Wednesday, Feb 23, 2005
I've come to a rather strange conclusion after testing two wheels and playing quite a decent amount of Gran Turismo 4. The game has fantastic elements to it - driving physics, models, and in general great depth. But the graphics engine has managed to give me the kind of paper cut that doesn’t stop bleeding. It's minor enough not to warrant alarm, but annoying enough to babble about.
A resolution as high as 1080i is a feat regardless of platform, be it console or PC. Running any game at 1920x1080 pushes video cards to their limits and then some. The newer GeForce 6800s and Radeon X800s manage to get up that high, but even then the frame rates aren’t all that great. When you tell me that the Playstation 2 outputs 1080i with Gran Turismo 4, that's going to start raising alarm bells. To date there have been oh… no games that do 1080i on the Playstation 2. Even the Xbox only has a handful of very badly implemented games in full high-definition glory.
While playing Gran Turismo 4, I noticed that the player's point of view is in great focus. The objects near your car look fantastic. But when you move that line of sight a few feet out, everything gets super blurry. We aren't talking speed effects; this is from a stand still. The first time I noticed this was during a replay. Three bleary looking cars passed by. Then mine rolled into view; suddenly the game was crisp again. It was seriously like putting on a new pair of glasses. I instantly went from 20/4000 to 20/20. This graphical anomaly varied from track to track, and we haven’t had time to thoroughly investigate it.
The things I've seen could be nothing more than a graphical effect done by the team at Polyphony Digital. It's obvious they've done a lot of tweaking to get this game to run at a resolution as high as 1080i. Textures in the scenery are nowhere near as clear as those found on the cars. Regardless, I see jaggies that simply shouldn’t be there. Even without anti-aliasing, at high definition, jaggies should be minimized greatly. I haven’t had the time to verify for certain, but from a quick run through on our 720p capable TV, the 480p and 1080i versions suffer from a ridiculous amount of graphical artifacts. Lines should not be crawling anywhere near this much. After years of staring at monitors and TVs, confusing 842x480 with 1920x1080 would be downright shameful. Even though our TV isn’t capable of full 1080i, 720p is still an enormous step up from 480p.
I'm going to test Gran Turismo 4 out at home using my 1080i capable HDTV. I'm fairly certain that my results will be along the lines of what I've witnessed in the office. But there's always room for error, maybe I just need to get some sleep and open my eyes a bit wider in a few days.
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Posted Feb 26, 2005 3:33 am PT
That's rather disappointing that the game has problems. Granted, I wouldn't expect it to run well considering that 1080i isn't really something anyone could expect the PS2 to output well, but still. Anyway, at least it looks really good in standard 480i.
Posted Feb 26, 2005 3:52 am PT
GT4 is applying a concept called "focus on what being focused the most". PS2 is an old system (don't take me wrong on this, but its specifications are at least 5 years old), and squezze such a great graphic is amazing. What they mean by 1080i is in fact "1080i on the cars", which every gamer look at. When you are doing a high-speed race, the car will be the only thing you will be looking at; you give less than a second looking at the environment so that's no prblem to me. 1080i is still 1080i.
Posted Feb 26, 2005 3:41 pm PT
im glad a GS editor has finally payed attention to this as it has been the topic of MANY arguments/discussions at SW and GGD....as the best explanation we had before this (dont want to namedrop since i may not remember exactly who it was....i have down to 2, but cant remember which of those 2 said this) was one of the editors saying "well it has a 1080i option, and our TVs support 1080i...so it MUST be displaying true 1080i" ...which was laughable at best for those of us trying to get to the bottom of the ps2's supposed 'out of nowhere' 1080i capability! let us know what conclusion you come to after trying it at home (or any further thoughts if yopu dont come to an actual conclusion)! ...great entry btw...
Posted Feb 26, 2005 5:49 pm PT
Anybody else notice how the screen shakes at the beginning? Also there is a problem with the game freezing sometimes since the game is dual layered. It's still a great game though and too bad I cant afford a HDTV
Posted Feb 26, 2005 6:50 pm PT
I've been playing GT4 on 1080i since I got it, and it looks much better than on 480i or 480p. I do see the shimmering that everyone is talking about, and it looks like something that the developers programmed in to shimmer rather than loose framerate because the shimmering only happens when there are a lot of cars on the screen. It is slightly annoying, but overall 1080i still looks a lot better than any other mode.
Quite frankly, I'm still amazed by how good Gran Turismo 4 looks every time I boot it up. I would say in 1080i mode Gran Turismo 4 looks better than any console game I've ever seen.
Quite frankly, I'm still amazed by how good Gran Turismo 4 looks every time I boot it up. I would say in 1080i mode Gran Turismo 4 looks better than any console game I've ever seen.
