Quite alot i see....
Well I'm glad that some people have been able to post their own experiences, and as I thought some do see the "aliasing" while others dont. This of course makes me wonder if those "shitty kiosks" actually do exist and not isolated to Renton, WA.
And yes, as promised, I did go back to Wal Mart to check up on the configuration of the display and see if it was correct as some of you here say wasnt. I even called two of my friends who were able to go and try it out much earlier, for I was still at work the whole day. Now both these guys are gamers, but I wouldnt classify them as truly hardcore though. Over the phone I asked what there impressions were. (note: they went seperately). And the concensus was split, one walked away optimistic, while the other said he'd hold off for awhile. They both had the general feeling that graphically everything looked good and crisp, but nothing that really blew them away. I asked if they too noticed the jaggies, and aparently so, yes they did. One said it didnt really bother him that much but said he wished they could have gotten rid of it because it really threw off that suspension of disbelief in games like Kameo, where if there werent any jaggies, it'd be hard to tell if it was pre rendered or a game generated real-time image. The other guy was more concerned with the unstable frame rates, but after playing through, both generally felt that the 360 was a solid system. But, again, the Jaggies were still there for both of 'em.
So this made me think that maybe there could be something wrong with the setup as some of you had suggested, cuz if we here see the aliasing, why do others in other states say there is virtually "no aliasing"?? Could it be the setup? Could some people not know what aliaing is and not notice at all? Or could some of the posters here be such die hards that after playing with the kiosks and noticing the aliasing just couldnt admit it to themselves and have their fanboyism take a hold of themselves?? Boy did i want to get to the bottom of this, and couldnt wait till i got off work.
Anyway, i finally arrived at the games section, and luckily again for me, there was no line to try out the 360. I convinced one of the teenage employees to open the glass cage for me so i could open the system tray and go to the dash/menu settings. After a little hesitation, he obliged, and we went to work. He first switched the system off and turned it on again. I looked at the Lcd while he did this and as i suspected the "component in" text showed up like when the "AV 1, AV 2" texts show up on your tvs when you switch off/on your dvd players. So obviously it was hooked with the stock component cables. Now that i was in the system config screen, I checked the display settings and sure enough, it was set on 720P. So this lays to rest any of your claims that what i played on was mis configured. Unfortunately, I wasnt able to mess with the Lcd calibration settings, because the kid didnt know how to and said he didnt know where the remote was. A little setback but not a biggie for me. So off once more into the battlefield......
First game I re-played was King Kong. I guess i jus couldnt fight the feeling of how this gave me such a bad impression the first time i tried it over 24 hours earlier. I picked the humans scenario, where your being chased by a T-rex. And jus like before, as the intro scene was being played out, i moved the camera about, and zoomed in on the NPC's. Man, jus as ugly as before. Now i know this is jus a port, so i guess i can forgive the ps2 quality character models, but there is no excuse for the aliasing/shimmering that was apparent around these guys. Couple that with the choppy framerate, especially when your Kong, and those issues are jus inexcusable for a port from lesser systems. You'd expect this to at least be 60fps. Any of you remember the amazing Dreamcast port they made of that ps1 game Soul Reaver? That amazed me. OK, ok, i'll cut the devs some slack cuz maybe this could jus be an early build, so heres hoping they get those things fixed come release day.
Up next was Kameo. And again, i give this game kudos for its amazing use of parallax mapping and other effects. You jus cant tell those bricks on the walls and ground is actually a flat texture! So yes, same story, aliasing was still there. And i didnt have to really find it. Its pretty evident on the crates, spikes and other non organic surfaces. The characters themselves are really well done, but they seem to be really sharp around the edges, and i dont mean blockiness. Framerate issue was the same, around 30 fps, but occasional dips here and there. Im still hoping because this is an early build. For a game that has jumped on 3 consoles, taken so long to develop for you'd wonder why they couldnt hit 60 on this. Yea i kno, i know, blame it on late dev kits or what...but thing is not every one would know this. And honestly if not for the aliasing and maybe not so much on the framerate, you could mistake it to be pre rendered sometimes.
Finally my favorite of the bunch was COD2. I jus love the intensity of this demo. And the AI is killer. I heard they were using one of the cores just for this. Its good to know theyre already putting the tech in good use this early. It looks good, thanks in part to the blistering 60 fps motion. And like i said before there is slowdown on the more crowded areas,,and does really bog down, probably to around 25 fps or so when there is so much smoke. Yes i said 25 fps. Maybe not an exact number but somewhere around there. But of course slowdown is expected in those types of scenarios. I'd really be blown away if there was zero slowdown. And jus like I said before, there is aliasing. I immediately noticed it in the first scene in the jeep, particularly on the gun models, and the railing canopy of the jeep. As well as around the buildings, mosques and houses. I mean i dont know what form of AA you guys were referring to that it has, but obviously it didnt take them all out. Because its there, and you'd be blind if you didnt see 'em. Still I couldnt fight the feeling that it looked PCish, but of course it is a PC port. And i guess i'll jus be thankful that the 360 version runs as good as the top of the line PC version does. A four hundred dollar console against a thousands of dollars computer. I'll give it that.
So there you go, I verified that the setup was correct, and along with two of my acquaintances, still noticed them jaggies. If some of you still find that hard to believe and call me stubborn, then i would like to invite any of you down here to see for yourselves. I'm still waiting for my EB to get their kiosks, so I can see if it really is the Lcds fault, but i doubt it.
And to those guys who keep referring to screenshots from some guys website as a defense that there is absolutley no jaggies, please stop it. I keep saying that theres a world of a difference between a screenie taken from someones camera off a display to actually playing it 3 feet away. Of course you wont see those little details because they arent DIRECT FEED screenshots!! And to that other guy who seems to be implying that there are people who dont know what jaggies are,,maybe it is possible. Not my problem. And if it doesnt detract from there visual experience, then good for them.
I know I'm starting to sound nit-picky about certain things, but i was jus dissapointed about claims of "free AA" and "goodbye jaggies hello AA". Thats why i no longer believed those PR heads. I mean we were promised those lines waay back to the N64 days. Good, effective AA can really be helpful, and can blur the lines between a pre rendered and obvious game generated images in games like Kameo, where the rendering techniques are really getting close to CG. And jaggies can really be a headache for people with 40+ inch Hdtvs, because they will really standout, no matter if its in 720P resolution. i mean, jaggies should be dead in this upcoming gen right?? Ok, i think i've said enough, and besides i'll still be getting my 360, knowing that better games that use the potential of the system will be coming up anyway. OK, i'm tired now, gonna get some sleep...
