Xbox Soul Calibur 2 and 720p mode

[marcus]

When I run Soul Calibur 2 in 720p mode there are large borders left and right hand side of the screen, like the ratio is 4:3. Im unable to alter this via my plasma screens wide modes, as its fixed to one set mode. Anyone else experience this? I have to switch 720p mode off to view the game widescreen.

[MrDark]

I heard that it doesn't suppory widescreen in 720p during gameplay modes and only the FMVs were in widescreen.
Just happened to come across it a few nights ago:

http://www.felixmcli.org/sc2-xb720p.html

[marcus]

Oh dear....

[geldra]

I only have the PS2 version so i may be well wide of the mark but isnt there a widescreen mode in the "Displays" menu in "Options"?

The link in the post above shows that the xbox dash is set to 720 etc etc but it doesnt show the in game menu as being set to 16:9 blah blah.....

[marcus]

Hi,

Its already set to widescreen mode in the Xbox menu,

Regards

[geldra]

****.

[geldra]

Hi,

Its already set to widescreen mode in the Xbox menu,

Regards

not the xbox menu I mean in the Soul Cali 2 menu where you can change the round times and control setups etc theres a "Display" option isnt there?

[geldra]

oops.

[Super Stu]

Indeed, I noted this in the staff forum when we were doing the SC2 reviews. It's the same on 2 other plasmas that I know of. Other than perhaps a resolution/speed issue (the xbox is pumping out more pixels in 720p mode, akin to running a PC game at a higher resolution) I've no idea what it might be.

[gIzzE]

Hmmm very strange

what plasma are you using ??

surely the fact that it is 720p it surely must be widescreen as 1280x720 which is the reselution for 720p is a 16:9 resolution.

Do the characters look like they have the correct proportion ???
if they are looking extra tall then your plasma might think that it is receiving a 1280x768 4:3 resolution and scaling it to 4:3.

I will try it on my projector, as it is a crt and not digital, and see what happens.

seeing as the fmv is using a the whole 1280 across I think that it is just poor coding or lack of processing power in the xbox and it is not your panel.

[Super Stu]

I've no idea what plasma my other mate or marcus is using, but the one I viewed it on was some Pioneer (couldn't tell you the model, cost 5k).

OK, here's the deal in 720p (and I can verify it is indeed 720p and not 480p as the Pioneer advises you as such).

Intro - full screen

menu - slight borders left and right, everything in proportion as when running in 480p, 16:9

game - 4:3, massive borders left and right, characters in correct proportion.

Now, my guestimate is that the xbox is rendering black pixels to intentionally border the left an right, to save texturing them (akin to turning down detail on a high res pc game).

Folk forget that consoles need to work harder to render anything > 480p (which is normal ntsc resolution, except all scanlines are rendered by the screen).

Thats my $0.02 anyway.

[gIzzE]

I reckon you are exactly right on that, I really do think that they have had no choice but to loose 30% odd of information because the Xbox cant keep up.

Does it support 1080i as there is less work to do in that resolution ??

[Super Stu]

Nah, only 720p. Even if you enable 1080i in the dash, it still only uses 720p.

Interesting that you suggest 1080i uses less resources. Now I don't know what effective resolutions 720p and 1080i translate to (though it's something like 1920x1080 for 1080i, isn't it?), but I'm sure 1080i wouldn't be less work.

Even though the TV is only rendering every other scanline per vertical refresh, the frame is still rendered "progressive scan" in the frame buffer. As such, 480p is no more extra work to consoles as normal interlaced ntsc.

Unless the drawing of frames is synched (correctly) to the TV outputting them, ie the only scan lines rendered are those that are to be displayed, then 1080i would require more work than 720p?

Again, just a guess.