[Rhamnetin]

   
But when it says 1080p on the box, that means it's native, right? And does simply connecting an HDMI cable automatically upscale it to 1080p? If not, under which circumstances is that done? Because I thought it would just let it do its thing, whether it be 720p or 1080p.

 
If you set the PS3 to 1080p mode, that makes the system's menus all native 1080p while the vast majority of games will run at 720p upscaled to 1080p.  The few native 1080p games will run at native 1080p like this (I think LittleBigPlanet is one such game).

 

[Music Alchemist]

  If you set the PS3 to 1080p mode, that makes the system's menus all native 1080p while the vast majority of games will run at 720p upscaled to 1080p.  The few native 1080p games will run at native 1080p like this (I think LittleBigPlanet is one such game).

 
I'm just gonna assume that when it says 1080p on the back of the game box, that means it's native 1080p. And I'd say there are more than a few.

 

[Rhamnetin]

   
I'm just gonna assume that when it says 1080p on the back of the game box, that means it's native 1080p. And I'd say there are more than a few.

 
That has been debunked.  When they say 1080p on the back that means native or upscaled, it's ambiguous and just another example of sleezy marketing.  As of December 2013, it seems only 9 games supported native 1080p.
 
http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-General/Playstation-3-1080P-games-list/td-p/42432035/page/2
 
PS3 has 256 MB VRAM and a GPU equivalent to a GeForce 7800GTX at best.  1080p couldn't be run comfortably even in PC gaming until 2 years later (after one revolutionary GPU architecture change as well).

 

[SixthFall]

nope, he is right. The VAST majority of games were up scaled from 720. The ps3 and 360 really didn't have the processing power to push native 1080p in games. Look at GTA V. One of the more demanding games of that generation, and it frequently dips into the low 20's (fps) during game play (and its upscaled from 720 to 1080p.)

 

[Music Alchemist]

  That has been debunked.  When they say 1080p on the back that means native or upscaled, it's ambiguous and just another example of sleezy marketing.  As of December 2013, it seems only 9 games supported native 1080p.
 
http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-General/Playstation-3-1080P-games-list/td-p/42432035/page/2
 
PS3 has 256 MB VRAM and a GPU equivalent to a GeForce 7800GTX at best.  1080p couldn't be run comfortably even in PC gaming until 2 years later (after one revolutionary GPU architecture change as well).

  nope, he is right. The VAST majority of games were up scaled from 720. The ps3 and 360 really didn't have the processing power to push native 1080p in games. Look at GTA V. One of the more demanding games of that generation, and it frequently dips into the low 20's (fps) during game play (and its upscaled from 720 to 1080p.)

 
Well that sucks.

That's what I get for assuming things...
 
Anyway, even if it is just 720p or upscaled 1080p, some of those PS3 games look great!
 
I've been watching anime in 1080p lately and was surprised how much better it looks.

 

[Rhamnetin]

   
Well that sucks.

That's what I get for assuming things...
 
Anyway, even if it is just 720p or upscaled 1080p, some of those PS3 games look great!
 
I've been watching anime in 1080p lately and was surprised how much better it looks.

 
Yep, 1080p is 2.25x larger than 720p. Huge improvement, millions more pixels.  My resolution (2560 x 1440) is about 1.78x larger than 1080p, and 3840 x 2160 is 4x larger than 1080p hence the name 4k.  4k is 2.25x larger than my resolution.
 
4k will become the new standard even though console games won't really be running at it save for a few, but it will be very temporary for me.  5k (5120 x 2880, 1.78x larger than 4k and 4x larger than my current resolution) looks to me like the resolution where aliasing is no longer a problem, so in a few years that will be my target.

 

[SixthFall]

   
Yep, 1080p is 2.25x larger than 720p. Huge improvement, millions more pixels.  My resolution (2560 x 1440) is about 1.78x larger than 1080p, and 3840 x 2160 is 4x larger than 1080p hence the name 4k.  4k is 2.25x larger than my resolution.
 
4k will become the new standard even though console games won't really be running at it save for a few, but it will be very temporary for me.  5k (5120 x 2880, 1.78x larger than 4k and 4x larger than my current resolution) looks to me like the resolution where aliasing is no longer a problem, so in a few years that will be my target.

Well have fun with the 4 way sli titan xp! LOL

 

[Rhamnetin]

  Well have fun with the 4 way sli titan xp! LOL

 
Haha, I did say a few years.  Titan XP will be old news by then.  Also I think Titan XP only supports 2-way SLI, NVIDIA has discontinued Tri-SLI and 4-way SLI.

 

[octiceps]

Back on topic (sort of) what do you guys think of the PS4 Pro?

