Request PS4: Better physics and/or graphics vs 3D capability.

[brakel]

CV stutters during multiball at low camera angles.

I doubt that's because TPA has tapped the total power of the PS4. It's bad code.

+ 1 there and I've seen some very minor slowdown on MM during multiball, as well. Of course it's almost impossible to believe the PS4 is at fault for that...

Brakel said "The PS4 can do up to 1080p @ 120fps. When you run in 3D then games would drop to 1080p @ 60fps. There would be no degradation in the textures or physics. The implementation of 3D would not change how much the textures and physics can be improved. The only difference is that the 3D viewer would have half as many frames being sent. They don't dumb down the 2D in games in order to be able to run 3D. On the PS3 they cut the 3D visuals down to 720p so that they can keep the frame rate at 60fps, but the 2D game can still run at 1080p. On the PS4 it is actually capable of running at 1080p @ 60fps in 3D. We all know that the textures that are being used in TPA on the PS4 are not pixel matched at full HD. The textures are much lower resolution. So the PS4 can already handle everything that FarSight could throw at it in both 2D and 3D."

Well, my brother's gaming rig has a R9 290 gfx card and an i7 4770 quad-core cpu, and it easily outperforms the PS4; however, it takes a hit when running 3d...so why wouldn't the PS4? Just because PS4 is capable of 3d at 1080, 60 fps, doesn't mean it wouldn't tax the system at all -- of course it will -- and that processing power could have been using for better anti-aliasing, lighting, textures, etc. Anyway, I realize it's a moot point as they're almost certainly going to make 3d available before any major gameplay or graphics tweaks...I just wish it were the other way around.

There's no extra processing going on for 3D for games that already exist in a 3D space like TPA. The only thing that's happening is two perspectives are being sent to the TV which results in half of the fps or in the case of the PS3, the same fps but at 720p. There is a little extra video processing going on here but that's not something that could be used by the cpu to do something else and it really is a negligible amount of video processing. What I think you're failing to understand is that 1080p @ 60fps sends the same amount of data when it is filled with low res textures as when it is filled with textures that match or exceed HD resolution. A 1080p feed still sends the same 2 million odd pixels. And that's what 3D limitations come down to is that 1080p feed bandwidth and not the power of the processor.

 

[legendaryaxe]

I doubt that's because TPA has tapped the total power of the PS4. It's bad code.



There's no extra processing going on for 3D for games that already exist in a 3D space like TPA. The only thing that's happening is two perspectives are being sent to the TV which results in half of the fps or in the case of the PS3, the same fps but at 720p. There is a little extra video processing going on here but that's not something that could be used by the cpu to do something else and it really is a negligible amount of video processing. What I think you're failing to understand is that 1080p @ 60fps sends the same amount of data when it is filled with low res textures as when it is filled with textures that match or exceed HD resolution. A 1080p feed still sends the same 2 million odd pixels. And that's what 3D limitations come down to is that 1080p feed bandwidth and not the power of the processor.

For games that already exist in 3d space...well, you got me there as I've never heard of games "already existing in 3d space." Anyway, excuse my ignorance where TPA is concerned. What I do know is that PC games run with an average 20-50% drop in the frame rate with 3d vision enabled -- that's a fact that Nvidia themselves confirm -- but no mention is made of games that already exist in 3d space, so I guess it wouldn't pertain to TPA.

 

[brakel]

For games that already exist in 3d space...well, you got me there as I've never heard of games "already existing in 3d space." Anyway, excuse my ignorance where TPA is concerned. What I do know is that PC games run with an average 20-50% drop in the frame rate with 3d vision enabled -- that's a fact that Nvidia themselves confirm -- but no mention is made of games that already exist in 3d space, so I guess it wouldn't pertain to TPA.

TPA is modeled/created/coded in 3D. I don't know any way else to explain this.

3D will drop the frame rate in half if the game is running at or near its limit in frames per second because you have twice as many frames to send for the same content. That's why Sony has developers run 3D at 720p on the PS3 because then it doesn't have to reduce the frame rate. 1080p @ 60fps 2D is approximately equal to the same number of pixels sent in 720p @ 60fps 3D.

But here's what I'm failing to communicate to well to a few people here. You can upgrade the textures, physics, back glass, everything that you want and when you send the video out it is still the same number of pixels. No one downgrades a game in 2D in order to offer a 3D option. Only the person playing in 3D would possibly have a downgrade in fps or resolution. The game's texture resolution doesn't change, only the output resolution changes.

So, FarSight should bring on all the upgrades that should have been in the product at release because once they do that they can still offer us a 3D visual option.

 

[Patty]

It´s a big fail to concentrate the resources on an, for most players, useless 3D-function. FS should focus on the pointed out crucial issues from the community. It seems, that FS isn´t reading the statements in this forum.