Posted Feb 27, 2005 1:34 am PT
If your HDTV TV auto-syncs to a 1080i signal, then the incoming signal is 1080i. However, more lines of resolution does not mean things will look clearer. There are other factors, like source resolution of the bitmaps and number of polygons for objects.
This is why Burnout 3 for XBOX looks only marginally better than Burnout 3 on the PS2. in 480p, you're still looking at muddy bitmaps and low polygon counts.
There's more to this than just lines of resolution.
This is why Burnout 3 for XBOX looks only marginally better than Burnout 3 on the PS2. in 480p, you're still looking at muddy bitmaps and low polygon counts.
There's more to this than just lines of resolution.
Posted Feb 27, 2005 3:27 pm PT
we won't see true 1080i support until the next gen consoles come along.
With those new beasts wielding some hard polygon count/memory/pixel processing power, we are going to be pretty much in extreme high-end PC capabilities which i think, will make 1080i a standard in future consoles.
Just think about it... a console... heavy duty... and the power of the unreal 3 engine in all it's glory without spending 2000$+... JUST CAN'T WAIT!
With those new beasts wielding some hard polygon count/memory/pixel processing power, we are going to be pretty much in extreme high-end PC capabilities which i think, will make 1080i a standard in future consoles.
Just think about it... a console... heavy duty... and the power of the unreal 3 engine in all it's glory without spending 2000$+... JUST CAN'T WAIT!
Posted Feb 27, 2005 5:49 pm PT
I'm impressed enough by what GT4 can do even at 480p. From the player's point-of-view (in other words, if you're keeping your eyes on the road and not on the scenery), it looks incredible (I don't have an HDTV to test 1080i but I imagine it's much the same.)
If Walt Disney could use 5/8 scale and all kinds of optical illusions in Disneyland, I say Polyphony can do whatever it wants to get a soon-to-be museum relic of a system to do high-def.
If Walt Disney could use 5/8 scale and all kinds of optical illusions in Disneyland, I say Polyphony can do whatever it wants to get a soon-to-be museum relic of a system to do high-def.
Posted Feb 28, 2005 6:51 am PT
Thank you for addressing HDTV issues directly. As an HDTV owner, I have been burned a few times by reviews that laud a game's graphics, only to find that when played on my TV, they look horrible.
I simply wish that for the purposes of GameSpot's reviews, the reviewer would try the game on an HDTV with a 5.1 system, so they can comment on how well it will play on higher-end systems. Something like this would have kept me from buying Winning Eleven 8, which looks and sounds abysmal on my home theater.
I simply wish that for the purposes of GameSpot's reviews, the reviewer would try the game on an HDTV with a 5.1 system, so they can comment on how well it will play on higher-end systems. Something like this would have kept me from buying Winning Eleven 8, which looks and sounds abysmal on my home theater.
Posted Feb 28, 2005 3:37 pm PT
Beyond Good and Evil has the best use of HD that I have seen on an Xbox game. Anyone have opinions on the best game to show off ones high definition television? By the way, I think that The Best High Definition Games would be a great Game Spot feature.
Posted Mar 1, 2005 3:21 pm PT
This game won't run in 1080i on my tv, but that may be due to the TV itself...it might be that only the DTV input does 1080i, which is why I've got the cable box plugged into that input. The display on screen says 1080i when I hit the HD channels. When I tried earlier to run 480p sources into that input(all my game systems) I couldn't get a picture. So I've only seen this game in 480i and 480p. It is NOTICABLY better in the latter, at least for me; I don't see how anyone could say that 480i looks better, but ymmv.
Even at 480p, though, I think this is MUCH better looking than 99% of other PS2 games out there, including some really high profile ones, some of which are just plain crappy looking...GTA San Andreas springs to mind. I wasn't very impressed with MGS Snake Eater either, especially after having just replayed the Xbox version of Substance to get ready for it.
I think GT4 is about as good as it's gonna get on the PS2 in terms of graphics.
Even at 480p, though, I think this is MUCH better looking than 99% of other PS2 games out there, including some really high profile ones, some of which are just plain crappy looking...GTA San Andreas springs to mind. I wasn't very impressed with MGS Snake Eater either, especially after having just replayed the Xbox version of Substance to get ready for it.
I think GT4 is about as good as it's gonna get on the PS2 in terms of graphics.
Posted Mar 2, 2005 7:43 pm PT
I have a front projector that can handle 720p and will accept a 1080i signal. I love GT4 so far, but I have to admit that the graphics have been less than what I expected out of High Definition. In fact, a lot less.
My video setup does tend to reveal graphic problems, so I'm not that fair a judge. It is the entire wall after all!
Still, it does look WAY better than GT3. We'll have to wait for the next generation to really see Hi-def games.
My video setup does tend to reveal graphic problems, so I'm not that fair a judge. It is the entire wall after all!
Still, it does look WAY better than GT3. We'll have to wait for the next generation to really see Hi-def games.
