|
MS Engineer: to render pixel 1080i/p has 55pct less time than 720pPublished by patto on Sunday, October 22, 2006
From Bruce Dawson (Microsoft senior software design engineer) on Andre Vrignaud's Blog (Microsoft's Director of Technical Strategy for Xbox Live):
Many developers, gamers, and journalists are confused by 1080p. They think that 1080p is somehow more challenging for game developers than 1080i, and they forget that 1080 (i or p) requires significant tradeoffs compared to 720p. Some facts to remember:
* 2.25x: that's how many more pixels there are in 1920x1080 compared to 1280x720
* 55.5%: that's how much less time you have to spend on each pixel when rendering 1920x1080 compared to 1280x720--the point being that at higher resolutions you have more pixels, but they necessarily can't look as good
* 1.0x: that's how much harder it is for a game engine to render a game in 1080p as compared to 1080i--the number of pixels is identical so the cost is identical. There is no such thing as a 1080p frame buffer. The frame buffer is 1080 pixels tall (and presumably 1920 wide) regardless of whether it is ultimately sent to the TV as an interlaced or as a progressive signal.
* 1280x720 with 4x AA will generally look better than 1920x1080 with no anti-aliasing (there are more total samples).
A few elaborations:
Any game could be made to run at 1920x1080. However, it is a tradeoff. It means that you can show more detail (although you need larger textures and models to really get this benefit) but it means that you have much less time to run complex pixel shaders. Most games can't justify running at higher than 1280x720--it would actually make them look worse because of the compromises they will have to make in other areas.
1080p is a higher bandwidth connection from the frame buffer to the TV than 1080i. However the frame buffer itself is identical. 1080p will look better than 1080i--interlaced flicker is not a good thing--but it makes precisely zero difference to the game developer. Just as most Xbox 1 games let users choose 480i or 480p, because it was no extra work, 1080p versus 1080i is no extra work. It's just different settings on the display chip.
Inevitably somebody will ask about field rendering. Since interlaced formats display the even lines on one refresh pass and then the odd lines on the next refresh pass, can't games just render half of the lines each time? Probably not, and even if you could you wouldn't want to. You probably can't do field rendering because it requires that you maintain a rock solid 60 fps. If you ever miss a frame it will look horrible, as the odd lines are displayed in place of the even, or vice-versa. This is a significant challenge when rendering extremely complex worlds with over 1 million pixels per field (2 million pixels per frame) and is probably not worth it. And, even if you can, you shouldn't. The biggest problem with interlaced is flicker, and field rendering makes it worse, because it disables the 'flicker fixer' hardware that intelligently blends adjacent lines. Field rendering has been done in the past, but it was always a compromise solution.
News-Source: ozymandias.com
( Subscribe via
)
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| Friday, April 12 | | Umbraclaw hits Xbox, PlayStation, Switch & PC |
Thursday, April 11 | | TMNT: Wrath of the Mutants Hits XBOX, PlaySta |
| GIC’24 Early Bird Tickets Now Available |
Wednesday, April 10 | | Mars 2120 launches out of Early Access onto a |
Tuesday, April 09 | | Die by the Blade Slashes Its Way onto PC in M |
Monday, April 08 | | Strike Gold with the Call of Duty Gold & Silv |
| Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters Arrives May 21st |
Thursday, March 28 | | FALLEN LEAF Teams Up with STUDIOS EXTRAORDINA |
Tuesday, March 26 | | Explore the World of Ink Painting in Realm of |
Monday, March 25 | | JSAUX’S Black MODCASE for the ROG Ally Is Ava |
Friday, March 22 | | Barton Lynch Pro Surfing Update v1.07 is LIVE |
| RuneScape developer Jagex joins CVC Capital P |
Thursday, March 21 | | Paper Ghost Stories: Third Eye Open coming to |
Wednesday, March 20 | | Dark JRPG Graphic Adventure 'Neon Blood' debu |
Tuesday, March 19 | | Hauntii hits Xbox Game Pass for console and P |
Monday, March 18 | | Discover the Sound of Life in The Lullaby of |
Thursday, March 14 | | WWII-based strategy epic Classified: France ' |
| Night Slashers: Remake confirmed for XBOX, Pl |
Wednesday, March 13 | | Highwater is coming soon for Xbox X|S, XB1, P |
Tuesday, March 12 | | Terra Memoria is set to launch on Xbox Series |
| Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland releases in M |
Monday, March 11 | | Sonic X Shadow Generations hits Xbox One, Xbo |
Friday, March 08 | | Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator out now f |
| Sci-fi adventure 'Sky of Tides' announced for |
Thursday, March 07 | | Planet Zoo: Console Edition arrives on March |
Wednesday, March 06 | | MLB The Show 24 launches later this month on |
| FLIPGO: A portable dual monitor that you can |
Tuesday, March 05 | | EARTHLOCK 2 Reveals New Details On Desert Shi |
Monday, March 04 | | Reverse-city builder, Flooded Out Now on Xbox |
| REVEIL launches this week on Xbox Series, PS5 |
See All Xbox 360 News | Xbox 360 News Archive
|
| |