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Xbox 360 Not Hi-Def Enough?
News for nerds writes "One of the features touted for Xbox 360 is its requirement for games to be 720p and 1080i HDTV resolutions, dubbed The HD Era by Microsoft. Today it's revealed and discussed in the official forum of Bizarre Creations, the Project Gotham Racing 3 developer, that in the final review build for PGR3 the in-game races are actually rendered in 1024x600 to get constant 30fps/2xAA. The game is stretched to 720p (1280x720) in the upscaler, which is faking HD at best." As always with late-night forum mutterings, imbibe with a grain of salt.
My point, exactly.
If you're touting how awesome your hardware and developer kits are, why would you allow your developers (in-house or contracted) to half-ass it?
So you're saying Bizarre are bad coders? Have you ever actually played one of their games? Specifically any of the games in this series, going back to the original Metropolis Street Racer on Dreamcast.
What, you mean the same Metropolis Street Racer that had to be recalled in the UK because the developer left a bug in there that meant that you lost half your accumulated Kudos points every time you completed a certain type of race - making game completion impossible? The same Metropolis Street Racer that was due for release with the console on 9th September, 1999, but didn't actually see a release until 3rd November, 2000?
You're right. They aren't bad coders. Just sloppy. And yet I still love 'em.
My Mind Is Rewired. Is Yours?
Depending on how Sony and MS have designed their systems, this is going to be a challenge for developers. Most gamers will be playing at 480p, while the minority have 720p or 1080i available. The games need to look great and run smooth in both SD and HD. Anyone know how the systems have been designed to accomodate this? Which is more likely; when rendering HD some effects or polygons will be reduced, or will standard def renderings just run at higher framerates?
I mean, if the stupid game will barely fit on a DVD... or even worse, require Blu-Ray... where is all the talk about super-high speed memory busses and uber-fast drives with ginormous buffers?
This is engineering, folks, and there's always a tradeoff in engineering. All that HD ain't free. And most people won't even care if it's 480p or 720i.