Rumour: PS3 can't upscale games?

[NekoFever]

It seems that way. A few people over on GAF who have Japanese retail units have confirmed that attempting to play Resistance (a 720p game) with the XMB set to 1080i are greeted with an error message that prompts them to switch it to 480p. This happens over component and HDMI, and Insomniac has stated that it's a hardware issue, not software. The current rumour is that the PS3 doesn't actually have a hardware scaler.

This probably won't affect many people over here since our HDTVs are required to support 720p and 1080i as a minimum, but in the States a lot of people have HD CRTs that don't support 720p and can only display 480i/p and 1080i. Those people will only be able to play 720p PS3 games at 480p, regardless of their AV connection.

Another big thread about the issue over on the IGN Boards (requires Insider) where from the looks of things a ton of people in the US are affected by this and are mightily pissed.

[Concept]

Ouch. I can see this one running.

[DCharlie]

wow they need to get around this quickly if true.

you can't be saying things like "next gen says when we say it does" then miss something shockingly basic like this.

[charlesr]

I can't believe this is true. Surely someone playtested the ps3 before release?

[dvdmike]

wow they need to get around this quickly if true.

you can't be saying things like "next gen says when we say it does" then miss something shockingly basic like this.

Maybe it hasn't started yet

[NekoFever]

Reported on IGN now:

As it turns out, gamers who own older HD sets that boast only 480i, 480p, and 1080i resolutions will have 720p signals downsized to 480 instead of being upscaled to 1080i. We tested this development on older television sets with max-720 games Resistance: Fall of Man, NHL 2K7, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07, and Need for Speed Carbon. Sure enough, the system downscaled all four titles to 480p rather than moving up to 1080i.

With any luck whatever's going on here should be cleared up soon, but this is at best a pretty big oversight. Not least when many of the affected TVs are Sony models.

[DCharlie]

erm... now i might be being dim here, but can't you just force 1080i in the dash?

[Iori]

Hmmm... I haven't messed around with this too much, but I do recall specifically setting 1080i in the dash last night and playing Genji. I noticed the projector was most certainly not running in 1080i or 720p for that matter (it may have come up with a message but i wouldn't know as it's the only game I have not in english).

I did set the dash to 720p and restart the game - it was a significantly clearer picture, but I can't remember if it was running at 480 beforehand...

[weresheep]

erm... now i might be being dim here, but can't you just force 1080i in the dash?

The problem seems to be that if a game only renders at 720, but the console is set to 1080, then the game throws up an error. The way the Xbox 360 handles this is that it uses an internal scaler to convert the internal image to whatever resolution the users display is set at. So a game can render at 720 and the Xbox 360 will up convert that to 1080 before outputing the image.

The PS3 seems to lack this ability.

The only work around that would seem possible would be for all games to be able to render at all resolutions which means more work for the developers. Of course, unless these first games get patched it means you're **** out of luck unless your set does 720.

If this is true, which it seems to be, then its sounds like Sony decided to push the compatibility problem onto the game developers themselves rather than Microsofts system level approach.

At least you don't have to worry about the Wii having the same problem

-weresheep

[C']

Does this mean that if, hypothetically speaking, I had just splashed out the cash for a 1080P compatible TV, and hook up my spiffing new PS3 to it and set the dashboard to 1080P but load a game that only supports up to 720P I have to change the dashboard setting for that game?

Isn?t that really, really poor?

[Simmy]

The HD era really only starts when we are on the market

TWIT

[NekoFever]

Does this mean that if, hypothetically speaking, I had just splashed out the cash for a 1080P compatible TV, and hook up my spiffing new PS3 to it and set the dashboard to 1080P but load a game that only supports up to 720P I have to change the dashboard setting for that game?

Isn?t that really, really poor?

It's not quite that bad, but apparently it'll just output 720p and let your TV handle the scaling. It shouldn't be a problem since every 1080p TV will be able to handle 720p but obviously if your TV has a poor scaler (or, more worryingly, image lag when scaling) it'll cause issues.

The big problem is for people with 1080i TVs since they can't play in anything but 480p. Even people with 1080i native TVs that can handle 720p will have to play in their non-native resolution.

[Mofoman]

LOL @ SONY.....AGAIN!!

Another disgrageful issue with the console and another area where the 360 has it licked.I'm sorrry if thats sounds a bit trolly, but it's the way I feel.

This is an issue for alot of people who joined the HD era early, it is simply not their fault the tv does not support the resolution, it does support 1080 i, which SHOULD just like the 360 be handled by the hardware, so people with these tv's can enjoy their hd games in the best possible res for them.

The joke is the majority of these sets are made by Sony themselves, so this problem should have been allievated during r and d, god knows they had long enough.

[vertigo]

The joke is the majority of these sets are made by Sony themselves, so this problem should have been allievated during r and d, god knows they had long enough.

Similar to when the PS came out, lots of Sony's newer TVs at the time had very low signal tolerance ranges in AV mode, and the PS was a bit all over the place as hardware goes, so a lot of Sony TVs wouldn't actually run the PS happily. Mate of mine could only run his one through RF on his TV for this reason, coz the AV channel would spaz out and flicker using anything else to connect it

[NeilMcRae]

In my view I'd rather have the native resolution than some botched scaled up job. How the scaling works and keeps things like Ghost Recon or other shooting gamse accurate is beyond me.