Tendo City

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3148775

Seems the hard drive will in fact be included at launch with all systems, and designers are told to "program as if it is there". Also, it can play all PS2 and PS1 games, in HD resolution.

yeah, but it's upconverted. So it actually doesn't do much, it would be the same difference of playing a 480i image through RCA cables or component, it will look sharper but the textures will be the same 480 resolutions. I guess 'crisper' would be the appropriate term.

SH1: Crispitize me, Cap'n!

That's why you need HDMI cables!

they're nice too, they would give you the best 480 image quality or upconverted 720p 480 images.

I didn't expect the textures to be changed mind you. However, I was thinking it might smooth out the polys... That is possible, from the PS1 emulators I've experimented with. If it's just an upconversion of the final image, then "eh".

it wont smooth out polys, that would reqauire polygon reduction and additional information for the models. it will probably remove jaggies though (is that what you mean?).

Yes, that's what I mean. I mean all the images are actually rendered in a higher resolution, so all diagonal lines will actually appear straight and not "stair cased".

Just upscaling the image after the fact wouldn't accomplish that though... That is, if you mean pixel "quading" or some other multiple to make it take up the needed screenspace to make it "full screen". In such a case the sharper screen would actually make such artifacts more apparent.

Here's also hoping they are able to eliminate some slow down and/or improve frame rates. Hopefully there are certain speed breaks in the programming of all PS1 games that won't make such a thing result in what happens when you play really old PC games on a modern PC :D.

$399?
$499?
$599?

I know they said '$425 or so minimum' for the Japanese market, but the prices are often slightly different here from there, so it still could be $399, if Sony wants to lose a LOT of money on every system... given how most costs between the PS3 and X360 are the same, but the X360's DVD drive costs about $20 and the PS3's Blu-Ray drive supposedly $200... at least.

Why even go with these new formats for our games? Is it even really a requirement yet?

PC games are still getting CD releases and they have ultra high resolutions already. Sure they NEED to upgrade to DVD and soon, but my point is very rarely do we actually have a need for 2 DVDs, and I don't think that's that big a problem. Updating to a new format is only really needed when we start seeing those 7 DVD games come out. If it is this expensive, they may have made their move a generation too soon. I'd say wait until we start needing to store "gigaquads" of info.

The fact that they're still releasing games on four CDs instead of one DVD is so incredibly stupid... I've had a DVD drive in my computer for over four years!

At least some of the more major titles have gotten DVD special editions and stuff. It's still not nearly enough...

Anyway, a larger format is certainly needed for higher resolutions. Higher resolutions means higher res art, which means larger files... this is why Revolution won't have a big problem being on just DVDs, while X360 could be in more trouble... oh, you can always compress things down to fit them into smaller media formats, but a lot of companies have problems doing that efficiently...

As I said, PC games use super high resolutions already, and they have yet to fully commit to the DVD format.

yes, but the texture sets are not super high res, the display is, the textures are not. Also if you compress a texture you might as well not make an HD game, compressing them often leaves the textures looking very flat and muddy (N64) because it litteraly takes everything you drew out in photoshop or whatever and then blurs the krap out of it, mixing the colors, etc. the more you compress it, the krappier they get. You could uncompress the textures and put the full HD textures on the internal RAM during load but if you dont have a few gigs of RAM, you'll have a level with with the same handful of HD textures over and over until it reloads an area.

it's best to either leave it totally uncompressed and spun off as needed or just upload the entire thing to a hard drive. 360 does the first one by picking and choosing what textures to spin and what textures to load. from what understand, there still hasn't been a fully HD game on 360 because of that process.

As far as rendering at the upconverted res, i think that's exactly what they're going to do; just like pumping up th resolution on zSNES emus during gameplay and everything gets crisper. But frame rates and the like will probably take the same hits they took on the PSX and PS2, the PS3 is going to be an emulator afterall. for example, PS1 games still take frame rate hits on the PS2. so I dont see that being fixed.

Quote:As I said, PC games use super high resolutions already, and they have yet to fully commit to the DVD format.

As I said before, this is an unfortunate marketing-driven fact that should have changed years ago.

