True HD? Not with backwards compatibility

[bapenguin]

IGN (http://ps3.ign.com/articles/745/745245p1.html) brings word that PS2 and PS1 games won't feature any kind of scaling or image enhancements on the PS3. What's worse? You'll have to constantly tinker with your HDTV aspect ratio if you switch between PS3 and PS2/1 games.There have been a lot of rumors about whether or not the PS3 will upscale PlayStation 1 or PlayStation 2 titles. We spent a few minutes running our retail systems through a few tests, and came back with these impressions. We threw in Resident Evil 2 from the PlayStation 1 and tried to see how it would look. First of all, there is no upscaling of PS1 titles at all, and if you have an HDTV, you'll need to change your aspect ratio from 16:9 to 4:3 to play these games.

Well that's a PITA. It'd be nice if it just displayed the columns for you. Or at least the cell processor could age the games like fine wine to HD resolutions.

[Gorvi]

I thought this was announced a while ago that there wouldn't be any enhancement.

[Camel]

At least the PS3 has backwards compatibility.

*looks sadly at pile of XBOX games that cannot be played*

[mkelehan]

Which is what I love about 360 BC. It may not feature all of the games (yet), but those that ARE there are in HD, and it gives me the black bars on the sides that I want. My TV doesn't even let me squish HD content to 4:3, only 480i stuff.

[nemyhlovecraft]

A good question would be whether the PS3 underscans PS1 and PS2 games as badly as the PS2 does. That would totally suck.

[IrishWhiskey]

In a choice between having most games BC and looking good in HD resolutions, or having all games and looking terrible, I know which I would choose.


You might think I'm exaggerating, but I've tried playing Disgaea on the PS2 on my 60 inch 1080p TV. Its so blocky and jagged as to be nearly unplayable. And this is with a TV thats good at handling lower resolution signals. God of War and Shadow of the Colossus still look good, but many older games are ruined by HD. So far, I've never encountered that with my 360 BC games.



.

[EvilBob46]

How do you make a 640*480 image generated by PS2 hardware emulation not look like utter shit on an HD TV even if you upscale?

[protocol_image]

How do you make a 640*480 image generated by PS2 hardware emulation not look like utter shit on an HD TV even if you upscale?
with the blood of angels?

[Megalith]

For $600, PS3 should be able to upscale my Ace Combat games to 1080p.

[51|RandoM]

The games don't look terrible, lol, keep blowing stuff out of proportion.

If your TV won't automatically pick the best aspect ratio based on the source material, buy a new tv or get used to hitting the aspect ratio button on your remote now and then.

[agentgray]

I have to do this now for TV/HDTV and certain DVDs. It's no big deal.

I'm one of the biggest Sony bashers there is but, man, we are just getting picky. I mean, it plays games that were made years before HD was a glint in people's eyes.

OH NOES, The Gameboy Advance won't play original Gameboy color games taking up the full screen or with more colors! Bastards!

Oh, and here's the tradeoff we see with Xbox BC and PS* BC. Ding. Ding.

[Johan]

You might think I'm exaggerating, but I've tried playing Disgaea on the PS2 on my 60 inch 1080p TV. Its so blocky and jagged as to be nearly unplayable. And this is with a TV thats good at handling lower resolution signals. God of War and Shadow of the Colossus still look good, but many older games are ruined by HD. So far, I've never encountered that with my 360 BC games.

As someone who spends quite a bit of time frustrated over the incomplete BC from MS, I can say that what you stated above is a pretty decent salve for my BC-wounds! It's a really good point, and is probably worth the trade-off (depending on whether they get a few of my favorite titles on there some time in the future!).

A good point indeed! :)

[mkelehan]

OH NOES, The Gameboy Advance won't play original Gameboy color games taking up the full screen or with more colors! Bastards!GBA lets you play it stretched or 4:3 at the push of a button.

[Zeal]

Have you guys ever seen textures made for 480i upscaled to 1080p. It is so horribly bad that it makes you want to turn the game off.

It looks like you're playing a blob of color and blur.

