 4xMSAA isn't what the game is built around.

 

I would say it's probably going to be like Uncharted/The Last of Us, more story focussed than say other TPS' like Gears of War.

 

Here's a good example of the FOV The Order is using as well

 

[vcfan]

So wait, is it really 1920x800?

They seem to be implying that it is native 1920x800/30 in order for them to hit performance targets that allow the use of 4XMSAA.

This whole resolution business always gets convoluted when it comes to consoles.

when you upscale 720p to 1080p, you say the game is running at 1080p, even though it was rendered at 720p natively.

with x800(however they want to name it), the game will run at 1080p, but it renders at 1920x800 natively. instead of upscaling and putting it in a 1080p framebuffer in the final output, they copy the 1920x800 frame as is into the 1080p buffer and and fill the empty space with black.

I could also load a low res image on my 1080p PC display,make it full screen and claim it runs at 1080p,but the image is not 1080p.

1600x900 = 1,440,000 pixels

1920 x 800 = 1,536,000 pixels

1920 x 1080 = 2,073,600 pixels

x800 is almost basically 900p,in terms of rendering pixels.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

when you upscale 720p to 1080p, you say the game is running at 1080p, even though it was rendered at 720p natively.

with x800(however they want to name it), the game will run at 1080p, but it renders at 1920x800 natively. instead of upscaling and putting it in a 1080p framebuffer in the final output, they copy the 1920x800 frame as is into the 1080p buffer and and fill the empty space with black.

I could also load a low res image on my 1080p PC display,make it full screen and claim it runs at 1080p,but the image is not 1080p.

1600x900 = 1,440,000 pixels

1920 x 800 = 1,536,000 pixels

1920 x 1080 = 2,073,600 pixels

 

Who says that when they upscale? No one around here is claiming a 720p game is 1080p, nor is anyone talking about loading up lower res images and upscaling them. Upscaling isn't part of this conversation as it's not being done in any shape or form.

 

The viewable part of the game renders at 1920x800 yes, but the overall image is still rendering at 1920x1080. The black bars are being rendered here, they aren't being "added" at a later point, the initial output is still 1920x1080.

 

If you can grasp ratios, using a wide FOV like this simply cannot be done without black bars. Only way around it would be to use a monitor/TV like this with a 21:9 aspect ratio

 

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

I didn't have much interest when they showed The Order 1886 at E3 but that art style and setting have really won me over. I think the game looks gorgeous and the type of game you'd just have fun exploring in. And the big plus in my book, is that RAD are doing something other than GoW for a change. As much as I love that series, it needs a break or long hiatus.

 

Without a doubt the limited frame size is going to cut resources, but I believe them that it's an artistic choice and not a technical one from what they have said so far. IMO it doesn't even look like a very demanding game compared to what we already have in the launch games. They've used some very clever filters to make it look cinematic on top of the black bars.

[LaP]

I can't really remember how it was at the beginning of last gen, but was that a better start compared to pcs?

 

If it was, then what is different this time?  PC hardware gets better at a much faster rate then say 8 years ago

 

Yeah but the problem is my pc is over 4 years old (built it december 2009) ... it's not new and not even close to it. Only the gpu is relatively new it's a 670 (will be 2 years old next summer).

 

I did not expect the One or PS4 to blow my PC out of the water but i expected them to do at the very least as good as it which is curently not the case.

 

Of course most of the games right now are ports so i'll wait and see things will surely improve but i really do hope the One/PS4 will be able to hit on a regular basis 1080p30 with 4xMSAA/8xCSAA before 2015.

[vcfan]

Who says that when they upscale? No one around here is claiming a 720p game is 1080p, nor is anyone talking about loading up lower res images and upscaling them. Upscaling isn't part of this conversation as it's not being done in any shape or form.