I'm a PC-only guy, but I'm very interested in whether the PS4 Pro's 2x2 checkerboard rendering, or similarly advanced upscaling techniques via temporal reconstruction, will ever become mainstream on PC titles. It was implemented really well in Rainbow Six Siege, which is the only title on PC that uses checkerboard AFAIK. The requisite hardware for native 4K gaming is still a GPU generation or two away from becoming affordable to the average consumer, but 2 x 1080p upscaled to 4K with a "native" pixel count is much more feasible for current hardware. I was at a Fry's Electronics the other day, looking at 4K in-engine stills from Horizon Zero Dawn on a 4K monitor, and the only giveaway that it was upscaled was the sawtooth pattern aliasing on some edges, temporal artifacts which only show up in static screenshots (MFAA does the same thing on PC). During actual gameplay motion, I'd imagine it would be indistinguishable from native 4K, especially at typical TV viewing distances.

Not to mention, it's useful for VR perf optimization. I remember Valve's talk at GDC this year on how they got VR running on a GTX 680, which is well below VR minspec. One of the optimizations they did to achieve that was radial density masking to skip rendering alternate pixels at the user's peripheral vision and reconstruct those missing pixels using a checkerboard pattern filter.

 

[Rhamnetin]

I'm a PC-only guy, but I'm very interested in whether the PS4 Pro's 2x2 checkerboard rendering, or similarly advanced upscaling techniques via temporal reconstruction, will ever become mainstream on PC titles. It was implemented really well in Rainbow Six Siege, which is the only title on PC that uses checkerboard AFAIK. The requisite hardware for native 4K gaming is still a GPU generation or two away from becoming affordable to the average consumer, but 2 x 1080p upscaled to 4K with a "native" pixel count is much more feasible for current hardware. I was at a Fry's Electronics the other day, looking at 4K in-engine stills from Horizon Zero Dawn on a 4K monitor, and the only giveaway that it was upscaled was the sawtooth pattern aliasing on some edges, temporal artifacts which only show up in static screenshots (MFAA does the same thing on PC). During actual gameplay motion, I'd imagine it would be indistinguishable from native 4K, especially at typical TV viewing distances.

Not to mention, it's useful for VR perf optimization. I remember Valve's talk at GDC this year on how they got VR running on a GTX 680, which is well below VR minspec. One of the optimizations they did to achieve that was radial density masking to skip rendering alternate pixels at the user's peripheral vision and reconstruct those missing pixels using a checkerboard pattern filter.

 
Alternatively you can use downsampling on PC, which is also implemented into many games.  Then there is supersampling.
 
Interesting that you praise it so much though.  I'm going to have to get Rainbow Six: Siege and test it side by side on a 1080p monitor and 4k monitor.

 

[octiceps]

   
Alternatively you can use downsampling on PC, which is also implemented into many games.  Then there is supersampling.
 
Interesting that you praise it so much though.  I'm going to have to get Rainbow Six: Siege and test it side by side on a 1080p monitor and 4k monitor.

 
Downsampling/supersampling is the opposite of what I'm talking about, which is upscaling.
 
To enable checkerboard upscaling in R6 Siege, you have to set MSAA to Temporal Filtering. This renders at half-res (960x540 on 1080p, 1080p on 4K) with 2x MSAA and upscales to native. IQ Comparison

 

[Rhamnetin]

   
Downsampling/supersampling is the opposite of what I'm talking about, which is upscaling.
 
To enable checkerboard upscaling in R6 Siege, you have to set MSAA to Temporal Filtering. This renders at half-res (960x540 on 1080p, 1080p on 4K) with 2x MSAA and upscales to native. IQ Comparison

 
I know it's the opposite, but both result in a picture that's... better than using none of the above.  But like you indicated, I think the reason upscaling is largely absent on PC gaming is because we have access to whatever resolutions are available in the display industry.  Dell has a 5120 x 2880 Ultrasharp monitor, we can play at native 4k, or 3440 x 1440, and now (or soon) 3840 x 1600. 
 
A GTX 1080 actually does quite well in a lot of modern games at 4k; not max settings but settings that look close enough.  I think Volta will make 4k feasible for most gamers if they can afford it.  This all reminds me of 8-10 years ago; PS4 Pro's half-assed 4k support resembling PS3's 1080p support (they simply aren't/weren't powerful enough), high PCs being almost powerful enough for those resolutions but still not quite there yet.

 

[octiceps]

   
I know it's the opposite, but both result in a picture that's... better than using none of the above.  But like you indicated, I think the reason upscaling is largely absent on PC gaming is because we have access to whatever resolutions are available in the display industry.  Dell has a 5120 x 2880 Ultrasharp monitor, we can play at native 4k, or 3440 x 1440, and now (or soon) 3840 x 1600. 
 
A GTX 1080 actually does quite well in a lot of modern games at 4k; not max settings but settings that look close enough.  I think Volta will make 4k feasible for most gamers if they can afford it.  This all reminds me of 8-10 years ago; PS4 Pro's half-assed 4k support resembling PS3's 1080p support (they simply aren't/weren't powerful enough), high PCs being almost powerful enough for those resolutions but still not quite there yet.