Now add that to the fact that you have to stretch it to 16:9.

[Salesmunn]

You want them to render their PSOne games in HD? Uh...what?

[ilian]

No they are just wanting it to do what the XBOX 360 does. And the upscaled xbox games on 360 look just fine, they looking nothing like a blob of color and blur, wtf.

[Zeal]

Because most Xbox games are in 480p/16:9 already, retard. Some even support 720p/1080 16:9.

[AzN.Homeboy]

They could at least have had it output in 16:9 with 4:3 + black bars.

[Hemalin]

I thought this was announced a while ago that there wouldn't be any enhancement.
It was. Here (http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19539&highlight=backwards+compatibility)

[ilian]

retard.

Great! out with the name calling! nice! Thats a way to get people to listen to you! Nice way to hide the fact that you have no idea what you are talking about =)

[agentgray]

GBA lets you play it stretched or 4:3 at the push of a button.
Yes, you got my subtle point. ;)

[Gorvi]

Because most Xbox games are in 480p/16:9 already, retard. Some even support 720p/1080 16:9.

QFT, alghough I can't recall any XBOX1 games that were in 1080, the majority were at least 480p. I can think of maybe a handfull of games for the PS2 that supported 480p.

[Jack B]

Sony has some things like online and BC, that look pretty good on paper, but the devil is in the details. I'm sure the average consumer won't appreciate what Microsoft has done with older Arcade titles to upgrade them to HD, add multiplayer, worldwide leaderboards, achievements etc. To many who are choosing between a PS3 and a 360 it's all the same. It's a similar situation with online and BC. It's a quality vs quantity thing with the free thing mixed in and consumers likely to view Sony as the better deal.

I've really been impressed with Sony's BC plan, but now I'm not so sure. I think Sony wins the battle with the consumer on these topics, because most Best Buy reps and consumers just won't know there is a difference. We might on EvAv, but we're the minority.

I do like the quantity of titles available and if you only had an SD TV, I think this is a non-issue, but I wonder how many PS3 buyers will have an SD TV.

[KingGorilla]

Wait, the PS3 won't "box" the old games at least? To make it easer I mean. This is really dumb. I could care less about upscaling(the 360 showed this is a pretty big waste of time). But with something like a good HDTV that has to be properly calibrated to really enjoy...you do not fuck with it after you get everything situated.

[Zeal]

Well, Enter the Matrix supported 1080i, but that game was ultimate turd.

[Crenor]

At least the PS3 has backwards compatibility.

*looks sadly at pile of XBOX games that cannot be played*


Your forgetting, its not really backwards compatible and more of they actually put in a PS1 and PS2 into it. The cell does nothing as the software/emulation solution did not work. This is a REALLY lame solution hence all these issues. A software/emulation solution would have possibly meant a HD twist on all your old games

[dimsumx]

Well, that completely kills any need for me to get a PS3. I have a DLP HDTV, and if this is true, this will mean that I will never get a 720p native resolution from the older games, which means that I will have audio sync issues when my TV has to upscale it internally, rendering most of my PS2 games unplayable. The only way for me to play everything on the same system will be to either move it to my old TV, or get another new HDTV, which is not gonna happen for a while.

That's the advantage that X360 has, to output compatible old titles natively in 720 so I don't have to worry about my new HDTV investment.

[alejandro79]

1080i games for xbox 1
enter the metrix
mx unleashed
syberia
dragon lair 3d
720p
amped 2
crash nitro kart
espn basketball 2k4
mvp baseball
soul calibur 2
sims busting out
steel battalion
street hoops
tony hawk pro skater 4
sega gt online
freedom figthers
nba ballers
tony hawk underground
true crime:street of l.A
world series baseball 2k3

98% of the xbox games were 480p

[KingGorilla]

Didn'y Halo 2 and Clancy games support Hi Def? I am pretty sure Splintercell and GR2 did.

