Microsoft lifts Xbox 360 minimum 720p, anti-aliasing mandate for devs

....uuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhh?

My black box makes pretty lights.

I don't see the point of the AA requirement, I can't tell the difference. But I think games should have higher requirements for how the game actually runs, anyone play Sacred? The game is so choppy. Looks nice, but terribly choppy.

all you haters (aka everyone) i have a fucking ps3. my psn id is redsoxpwn22 send me a message and i do luv my zune dammit

"iluvmyzune @ Sep 2nd 2009 9:49PM
all you haters (aka everyone) i have a fucking ps3. my psn id is redsoxpwn22 send me a message and i do luv my zune dammit"

wtf does that have to do with this article.

I misread the title, I thought they raised [lifted] the requirements. Joystiq you coulda made the title a little less confusing.

Wii - Halo confirmed, that is a screenshot from the Wii version right?

Really...what has this been confirmed for MW2?
Even if it did, that last video I saw of the game looked fantastic...so who gives a flying crap.

Just google "modern warfare 2 600p"

Yep, just checked the old Digital Foundry face-off on Eurogamer (just FYI, Digital Foundry are the kings of video specs on games), and they say both the 360 and PS3 versions of CoD4:MW run at 1024x600, so I wouldnt be surprised if MW2 was the same.

Ya know what I will take 600p with multiple particle, lighting effects and 60 fps.
I can't tell the bump down in resolution, but I can tell when a game runs at a choppy 30.

It's going to look like crap on a console compared to a PC no matter what, so it may as well play smoothly at least. As smoothly as you can play an FPS without a mouse and keyboard, anyway

I'll be playing it on 1920x1200 :P.
Still, I'd never notice 600p unless someone pointed out each individual pixel. COD MW2 looks great on all its systems.

They run it at 600p so that they can keep it up to 60 frames a second. From how good the game looks, maybe this will help some of those other games out.

On a similar note, CoD4 has less pollys than CoD2 per character model.

There is no doubt the best version of MW2 will be for PC. Won't make you pay for DLC either.

The lower resolution in CoD is actually noticeable. However, thanks to good anti-aliasing and lighting, it actually looks better than other titles running at a higher resolution. And the 60 FPS is a huge deal - not only does it look nicer, it helps make for much smoother and more responsive controls. After all, it means the screen is updating twice as much, which means half the time until you see a reaction to moving your analog stick.

I sort of mind. 1080p is the HD standard now, and our consoles should be able to match the resolution on the TV. I know that the current batch should be able to get it done, but they can't.

I want some real HD, and the only way to do that is to get new consoles. Stuff like this makes me realize that we need to screw the 10 year cycle and up the ante in the graphics. After we standardize at 1080p, then we can put in these camera based input methods and other innovations. Now is the time to match the resolution of our sets, and get the graphics honed.

No dude. 1080p native resolution as a standard will not happen in this generation of consoles. MANY consumers aren't even up to 720p yet, sadly.

Also, graphics technology hasn't been advanced far enough to even make it worthwhile to release a new console. You'll probably see a new DS/PSP with better graphics before you see a new console generation, at least one worthwhile.

Also generally a really good 720p display will look better than an average 1080p display and be cheaper as well. I have a 720p good projector and no one would have any idea it's not 1080p unless I told them. Resolution really isn't that important.

@boostJunkie

Resolution isn't that important? It absolutely matters but whats critical is how you have your viewing distance setup where the TV is located.

But, you need the proper setup to take advantage of the higher resolution else it is simply wasted because your eye can't see the difference in detail. Also, you need a frame of reference to understand the difference. You can't show someone a 720p set in one setup without showing them a 1080p set in the same situation and expect them to understand the benefits of 1080p vs 720p.

The following are excerpts taken from: http://carltonbale.com/2006/11/1080p-does-matter/ which gives an easy to understand scientific breakdown on why higher resolution makes all the difference in the world.
________________________________________________________________
Refer to this chart for the optimal settings when considering purchasing what type of television. It's all about viewing distance and screen size working in conjunction.

http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.html

What the chart shows is that, for a 50-inch screen, the benefits of 720p vs. 480p start to become apparent at viewing distances closer than 14.6 feet and become fully apparent at 9.8 feet. For the same screen size, the benefits of 1080p vs. 720p start to become apparent when closer than 9.8 feet and become full apparent at 6.5 feet. In my opinion, 6.5 feet is closer than most people will sit to their 50" plasma TV (even through the THX recommended viewing distance for a 50" screen is 5.6 ft). So, most consumers will not be able to see the full benefit of their 1080p TV.