I mean, they have a lot of much more important work to do: Fixing the really bad sound, higher textures, tournament mode, leaderboard, new camera angles, bugs and releasing new tabels on PS4....and, last, but not least, improving their communication policy.

 

[brakel]

It´s a big fail to concentrate the resources on an, for most players, useless 3D-function. FS should focus on the pointed out crucial issues from the community. It seems, that FS isn´t reading the statements in this forum.

I mean, they have a lot of much more important work to do: Fixing the really bad sound, higher textures, tournament mode, leaderboard, new camera angles, bugs and releasing new tabels on PS4....and, last, but not least, improving their communication policy.

I agree that these issues should never have been in the release and should be FarSight's highest priority, but please don't be offensive to people with a different perspective from you. Many of us really enjoy 3D. As you might imagine it is kind of insulting when someone says that a feature that you're interested in is useless. You should choose your words more wisely.

 

[PinballLizard (Mark Wyda)]

Don't get it twisted, I think 3D is a wonderful feature and I'm all for added 3D support. Especially at a full 60Hz *faints*

And there are a lot of people who want high res textures. Mods have made threads about it, I'm not the first person to say something.

And it absolutely brings the overall quality up. The table exploration feature in Pro should be about letting the user appreciate the finer details of the artwork of the table. It should simulate owning a real pinball game, not be a highlighter for sub par textures.

A high res texture pack for next gen is the easiest thing they can implement to bring the game to the next level of quality. It's a ton less work than redone lighting, and would almost have as big an impact. Serously, it would be a night and day difference from what we have now

*Between bug fixes and rom emulation for older games , a high res texture pack, I would imagine, I would assume is easiest to implement, with huge gains to the look of the game. Look I don't see any other company stepping in and doing recreations any time soon. So this is it probably for a very long time. Who doesn't want the game to be the best it can be?

 

[Patty]

I agree that these issues should never have been in the release and should be FarSight's highest priority, but please don't be offensive to people with a different perspective from you. Many of us really enjoy 3D. As you might imagine it is kind of insulting when someone says that a feature that you're interested in is useless. You should choose your words more wisely.

I´m sorry, I put my thoughts not precicely enough into words. I ment "useless for the vast majority of the players". Maybe this fauxpas has it´s origin in the fact, that I´m from Germany. My english is quite o.k., but not very good. I didn´t want to be offensive to any friends of this great forum.

 

[brakel]

Don't get it twisted, I think 3D is a wonderful feature and I'm all for added 3D support. Especially at a full 60Hz *faints*

And there are a lot of people who want high res textures. Mods have made threads about it, I'm not the first person to say something.

And it absolutely brings the overall quality up. The table exploration feature in Pro should be about letting the user appreciate the finer details of the artwork of the table. It should simulate owning a real pinball game, not be a highlighter for sub par textures.

A high res texture pack for next gen is the easiest thing they can implement to bring the game to the next level of quality. It's a ton less work than redone lighting, and would almost have as big an impact. Serously, it would be a night and day difference from what we have now

*Between bug fixes and rom emulation for older games , a high res texture pack, I would imagine, I would assume is easiest to implement, with huge gains to the look of the game. Look I don't see any other company stepping in and doing recreations any time soon. So this is it probably for a very long time. Who doesn't want the game to be the best it can be?

I agree with the general gist of this post. I think we want the same things. We want the game to be the best that it can be!

I´m sorry, I put my thoughts not precicely enough into words. I ment "useless for the vast majority of the players". Maybe this fauxpas has it´s origin in the fact, that I´m from Germany. My english is quite o.k., but not very good. I didn´t want to be offensive to any friends of this great forum.

Apology accepted. When I posted that I didn't look to see where you are from. My ancestral fraternal homeland is Germany. My dad's ancestors came to America in the mid 1800s from the Brakel area of Germany which was also their last name.

 

[Tabe]

I´m sorry, I put my thoughts not precicely enough into words. I ment "useless for the vast majority of the players". Maybe this fauxpas has it´s origin in the fact, that I´m from Germany. My english is quite o.k., but not very good. I didn´t want to be offensive to any friends of this great forum.

You were fine. You said in your original comment "for most players" 3D is useless. That is a 100% accurate statement that should not offend those who play in 3D or want 3D.

 

[brakel]

You were fine. You said in your original comment "for most players" 3D is useless. That is a 100% accurate statement that should not offend those who play in 3D or want 3D.

I was offended but I'm over it now.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

The biggest problem with 3D is that 99.9% of HDTVs were manufactured with HDMI 1.4 chips (as HDMI 2.0 is relatively new) so are stuck at a maximum of 1080p @ 30fps. Heck, even the PS4 only has a 1.4 chip as 2.0 was only finalised around the time the console came out, so if it can handle 1080p 3D @60fps is moot, it can't output that over its HDMI port anyway.

