Does the PS3 upscale?

[Unwell Cat]

I have 1080p native TV. What should I have the video settings on the PS3 set to? Should I tick 720p, 1080i and 1080p all or some of them?

Most of the PS3 games I understand are 720p only so should I only have 720p ticked? I'm confused as I've read that you lose quality running a 720p game on a 1080p set with 1080p ticked.

Is this right or am I just having a breakdown of some description.

[sj33]

The PS3 upscales DVDs, PS1 games and (if your PS3 supports them) PS2 games. However, it doesn't upscale PS3 games - they will run at whatever resolution the game supports. It's quite common for games to have their own internal upscaling though.

Just enable all resolutions.

There will always be scaling going on somewhere in the process. Your TV will internally upscale 720p games to 1080p because the TV itself is 1080p. There's no avoiding it really, it all depends on which scaler is the best. But just enable all resolutions, because the PS3 won't internally upscale anyway.

Besides, few games are actually 720p or 1080p natively anyway, so there's no point worrying about 'native' resolutions.

[Unwell Cat]

I'm confused. Why is it some people are suggesting certain PS3 games are better run on a 1080p set with 1080p unticked in the PS3 dash and only leaving 720p ticked?

Bioshock 1 and 2 spring to mind. Bioshock 2 appears to look worse when I have 1080p ticked but looks better when I only have 720p ticked.

[sj33]

Basically because of misinformation. Your TV only has one native resolution - 1080p. Scaling to that resolution has to take place somewhere in the process, be it by the game, or by the TV itself.

By disabling 1080p on your PS3, you will be sending the game to the TV as 720p, but the TV itself still has to upscale it to 1080p internally. In the case of Bioshock 2 (which I have not played), it may have some kind game-side upscaling, and it may be that the TV's own scaling is better. I'm surprised that you say it's so noticable, though.

[Unwell Cat]

Thanks mate, it's good to see someone who knows his stuff.

So basically if I tick 1080p only on the PS3 and leave it at that the TV upscales. If I tick both 1080p and 720p the PS3 upscales and there is no telling which one will be better at the upscaling process, is that correct?

[sj33]

Yeah. If you untick 1080p on the PS3 (which I assume is what you meant), everything be sent to the TV as 720p (and 1080p native games will be downscaled to 720p).

It's better to have 1080p ticked because 720p-only games will still be sent as 720p (unless the game happens to have it's own internal upscaling, like Bioshock 2), and 1080p-native games will be correctly sent in full resolution. The PS3 will not upscale 720p games unless they happen to have some kind of in-game upscaling (though of course, the TV will still do this automatically).

You want 720p ticked at all times btw, otherwise 720p games will downscale to 480p!

[Unwell Cat]

Thanks mate, I'll guess I'll just leave 720p and 1080p ticked. I can't be bothered faffing around with changing it.

[Brad]

if it looks worse with 1080p ticked then the game devs have cocked up basically. Vf5 has this issue: if you let your ps3 support 1080p then vf5 actually renders at a lower res and then upscales. Sega aren't very good with ps3 hardware really. So, sometimes it does pay to temporarily disable 1080p for a particular game.

[anephric]

If it's Lair, then it's a good idea to disable 1080p AND 720p.