not "totally" gaming but 4k resolution?

[TSD]

PS4 will support 4k resolution ramping up 4k res TV's



Heres the deal, it may "support" 4k. I find it unlikely to believe the PS4 will have the power to truly render games in 4k res at good performance. when you look at PC hardware reviews, I never see them go over 2k and that can wreck the performance of even beast computers.



secondly, what purpose would a 4k res TV serve? All of the media would have to be upgraded..."upscaling" only works so well i.e. a dvd on on HD TV my look better than on a SD tube, but you wont see a difference on a DVD between a 720p and a 4000p tv. likewise for a 720p bluray or 1080p bluray on a 4000p.



you can do this on a computer game because your video card will actually render the additional pixels. Since you arent actually changing the resolution of the "game itself". Since to my knowledge no console games allow this (maybe with PS4 you will be able to tweak graphics), without that its simply a gimmick. Sure it can support it, but you really arent seeing the benefit unless the media can be truly rendered in 4000p.

 

[phranchk]

Not to mention it's diffucult for the human eye to notice anything spectacular about that resolution over 1080p. I'm sure you'll notice a little, but it certainly won't be like going from 480 to 1080.

 

[TSD]

Not to mention it's diffucult for the human eye to notice anything spectacular about that resolution over 1080p. I'm sure you'll notice a little, but it certainly won't be like going from 480 to 1080.

thats what bugs me about pc gamers that run games in 1080p, then use 16x multi-sample anti-aliasing (I cant see a difference over 2x).

 

[BlackHawkPaul]

4K is super realistic to 1080p, but the pipeline to have it in a non-lossy format will be challenging at first.

Most of the filmmaking I do is still at 1080, because 4K is unnecessary unless you're effects heavy.



4K would be necessary if you wanted to play your games on a movie theater screen. It's basically overkill. The 4K monitors I saw at NAB were very nice, but cable/satellite companies barely get you 1080 at a reasonable bit rate.



The newer processors would run 4K fine, but the file sizes would be immense. PS3 runs on a 25GB/50GB blu ray disc-- 1 minute of data at 4K is over 4 times that of 1080p information. I won't even start discussing uncompressed 4K. One minute would fill up one blu ray disc.

 

[BigPete]

Come on Tim, this is just Moore's Law applied to free market America. Blu-Ray and "Full-HD" and 1080p is getting old (from a marketing and sales stand point <--- should go without saying)

 

[BiscuitintheBasket]

Come on Tim, this is just Moore's Law applied to free market America. Blu-Ray and "Full-HD" and 1080p is getting old (from a marketing and sales stand point <--- should go without saying)

That and 3D did not sell quite to the hype.





4K will come, but I do not think that now is the time. Tech is still too new and not enough overall development toward it for good comsumer support and products. Beyond that the 4K demos I have seen are outstanding.

 

[supraman]

If computers aren't rocking this as a standard I just dont see the point behind the PS4 doing it. TSD and I had this conversation last night. Console specs pale in comparison to a good PC (not great but good). So if PCs haven't started using that resolution, how in the hell are under powered consoles going to perform that feat and not be sluggish. Also is graphics technology even advanced enough to warranty 4k resolution?

 

[LordKOTL]

From what I remember (and take this as opinion, not fact), computers were well on the way to 4k until the LCD's hit the market. Say what you will about the big, clunky CRT's but those things were really getting up there in resolution.



And really, unless you're talking pre-recorded video the size of the games shouldn't change--just the strength of the GPU. Taking an OLD game (Return to Castle Wolfenstein), there was absolutely no same size difference in rendering it at 1600x1200 (on an old CRT) vs. rendering it at 1280x1024 (an older LCD). The same video card handled both just fine. Also, most console GPU cores are based off PC designs--they're just locked into outputting with a very specific criteria set (resolution, AA level, aniotrophy level, etc). The console GPU would just have to be designed to be capable of outputting to that resolution.



Processing gaming up to 4000p wouldn't be too hard with today's technology as long as they dial back some of the high-end graphics settings. It would probably mean that the generation gap in GPU's would not be in overall capabilities, but doing what they do now at higher resolution. The problems are with pre-render video (needing more space to store), and the fact that for most people, the resolution difference would be negligible at standard TV viewing distances.