The viewable part of the game renders at 1920x800 yes, but the overall image is still rendering at 1920x1080. The black bars are being rendered here, they aren't being "added" at a later point, the initial output is still 1920x1080.

the point is, in both scenarios(upscaling, or adding black bars), the graphics portion is rendered at a lower than 1080p resolution, yet we end up with a 1080p image and output.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

the point is, in both scenarios, the graphics portion is rendered at a lower than 1080p resolution, yet we end up with a 1080p image and output.

 

But both scenarios are completely different. One has lower image quality due to upscaling, the other doesn't. You can't render a game without black bars at this FOV/ratio, the black bars are rendered as I've said before. Call it boring and unimpressive rendering, but it's natively part of the 1080p output, not upscaled.

 

Just in the same way as a movie shot in this ratio has black bars, and the only way to get rid of them is by putting your TV onto a zoom mode and losing some of the FOV. But you don't see people talking about upscaling with movies do you?

 

And I know movies ? games, but ratio = ratio and FOV = FOV.

[theyarecomingforyou]

The viewable part of the game renders at 1920x800 yes, but the overall image is still rendering at 1920x1080. The black bars are being rendered here, they aren't being "added" at a later point, the initial output is still 1920x1080.

That's completely disingenuous. That's like saying that the PS4 and XB1 can both render games at 4K if they just include massive black borders. It's not right to call it 1080p as that requires 1080 horizontal lines - here we're talking about 800 horizontal lines. To put that in perspective there are 25% fewer pixels being rendered, which is not a minor difference. It seems highly dubious that it was done entirely for artistic reasons.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

That's completely disingenuous. That's like saying that the PS4 and XB1 can both render games at 4K if they just include massive black borders. It's not right to call it 1080p as that requires 1080 horizontal lines - here we're talking about 800 horizontal lines. To put that in perspective there are 25% fewer pixels being rendered, which is not a minor difference. It seems highly dubious that it was done entirely for artistic reasons.

 

Nothing like that unless you want to show me an industry standard ratio/FOV that would have these "huge black borders" on a 4K resolution. Because you know if we're talking 1920x800 within a 4K image these borders would probably take up half the screen and have to be added manually as I know of no ratio that would provide borders of that size.

 

You're trying to come from the argument that the bars are simply there due to technical reasons. That argument cant stand on it's own because as it's been said repeatedly now you cannot do this ratio without black bars on a 16:9 TV/Monitor. They're not being added manually or by hand, they're being added by "the laws of physics".

[vcfan]

But both scenarios are completely different. One has lower image quality due to upscaling, the other doesn't. You can't render a game without black bars at this FOV/ratio, the black bars are rendered as I've said before. Call it boring and unimpressive rendering, but it's natively part of the 1080p output, not upscaled.

 

Just in the same way as a movie shot in this ratio has black bars, and the only way to get rid of them is by putting your TV onto a zoom mode and losing some of the FOV. But you don't see people talking about upscaling with movies do you?

 

And I know movies ? games, but ratio = ratio and FOV = FOV.

a 720p game could be not upscaled,but have black borders on top and on the sides in a 1080p framebuffer.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

a 720p game could be not upscaled,but have black borders on top and on the sides in a 1080p framebuffer.

 

See my reply to theyarecomingforyou. What industry standard aspect ratio would cause a 720p image to have borders big enough for no upscaling to occur naturally? Artificially adding borders of your own size isn't applicable here as that is not what's happening, so why compare The Order to other made up scenarios where manually adding borders has to be done? That certainly doesn't prove a point other than showing you're struggling to grasp why changing the aspect ratio even adds borders in the first place.

 

If a game is running in 16:9 and runs at less than 1080p, it is purely due to technical reasons. There is no artistic element involved in deciding to upscale, and to add black bars to a game that runs in 16:9 is a man made process that again would have to be purely technical as you can't produce bars with a 16:9 resolution naturally (unless you run on a monitor/TV that isn't running in 16:9).

 

Running a game in 2.40:1 is an artistic choice, it's the widescreen cinema standard and will induce black bars on any TV/Monitor running in 16:9. If the viewing area wasn't 1920x800 then it would be for technical reasons, and there would be upscaling, as this is the limit for displaying in this ratio.

