M_Nabil
02-01-2007, 01:11 AM
Dailytech (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5940)
A Microsoft engineer comments on PS3's horizontal scaling, saying that it's no match for Xbox 360's hardware
The news of PlayStation 3?s newly discovered horizontal scaling feature, which poses a possible solution to the system?s 1080i upscaling woes, has piqued the interest of many who are somewhat familiar with the hardware.
Bruce Dawson, a senior software design engineer for Microsoft?s Xbox Advanced Technology Group, is sharing his thoughts via Ozymandias? blog on the PS3?s horizontal scaling feature available in the new SDK. While he is a part of the Xbox team, his knowledge on console graphics hardware goes beyond just Microsoft?s machine.
Right away, Dawson clarifies that, to his knowledge, the PS3 has no ?hidden? hardware scaler, allowing the Xbox 360 to retain the advantage when it comes to 1080i.
?I see no sign that the PS3 contains a chip that can do vertical scaling, and this new feature (horizontal scaling) is a poor substitute for a true hardware scaler,? said Dawson. ?It is a step forward for owners of 1080i only HDTVs, once PS3 games support it, but it is nowhere near as good as the Xbox 360?s scaler.?
Dawson then pointed out that horizontal scaling is quite an easy feat for most modern graphics systems. ?To do high quality horizontal scaling you just need to buffer up a few pixels and intelligently average between them,? he said.
Dawson continues: ?Vertical scaling, on the other hand, is much harder. You need to be able to buffer up (or sample from) two or more lines of data, and then intelligently average between them. For high quality scaling you want to be sampling from a half-dozen lines or more. The Xbox 360 can do this. I don?t know whether the PS3 can do this, but if it could I think we would have seen it by now.?
While the new feature unlocked in the latest PS3 SDK does allow for games to be scaled to 1080i with a minor performance penalty, Dawson feels that ?it will be pretty weak 1080 support with an odd and substandard result.?
Dawson believes that upscaled images will be twice as blurry horizontally as vertically, because the PS3?s horizontal scaling method trades off horizontal resolution for increased vertical resolution, though he does concede that it?s certainly an improvement over having to drop back to 480i.
A Microsoft engineer comments on PS3's horizontal scaling, saying that it's no match for Xbox 360's hardware
The news of PlayStation 3?s newly discovered horizontal scaling feature, which poses a possible solution to the system?s 1080i upscaling woes, has piqued the interest of many who are somewhat familiar with the hardware.
Bruce Dawson, a senior software design engineer for Microsoft?s Xbox Advanced Technology Group, is sharing his thoughts via Ozymandias? blog on the PS3?s horizontal scaling feature available in the new SDK. While he is a part of the Xbox team, his knowledge on console graphics hardware goes beyond just Microsoft?s machine.
Right away, Dawson clarifies that, to his knowledge, the PS3 has no ?hidden? hardware scaler, allowing the Xbox 360 to retain the advantage when it comes to 1080i.
?I see no sign that the PS3 contains a chip that can do vertical scaling, and this new feature (horizontal scaling) is a poor substitute for a true hardware scaler,? said Dawson. ?It is a step forward for owners of 1080i only HDTVs, once PS3 games support it, but it is nowhere near as good as the Xbox 360?s scaler.?
Dawson then pointed out that horizontal scaling is quite an easy feat for most modern graphics systems. ?To do high quality horizontal scaling you just need to buffer up a few pixels and intelligently average between them,? he said.
Dawson continues: ?Vertical scaling, on the other hand, is much harder. You need to be able to buffer up (or sample from) two or more lines of data, and then intelligently average between them. For high quality scaling you want to be sampling from a half-dozen lines or more. The Xbox 360 can do this. I don?t know whether the PS3 can do this, but if it could I think we would have seen it by now.?
While the new feature unlocked in the latest PS3 SDK does allow for games to be scaled to 1080i with a minor performance penalty, Dawson feels that ?it will be pretty weak 1080 support with an odd and substandard result.?
Dawson believes that upscaled images will be twice as blurry horizontally as vertically, because the PS3?s horizontal scaling method trades off horizontal resolution for increased vertical resolution, though he does concede that it?s certainly an improvement over having to drop back to 480i.