 

[smbhax]

The biggest problem with 3D is that 99.9% of HDTVs were manufactured with HDMI 1.4 chips (as HDMI 2.0 is relatively new) so are stuck at a maximum of 1080p @ 30fps. Heck, even the PS4 only has a 1.4 chip so if it can handle 1080p 3D @60fps is moot, it can't output that over its HDMI port anyway.

Oh! Interesting. I had no idea there was a legacy hardware bottleneck like that.

 

[Mark W**a]

The biggest problem with 3D is that 99.9% of HDTVs were manufactured with HDMI 1.4 chips (as HDMI 2.0 is relatively new) so are stuck at a maximum of 1080p @ 30fps. Heck, even the PS4 only has a 1.4 chip as 2.0 was only finalised around the time the console came out, so if it can handle 1080p 3D @60fps is moot, it can't output that over its HDMI port anyway.

Ouch Seriously? That's a huge problem then with VR coming very soon.

VR at 30Hz is awful, it just makes everyone sick. If this is true it's pretty damning to PS4 VR unless it can somehow be upgraded..

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

It was confusing with the Trine 2 developer talking about how the PS4 was able to run the game "internally" at 1080p 120fps.

There are some workarounds to get better than 720p though.

If you have a passive TV like mine it only outputs 1920x540 per eye anyway, so you can always ignore using the native 3D support of HDMI and instead go for interlaced (which is how the TV screen itself does it, it splits odd lines to on eye and even to the other) or split the screen horizontally showing left on the top, right on the bottom, which again the TV will process into interlaced.

Unfortunately for me on games they usually use native 3D support (720p) or split the screen vertically. That sucks for passive 3D as then you are only effectively seeing 960x540 per eye, even worse than just using 720p.

VR will most likely work like Oculus Rift does, it will just have a single 1080p screen and render two portholes in the right place for the lenses in the headset to convert back into a proper VR display. Sadly that means a lot of resolution lost to blank space on the screen, but its the nature of trying to make a VR headset affordable by using existing small OLED/LCD screen technology. I suspect some games it won't be worth the compromise in resolution, but others it definitely will. To be able to walk around in something like GTA/Watch Dogs in first-person view would be awesome.

[UPDATE]
Actually, looking at the manual for my TV:

I'm starting to wonder if I am wrong, as that clearly says 1080p 60Hz which I THOUGHT they meant half but as they specifically mention half on that table but NOT for that bit it would suggest full 1080p.

Why is it so hard to get a concrete answer on what the 1.4 specification can do? Google brings up all sorts of crap, none of it clear.

 

[Mark W**a]

I was wondering why not use 2 720P screens like the Sony HMZ headsets do (well, like I THINK they do better double check that) because that would be better than 1 1080P screen divided by 2...

That said yes, it's confirmed Sony is using 1080 which prior to reading your posts I figured was two screens... I didn't know Oculus and now Sony do it that way.

Question though since you know so much... why not do 720P + 60Hz for 3D or is that still not possible with HDMI 1.4? Is it price reasons to go for 1 1080P display vs. 2 720P displays?

Also, power-wise, is it "cheaper" to render 1080i (I guess you'd say) vs. dual 720P (think the answer is obvious but I'd still like to hear what you think).

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

Price, size and weight. Trying to squeeze two 720p screens in while keeping it large enough for the lenses the work but light and small enough to hurt your neck, is hard.

VR lenses work completely different to their other headsets which just simulates having a large TV screen in front of you. VR is intended to fill your peripheral vision so it looks like real life, you shouldn't perceptive there is a screen there at all. It also has to not hurt your eyes, be wearable WITH glasses, as I understand it just darn complicated when it comes to fitting the lenses in to do all that, compared to just beaming a plain screen in front of your face.

Practically I see no reason why they couldn't just use a single screen of HIGHER resolution than 1080p, they already exist for phones and it could make the visible resolution closer to 1080p per eye. But its all about trying to keep the headset cheap enough for people to consider buying one, so 1080p is probably the sweet spot. I think the idea is to have the console do ALL the processing and so powering a screen greater than 1080p also becomes a problem as it will again be plugged in via HDMI. Accepting 1080p at the glasses put squashing it down to a small area of a higher resolution screen in the headset would mean having a processor in the headset to do that which again means more cost.

 

[Mark W**a]

Price, size and weight. Trying to squeeze two 720p screens in while keeping it large enough for the lenses the work but light and small enough to hurt your neck, is hard.

