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[Xbox-Scene]

Rumor: ANA/HANA Chip is no Hardware Scaler Chip - Upscaling by Xenos? Posted by XanTium | June 22 00:37 EST | News Category: Xbox360

I already reported about this article yesterday, but something interesting was pointed out to me today ... the EuroGamer  article reviewing the Xbox360 Elite contains this blurb on page2: The only other major change under the bonnet is the new HANA video display chip, replacing the old ANA version in the classic 360. This chip has erroneously been described as the silicon that deals with the 360's inbuilt hardware scaling. In truth, Microsoft has now confirmed to us that it's merely a video output chip - a means of transferring the framebuffer into all of the different signals: composite, s-video, RGB SCART, component, VGA and - the key addition with HANA - HDMI. Scaling itself is actually performed by the Xenos GPU (most likely using a variation of Lanczos resizing) so in that respect the Elite performs identically to the original Xbox 360. The presence of HANA confirms that there will be no aftermarket HDMI solution for the current model. This is contradicting what Microsoft told Arstechnica in a January article about the ANA chip: "We call it Ana. This is the scaling chip that's in the 360," he tells me. "It was a critical design decision; we wanted the 360 to be high-definition, not just 1080p or some other standard. That's why we included component cables in the box; there is no HDTV that doesn't have a component in," said Greenburg. They assume that Sony didn't include a hardware scaler to keep costs down, but get a little cagey when I ask how much it costs to put Ana into the 360. "This isn't a $1,000 scaler," Henson says, "but it's a good one." Now both Arstechnica and Eurogamer are pretty 'trusted' sources, they wouldn't just report MS told them something without this being true ... so I guess either one MS spokespersons was ignorant or they are pulling a 'Sony' on us. If the Eurogamer article is correct, I guess the ANA/HANA chip is just a video encoder (to vga, component, hdmi etc). If scaling is done by the ATI Xenos GFX chip, I wonder if it has any kind of performance impact (probably not, at least I hope so for MS PR ) or if it can upscale at 'no cost' like it does with anti-aliasing.

[stevenalvarado]

QUOTE

... so I guess either one MS spokespersons was ignorant or they are pulling a 'Sony' on us.

Funny!

I dont care about this secret really, but if it gets the job done...

This post has been edited by stevenalvarado: Jun 22 2007, 06:22 AM

[SomeoneX]

There is a performance cost somewhere with upscaling. For instance, in Dead Rising, if you set the resolution to one of the 16:10 ones for a monitor, there is massively increased screen tearing, which you do not get when running it at 720p.

[lmaolmao]

i noticed this yesterday, tried my xbox on a hdtv thingy for the first time. noticed 2 things.

1 - the games were choppier, especially gears of war (gameplay seemed similar, but cutscenes were choppy).  i noticed this because when it came out i was amazed by the framerate in cutscenes.

2 - HDTV isnt THAT impressive. sure its crisper, but it didnt blow me away as much as i thought it might. i dont think it showed much more detail, it seemed jaggier.

This post has been edited by lmaolmao: Jun 22 2007, 11:13 AM

[ProfDrMorph]

I haven't seen a real 16:10 resolution in the console's settings.... and yes I do use a 16:10 screen and thus get the wrong aspect ratio in ALL games even in the dashboard itself. This is because the closest resolution to 16:10 is 1280x768 which still isn't 100% 16:10 (it should be 1280x800).



however I don't have the proper "equipment" to test if there really is a cost for upscaling or not. It would definitly be interesting to know a bit more about how upscaling is implemented. (which filter is used, if there is some performance cost, how flexible the hardware doing the upscaling is in terms of adding new resolutions/featues (like fixed aspect ratio scaling))

[incognegro]

I smell bullshit... there have been devs that confirms its a scaler so many times before. If there is a performance hit, its probably because the edram that is used is only 10 mb. When that memory is exceeded (which it most likely will) the xenos helps the process along.