[Gorvi]

1080i games for xbox 1
enter the metrix
mx unleashed
syberia
dragon lair 3d
720p
amped 2
crash nitro kart
espn basketball 2k4
mvp baseball
soul calibur 2
sims busting out
steel battalion
street hoops
tony hawk pro skater 4
sega gt online
freedom figthers
nba ballers
tony hawk underground
true crime:street of l.A
world series baseball 2k3

98% of the xbox games were 480p

Not exactly a whole lot of winners on that list.

[Balthasar]

Because most Xbox games are in 480p/16:9 already, retard. Some even support 720p/1080 16:9.
Zeal? You're defending Sony with rational arguments? Did I miss something? How long was I out?

But seriously, that's a pretty good point. I think people are misunderstanding what "upscaling" actually is. Because it certainly isn't just a switch you flip to swap a video source from one resolution to another. You have to fill those pixel gaps with something.

[Mason]

Well that's a PITA. It'd be nice if it just displayed the columns for you. Or at least the cell processor could age the games like fine wine to HD resolutions.
This deserved recognition. Bravo.

Not handling the basic output upscaling is crap. It wouldn't make it look notably better (unless your TV's scaler is horrible), but it's just polite. Maybe add in some subtle post-processing effects to blur away a little of the fugly.

But anything more than that would start getting highly game-specific, and that's just not the direction they've gone. It'd be great if these companies would write perfectly compatible software emulators with a lot of per-game tuning to make them render in HD with better texture filtering and all that jive, but that's apparently not going to happen.

[Balthasar]

That's the advantage that X360 has, to output compatible old titles natively in 720 so I don't have to worry about my new HDTV investment.
Which old titles are you actively playing on your 360?

[Jack B]

1080i games for xbox 1
enter the metrix
mx unleashed
syberia
dragon lair 3d
720p
amped 2
crash nitro kart
espn basketball 2k4
mvp baseball
soul calibur 2
sims busting out
steel battalion
street hoops
tony hawk pro skater 4
sega gt online
freedom figthers
nba ballers
tony hawk underground
true crime:street of l.A
world series baseball 2k3

98% of the xbox games were 480p

I thought most of the sports games I played were 720p, but it's been a while.

[UglyPimp]

Not exactly a whole lot of winners on that list.

Yeah, why didn't they make more 1080i games? There were so many sets available back then. :rolleyes:

[Balthasar]

Not handling the basic output upscaling is crap. It wouldn't make it look notably better (unless your TV's scaler is horrible), but it's just polite. Maybe add in some subtle post-processing effects to blur away a little of the fugly.
I feel like this statement directly contradicts the sentiments of this one:

But anything more than that would start getting highly game-specific, and that's just not the direction they've gone. It'd be great if these companies would write perfectly compatible software emulators with a lot of per-game tuning to make them render in HD with better texture filtering and all that jive, but that's apparently not going to happen.
I mean, it seems like if you're saying that not upscaling is crap, then you wouldn't be acknowledging how much more work it would take to make a game from 1996 look resonably hi-def. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your complaint?

[Gorvi]

Yeah, why didn't they make more 1080i games? There were so many sets available back then. :rolleyes:

Actually, there were quite a few 1080i sets. I'm not exactly rich and I've had my current HDTV that goes to 1080i for nearly 3 years now.

[Serapth]

A good tv should have a setting that detects signal change and give you an option to auto scale it ( or black bar, whatever ). Pretty much every LCD or DLP projection tv I looked at had this option. This is basically why I bought the TV I did... it looked best with SD content.

That said, when I was HD shopping ( about 2 years ago ), many TVs look like complete ASS with a 480i signal. So, depending on the persons TV set, comments like PS2 games look like shit on a HDTV can often be very very true! ( and false... )

That said, this is old news. However, I do find it a shame all the same. Not offering an upscaler just boils down to Sony being lazy. Wonder if the DVD player upscales, a feature I would have thought was a no brainer.

[dimsumx]

Which old titles are you actively playing on your 360?

Actively?