 

If anyone uses their head, I don't think a developer is going to go out of the way to create a whole game based around 2.40:1 simply to avoid having to scale back on 4xMSAA to hit 1920x1080 in 16:9. I mean, seriously? Games just do lower resolutions and upscale as they always have if there's technical issues, I certainly didn't see a trend of games running in 2.40:1 on the PS3 for technical reasons.....

[theyarecomingforyou]

Nothing like that unless you want to show me an industry standard ratio/FOV that would have these "huge black borders" on a 4K resolution.

 

You're trying to come from the argument that the bars are simply there due to technical reasons. That argument cant stand on it's own because as it's been said repeatedly now you cannot do this ratio without black bars on a 16:9 TV/Monitor.

You were arguing that it's being rendered at 1080p, which simply isn't accurate. And I never claimed that ratio could be achieved without borders on a 16:9 display but no other games opt to not use 25% of the display area for "artistic reasons". As for my 4K comparison, it's perfectly valid - 800p isn't an industry standard for the gaming industry and semantically it's no different to a 1080p game being rendered on a 4K display with massive borders (or an ultra-narrow resolution like 3840x520, which is the pixel equivalent to 1920x1080).

 

Whichever way you look at it the developer is rendering 25% fewer pixels than competing games and I don't believe for a second that performance wasn't a major factor.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

You were arguing that it's being rendered at 1080p, which simply isn't accurate. And I never claimed that ratio could be achieved without borders on a 16:9 display but no other games opt to not use 25% of the display area for "artistic reasons". As for my 4K comparison, it's perfectly valid - 800p isn't an industry standard for the gaming industry and semantically it's no different to a 1080p game being rendered on a 4K display with massive borders (or an ultra-narrow resolution like 3840x520, which is the pixel equivalent to 1920x1080).

 

Whichever way you look at it the developer is rendering 25% fewer pixels than competing games and I don't believe for a second that performance wasn't a major factor.

 

I was mostly arguing that there wasn't any upscaling, and then proceeding onto talking about standards and why the borders are there.

 

800p is an industry standard, as is the aspect ratio 2.40:1, just because the gaming industry doesn't use it a lot (Beyond is one example) doesn't validate your made up standard that has big massive black bars in 4k. You're either dealing with a widely used standard(s), or you're making up others 3840x520? Making up others to try and create points is just silly.

 

Lastly no one is arguing there isn't a technical benefit, the developers themselves have already admitted that on Twitter and said that's how 4xMSAA came about. But read my post above do you genuinely think a game is going to be created around an aspect ratio just for performance reasons? Really?

 

Jeez why doesn't someone email IW/Activision and get them running COD in 2.40:1 for guaranteed 60FPS at all times...

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

You were arguing that it's being rendered at 1080p, which simply isn't accurate. And I never claimed that ratio could be achieved without borders on a 16:9 display but no other games opt to not use 25% of the display area for "artistic reasons". As for my 4K comparison, it's perfectly valid - 800p isn't an industry standard for the gaming industry and semantically it's no different to a 1080p game being rendered on a 4K display with massive borders (or an ultra-narrow resolution like 3840x520, which is the pixel equivalent to 1920x1080).

 

Whichever way you look at it the developer is rendering 25% fewer pixels than competing games and I don't believe for a second that performance wasn't a major factor.

 

Not true. View the previous pages and you'll see Beyond Two Souls did it, and further, it was possible to remove the black bars with debug mode. The full 1080 was being processed with the black bars added for artistic reasons.

 

[BajiRav]

Who says that when they upscale? No one around here is claiming a 720p game is 1080p, nor is anyone talking about loading up lower res images and upscaling them. Upscaling isn't part of this conversation as it's not being done in any shape or form.

 

The viewable part of the game renders at 1920x800 yes, but the overall image is still rendering at 1920x1080. The black bars are being rendered here, they aren't being "added" at a later point, the initial output is still 1920x1080.

