Xbox360

[Paco]

Every game would benefit from a solid 60 fps framerate. Not everyone would be able to tell the difference, but that doesn't mean there wouldn't be one. Any of the Final Fantasies would have benefited from a better framerate. The benefit would be small, but you were talking in absolutes, no?

What's the point of using the extra horsepower to make it 60fps if no one will be able to tell the difference?

I could be wrong about all this, but I believe the human eye can't interpret anything faster than 30fps. Then again that could be with movies only. I'll have to look it up...

[A Black Falcon]

You can tell the difference (compare F-Zero X to Wipeout 64), but it definitely gets fuzzy.

[Private Hudson]

Well, that's in the event of a racing game, which he alrerady mentioned was the exception.

I would definately notice the difference if FFX had have been 60fps, or if Kingdom Hearts had have been 60fps, and certainly if Summoner had been 60fps. I enjoy the smoothness that it offers, and find it more pleasing to the eye than slightly better textures/higher poly characters.

As I said, I have a wide and varied game collection, and off the top of my head, I can't think of a single one that I wouldn't prefer a smoother framerate.

At the very least, every framerate better be stable to a large degree.

[A Black Falcon]

Yes, stable (and not below the 'too slow' threshold somewhere around 15-20fps) is the most important thing... jumping between 30 and 60 all the time would be worse than staying at 30.

[Smoke]

As simple as it's graphics are I think F-Zero X's solid 60fps make it one of the better looking N64 games.

[A Black Falcon]

I agree, it's simple but its got lots of style...

[OB1]

What's the point of using the extra horsepower to make it 60fps if no one will be able to tell the difference?

You can definitely tell the difference.

I could be wrong about all this, but I believe the human eye can't interpret anything faster than 30fps. Then again that could be with movies only. I'll have to look it up...

The human eye can detect well over 60 fps. Movies look normal at 24fps because of motion blurring. Notice that whenever you see a camera pan in a movie everything is terribly blurry. And if you freeze just about any frame in a movie (where there is noticable movement), you will see whatever is in motion blurred. Games cannot do that, which is why a 24fps movie will look a lot smoother than a 24fps game.

[Smoke]

And if you freeze just about any frame in a movie (where there is noticable movement), you will see whatever is in motion blurred. Games cannot do that, which is why a 24fps movie will look a lot smoother than a 24fps game.

What about games like Burnout 3 that have motion blur?

[Great Rumbler]

I think that's done on purpose. I'm pretty sure it still runs at 60fps.

[Private Hudson]

Yeah it's 60.

Burnout 3 just has a blurring effect added to enhance the sensation of speed.

[OB1]

What about games like Burnout 3 that have motion blur?

That's just an added effect. It is impossible for games to have motion blur like movies because games are not real. Motion blur occurs in film because the camera can only capture 24 fps. There is no such thing as frames per second in reality. You do not move at a certain framerate. Frames are used to describe film, or refresh rate. Games are created inside of a computer, thus you cannot "capture" any reality on camera. You literally create every single frame in a videogame. With live-action film you are not creating a person walking, you are using a camera to take several frames of sequential movement of a real thing to create the illusion of real animation.

[Smoke]

I understand all of that. Obviously they can't capture real motion blur caused by the polygons moving fast since they are not real. But you said:

And if you freeze just about any frame in a movie (where there is noticable movement), you will see whatever is in motion blurred. Games cannot do that

It's the "games cannot do that" part that I disagreed with. Of course it's going to be simulated motion blur since everything in a game is simulated.

[OB1]

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. :)

Motion blur isn't an effect; it's the result of how cameras work. If you capture a person juggling with a standard 24fps camera, it will look fluid and real because of motion blur. If you were to pause at any frame, you would notice that the different parts that make up the frame(that are in some state of motion) are blurred. When you watch the clip you do not notice the blurring(unless it's going very fast) because each frame blends into the other, making it look normal. You cannot do this in animation or videogames. When talking about videogames, the term "motion blur" is very different from the term used in film. In videogames it's just an artificial effect that basically smears images. The only time something similar happens in film is when the movements are going far too fast for the camera. But that's not what I was talking about. I was talking about why film looks perfect at 24fps and why most games do not.

[lazyfatbum]

Dirty pans are a result of projectors. If you see a movie with a dirty pan in the theater, get it on DVD and you'll see that it's fine.

Motion blur is litteraly the effect of something moving faster than the film can burn its image. CG can emulate that effect with no problem, but doing it in real time is a whole different story. Taking real-time polys or textures and smearing them in a particular xyz direction at a particular velocity would be a nightmare. So instead what video games do is duplicate the image several times, each duplicate becoming more translucent as it spreads away from the object.

That effect in film is called ghosting or it's techy name gaussian blur and it's usually an editing call to add some speed or drama to a situation. IMO it looks like ass. You'll see it constantly in action movies.

Burnout 3's level of ghosting is extreme and it helps the player feel like they're going faster, but I prefer clean, sharper graphics as apposed to B3's.

[OB1]

Though with film, motion blur actually helps it actually look smooth, since all of the blurry images blend together to make a normal-looking clip. I brought this up because paco said that games don't need to run at 60fps in order to look good since film looks perfect at 24. Not all games need to run at 60fps to look good, but many do. A first-person shooter, a third-person action or adventure game, a racing game, etc. With film you don't usually just move the camera all over the place as fast as you can like you do in these types of games. What I suggest paco and Smoke do is get a video camera and pretend they're playing a FPS, looking and moving around as fast as you would in a FPS.

[Smoke]

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. :)

Actually I do. I already knew that the reason film looks smoth at 24fps was because of motion blur. And I understand it's not an effect, I've taken pictures with motion blur when things were moving by fast.