VR lenses work completely different to their other headsets which just simulates having a large TV screen in front of you. VR is intended to fill your peripheral vision so it looks like real life, you shouldn't perceptive there is a screen there at all. It also has to not hurt your eyes, be wearable WITH glasses, as I understand it just darn complicated when it comes to fitting the lenses in to do all that, compared to just beaming a plain screen in front of your face.

Practically I see no reason why they couldn't just use a single screen of HIGHER resolution than 1080p, they already exist for phones and it could make the visible resolution closer to 1080p per eye. But its all about trying to keep the headset cheap enough for people to consider buying one, so 1080p is probably the sweet spot. I think the idea is to have the console do ALL the processing and so powering a screen greater than 1080p also becomes a problem as it will again be plugged in via HDMI. Accepting 1080p at the glasses put squashing it down to a small area of a higher resolution screen in the headset would mean having a processor in the headset to do that which again means more cost.

I'm down with 1080P. Any higher and now you're talking about compromising the game, at least in regards to PS4. Even on the PC side, not everyone is rocking the most powerful GPU's on the planet, you have to draw the line somewhere. Of course higher is better but it'll take a new generation of hardware (PlayStation 5!) to do VR >1080P at 60Hz in 3D.

I think 1080P will be standard with perhaps Oculus putting out a 2-4K "Oculus 2, Oculus SuperHD" for the enthusiast market.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

I'm down with 1080P. Any higher and now you're talking about compromising the game, at least in regards to PS4. Even on the PC side, not everyone is rocking the most powerful GPU's on the planet, you have to draw the line somewhere. Of course higher is better but it'll take a new generation of hardware (PlayStation 5!) to do VR >1080P at 60Hz in 3D.

I think 1080P will be standard with perhaps Oculus putting out a 2-4K "Oculus 2, Oculus SuperHD" for the enthusiast market.

I think this article may be a bit of an eye opener for you then.

The point is that not only is the screen really close to your face so you will be able to see the pixels easier (spoiling the illusion) but also its not displaying 1080p because there are some blank parts of the screen due to how the lenses work. Take for example this Skyrim mod:


Even then, a lot of the pixels are dedicated to your outer peripheral vision where you only need low resolution data as you do not actually focus on anything there you just "perceive" it. So the end result is a much lower resolution in your primary vision. By cramming in a higher resolution screen you can maximise the pixel density in that area while the console/PC is "theoretically" only really dealing with the same amount of data as a normal 1080p 3D game. How that would be accomplished in a game engine though may be far more complicated than I am thinking, it may need writing from the ground up for VR to do that which probably isn't practical.

Of course the above factors are probably a positive for PS4, as it means the extra effort of rendering stereoscopic 3D is offset by the reduction in resolution per eye. But at the end of the day, more pixels is better when it comes to avoiding big ugly pixels right in front of your eyeballs. I'm happy for the Sony headset to use 1080p to get that important affordability factor in there, but I expect Oculus to go all out and shoot for higher for the ultimate VR headset.

What would be nice is if you could swap out the VR lenses for standard headset lenses, so you could use it as a replacement for a 3D TV with zero crosstalk. That said, it would still only be 960x1080 per eye at best, likely less as you must need something in the middle of the screen to ensure no light from the right side of the screen gets into the left lens, vice versa.

 

[Mark W**a]

You miss my point. The 1080p screen on the latest Oculus is not displaying 1080p because there are some blank parts of the screen due to how the lenses work. eg:


Even then, a lot of the pixels are dedicated to your outer peripheral vision where you only need low resolution data as you do not actually focus on anything there. So the end result is more like 720p in your main vision. By cramming in a higher resolution screen you can maximise the pixel density in that area while the console/PC is only really dealing with the same amount of data as a normal 1080p 3D game.

What would be nice is if you could swap out the VR lenses for standard headset lenses, so you could use it as a replacement for a 3D TV with zero crosstalk. That said, it would still only be 1920x540 per eye at best, likely less as you must need something in the middle of the screen to ensure no light from the right side of the screen gets into the left lens, vice versa.

No I totally understand. What I'm saying is that, taking into consideration processing power, 1080P is fine for right now. Whether the future is viewing a single 4K screen, or perhaps dual displays, what have you, I think what they're doing now is "good enough" taking into consideration the current state of the art with customer electronics.

I'm almost glad it's in a sense 1920x540 per eye, because how would the PS4 be able to render 2 simultaneous 1920x1080P images at 60 Hz each without seriously compromising the graphics, not to mention it's not possible as you said in your OP.

 

[rehtroboi40]

Great, so that ugly shadow on MM can be seen in 3-D. 3-D may look great but would not be complemented by the apparently unfixable sound bug. And given how long it took to get patches out that fixed neither of those things, and how long it takes to get DLC for this, 3-D is years away at this rate.