P.S. One of the reasons 3d consistanly fails is that viewing it on TV or a computer monitor is not totally immersive. Depending on your distance from the screen itself, it's more like looking out a window into a 3d world rather than being in a 3d world. The nature of current display technology means on average, you're looking at less than half of your total vision field (even close up to a computer monitor you're lucky to be seeing a 90-degree visual arc in which the display spans). With IMAX and the like, the screens are designed to cover a larger angle to include your peripheral vision.



IMHO 3d won't catch on until display technology gets the pixel size down to the point where you're using goggles for displays, and each goggle lens takes up most of your vision and renders at 1080p or higher.

 

[MassHavoc]

I wonder when Sony plans to introduce their new 4k gaming monitor?

 

[BigPete]

Without being any more simplistic than I already was, this is just a matter of the chicken or the egg. The demand is going to be fabricated once the technology is in use, even if it comes at a slow trickle into the market. Once the demand is there then the technology can be improved upon by game producers exploiting it and peripheral device manufacturers creating appropriate monitors to display it. The only thing Sony has to get right is the foundation. Think of it like Blu-Ray's launch. It started as super high end gear, then when Sony added it to the PS3 console it took off. Same thing should happen here.



What is crazy is the way the TV market and home movie market jumped into the fray AFTER a video game console started the new wave of demand. DVD and Blu-Ray have been amazing formats for digital media in that way; as a catalyst for demand that started in the gaming market.

 

[BlackHawkPaul]

Without being any more simplistic than I already was, this is just a matter of the chicken or the egg. The demand is going to be fabricated once the technology is in use, even if it comes at a slow trickle into the market. Once the demand is there then the technology can be improved upon by game producers exploiting it and peripheral device manufacturers creating appropriate monitors to display it. The only thing Sony has to get right is the foundation. Think of it like Blu-Ray's launch. It started as super high end gear, then when Sony added it to the PS3 console it took off. Same thing should happen here.



What is crazy is the way the TV market and home movie market jumped into the fray AFTER a video game console started the new wave of demand. DVD and Blu-Ray have been amazing formats for digital media in that way; as a catalyst for demand that started in the gaming market.

Sony bought out all of the technology that was giving their company competition, as well as partnering up with other powerhouses.

Sony was not going to lose out on Blu Ray like it did with Betamax. They spent loads of money and lined many pockets to make sure HDDVD would fall into the gutter quickly. It was a dirty move, but proved profitable for Sony and other manufacturers that jumped on the bandwagon.

 

[TSD]

Without being any more simplistic than I already was, this is just a matter of the chicken or the egg. The demand is going to be fabricated once the technology is in use, even if it comes at a slow trickle into the market. Once the demand is there then the technology can be improved upon by game producers exploiting it and peripheral device manufacturers creating appropriate monitors to display it. The only thing Sony has to get right is the foundation. Think of it like Blu-Ray's launch. It started as super high end gear, then when Sony added it to the PS3 console it took off. Same thing should happen here.



What is crazy is the way the TV market and home movie market jumped into the fray AFTER a video game console started the new wave of demand. DVD and Blu-Ray have been amazing formats for digital media in that way; as a catalyst for demand that started in the gaming market.

Thats completely true. I think the fact Xbox didnt make HDDVD standard on Xbox probably contributed to HDDVD's death in some way as well. You could get it but it was sold separately. I didnt buy a single bluray (despite owning a PS3) until that shit was put to rest. I don't know why anyone would buy competing formats when you know one is going to get sunk. I still buy DVD's though (off the discount shelf) because of backward compatibility with bluray players. Which may keep DVD's still in business for awhile.

 

[BlackHawkPaul]

Thats completely true. I think the fact Xbox didnt make HDDVD standard on Xbox probably contributed to HDDVD's death in some way as well. You could get it but it was sold separately. I didnt buy a single bluray (despite owning a PS3) until that shit was put to rest. I don't know why anyone would buy competing formats when you know one is going to get sunk. I still buy DVD's though (off the discount shelf) because of backward compatibility with bluray players. Which may keep DVD's still in business for awhile.