 
Downsampling from a higher resolution than native increases image quality at the cost of performance. Upscaling from a lower resolution than native increases performance at the cost of image quality. The point of temporal reconstruction techniques like checkerboard is to mitigate that image quality loss as much as possible. Upscaling has always been a thing in PC games that let you select arbitrary resolutions, it just looks like blurry crap on anything less than native on an LCD. With ultrawide 1440p, 4K, and 5K monitors becoming more mainstream, the need for quality upscaling on PC has never been greater. Why spend crazy money on flagship GPUs to run at native res when you can render at a fraction of that and amortize the cost of native res rendering over multiple sub-native frames while maintaining good image quality? Efficiency > brute force in my book. Even something as simple as nearest neighbor integer upscaling for non-blurry fullscreen 1080p on a 4K monitor, or 1440p on a 5K, would be a godsend if implemented in Nvidia/AMD drivers, but ofc the IHVs don't give a rat's ass as they're in the business of selling you overpriced graphics cards so you can brute-force your way to native resolution.
 
And no, a GTX 1080 is not even close to being a 4K GPU IMO, not even a Titan XP for that matter. A 1080 already has min FPS below 60 at 1080p in recent, demanding titles at near-max to max settings such as TW3 w/HairWorks, DX:MD (Ultra no MSAA), and Forza Horizon 3. PS3 used blurry upscaling algos without the benefit of 2x MSAA that was free for the X360's eDRAM, PS4 Pro uses state-of-the-art techniques like checkerboard that have near-native IQ with HDR on top of that, so really nothing in common, plus Sony made it crystal-clear this time around that Pro is not for native 4K gaming.

 

[Rhamnetin]

   
Downsampling from a higher resolution than native increases image quality at the cost of performance. Upscaling from a lower resolution than native increases performance at the cost of image quality. The point of temporal reconstruction techniques like checkerboard is to mitigate that image quality loss as much as possible. Upscaling has always been a thing in PC games that let you select arbitrary resolutions, it just looks like blurry crap on anything less than native on an LCD. With ultrawide 1440p, 4K, and 5K monitors becoming more mainstream, the need for quality upscaling on PC has never been greater. Why spend crazy money on flagship GPUs to run at native res when you can render at a fraction of that and amortize the cost of native res rendering over multiple sub-native frames while maintaining good image quality? Efficiency > brute force in my book. Even something as simple as nearest neighbor integer upscaling for non-blurry fullscreen 1080p on a 4K monitor, or 1440p on a 5K, would be a godsend if implemented in Nvidia/AMD drivers, but ofc the IHVs don't give a rat's ass as they're in the business of selling you overpriced graphics cards so you can brute-force your way to native resolution.
 
And no, a GTX 1080 is not even close to being a 4K GPU IMO, not even a Titan XP for that matter. A 1080 already has min FPS below 60 at 1080p in recent, demanding titles at near-max to max settings such as TW3 w/HairWorks, DX:MD (Ultra no MSAA), and Forza Horizon 3. PS3 used blurry upscaling algos without the benefit of 2x MSAA that was free for the X360's eDRAM, PS4 Pro uses state-of-the-art techniques like checkerboard that have near-native IQ with HDR on top of that, so really nothing in common, plus Sony made it crystal-clear this time around that Pro is not for native 4K gaming.

 
Most PC gamers including myself don't want to run sub-native resolutions unless absolutely necessary.  If I had a 4k monitor for example, with my GTX 1080 yes I'd want good upscaling for some games until I get a GPU more capable of the resolution.
 
For a GTX 1080 at 4k you just need to disable poorly optimized settings like TW3's Hairworks.  Remember: 99% of PC games are developed with "High" preset in mind, many are even "Medium."  Ultra is tacked on last minute and often has inefficient settings that don't affect image quality much.

 

[octiceps]

Most PC gamers including myself don't want to run sub-native resolutions unless absolutely necessary.

And why is that? Because sub-native output has traditionally meant crappy image quality, no? But that's because upscaling algos in the past have been terrible, which these new techniques are attempting to solve. Look at the R6 Siege comparison I posted earlier. If I didn't tell you, would you have guessed that one was rendering at 1920x1080, and the other at 960x540 (1/4 the pixels)? If good upscaling gets you 50% higher FPS, or lets you play at 60 FPS instead of 30 FPS, and the visual difference is miniscule vs. native, doesn't native fall under the same "inefficiency" argument you made about Ultra settings?

This also begs the question: What does native resolution really mean? As far as I'm aware, there are basically zero modern games that are native res for all their render targets. Maybe a Crysis-like game on PC at absolute max settings, but even that I doubt as it makes no sense from a developmental standpoint being it's a huge waste of resources. AO in games is usually computed at half-res and upscaled using a blur filter so it doesn't appear "rough". SSR and volumetric lighting are often sub-native res as well. If you define native in terms of pixel count, then yes, a PS4 Pro game rendered at 4K using checkerboard is native. It's using real rendered pixels to reconstruct half the image, and the reconstructed pixels are 100% correct data, not guesswork or approximations, so in that sense you might not even call it an upscale. Native resolution isn't as cut-and-dry as most PC gamers think it is.