If you have a dedicated viewing room and can place seating anywhere you want, you can use this chart as a guideline. It's based on THX and SMPTE specifications for movie theaters.

http://s3.carltonbale.com/distance_chart.html

Looking at this chart, it is apparent that 1080p is the lowest resolution to fall within the recommended seating distance range. Any resolution less than 1080p is not detailed enough if you are sitting the proper distance from the screen. For me and many people with large projection screens, 1080p is the minimum resolution you'd want.

massmass,

"Also, graphics technology hasn't been advanced far enough to even make it worthwhile to release a new console." I respectfully disagree. When the Xbox 360 was first released in 2005, the fastest videocards on the market were the Geforce 7800 GTX and Radeon X1800 XT; these $400+ halo products absolutely dominated even the most graphically intensive games on the market with nary a hiccup and were absolute must have items for both hardcore gamers and hardware enthusiasts. Contemporary performance-midrange products (HD 4870, GTX 260) offer somewhere betwen 6x-16x that level of performance and they do so for less than $150. DX11 capable parts are expected to hit the market sometime before year's end and even the most conservative estimates have them pegged at being at least 1.6x faster than what we currently have available. So, yes, technology has advanced far enough to warrant another console generation.

Great post as usual Jackal.

However, this console generation looks as it will last longer than most, many feel that the PS3/360 isn't even close to the end of their lifecycle.

This is where I feel that PC gaming will see a resurge, where some developers will tire of the console's limitations and hopefully gravitate towards the PC, I hope that Windows 7 and DX11 will help as well.

And I hope these games will truly take advantage of PC hardware, not be console ports where its painfully obvious its a console game, just that we can play it at 1080P native and with 8x AA. But I don't mind getting console ports, it lets me have the best of both worlds on PC. ; )

Great post. But most of the comments here seem a bit one-sided.

The balancing factor is pure pixel output. At 480p, you are outputting 345,600 pixels. Halo's nonstandard resolution of 640p falls at 737,280 pixels. At 720p, that output is 921,600. At 1080p, that's 2,073,600 pixels.

You'll notice that a full 1080p has 6 times as many pixels to push as 480p. Sure, taking off the shelf graphics from the last generation, you should have no problem outputting 6 times as many pixels. But is that the best use of the power of the system? Would it look better if you had a higher resolution on a low-rez, blocky model, or if you had a lower resolution on a really detailed model? What if you ran at a much lower resolution and added sub-surface shading, parallax shading, natural lighting, and cloth deformations?

It's all a performance tradeoff. As Halo, Modern Warfare, and a lot of other games have shown this generation, we still have more impressive things to do with processor power than full 1080p.

What do you mean? I had a 15' LCD that ran fine

VGA cables are your best friend.

What resolution is your 22" monitor? Last I checked you could still output 1200 x 1080 over vga. A standard widescreen 22" monitor should have at least 1680 x 1050 native resolution, which is higher than 720p. HD should be a huge deal for you. video at 640 x 480 would look horrible stretched out on that screen.

Sorry, meant 1920 x 1080.

You can totally run HD dude. I used the VGA cables on my 17 inch CRT monitor for two years before getting a 24 inch LCD.

I have a 22 inch hd enable monitor. But you can't tell the difference of HD unless your tv or monitor is 32 inches or bigger.

*thats what she said...

If its a monitor, then you DEFINITELY CAN tell the diff, since you're 2ft away from screen. TV on the other hand is diff. But who has a 22" TV, and views it from his couch?
Either you're lying, or you don't know what you are talking about and are giving in to common myth(Most likely).

dude, you CAN tell the difference. 480p games don't look anything like 720p or 1080p games.

I don't care if your monitor is 12 inches, you can tell the difference between 480p and 1080p, unless you're blind.

probably because Natal games will be wii shovelware at 480p. I'm surprised no one else made that connection.

Well if the games are going to be "Wii shovelware" then they shouldn't be as taxing on the GPU so they should be able to support much higher resolutions.

You might find this interview of interest...

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/102/1020686p1.html

The PS3 does have a powerful processor.

Unfortunately, it has a GPU that's lackluster at best.

Be grateful that it's in HD nonetheless. Also if the same development team is doing the "reworked" versions of the games, better to use the time for trying to increase screen resolution for something in God of War 3.

Because they would have to redesign everything in those two games. 720p is good enough. But apparently for microsoft, 720p is too much.

@Ashitaka

You don't have to "redesign" things just to render something in a higher resolution. The thing most impacted would be the 2d UI elements, which they have to redo regardless. This is a "remastereed" "HD" version of the game on a console that can't shut up about how "HD" it is.

As pointed out elsewhere in the comments, there are plenty of other PS3 games that don't make the cut. MS is messing up by letting devs fall below the HD standard, but don't pretend like Sony isn't.

It'd probably call for too much of an overhaul of the graphics if they were to push GoW up to 1080.

You are aware that the human eye can't tell the difference of 720 and 1080 resolutions until you get past something like a 35 inch diagonal television, right? and besides, that's actually a pretty impressive boost from the original copies of both games.

no pleasing some people.

You are aware that some people do have televisions that are larger than 35 inches right?

And that sonys launch campaign did nothing but brag about how the ps3 was the most powerful console on the planet and how only PS3 games were available in 1080p? People payed $599 thinking that's what they were getting. And yea, GoW I and II are going to look awesome in 720p. Day 1 purchase for me. But that doesn't change the fact that it's dissapointing that they can't even get a last gen game to live up to their promises.

People who payed Sony $599 for a PS3 and much more than that for a 1080p TV have every right to feel ripped off when Sony falls short of it's promises.


Like I said, I'm still buying the game, and I'm sure I'll love it, but I'm not going to sit silently and pretend Sony isn't breaking promises.