[Jake]

Look at this:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread....33;post10791437

And this:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread....33;post10796096


Seems like its no scaler chip after all....  (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

[twistedsymphony]

QUOTE(Jake @ Jun 22 2007, 08:14 AM)

Look at this:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread....33;post10791437

And this:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread....33;post10796096
Seems like its no scaler chip after all....  (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

That source certainly does confirm that the ANA/HANA are simple encoder chips and not scalers.

it also confirms that the scaling algorithm is "much more sophisticated" than the simple bilinear scaling done by most products.... quite interesting

[jonny_eh]

QUOTE

i noticed this yesterday, tried my xbox on a hdtv thingy for the first time. noticed 2 things.

1 - the games were choppier, especially gears of war (gameplay seemed similar, but cutscenes were choppy). i noticed this because when it came out i was amazed by the framerate in cutscenes.

If a game renders at a resolution (such as 720p), and you set your 360 to display at 720p, then it's not being scaled.

If you play GoW at 480i, then that's a lower resolution than if you switch to 720p. It's like changing from 640x480 in Half-life 2 on the PC to 1024x768.

Now if you play GoW at 1080p, the game is scaled from 720p to 1080p. The game renders at 720p but is sent out at 1080p, how does it get converted? Some say it's done by a hardware scaled chip, some say the GPU. If it's done by the GPU, is there a performance hit? (i.e. will GoW at 1080p be choppier than at 720p, since that's what it's being rendered at)

[Deihmos]

QUOTE(jonny_eh @ Jun 22 2007, 09:31 AM)

If a game renders at a resolution (such as 720p), and you set your 360 to display at 720p, then it's not being scaled.

If you play GoW at 480i, then that's a lower resolution than if you switch to 720p. It's like changing from 640x480 in Half-life 2 on the PC to 1024x768.

Now if you play GoW at 1080p, the game is scaled from 720p to 1080p. The game renders at 720p but is sent out at 1080p, how does it get converted? Some say it's done by a hardware scaled chip, some say the GPU. If it's done by the GPU, is there a performance hit? (i.e. will GoW at 1080p be choppier than at 720p, since that's what it's being rendered at)

I love it when outsiders act as if they designed the system. Who really cares as long as it works.

[snart]

QUOTE(Deihmos @ Jun 22 2007, 01:40 PM)

I love it when outsiders act as if they designed the system. Who really cares as long as it works.

Actually, that's a question I have. I'm thinking of moving from a 720p to 1080p television. Will I have a performance hit?

For those of you running 1080p sets, do you notice any performance/framerate issues?

[cerberus414]

QUOTE(SomeoneX @ Jun 22 2007, 04:20 AM)

There is a performance cost somewhere with upscaling. For instance, in Dead Rising, if you set the resolution to one of the 16:10 ones for a monitor, there is massively increased screen tearing, which you do not get when running it at 720p.

Its not a performance issue. It's mostly likely vsync being off whihc would be more noticeable when the game is upscaled.

[jonny_eh]

QUOTE(snart @ Jun 22 2007, 03:23 PM)

Actually, that's a question I have. I'm thinking of moving from a 720p to 1080p television. Will I have a performance hit?

For those of you running 1080p sets, do you notice any performance/framerate issues?

I didn't notice a difference when I upgraded from a 720p to 1080p in games like GoW (renders at 720p). I should try a game that supports 1080p rendering like Virtua Tennis 3 at the different resolutions, I can't because my xbox 360 in for repairs (for the 2nd time)

[lmaolmao]

thanks jonny_eh.

i was under the impression that the 360 rendered at one resolution (set by the game designers) and then was scaled depending on yout output.  i thought that was why dead rising has horrid text at 480i

to the other posters, i dont think jonny eh was claiming to know how the system was designed.  he was addressing a comment i had made, which may or may not be to do with the scaler.

i like the idea of "it works, so leave it at that", but i think that doesnt apply to the majority of users at xbox-scene.  if that was how the devs and modders thought, i dont think there would be an xbox-scene.

[The Zep Man]

QUOTE(snart @ Jun 22 2007, 04:23 PM)

Actually, that's a question I have. I'm thinking of moving from a 720p to 1080p television. Will I have a performance hit?

For those of you running 1080p sets, do you notice any performance/framerate issues?

If you buy a TV which supports 1080p natively, at least make sure the TV itself has a good scaler. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)