Halo
Halo 2
Crimson Skies

Occasionally:

Megaman
Jade Empire
Ninja Gaiden
Splinter Cell 2
Fuzion Frenzy

Haven't had much time on 360, but do own from Back Compat List:
DoA3
Fable
Fatal Frame 1 & 2
SW: KotOR
Splinter Cell
and a few others

[Serapth]

Is the newest Mortal Kombat BC yet? It was the last Xbox game I got before getting my 360. It was on the BC list for a time, but was apparently removed.

[Oddmaker]

Thing is Microsoft has it easy since its their second console and that's why it's taking so long to get Xbox games on the 360 because they convert them to play in HD and MS knew it would make the games play like shit without HD enabled. Now this is Sony's third console and they know they have to deliver since they had backward compatibility on the PS2 so it must be hard for them to make all games backwards compatibility in HD so that’s why they aren’t bothering on doing it and leaving the games as it is.

Microsoft love their xbox customers, Sony dont. ;)

[fahrvergnugen]

Jeez, they couldn't even be arsed to pillarbox the older games? What kind of lame business is that?

[Jack B]

Actually, there were quite a few 1080i sets. I'm not exactly rich and I've had my current HDTV that goes to 1080i for nearly 3 years now.

I have both a Mitsubishi 1080i and a Sony 720p tv. I originally bought a 1080i big screen, but it didn't have 720p as an option, which at the time I didn't really even care about. Later, when I bought my Xbox I realized it was 720p I needed... Thus, I went out and searched until I found a decent 55" Sony 720p tv. I used the 1080i for a few months with the Xbox before I switched to 720p. I couldn't really tell much difference, between the two. Actually, I couldn't tell any difference, but they were never actually side by side...

[bapenguin]

This whole thing isn't a big deal...but again, it's a minor nuisance.

[Balthasar]

This whole thing isn't a big deal...but again, it's a minor nuisance.
It's worth noting that these games will probably look fine on your brand new PSP...

[see colon]

IGN just told us nothing we didn't already know. they didn't even tell us if the "fast lading" and "smooth textures" options that were available to PS1 games played on PS2 are available.

it would have been nice if they included a better filtering option for PS2 games as well. most ps2 games aren't even mipmapped, and quite a few games have textures that are point sampled.

a coment about "HD" games on XBox... none of them were actualy rendered in HD resolutions. the XB's internal scaler was limited to 1024*768, so games that were 1080i and 720p were just scaled from that or lower. GT4's 1080i support is similar. it's just upscaled internaly from a lower resolution image.

[EvilBob46]

Your forgetting, its not really backwards compatible and more of they actually put in a PS1 and PS2 into it. The cell does nothing as the software/emulation solution did not work. This is a REALLY lame solution hence all these issues. A software/emulation solution would have possibly meant a HD twist on all your old games

The PS3 is "not really backwards compatible?" Actually, the 360 is not really backwards compatible because of the number of issues experienced with a lot of games, whereas the PS3 will likely achieve ~95% backwards compatibility out of the box.

[51|RandoM]

Your forgetting, its not really backwards compatible and more of they actually put in a PS1 and PS2 into it. The cell does nothing as the software/emulation solution did not work. This is a REALLY lame solution hence all these issues. A software/emulation solution would have possibly meant a HD twist on all your old games

...and it would've meant that some of your games wouldn't be playable at all.

I'll take Sony's BC over Microsoft's any day of the week, since I don't have to worry about my ps2 games not working at all...

[51|RandoM]

Microsoft love their xbox customers, Sony dont. ;)

...yeah, that must be why they dropped the xbox like a flaming turd as soon as the 360 was released, because they love their xbox customers.


lol.

[rein]

...and it would've meant that some of your games wouldn't be playable at all.

I'll take Sony's BC over Microsoft's any day of the week, since I don't have to worry about my ps2 games not working at all...

Me too!

I can't believe people argue that they would rather have the broken BC crap that Microsoft has offered over a near 100% solution. One more thread that shows how bias some people can be against Sony. Damn them for including a free web browser and backward compatibility. I hope they all rot in hell for forcing that kind of stuff on customers.

[UglyPimp]

Me too!

