To 1080p or not to 1080p, that is the question!

[alex atkin]

I was just wondering if anyone from Team17 could give a technical reason why this game was not produced in 1080p?

It would hardly appear to be a game maxing the Xbox 360 RAM, CPU or GPU capabilities and with the wonder scaler chip in the 360, its not like you would need to support multiple resolutions - it can downscale readily.

There seems to be so few native 1080p games on the Xbox 360. I understand the limitations for full retail games, they have huge textures, engines, and just generally eat RAM even before you consider the implications of pumping polygons at higher resolutions. But Arcade games are different, most of them are not the above and should be capable of running at native 1080p on the Xbox 360 hardware.

So, is it just convenience developing for 720p or is there some technical reason its actually more difficult? I just hate seeing games which effectively are last-generation graphics at 720p, without any logical reason why they couldn't have been 1080p instead.

Upscaling is nice (the 360 upscales lovely compared to the PS3 which usually leaves it up to my TV to do an aweful job) but pixel sharp 1080p would be better. I understand Microsoft were not bothered about 1080i, interlacing is nasty, so early games did not bother about 1080i and updating old games is a waste of money. But I am surprised at how few releases since 1080p was enabled on the Xbox 360, have actually supported it natively.

[Wormetti]

I thought it used vector graphics anyway, so it looks the same no matter how high your resolution but I do think 1080 should be able to see more landscape instead of scaling up.

[Etho.]

taken from "Best Practices for Community Games" (http://creators.xna.com/en-US/education/bestpractices)

Gamers Expect Games to "Just Work" on Any TV

Background: Xbox 360 consoles can be plugged into TV sets of all types, with many different resolutions, aspect ratios, and more. Overscan (edges of the TV screen which don’t draw the entire viewport), stretching of your game's visuals, and even crashes can occur if resolutions are not handled properly.

Actions:

* Set your game's resolution to 1280 x 720 (720p native resolution) to work on all TVs. This gives you a single resolution target for all of your art content.
* Draw the entire scene to your Viewport size, but draw your critical gameplay features (HUD, main character, and so on) to the region inside
* Viewport.TitleSafeArea.
* If using text, use a 14-point or higher font to insure the font can be read on standard-definition TVs. Draw the SpriteFonts at full size.


So basically it is for convenience. 720p scales well for most TVs (works better than 1080p) and most people are satisfied with 720p. If a developer plans on supporting only 1 resolution, 720p is the way to go.

[alex atkin]

Vector graphics, that is rather the point. That means the outline would be smaller pixels and so look a lot nicer on larger TVs. The size of 720p pixels on a 42" TV is pretty huge especially with how close to the TV I sit. 1080p from close up will look as good or better than 720p sat further away.

Why would 720p downscale better than 1080p? I am pretty sure those guidelines mean "target the highest resolution you are going to use" (assuming that will be 720p for the maximum polygon count, RAM available to game, etc) rather than coding for each one seperately. Its just a guideline to use the scaler rather than running different resolutions so you do not get unexpected results.

I remember some early 360 games did not work like that. Need for Need Most Wanted for example ran a MUCH better framerate in SD because it obviously was rendering native at that resolution rather than always using 720p and downscaling.

Then there is Virtua Tennis 3 that supports 1080p native and I am not aware of it having any issues in SD. It looks more or less the same at all resolutions except at 1080p you get the expected improvement from the pixels being smaller so far less visible on larger TVs. So that knocks on the head the idea that 720p downscales better than 1080p, either that or it supports native lower resolutions but that still argues that you don't NEED to always use the scaler to get the job done. PC has supported native multiple resolutions since forever, if done right it works perfectly. I understand its not practical for all games, but something like Worms should work brilliant.

There are also a lot more 1080p games on PS3 compared to 360. Granted they are mostly pretty boring games compared to XBLA, but it shows it can be done. If it was a hassle surely on the PS3, the PITA to code for PS3, they wouldn't waste the extra resources doing it. Although even there, I wonder why games like Zen Pinball do not run 1080p native, although I may be able to argue that game actually does push the hardware to its limit with the detail it has (which sadly is wasted as its pretty much unplayable zoomed in admiring the detail).

[AndrewTaylor]

Why would 720p downscale better than 1080p? I am pretty sure those guidelines mean "target the highest resolution you are going to use"

No, that's exactly what they don't mean.

