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Xbox360 Forums => Xbox360 Game Forums => Xbox 360 Games General Chat (wip) => Topic started by: billenglish on February 13, 2006, 04:04:00 PM

Title: High Definition Games
Post by: billenglish on February 13, 2006, 04:04:00 PM
I have an HDTV capable of displaying 720p and 1080i, however I noticed that most games support 720p. What is the difference between the two, and are they noticable different, and which is the preffered format?
Title: High Definition Games
Post by: Hyper_Eye on February 13, 2006, 04:19:00 PM
1080i is a higher resolution but it is interlaced. 720p is a lower resolution but it uses progressive scan. Most people prefer 720p due to progressive scan. I use 1080i because that is what me telvision supports and I am perfectly happy with it. Try them both and see which you prefer. If you are like most you will prefer 720p due to progressive scan.
Title: High Definition Games
Post by: twistedsymphony on February 14, 2006, 05:30:00 PM
it also has to to with FPS

while 1080i has a higher resolution it's also capped at 30FPS while 720p being progressive can go as high as 60FPS.

of course you're also limited by the specific game, DOA4 support 60FPS while PGR3 can only go to 30.

honestly neither one IS better it's about which one looks better, and the one that looks better is based entierly on your display. My projector can display both and it looks noticably better in 720p then in 1080i. My friend's TV displays both and looks noticably better in 1080i then 720p.

Try both, pick the one that you like better, it's as simple as that.
Title: High Definition Games
Post by: m_hael on February 14, 2006, 11:12:00 PM
sorry twisted but you know me.. I gotta correct ya.


720p is a 1280x720 image displayed on the TV screen @ 60Hz with the image being updated completely each 1/60th of a second. (16ms)... essentially it updates 55,296,000 pixles per second

1080i is a 1920x1080 image displayed on the TV screen @ 60Hz with the image being updated over 2 frames, odd scanlines one frame, even scanlines the next. essentially it updates 62,208,000 pixels per second

the key differences are mostly to do with motion and how it is perceived, Progressive scan provides a VERY solid image and will never exhibit any pixel crawl or inadvertant motion blur due to slow updates. Interlaced mode while providing a larger perceived frame buffer only updates that frame buffer at an effective 30fps but it does have subframes ie a change occurs every 16ms but an entire frame takes 33ms to update. Interlaced mode can see pixel crawl (color bleeding) and a very perceptible unintended motion blur if the screen update represents a large delta (fast moving scene).

I prefer progressive and will always use it.
Title: High Definition Games
Post by: yaazz on February 14, 2006, 11:39:00 PM
I prefer my RF adapter (I.e not even composite inputs) Television. it does the job and was free smile.gif
Title: High Definition Games
Post by: Deftech on February 14, 2006, 11:45:00 PM
QUOTE(yaazz @ Feb 15 2006, 01:46 AM) View Post

I prefer my RF adapter (I.e not even composite inputs) Television. it does the job and was free smile.gif


 biggrin.gif

Title: High Definition Games
Post by: revs on February 15, 2006, 03:42:00 AM
General Consensus seems to be - go with 720p. As its better with fast moving images.
Title: High Definition Games
Post by: mgamer20o0 on February 15, 2006, 02:37:00 PM
for me i havent been able to pick what one i like better. 720p vs 1080i. i must be blind. i been going back and forth and cant really tell.
Title: High Definition Games
Post by: esc1 on February 16, 2006, 07:10:00 AM
I've been looking  at 30" or so ws tv's.  I notice a lot of them upscale 720p to 1080i.  So that can essentially downgrade the picture by not providing progressive scan?  That has had me a bit muffed.  unsure.gif

Also, I see some ws dvd's have some top and bottom bars.  Does the resolution or aspect ratio determine this?  One of my friends has a sweet big ws hdtv and ws Star Wars Rots has the bars.   unsure.gif
Title: High Definition Games
Post by: m_hael on February 16, 2006, 08:47:00 AM
QUOTE(Altima NEO @ Feb 15 2006, 03:57 PM) View Post

i think he means the games themselves are locked @ 30 fps (just drawing the same frame twice, basically) because it takes more gpu power to render the scene at the 1080 resolution



nope - the games all render to 720p and the hardware scales the image to whatever output the user selects... I know of no games that render internally to 1080.
Title: High Definition Games
Post by: tivoklr on February 21, 2006, 08:29:00 PM
My understanding of the HD resolution choice comes down to your display. Every display has a native resolution, and for best results you should set your input device to that resolution, so for my tv that is 720p, so I set the 360 to 720p and the TiVo to 720p, etc.

If you send the native resolution into your tv, you reduce the number of resolution conversions which results in a clearer picture.

The question is whether your tv's native resolution is 1080i. Since the 360 supposedly renders games in 720p if you choose 1080i the quality of the scaler in use becomes the question. The scaler in some displays is awesome but in other cases the scaler can be pretty poor. Try both 720p and 1080i and see which looks better to you...Likewise, the quality of the scaler in the 360 is of unknown quality to me, since I use 720p.

Just my 0.02

tivoKlr
Title: High Definition Games
Post by: Foe-hammer on February 21, 2006, 11:09:00 PM
QUOTE(yaazz @ Feb 14 2006, 11:46 PM) View Post

I prefer my RF adapter (I.e not even composite inputs) Television. it does the job and was free smile.gif


The good old NES days; priceless. tongue.gif
Title: High Definition Games
Post by: wolrahnaes on February 21, 2006, 11:28:00 PM
m_hael:

1080i, just like 480i analog TV, is only effectively 30 FPS.  It's two staggered 1920x540 "frames", each making up half the picture, and each displaying every other pass of the 60Hz refresh rate.  The whole picture is only shown 30 times a second, and on top of that large amounts of horizontal motion cause ugly artifacting.  I think 1080i should have never happened, rather 1080p30 should have taken its place with 1080p60 being delayed until now like it has.

Interlacing is a cheap way to try to get a better picture out of low bandwidth.  It works fine when the entire path from camera or video generator to display is interlaced, as in analog TV, but it goes to hell if there's ever a progressive state (displaying analog TV on a computer for example).
Title: High Definition Games
Post by: mc_365 on February 24, 2006, 03:16:00 PM
well if you have a CRT HD Set your native res will be 1080i and you should set your xbox to this.

If you have any of the other Techs eg. Plasma / LCD then your native res will be 720P with a few exceptions.

There are some new LCDs that have 1080P screens but within these some just upscale from 720P any input res is scaled first to 720P then up scaled to 1080P.  1080P screens are new tech and since the only source of true 1080P material is from a PC the implamentation of the tech is vastly different from each manufacturer.