I can't believe people argue that they would rather have the broken BC crap that Microsoft has offered over a near 100% solution. One more thread that shows how bias some people can be against Sony. Damn them for including a free web browser and backward compatibility. I hope they all rot in hell for forcing that kind of stuff on customers.

Oh, man -- you hurt my feelings towards the Xbox and have FOREVER CHANGED MY OPINION. Your sarcasm cuts me so deeply and forces me to sell my Xbox. GOOD SHOW OLD BOY.

[rein]

Oh, man -- you hurt my feelings towards the Xbox and have FOREVER CHANGED MY OPINION. Your sarcasm cuts me so deeply and forces me to sell my Xbox. GOOD SHOW OLD BOY.

Wow, never seen this come back on the internet before. What's next, a your momma? To be honest, you might consider selling that Xbox while you can. Take a look (http://www.ebgames.com/comingsoon.asp?platform=26&sortby=eta&imageFlag=show) at the coming soon list.

[Tyrant]

Have you guys ever seen textures made for 480i upscaled to 1080p. It is so horribly bad that it makes you want to turn the game off.

It looks like you're playing a blob of color and blur.

Now add that to the fact that you have to stretch it to 16:9.

Have you ever seen a 480p DVD upscaled to whatever native res the HDTV? Unless the TV's internal scaler is great, it typically looks a hell of a lot better than just passing a 480p signal over. In the case of 480i, it would require a good deinterlacer either within the device itself or the television to make it not look like shit.

Hell, just pop in a PS game on a half-decent PC, get an emulator with say, Pete's OpenGL or DirectX plugins, configure it to display an image at whatever res your monitor is with some filters enabled and you'll probably find that it looks far better on a high resolution monitor than what you'd see on a regular television set.

Given the supposed processing power of the PS3, I'd be pretty disappointed if their full on software emulation, whenever it comes out, doesn't support similar features as those seen on emulator plugins.

[Mason]

I mean, it seems like if you're saying that not upscaling is crap, then you wouldn't be acknowledging how much more work it would take to make a game from 1996 look resonably hi-def. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your complaint?
No, see, upscaling is not the same thing as rendering at a higher resolution. Upscaling is simply blowing up a smaller image, easy but ugly. DVDs can be upscaled, say, but it doesn't add information to them. On an LCD, either the PS3 or the HDTV would have to upscale it anyways, so the PS3 might as well do it (since not all HDTVs have great hardware scalers).

A software emulator would be capable of higher resolution rendering and other perceptible enhancements. You can check this out with various PS1 emulators for the PC (using legally owned games &c). There are distinct improvements, although some things (low res textures, vertex inaccuracy?) can't really be fixed by any emulator.

[VenomUSMC]

Actually, there were quite a few 1080i sets. I'm not exactly rich and I've had my current HDTV that goes to 1080i for nearly 3 years now
And yet less than 10% of the US owns an HD set currently....

[Balthasar]

No, see, upscaling is not the same thing as rendering at a higher resolution. Upscaling is simply blowing up a smaller image, easy but ugly.
Right, I get that part, which is why I don't get why some people are so pissed off. You're going to have what amounts to gaping holes between each pixel in PS1 games that gets filled with blurry garbage.

A software emulator would be capable of higher resolution rendering and other perceptible enhancements. You can check this out with various PS1 emulators for the PC (using legally owned games &c). There are distinct improvements, although some things (low res textures, vertex inaccuracy?) can't really be fixed by any emulator.
The problem with software emulation is that it still isn't going to make PS1 games--some of which are pretty hard on the eyes on a standard TV--much better in the first place. The other problem is you then end up with the same issue as Microsoft has with it's xbox games. Granted, the delays in BC from Microsoft probably have as much to do with the buisness of new software sales as they do with the difficulty of software emulation, but I imagine that would take away from what is a pretty big selling point for current PS2 owners. To a PS2 owner, BC means that they can actually get a discount on their PS3 because they would have no need for their PS2 and can sell it for store credit towards that PS3. If they went the software emulation route, while I would expect them to have a lot more games ready to play than Microsoft has had, it still wouldn't be as good as what will be available with hardware emulation.

