First 1080p Xbox 360 Games Announced

rwven writes "In the October firmware update to the Xbox 360, Microsoft added the capability for their new console to reach the coveted 1080 resolution. EA and Sega have both announced new titles that will reach that resolution, the first for the system. They're not the most visually intense games (NBA Street Homecourt, and Virtua Tennis 3), but this is another symptom of the tight race between all three consoles. Does this change the playing field at all between Sony and Microsoft?" Moreover, does the resolution of a title matter all that much to you yet? Do you have an HDTV that can even reach 1080p? If you do, does reaching 1080p make you more likely to buy a game?

Comments

wont you notice lack of realism more?

[192939495969798999]

With a really high-res video game, especially a game like basketball, I think you'd notice the lack of realism after a certain point. For example, you'd see clearly that the edges are being rendered by a computer, versus if they're a bit fuzzy, and that fuzzy effect is used to its advantage, then it might look a bit more like a regular tv broadcast of a basketball game.

Re:wont you notice lack of realism more?

[Wordplay]

Between anti-aliasing and judicious use of lighting effects, this really isn't that much of an issue. It's more of one at lower resolutions. Low-res fixed-pixel displays don't make the picture fuzzy, they make it blocky and more obviously pixelated. It's true that SDTV CRT televisions tended to hide jaggies and pixelation, but that was because of the tech (electron guns and phosphors aren't completely precise), not because of the resolution.

Re:wont you notice lack of realism more?

[Assmasher]

Prior to the introduction of shaders this was a very likely scenario; however, there are approaches to pixel shading which result in polygonal edges which mitigate this (potentially very well). It is also important to remember that on most models, only certain areas (i.e. on humans look at elbows/forearms, shoulder joints depending upon the animation) where edge issues are actually prominent or provide the ability to become prominent. A greater angle of incidence (which is usually the current solution, and I apologize for using the term angle of incidence this way) results in a lesser likelyhood of the mesh geometry standing out inappropriately. This is often coupled with multiple sets of skin weights which are used for different sets of animations in order to elasticize the skin more appropriately (for example using different skin weight sets for animations where a player lifts both arms up over his/her head than the weights used for when the player is dribbling.)

Short answer is no

[JFMulder]

Long answer is no.

Seriously tough, while a fun game is a fun game, a fun game with great graphics is even better.

upconversion/upscaling...

[Anonymous Coward]

My HDTV does 1080p...but I've noticed that when I "stretch" the image from a videogame...upconversion smooths everything out, and makes it look 1080p...I expect that unless they sink time/money into coming up with dazzling textures, most folks will be disappointed.

Re:Hilarious

[Osty]

Second, it's true that none of the current 360 games run natively in 1080p, but most of them can currently be scaled to 1080p by the hardware scaler... which is something the PS3 can't do for its games that run lower than 1080p.

Actually, all Xbox 360 games can currently be scaled to 1080p by the hardware scaler. That's the beauty of a hardware scaler -- you tell it you want 1080p (or 720p, or 1080i, or whatever), and that's what you get every time. While scaling is not the same as natively rendering in 1080p with high resolution textures, it's still better than trusting your TV to upscale properly. The 360's hardware scaler works upon the digital image prior to sending it to the TV. Your TV has to work with an analog signal (because the 360 doesn't do HDMI/DVI). Your TV's scaler in general won't do as well as the 360's scaler, and some TVs can introduce lag when scaling images that's not present when given a signal in their native resolution.

After being spoiled by the 360's scaler for over a year, I was somewhat disappointed with my Wii. With the 360, I've set it to 720p and I don't have to worry about anything else, whether a game supports that resolution or is widescreen or not (the 360 will appropriately side-box original Xbox 480i/p 4:3 games so I don't have adjust my set). The Wii acts more like the original Xbox, where I have to visually determine if a game is 16:9 or 4:3 and shrink or stretch the set's mode appropriately. From what I hear, the PS3 is the same way. Ugh. Hopefully the next generation of consoles (5 years from now) will all have hardware scalers.