A buddy of mine that frequents Infocom said that HDDVD was tanking 18 months before they pulled the plug because Sony was pushing that hard for blu ray. That really pissed off Apple, who were very big supporters of HDDVD. They finally caved when pro app users demanded support to burn blu rays through apps like Final Cut and DVD Studio Pro.

 

[TSD]

A buddy of mine that frequents Infocom said that HDDVD was tanking 18 months before they pulled the plug because Sony was pushing that hard for blu ray. That really pissed off Apple, who were very big supporters of HDDVD. They finally caved when pro app users demanded support to burn blu rays through apps like Final Cut and DVD Studio Pro.

and the bluray packaging just looks cooler.

 

[BiscuitintheBasket]

If computers aren't rocking this as a standard I just dont see the point behind the PS4 doing it. TSD and I had this conversation last night. Console specs pale in comparison to a good PC (not great but good). So if PCs haven't started using that resolution, how in the hell are under powered consoles going to perform that feat and not be sluggish. Also is graphics technology even advanced enough to warranty 4k resolution?

Something to keep in mind is that consoles are designed very much differently than a PC which allows for their specs to be different and their schwartz to be smaller. With a console you have a tightly designed OS with known expected hardware (i.e. a very tiny kernel with the drivers directly connected rather than through an additional layer). Also, consoles are designed with distributed processing in mind allowing for better parallel processing which allows for the CPU or GPU to be lighter since they do more routing than whole processing. Less variables also allows for tighter buses.



Also, since the hardware and the software that drives it is very much known and has pre-built API's, the software developers need to just compile directly for the system. Which lessens the amount of code needed, less external API's loaded from other or bridge apps, etc.

 

[BigPete]

Sony bought out all of the technology that was giving their company competition, as well as partnering up with other powerhouses.

Sony was not going to lose out on Blu Ray like it did with Betamax. They spent loads of money and lined many pockets to make sure HDDVD would fall into the gutter quickly. It was a dirty move, but proved profitable for Sony and other manufacturers that jumped on the bandwagon.

Exactly my point. Thanks for adding the details about the Sony grabbing the tech so they could grab the market by the balls.

 

[BigPete]

Thats completely true. I think the fact Xbox didnt make HDDVD standard on Xbox probably contributed to HDDVD's death in some way as well. You could get it but it was sold separately. I didnt buy a single bluray (despite owning a PS3) until that shit was put to rest. I don't know why anyone would buy competing formats when you know one is going to get sunk. I still buy DVD's though (off the discount shelf) because of backward compatibility with bluray players. Which may keep DVD's still in business for awhile.

I 'consumed' in very much the same way. I waited until one format won before I invested anything into new tech. I now have one Blu-Ray player in my house and about 40 movies after what, 7 years of Blu-Ray being on the market?

 

[LordKOTL]

That's why my main HTPC Drive is dual-format HDDVD/BD. Once the format war was one, I made a killing buying discount HDDVD's about about 1/3 the cost of the same movie in DVD format.



And for the hardware capabilities, the chips in consoles will be capable of 4000p if they aren't already. It's not going to require much more in terms of programming the game environment than it is now.

 

[supraman]

Something to keep in mind is that consoles are designed very much differently than a PC which allows for their specs to be different and their schwartz to be smaller. With a console you have a tightly designed OS with known expected hardware (i.e. a very tiny kernel with the drivers directly connected rather than through an additional layer). Also, consoles are designed with distributed processing in mind allowing for better parallel processing which allows for the CPU or GPU to be lighter since they do more routing than whole processing. Less variables also allows for tighter buses.



Also, since the hardware and the software that drives it is very much known and has pre-built API's, the software developers need to just compile directly for the system. Which lessens the amount of code needed, less external API's loaded from other or bridge apps, etc.

I get what you are saying but Devs push this hardware beyond what they are capable of. Look at Xbox's UI? It is fucking slow because the hardware isn't strong enough. The menu system in NHL11 and 12 were slow as shit because of memory. Both of these are based on my limited knowledge and a bit of a stab at the dark but the programmers seem to be pushing these things harder than they are meant for. These consoles are designed for today, not tomorrow. That;s all well in good but the 360 has currently 7 years under its belt. The specs of the thing today are a joke.

 

[BigPete]

You are also talking about a Microsoft product, Supra. They don't build anything that is a closed system.