I KNOW! My POINT is that it's obvious we DON'T need that space just to have high res textures! DVDs are currently enough! I have 2 gigs of RAM currently just waiting to be filled with textures.

lazyfatbum Wrote:yes, but the texture sets are not super high res, the display is, the textures are not. Also if you compress a texture you might as well not make an HD game, compressing them often leaves the textures looking very flat and muddy (N64) because it litteraly takes everything you drew out in photoshop or whatever and then blurs the krap out of it, mixing the colors, etc. the more you compress it, the krappier they get. You could uncompress the textures and put the full HD textures on the internal RAM during load but if you dont have a few gigs of RAM, you'll have a level with with the same handful of HD textures over and over until it reloads an area.

it's best to either leave it totally uncompressed and spun off as needed or just upload the entire thing to a hard drive. 360 does the first one by picking and choosing what textures to spin and what textures to load. from what understand, there still hasn't been a fully HD game on 360 because of that process.

As far as rendering at the upconverted res, i think that's exactly what they're going to do; just like pumping up th resolution on zSNES emus during gameplay and everything gets crisper. But frame rates and the like will probably take the same hits they took on the PSX and PS2, the PS3 is going to be an emulator afterall. for example, PS1 games still take frame rate hits on the PS2. so I dont see that being fixed.

<img src="http://abouttheimage.typepad.com/abouttheimage/images/Cuddly_Kitten1.jpg">

I thought the PS3 would do a lot less emulating than the 360 because the hardware uses similar architecture. I suppose I could be misinformed.

On the topic of PC games in high res, you are stating the texture resolution currently being used in modern PC games is not in high res? Are you sure?

Oh and, just a nitpic, but it depends on HOW you compress the textures. If you stick a texture file into a zip file, you can compress it without any data loss at all (try it, duplicate an image file, zip one, unzip it, and do a direct binary compare of the one that hasn't been compressed to the one that was zipped and unzipped, they will be identical). Lossless compression is easy. For example, I can compress "dog dog dog dog dog dog dog", which takes up 27 bytes of data, into "dog x 7", which takes up 7 bytes of data, with no loss at all. The issue is that the ability to translate that correctly (adding the spaces and typing out the word dog and all that correct syntax) has to already be on the computer, and it also takes up some extra processing power. JPEGs, which are one way of compressing an image, do NOT compress losslessly, nor do MP3s. It's possible, just not as "effective" as lossy compression methods.

i agree but you're actually talking about compression methods that so far consoles dont do, they have to work abound bottle necks even on 360 so if you uncompress you still have to squeeze it through a bottle neck that only allows so much info to pass. Like you said on PC they can unload everything if your pooter can handle it, but no the textures themselves are done on a per-requirements basis, so if you install a game on a great computer, you'll get the full textures and whatever the game is capable of running at (which is more than standard television obviously), but the textures I have seen in PC games still have not reached the level of say, a 360 game with super detailed 'plastic' bumpy surfaces. i've seen it done in cheap ways, but not to the prettiness of what 360 does because those textures were built to only run in HD. Switch to standard and not only are you running at a lower resolution but everything gets muddy and there's a huge loss in line detail because the television cant differentiate where one line is next to another and instead creates a gray blur where lines should be.

so i guess its sorta apples and oranges, PC games are built to run differently than console games so while 360 textures can be done on PC, you would need a game that was built to do it and a video card that was built to support and display it, and I haven't seen that yet, as that would be incredibly expensive. Do yunno of any PC games capable of hugely detailed textures and not the blurry paint jobs?

*pets the kitten*

I see. FEAR does look pretty nice though. I suppose I should check out those textures more closely. Still, more PC games are desiging textures for higher and higher "minimum resolutions". It has been a while since I saw a game that even humored 640x480, but yeah too many are still trying to support 800x600. It is nice that a lot are starting to support the wide screen resolutions, but unfortunatly in the PC world they have yet to standardize a specific aspect ratio. It's stupid though, because nature already has a good standard. They should just go with the golden rectangle, FOREVER. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rectangle I see no reason why they should even mess around with anything else. Just stick with the aspect ratio of 1 to 1.6180339887498948...(and it goes on like this, I think there's an accurate fraction for it though). Anyway, once those engineers finally do standardize the golden rectangle (and I hope that's the case, since we'd never need to change it I'd think, and it would likely be what a lot of alien species would also have decided on considering how often it seems to be used in nature, or at least it's analogues), I'll be using a quality PC moniter for my 360 needs. Also, a Golden Moniter would be infinitely scalable. Something like that would be nice.

that's essentially widescreen, just stubbier. i see the means, but dunno if they will actually improve viewing angle. i prefer full anomorphic wide screen for video games or movies because it generates a beautiful scope. ultimately i'd like to see 'everywhere' games where you can look around in immersive VR so that there is no 'edge' of the assumed reality, it doesn't even have to be head tracking, I just want the entire field of view to be only the assumed reality with zero edge or outside interference.

if you think of a full film screen and imagine it being projected right in to your eyes you would get the effect as we naturally see an animorphic panaroma, more filed of view in width than in hight. That would be incredible... and probably could only be enjoyed while sitting down before you fall on your ass :D

I see what you are saying. Thing is, that's not how the average person is going to watch TV. Even if you get the ratio perfect, your sitting position won't be. You would need to actually get the chair right in the perfect position and NEVER move your head so that the image always fills your field of vision perfectly. I don't watch movies or TV that way, and the comfort issue outweighs any immesion benefit from that. The other method of doing that would be some goggles, but I like being able to look at other things with a simple movement of my head rather than taking off the goggles and then moving my head.