If you make a game for 1080p or make a website for 1600x1200 or make a TV show for widescreen, and never consider what might happen when it's viewed on a 720p TV, you're doing it wrong.

It absolutely has to work on the low-end machines. If it does then it will work on the high-end ones. Making it look nice on the high-end ones shouldn't be the priority.

Obviously what you say is spot on when you're actually drawing the artwork, though.

[Muzer]

Not to mention the 480i machines (ie standard TVs) - it seems from reports that even at 720p some text labels are unreadable at 480i (the way that Team17 implemented them - I'm not saying this is a problem with games in general), so if they can't handle making 720p look good on 480i, they certainly won't be able to handle making 1080p look good on 480i.

[Mr Church]

Actually, the reason the people like me with "Standard" TV's can't read the text is because most of us with these 480i machines have had them for 16 years, so the TV just plain sucks.

[Kjatte]

It's uses vector graphics anyway, so it looks the same no matter how high your resolution but I do think 1080 should be able to see more landscape instead of scaling up.

The landscapes are bitmap ;)

[Iggyhopper]

If anything, all the graphics are targa (.tga).

If the landscape is not vector, then how can the worms be vector?

They are raster.

[Wormetti]

I guess it might not be vector, the more I read, the less likely that sounds. I just believed Squirminator2k (http://forum.team17.co.uk/showthread.php?p=686828). However they are stored and drawn, they scale better than the sprites in WA. In WA, each animation frame had to be drawn by an artist but I think this time around they went with a more dynamic, code based approach.

[Muzer]

The worms are probably 3D models, but the landscape is probably raster.

[xe-cute]

I was wondering why it is not in 1080p too. It's a shame really.

How come some other games can manage it?

[Iggyhopper]

Backgrounds are totally 3D, no doubt.

Worms have lots and lots of animations, and also they are 2-3 parts. The arms/weapons, the body, and the tail.

I'm not sure if they are 3D, some animators nowadays take 3D models, and capture the frames from that, each from just one side only, making a 2D animation. It's just easier.

[AndrewTaylor]

How come some other games can manage it?

It's easy for a 3D game -- there you just have to render the graphics in whatever resolution the user asks for them in. Obviously you have to make sure the hardware can take it, but basically it's straightforward.

For a 2D game, you have to have graphics in the resolution the user asks for. You can scale down, but not up (at least, not well, and there's no point viewing 720p graphics in 1080p because they won't look better). If you want to use the top resolutions, you have to spend longer on every landscape and menu item in the game so they look as good at higher resolutions, and you put in that extra work knowing that only a relatively small number of users will benefit and only a relatively small number of those would notice (and, having noticed, care) if you didn't.

And sometimes it's worth it, and sometimes it's not. My guess is that Worms isn't really pointed at the kind of user that cares much about graphical fidelity.

I'm not sure if they are 3D, some animators nowadays take 3D models, and capture the frames from that, each from just one side only, making a 2D animation. It's just easier.

Wait, I'm confused now. "Nowadays"? Isn't that what Rare were doing on the SNES?

[Iggyhopper]

Wait, I'm confused now. "Nowadays"? Isn't that what Rare were doing on the SNES?Oh yeah, but I don't know.

You know, I'm really not sure if it's been done before in the past. Maybe Blizzard did it for Warcraft: Orcs & Humans and every RTS game after that. I thought they had to hand-animate/draw every frame back then.

Haha, confused.

The game was revolutionary in that it was one of the first games for a mainstream home video game console to use pre-rendered 3D graphics. It was a technique that was also used in Rare's Killer Instinct. Many later 3D video games also used pre-rendered 3D together with fully 3D objects. Rare took significant financial risks in purchasing the expensive SGI equipment used to render the graphics. A new compression technique they developed in house allowed them to incorporate more detail and animation for each sprite for a given memory footprint than previously achieved on the SNES, which better captured the pre-rendered graphics. Both Nintendo and Rare refer to the technique for the creating the game's graphics as "ACM" (Advanced Computer Modelling).

Nintendo producer Shigeru Miyamoto criticised Donkey Kong Country, stating that "Donkey Kong Country proves that players will put up with mediocre gameplay as long as the art is good." Miyamoto later apologised, saying he had been harsh due to Nintendo pressuring him at the time to make Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island similar to Donkey Kong Country.

Not sure if that pertains to the animations too, but it probably does.