[see colon]

Right, I get that part, which is why I don't get why some people are so pissed off. You're going to have what amounts to gaping holes between each pixel in PS1 games that gets filled with blurry garbage.
i'm not sure i get the "gaping holes" part, but if you mean blur you'll get this on an HDTV even if the PS3 isn't upscaling the image. the difference is, most HDTVs have poor quality scalers that either look worse or have performace issues (ie: A/V sync issues).

[soco]

At least the PS3 has backwards compatibility.

*looks sadly at pile of XBOX games that cannot be played*

if the first reports are any indication, there's a growing pile of PS1 & PS2 games that have got issues ranging from minor to crashing. according to some people the PS1 and input portions of the PS2 are all handled in software and it's causing lots of problems. can see more here (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=128293) with links to compabitility lists in Japanese. most of hte problems seem minor, but it's probably worth keeping around your old PS2 just in case :)

[Mason]

Right, I get that part, which is why I don't get why some people are so pissed off. You're going to have what amounts to gaping holes between each pixel in PS1 games that gets filled with blurry garbage.
Well, like I said, upscaling is inevitable for LCDs and some other HDTV types. Either the TV does it, or the PS3 does it. The PS3 has a lot more hardware to throw at the problem (it sounds like the CPU/GPU are basically idle for old games), so it can do a better job. Plenty of HDTVs have surprisingly bad scalers, or other scaler-related issues (A/V desynch was mentioned), or overscan (losing a few percent of the top and bottom of the image). The PS3 could handle the task effortlessly, so why dump it on the TV?
The problem with software emulation is that it still isn't going to make PS1 games--some of which are pretty hard on the eyes on a standard TV--much better in the first place. The other problem is you then end up with the same issue as Microsoft has with it's xbox games. Granted, the delays in BC from Microsoft probably have as much to do with the buisness of new software sales as they do with the difficulty of software emulation, but I imagine that would take away from what is a pretty big selling point for current PS2 owners. To a PS2 owner, BC means that they can actually get a discount on their PS3 because they would have no need for their PS2 and can sell it for store credit towards that PS3. If they went the software emulation route, while I would expect them to have a lot more games ready to play than Microsoft has had, it still wouldn't be as good as what will be available with hardware emulation.
You might be surprised. Grab a PSX emulator and pop a game into your drive. There's a lot of headache associated with getting a particular game configured properly (which is what MS is running into), but it really can improve the visuals.

Remember, the Playstation had basically no texture filtering (from my recollection), and so a software emulator can actually make some decent improvements there. The textures and sprites are all still terribly low-res, and the vertex inaccuracy makes everything pop around like crazy, but rendering at higher resolution and with some carefully-configured filtering can help a lot. It won't be anyone's idea of pretty, but at least you won't be pockmarking your beautiful HDTV with unfiltered texels the size of cats.

But you're right, it fundamentally came down to either working hard on a great emulator and BC for all the popular titles, or dumping more hardware in the box (contributing a bit to the price) and letting any PS1/2 game run in their full pixelated glory. Even going with the full-hardware route, though, they still could've upscaled the output for us.

[Oddmaker]

...yeah, that must be why they dropped the xbox like a flaming turd as soon as the 360 was released, because they love their xbox customers.


lol.It was a joke and if you read it properly then your see what i mean. ;)

[Balthasar]

But you're right, it fundamentally came down to either working hard on a great emulator and BC for all the popular titles, or dumping more hardware in the box (contributing a bit to the price) and letting any PS1/2 game run in their full pixelated glory. Even going with the full-hardware route, though, they still could've upscaled the output for us.
If you think a mix of hardware emulation and software upscaling (that actually results in something looking meaningfully better) is still possible, perhaps its not out of the question that Sony thinks the same thing to and will try to do this for select titles. Or, perhaps we could third-party developers doing this themselves, especially if they are going to charge their own rates for their games instead of the $5 and under figure for Sony games.