Have I misunderstood you? If what you are suggesting is that, the average person isn'g going to actually be able to watch it the way you suggest. "Totally filled vision" takes effort on the part of the viewer.

Quote:I KNOW! My POINT is that it's obvious we DON'T need that space just to have high res textures! DVDs are currently enough! I have 2 gigs of RAM currently just waiting to be filled with textures.

You need more when you factor in development bloat and how much developers hate having to actually put effort into controlling the size of their games... and in addition the PC versions of games are often actually compressed more than console versions of the same games -- to fit the game on 3 or 4 CDs instead of one DVD... so on one hand, I see your point -- PC games use high res textures and don't need more than one DVD as of yet. However, that's an imposed limitation... switch PC games over to DVD three or four years ago, as should have happened, and we'd be seeing some games take more than one of them I'd bet. But people just don't want eight or nine CD games...

As for aspect ratios, why should PCs be tied to just one? The whole point of having a PC is having choice, whether that means 640x480, 800x600 (1.25x the lower resolution), or widescreen resolutions... I know it makes things harder on the developers, but I disagree that this is a "problem" that should be "solved". It's as it should be, as annoying as that must be to developers.

that would be a major issue, yes, but i was thinking of a non-tracking system that simply generates a display that is 'full' around your eyes so that you cant see any outside influence of the real world. So, whether you're physically tilting your head down or up wouldn't change the 'camera' of the image, it would appear the same, just everywhere and all around you and, hopefully, in sterescopic 3-D :D *drools* Perfect for film as with film, behind the camera is crew of 100 people or more, so it would be too difficult to make a 360 degree viewing field for traditional film, and in games you could implement head tracking or just use the controller to manipulate camera angle.

anyhoo, sony news. i was wrong about the boomerang it would seem:

from engadget:

Sony confirms PS3 controller redesign
Posted Mar 22nd 2006 7:00PM by Evan Blass
Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

In an unfortunate turn of events for the legions of Australian video game fans, Sony's president of the Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios division Phil Harrison announced today that the upcoming PlayStation 3 controller will be unable to pull double duty as a precision kangaroo killer. Apparently the boomerang/banana shape that we've come to hate despise detest accept as the PS3's major drawback is being "tossed" in favor of an unspecified redesign (NOT the one pictured here) that will be unveiled at E3 in May, mentioned Harrison in a speech that was mainly about the Xbox Live-like PlayStation Network Platform. There's a lot of pressure on Sony here to unveil something appealing for several reasons: they need to placate the vocal minority of ravenous fanboys who publicly slammed the initial design, but more importantly, they need to prove they can outdesign a bunch of very talented gaming blog readers.

picture in question (NOT A REAL CONTROLLER)



god that looks uncomfortable. :D

I don't understand why people disliked the boomerang so much without ever having touched it... it looked great (excepting, of course, its carried-over design flaws (dual shoulder buttons, no triggers, only four face buttons, analog stick below and dpad above, etc))... but the actual design looked great. Comfortable, well designed, so much cooler looking than previous Playstation controllers...

I agree. I never laid a hand on that thing, nor did I read any reviews on it. All this "hate" over it seems like petty bickering over something untested. I'm fairly certain none of the people whining about it had either the human biology or engineering training to actually conclude that it was a bad design. That said, it's irrelevent at this point.

And oh yes, as far as compressing the data goes, you have a good point.

But, on the topic of aspect resolutions, "having a choice" is fine, but you point out the main problem. If a lot of developers have to design their software to take advantage of every aspect ratio under the sun, they won't. We'll have games split between aspect resolutions, and that is already happening.