All I meant was you said you couldn't do motion blur in a game and obviously you can as it's been done. Is it a simulated effect? Of course, everything in a game is simulated. It would be impossible to get real motion blur in a game as nothing in a game is real. But you can still fake it.

[OB1]

That's not what I'm referring to. I'm referring to what happens when you film something at 24fps, how each individual frame may be blurry but the entire whole when running at 24fps does not look blurry. You are talking about an effect to make something clean look blurry; I am talking about a phenomenon that makes something blurry look clean. Does that make sense?

[Smoke]

Yes I get the distinction. I understood the distinction from the beginning. I understand it's a natural occurrence in film and a simulated effect in games. But that doesn't change the fact that you can get motion blur in games. It's not real motion blur but it can be faked. That's all I'm saying.

[OB1]

You don't understand what I'm saying because you're not getting that I'm talking about a completely different concept than you are. I am not, I repeat NOT, talking about an effect that blurs images on the screen to give a sense of speed or anything else. I'm talking about blurred single frames that when played in sequence and at 24fps results in a clean picture. That is why film looks perfect at 24fps but games do not!

*sigh*

[A Black Falcon]

OB1, can't you ever figure out when someone is disagreeing with you and when they aren't?

[Smoke]

But I do understand that. You're the one who doesn't understand that I understand. Understand? :D

I'm going to do something unprecedented for Tendo City. I'm gonna end this argument by walking away.

[Great Rumbler]

I understand more than your understanding.

[OB1]

Seriously man, you really don't know what I am talking about. Paco said that movies look great at 24fps, so therefor games could too. I then explained to him that film looks great at 24fps because each individual frame is blurred into the next, creating a clear, unblurred image when it's animated. Games are not like that, as each frame is still and clear. You cannot have motion blur in games that come together to create a smooth animated picture. It's impossible.

[Paco]

I actually took an Audio/Visual class a few years ago. I had to make my own movie, edit, cut it, etc. I believe the fps could be set up to 27 on the video editting software we used, I think it was Adobe Premier...

Anyway, I'll take the toaster's word for it. 60fps = t3h G0od!!1

[OB1]

Well television shows are shot at 30fps, but 24 actually looks better. :D

[Smoke]

I present the Xbox 360 (supposedly):



Source: Cold Milk

This image has been floating around the net for a while now.

Here's another article on the system that includes another pic.
Biz.Gamedaily.com

[Great Rumbler]

I only see one controller port...

[Smoke]

The X360 will have wireless controllers out of the box.

Another pic:



Apparently that silver thing is the removable HDD.

[Great Rumbler]

Ah right, I remember hearing about that somewhere else.

It's an interesting design, but probably not the final one.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, it looks like a mockup for sure.

[OB1]

If that's the actual design I doubt it'll change much before launch. It's coming out this year, folks.

[Smoke]

Pic of the memory card from ourcolony.net:

[Smoke]

Also the font on the disc tray is the same as in the MTV Xbox 360 commercial.

[A Black Falcon]

[lazyfatbum]

Concave? :snow:

What the hey

[Smoke]

The memory card's got a 70's vibe. Very Atariesque

[Great Rumbler]

I noticed that too.

[Private Hudson]

I think it's a terrible looking console, personally.

[lazyfatbum]

Well, I like it better than the giant brick that the XBox was. This is a nice sleek design. I just dont understand the concaves. One on the bottom makes sense (vent). But the one on top?

And also, now that I see it on the system, the name 'XBox360' looks bizarre. Xenon is a cooler name, but it's the name of a gas.

'Let's go play 360!" - "Look at the new game I got for my 360!" wont enter kid's vocabulary. This system will probably end up being called XBox and people will eventually drop the 360 add-on.

[Smoke]

Well I imagine they didn't want to drop the Xbox name as people wouldn't know what a Xenon was. And as I've heard it they didn't want to call it Xbox 2 since it would sound inferior to Playstation 3.

[Great Rumbler]

they didn't want to call it Xbox 2 since it would sound inferior to Playstation 3.

Boo-hoo.

[A Black Falcon]

It's ridiculous, but that does seem to have been their reasoning...

[Paco]

Supposedly that full pic is an artist rendering, but it's close to what the final product will be.

The only think I really don't like about it is the big green button.:shake:

I think it will look good standing on its side, and maybe it won't have any issues with that like the PS2 did...

[Private Hudson]

My PS2 has been standing on it's side for years and it's working just fine. :D

I think the disk tray and the memory slots look very slick, everything else just looks tacky. It's very bright, the concave thing doesn't work (IMO) and the green button just tops it all off.

But it's not final, just very close to it. So we'll see. :)

[Smoke]

I agree, the disc tray and memory slots are slick. I actually like the look of the power button but it is a bit too big. But the concave design is kind of strange. The only thing I can think of is they wanted it to be more curvy.

Here's a pic of the logo (maybe):



Source: Engadget

[A Black Falcon]

It looks a bit like the Dreamcast logo... :)

[OB1]

That's definitely the logo. It's the one on mtv's xbox 360 announcement commercial.

[OB1]

Also, in that commercial it says that MS's new console is going to revolutionize gaming forever.

... yeah.

I think Microsoft's tagline should be "XBOX 360 - WE'RE GONNA TURN THIS INDUSTRY AROUND 360 DEGREES!"

And their target audience would probably respond with a resounding "YEAH!".

[Great Rumbler]

How is MS going to revolutionize the market?

Xbox360: Better graphics and higher quality sound than you've ever seen before! Now that a revolution, baby!

[A Black Falcon]

I think Microsoft's tagline should be "XBOX 360 - WE'RE GONNA TURN THIS INDUSTRY AROUND 360 DEGREES!"

I think most people would miss the joke, so it'd be a good tagline... :)