No sane developer would unnecessarily waste rendering resources only to mask 25% of the image with black bars. Their tweet about 4xMSAA is proof enough that with black bars they will be rendering only 75% of a 1080p frame. If they had no performance limits they would do both and that tweet would not exist.

IIRC many games render images in some weird aspect ratios, it's not uncommon to do that and save resources. I am pretty sure Halo3 had a weird aspect ratio on its frame buffer.

[theyarecomingforyou]

Not true. View the previous pages and you'll see Beyond Two Souls did it, and further, it was possible to remove the black bars with debug mode. The full 1080 was being processed with the black bars added for artistic reasons.

We're talking about one game and I highly doubt that the full 1080p was being rendered with black bars covering it up, as that would be horribly inefficient and shoddy programming. I imagine it was done for performance reasons, which only supports my original point that it's not being done for "artistic reasons".

 

The Order 1886 will only be rendered at 30fps with the letterbox, so I imagine performance is a major factor - either they're struggling to optimise the game or they're pushing the graphics to really "wow" people. I mean we're talking about 25% fewer pixels and half the framerate of competing games, so something is going on.

[Hedon]

Bummer that the order is going to end up just being a QTE game, only at 30fps and 800p. I had high hopes for this thing.

[trooper11]

Not true. View the previous pages and you'll see Beyond Two Souls did it, and further, it was possible to remove the black bars with debug mode. The full 1080 was being processed with the black bars added for artistic reasons.

 

 

Wow, I had no idea they actually just covered up usable space.  That seems highly wasteful for a game to be developed that way.  In movies it make sense since the camera being used takes in more information which is then cut to the size they want.  They have no choice but to take it all in at the start.  Game developers don't have the problem. 

 

I suppose if they were worried that the final game would not work right at the cropped size, they would go ahead and create the entire game in the standard size just so they can choose either view.  Or maybe they do it in order to offer the user the choice of view. 

[Andre S. Veteran]

But both scenarios are completely different. One has lower image quality due to upscaling, the other doesn't. You can't render a game without black bars at this FOV/ratio, the black bars are rendered as I've said before. Call it boring and unimpressive rendering, but it's natively part of the 1080p output, not upscaled.

The black bars are incidental due to the aspect ratio of the monitor you're displaying it on. If you were rendering the game on a 1920x800 display, it would output at 1920x800, because that's the actual size of the frames rendered by the game.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Bummer that the order is going to end up just being a QTE game, only at 30fps and 800p. I had high hopes for this thing.

 

QTE game? Where are you getting that from? We've not even seen decent gameplay, the embargo ends on the 18th IIRC.

The black bars are incidental due to the aspect ratio of the monitor you're displaying it on. If you were rendering the game on a 1920x800 display, it would output at 1920x800, because that's the actual size of the frames rendered by the game.

 

This is true, it's just 99% of TVs are 16:9. Only monitors have really started with the wide aspect ratios.

[Hedon]

QTE game? Where are you getting that from? We've not even seen decent gameplay, the embargo ends on the 18th IIRC.

 

This is true, it's just 99% of TVs are 16:9. Only monitors have really started with the wide aspect ratios.

You were not aware that the game has quicktime events?

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Not true. View the previous pages and you'll see Beyond Two Souls did it, and further, it was possible to remove the black bars with debug mode. The full 1080 was being processed with the black bars added for artistic reasons.

 

 

Almost right, the FPS does actually drop in some scenes when you take away the bars.

You were not aware that the game has quicktime events?

 

"Just being a QTE game".

 

You know more about this game than any of the rest of us and journalists who've only just been to an embargoed event?

[Hedon]

Almost right, the FPS does actually drop in some scenes when you take away the bars.

 

"Just being a QTE game".

 

You know more about this game than any of the rest of us and journalists who've only just been to an embargoed event?

Hey, if you were not aware of the public knowledge that the game is QTE friendly, don't blame me.