Standardization is a good thing ABF. While the aspect resolution for TVs is changing, it should be changing TO something that is an accepted standard everyone can agree on. However, that said, we are on our way to an accepted standard. I'm merely suggesting the golden rectangle as a nice solution that won't really need tweaking (it is aesthetically pleasing in shape and seems "complete"). Look at the keyboard. You don't see a billion different keyboard layouts. You see maybe a few variations on a nice standard. Now, I'd say it may be getting time to start designing a new standard layout, something more optimized to speed up key pressing perhaps, but I am not about to suggest 5 billion different layouts. The downside is that every single time someone buys a new keyboard or changes the company they work for, they need to be retrained to type quickly again and are unlikely to ever type as fast as they might if there was a single standard.

I'm sure in some niche situation a different aspect ratio might actually work better, but I really don't think the market should be flooded with so many options that it ends up hurting us. I really don't see how that would help anything.

Quote:I agree. I never laid a hand on that thing, nor did I read any reviews on it. All this "hate" over it seems like petty bickering over something untested. I'm fairly certain none of the people whining about it had either the human biology or engineering training to actually conclude that it was a bad design. That said, it's irrelevent at this point.

I don't understand those people anyway since they'd probably say that the Dualshock was actually a good design... comfortable, yes. But not well laid out, and quite ugly design-wise... really, the dualshock is not exactly one of the nicer looking gamepads I've seen... too bland and average looking. The boomerang was much more interesting.

Quote:Standardization is a good thing ABF. While the aspect resolution for TVs is changing, it should be changing TO something that is an accepted standard everyone can agree on. However, that said, we are on our way to an accepted standard. I'm merely suggesting the golden rectangle as a nice solution that won't really need tweaking (it is aesthetically pleasing in shape and seems "complete"). Look at the keyboard. You don't see a billion different keyboard layouts. You see maybe a few variations on a nice standard. Now, I'd say it may be getting time to start designing a new standard layout, something more optimized to speed up key pressing perhaps, but I am not about to suggest 5 billion different layouts. The downside is that every single time someone buys a new keyboard or changes the company they work for, they need to be retrained to type quickly again and are unlikely to ever type as fast as they might if there was a single standard.

Actually, most major titles do support a bunch of resolutions... and widescreen PC monitors used for games are a pretty recent thing, really. Only a few titles support it... (what does a widescreen PC monitor look like, anyway?) but more recent games probably support it, I bet. Though it is a bit trickier to go to that than it is for normal PC resolutions, where all you need to do is resize the artwork (or you should if you want it to look decent at different resolutions)... but not everyone wants a widescreen PC monitor, I'd think, so saying that will be the standard wouldn't be a good idea...

As for keyboards, you are right that there are some standards, but they aren't absolute -- you can have some other layouts if you wish, and it's all reconfigurable... and monitors do have standards kind of like that -- most people use normal resolutions like 800x600, 1024x768, etc. up to 1600x1200... the new thing now is widescreen resolutions, but I don't know much about how those work with games (given how widening the screen would greatly affect games)... can you have the monitor display a partscreen image for normal resolution games or something (like the GBA does for GBC games...)?

No actually. In fact modern moniters automatically "fill out" the entire screen no matter the resolution. Resizing is dinosaur age stuff :D.

Having both a wide screen and "normal screen" format is all well and good, that'll be around for some time. I'm talking about 16:10 and 15:9 and all the other versions of the wide screen format that are flying around. All these companies are desperatly trying to make their little incarnation the new standard. Problem is, the differences between them are so negligable it really won't affect the consumers in any way except to confuse them. The main problem is that while I am seeing a lot of support for CERTAIN wide screen aspect ratios, almost none of the games I've played support ALL of them, and good luck for the poor gamer trying to figure out her aspect ratio so the game can be configured correctly. Fortunatly, I was able to look it up online though for the new laptop I aquired. I'm simply saying it is a good thing things won't stay this way. It is a fair bet to say my aspect ratio, simply from pure odds, won't be the one selected as the standard. That'll mean a small amount of distortion in a number of future games.

But yes, you are right to suggest a "normal screen" format that wide screen moniters can be switched into. It would be nice for when the old style formats are the only resolutions properly supported.

As it stands, image stretching is pretty annoying when I play old games. It would be nice if the OS, at least, could "fake it" by setting the old resolution in a "block" of image that's at a wider resolution, black bars to the left and right, so I can play the old games without that ugly distortion, and so in overhead games my character moves the same speed going left and right as going up and down (percieved of course, but it does mess me up).

And yes, keyboards have alternate formats, but they are recognized as non-standard and an effort is made to conform to standards more often than not. I'm merely saying that a standard should exist, and people will tend to it more often than not, and that it is a good thing if that should happen, which it should soon enough. Also, I'm suggesting that the golden rectangle should do the job nicely.