Posted Mar 3, 2005 1:45 am PT
The question that springs to my mind is:
If it doesn't work properly, why even use it? Ok, some people might not mind the trade-off for using 1080i, but quite frankly, I do. You see, when you spend all that money on a tv that's got such capabilities, and then buy a game that has that visual prowess as well, you expect it to look that way too. Or am I saying something something completely out of whack here?
Seriously, I'd rather they hadn't put it in at all. Granted, I haven't played the game, but even so I still feel like the developers could've spend their time on more important matters rather than trying to have their game be 'the game that can run on 1080i on the ps2!' It kinda makes me feel like they did it for the sole purpose of using it as a sales pitch
"New and improved GT4! Now with 1080 High Definition! Buy it now!"
I can just imagine seeing it on a tv advertisment or on a poster in my local game store. Bah, is the only word I can really think of in this regard, so bah is what I'll say.
BAH!
If it doesn't work properly, why even use it? Ok, some people might not mind the trade-off for using 1080i, but quite frankly, I do. You see, when you spend all that money on a tv that's got such capabilities, and then buy a game that has that visual prowess as well, you expect it to look that way too. Or am I saying something something completely out of whack here?
Seriously, I'd rather they hadn't put it in at all. Granted, I haven't played the game, but even so I still feel like the developers could've spend their time on more important matters rather than trying to have their game be 'the game that can run on 1080i on the ps2!' It kinda makes me feel like they did it for the sole purpose of using it as a sales pitch
"New and improved GT4! Now with 1080 High Definition! Buy it now!"
I can just imagine seeing it on a tv advertisment or on a poster in my local game store. Bah, is the only word I can really think of in this regard, so bah is what I'll say.
BAH!
Posted Mar 6, 2005 8:35 pm PT
I have now tested GT4 with the 1080i and it is definately not playing at 1080i for me. I am however able to play both 720p and 1080i from my xbox. I am using the component cables for the ps2 and the settings are correct. I do have an older PS2 though. Do I need a newer model? I think it is actually running it in 480p mode. So how do I get 1080i with the great graphics everyone is talking about or is this all a big scam and it is not a 1080i HD signal?
Personally, I can't understand how the hardware could have supported this mode all these years and it not being mentioned anywhere on any PS2 specs. But then, how could a company make a claim that it plays in 1080i when it doesn't?
Personally, I can't understand how the hardware could have supported this mode all these years and it not being mentioned anywhere on any PS2 specs. But then, how could a company make a claim that it plays in 1080i when it doesn't?
Posted Apr 1, 2005 5:31 pm PT
I wish I could test this out for myself. I have a Sony Grand WEGA LCD projection TV and it specifically displays what kind of signal is coming in. So I would be able to say for sure if the signal is indeed 1080i. We currently have a PS2 in the house, but it's not mine and I'm not buying the component cables for a system I don't own.
Man I can't wait for the next gen fully HD compatible consoles =)
Man I can't wait for the next gen fully HD compatible consoles =)
Posted May 4, 2005 12:47 am PT
i just got a Hitachi 46" 46F510 HDTV a few days ago. I tested 480p and 1080i and 1080i looks MUCH better than 480p. I didnt test 480i but im guessing it would be worse than 480p.
going from 1080i from 480p, it eliminated A LOT of jaggies and the the scenery became way sharper. At 480p, everything had jaggies and it looked like crap but 1080i looks amazing.
going from 1080i from 480p, it eliminated A LOT of jaggies and the the scenery became way sharper. At 480p, everything had jaggies and it looked like crap but 1080i looks amazing.
Posted Jun 2, 2005 8:23 am PT
Higher resolution always reveals more flaws in graphics, especially since most if not all console games use the same textures and poly counts at every rez, whereas a PC game usually lets you add more detail to be seen at that higher resolution. It seems playing most console games in HD is like playing a PC game on Max resolution and Min-/Med detail settings.
Posted Mar 18, 2006 5:36 pm PT
I just got this allienwere pc its great machine ,it seems with higher resolution brings more details to the game ist self
Posted Jul 8, 2006 10:04 am PT
Wait a minute, a HDTV is really expensive.
Posted Jul 16, 2006 12:52 am PT
That's true
Posted Nov 20, 2008 6:13 am PT
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On my TV (a Sony XBR960, which does 1080i very, very well), GT4 looks considerably better running at 480i than in either 480p or 1080i, with 1080i looking the worst of all. At least 480p just looks chunky, but 1080i is shimmery, chunky _and_ blurry in spots. Considering the limitations of the PS2 hardware, it's an amazing feat that they can even output any sort of signal at that rate, especially with no real game slowdown, but the compromises that they had to make to do it really were not worth it in my opinion. A friend of mine was thinking about getting a new HDTV just to play GT4 in HD and it's good that he never did!