PS2 to support HD Resolution (1 Viewer)

[JoshF]

An excerpt from PSM magazine's preview of Sled Storm:

"1080i support for HDTV owner is planned as well, making it one of the first PS2 games on record to feature progressive scan output."

First they bring us DTS5.1 on the PS2, and now HD resolutions. Cool.

 

[Sean Oneil]

??? This sounds fishy to me,

First of all, 1080i and 'progressive scan output' are two completely different things. 1080i is 1080 INTERLACED LINES (not progressive scan), and has a higher scanning range than 480 progressive.

Secondly, this would not be a software processing trick like with DD or DTS audio, as the video output stage of the PS2 would need to be modified to output at a higher scanning frequency -as both 480p and 1080i scan at higher frequencies than the PS2's 480i output.

Can somebody explain this one to me ???

Are the guys at PSM magazine smoking something crystally, or were they just mis-informed by the game's publisher? OR, is this really possible with a PS2 (I don't think it is) ? ?

 

[Dave F]

I'll guess either mis-information or crack, although I'd be happy to be wrong.
Still, if it comes to pass, I shudder to think what the textures would look like.
-Dave

 

[Jeff Kleist]

It's probably something that was built into the PS2 to begin with. Just like the X-Box all it takes is the proper connector "key" to activate it.

 

[Andrew Grall]

Call me when this actually happens...

Don't you think Sony would be yelling and screaming from the mountaintops if their console was actually capable of what the X-Box is capable of?

 

[JoshF]

Sony has pretty much said that the PS2 supports up to XGA resolution, as the Linux kit that's already out for beta testers supports it. Given that, 1080i shouldn't be hard to activate at all.

 

[Ike]

Can it do progressive scan?

 

[Dave F]

I hate to play the part of the optimist here but it is nice to see a magazine taking notice of the world of higher resolutions. Who knows what Sled Storm will finally support, and there ain't no such thing as "1080i progressive", but it's a step in the right direction.
And I have to admit, all of the interlaced/progressive jargon was pretty confusing at first, so I'll cut the guy some slack.
-Dave

 

[Ryan Peter]

Dave, it's nice to see them use the term 1080i, but out of the blue without any explanation? And then to misuse the term progressive (something the PS2 doesn't currently support in the real world).

 

[Dave F]

Well, I'm guessing that there was no explanation because they don't understand it in the first place. The writer is definitely not a home theater nut and this stuff is confusing to newbies. I'm just considering this a very small step forward.

-Dave

 

[Iain Lambert]

I'm sure I've read a whole bunch of posts about lack of video memory in the PS2. With the finger of blame lying here for the lack of X-Box games that can even do higher than 480p even though thats got far more, I'm sceptical to say the least.

 

[Brad Grenz]

The PS2 is capable of outputting video up to 1280x1024 progressive. Nobody does that cause it's impractical. The PS2 isn't incapable of 480p either, just nobody uses it cause it makes texture management that much harder. Everybody runs their games in field mode to preserve as much VRAM for texturing as possible. But it can output in progressive.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

4MB of VRAM = no 3D HD games for PS2.

Take it to the bank, that article is full of shit.

 

[Ryan Peter]

Brad, ergo the term "real world", ie the stuff that actually goes into games, not the numbers on the paper.

 

[BrianShort]

It seems that Tekken 4 will support progressive output through the PS2. There is some info posted in this thread over at DVDTalk http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=195453
I can believe this is accurate, as the FAQ for the PS2 Linux kit states that it supports 480p, 720p, and 1028i DTV output modes.
Now I guess I just need a progressive scan TV
Brian

 

[Scott L]

Already being discussed here Brian. Thanks for the link, it seems that it's not only the gaming boards that are floating this rumor around.

 

[Demetri K]

Check this out!! it's part of a article I have. This should put to rest that the ps2 although a older machine still can output graphics as good as the xbox. Keep in mind the Xbox is easy to program for, the PS2 isn't. Keep in mind the is just the graphics chip specs. Not a system as a whole. And this is no means a post on which system is better!!! All that I am saying is that Xbox programmers mastered programming for that system. PS2 isn't mastered yet.

The Graphics Chip and VRAM

This is where the images are rendered. The XBox uses an Nvidia Graphics Processing

Unit running at 250MHz and the PS2 uses the Graphics Synthesizer running at 150MHz.

Again, judging by these specs the XBox looks better.

The XBox GPU has a few advantages over the PS2 GS, for example:

-The XBox GPU can do 125 million polygons while the PS2 GS can only do 75million polygons

-The XBox GPU has a max. resolution of 1920x1080 and the PS2 GS can do 1280x1024

The rest of the graphics chip will be comparable to NV-20 chip.

But the catch is that these advantages don't make alot of difference on a TV screen, even

on an HDTV screen the difference would be barely noticeable (when the console's hardware

is used properly).

So, is the XBox Graphics Processing Unit better than the PS2 GS? It doesn't look like it,

the architecture of the PS2 GS looks far more advanced. For example, PS2 has a parallel

rendering engine that contains a 2,560 bit wide data bus that is 20 times the size of

leading PC-based graphics accelerators. The Graphics Synthesizer architecture can

execute recursive multi-pass rendering processing and filter operations at a very fast

speed without the assistance of the main CPU or main bus access. In the

past, this level of real-time performance was only achieved when using very expensive,

high performance, dedicated graphics workstations. There is a 48-Gigabyte memory access

bandwidth achieved via the integration of the pixel logic and the video memory on a

single high performance chip.The quality of the resulting screen image is comparable to

high quality pre-rendered 3D graphics. (that is once the game developers have learned

how to use it properly) There has also been a misunderstanding about the VideoRAM on the

PS2. The VRAM is included in the 32MB of main RAM on the CPU (the developer chooses how

much of it he wants to dedicate to VRAM). Everyone thought the 4MB of memory on the GS

was the VRAM while that is just a buffer in which all the rendering is done so no

external bandwidth is needed (only for texture streaming). Another rumour that's been

spread by several gaming sites is that the XBox is capable of texture compression and

full scene anti-aliasing while the PS2 isn't. This is simply not true. The PS2 can

compress/decompress textures and do full scene anti-aliasing without causing as much

slow-down as on the XBox. And although the XBox GPU can do alot of effects that are

not 'built-in' in the PS2 GS, the PS2 can do all these effects and more in software mode

(but atleast at the same quality) through the Emotion Engine.

I can understand that this is all a bit confusing if you're not a real tech-freak.

It comes down to this: when developers have learned how to use the power of the PS2

GS properly they'll get alot more out of it than XBox developers will get out of the

XBox GPU. The PS2 GS can't do as much polygons as the XBox but this difference won't

be noticeable on a TV screen. The PS2 GS can do alot more advanced visual effects

than the XBox GPU.

Well there it is. you can't argue with numbers.

 

[Demetri K]

Oh and by the way the rumors of Pscan are true for tekken 4. It looks wonderful!

 

[Andrew s wells]

I would like to say i feel a bit differently about programmers having already mastered the Xbox. Thats essentialy saying that its already gotten its maximum performance. For a system thats only been out for about roughly 5 months? These games that are out now had to have been started on incomlete development kits, so i cant see any remote possibilty that we've come anywhere near to the max of what Xbox can do.

 

[Rachmat Hartono]

Sled Storm does NOT support 1080i. This has been confirmed before in previous thread. Just another PS2 marketing hype.