Beyond3D article on PS3 scaler (yes, there is one)

[Bad_Boy]

"Ripping off the veil: The mysterious PS3 hardware scaler exposed"
http://www.beyond3d.com/articles/ps3scaler/

The key words in that last paragraph would be “until now,” because with the latest PlayStation 3 software development kit (SDK) update, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) has finally exposed part of the built-in hardware scaler to developers.

Its a good read if you're into the technical stuff. Basically saying there IS infact a ps3 scaler (hardware; that is supposedly "hibernating") so that 480p/1080i tv's should be fine for future games. It doesnt exactly work like you would expect (game specific code must be written to enable), and it's pretty odd why it's just coming into play recently for the PS3 SDK. They basically had what might actually be a very expensive chip going idle (there's speculation the chip is Toshiba's Super Companion AV Chip for Cell, or a version of it).

So, bottom line future games should be fine. From my understanding this fix is not 'retrocompatible' so I'm wondering how they will "patch" the already released games. I don't think it can be just a simple firmware update but maybe a patch through the PS Store for those titles. Late Feb and March+ titles shouldnt be affected as they have not gone gold already, I'd take a guess and say Virtua Fighter 5 and beyond should be fine. Scaling all games up to 1080p should be no problem from now on, which is the benefit for me since 480i/1080i scaling wasnt an issue to me personally.

It took a long ass time for them to fix the problems (no clue why), but I'm happy that they fixed them. (The two biggest problems people seem to have (PS2 BC IQ issues and scaling issue) have recently been fixed.)

I guess it's wishful thinking to have a troll free ps3 thread but whatever.

Heres a link to the B3D thread about it:
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38027

[thor1182]

I am very very confused why they didn't try and put this out sooner. It just makes the PS3 scream to me as an unfinished product in some key areas upon release. Good for them for having something on board that can do it, and getting it working... just still seems a bit odd that it took this long, and even what they have seems half baked.

[Bad_Boy]

Yeah it's pretty odd why it took this long. Possibly it could of been because of this new chip they are using. It really seems to me like Europe IS the real PS3 launch, all of the big issues (besides price of course) have been fixed before then and there are rumors of more updates to fix the other issues before launch. Not to mention software seems more ready during the europe launch. But it's glad to know theres an actual fix for this issue so many people have been complaining about.

I'm talking to the writer of the article about how long it would take to implement this for games and its pretty simple enough. Changing the framebuffer rendering size is all. I think every game released from VF5 (a 1080p game) and beyond should be fine if they havent gone gold yet.

[Namrok]

Game specific code for scaling? Ewwwwy. I'll take MS's solution over that any day. Still, good to hear they are hammering out the kinks. It's slowly becoming more appealing to me, just needs games now.

[thor1182]

from all what I can tell from that article, and what I have read about the 360 scaler, I like the approach that MS used over what it seems like Sony is doing.

To me a free and down scale operation is much better than one that takes memory and extra processing time on the image, but it is still unknown that the PS3 chip can and cannot do.

I scanned that thread and it seems like a dumb dumb move on Sony's part to be purposely holding the PS3 back in terms of abilities and turn them up later in life. I would think they would be wanting to pull out all the stops and make it worth its cost, instead of something that is a work in progress.

[Bad_Boy]

Game specific code for scaling? Ewwwwy. I'll take MS's solution over that any day. Still, good to hear they are hammering out the kinks. It's slowly becoming more appealing to me, just needs games now.
Theres hardly a hit at all for devs to notice (if any at all), and it's still hardware based. Purely software based would most likely mean there would be a significant (enough to notice) hit in power By march, you probably wont be able to tell the difference between MS's solution and the PS3's way. From behind the scenes anyways, devs will obviously notice but it wont really affect development. This is really good news for 480i/1080i CRT owners. It doesnt quite affect me as much, but 1080p scaling is doesnt hurt.


I scanned that thread and it seems like a dumb dumb move on Sony's part to be purposely holding the PS3 back in terms of abilities and turn them up later in life. I would think they would be wanting to pull out all the stops and make it worth its cost, instead of something that is a work in progress.
I dont think they purposely held this back. Thats even worse than not being ready. :p

[thor1182]

as of this moment we won't see much of a performance hit by the software method, but down the road we might as games keep pushing the limit of these systems.

[Namrok]

Theres hardly a hit at all for devs to notice (if any at all), and it's still hardware based. Purely software based would most likely mean there would be a significant (enough to notice) hit in power By march, you probably wont be able to tell the difference between MS's solution and the PS3's way. From behind the scenes anyways, devs will obviously notice but it wont really affect development. This is really good news for 480i/1080i CRT owners. It doesnt quite affect me as much, but 1080p scaling is doesnt hurt.

Except that you know...if they change the firmware for the scaler, games could stop working, where as MS can enhance theirs (1080p for example) and it will just work, totally transparent. I'm sorry but Sony's is just a crap engineering solution.

But you are right, to most people, it won't matter, unless Sony screws it up.

[Bad_Boy]

Except that you know...if they change the firmware for the scaler, games could stop working, where as MS can enhance theirs (1080p for example) and it will just work, totally transparent. I'm sorry but Sony's is just a crap engineering solution.

But you are right, to most people, it won't matter, unless Sony screws it up.
They wont change the XMB firmware for the scaler. So games wont stop working. I dunno, maybe you should read the article again. *not trying to be rude*

[ENU291]

I always said that the PS3 was just not ready for launch in November of 06. In their attempt to compete for the 06 Christmas season it seems that Sony let alot of small issues pass under the QA radar. It's good to see that they are finally getting everything sorted out now.

[|MaguS|]

I think its going to be more related to BC then PS3 games because if they can up the resolution of PS2 titles it would be awsome. I know as of right now they stated that they wouldn't but who knows in the future they might add the capabilities through a firmware patch.

[ViN86]

Yeah it's pretty odd why it took this long. Possibly it could of been because of this new chip they are using. It really seems to me like Europe IS the real PS3 launch, all of the big issues (besides price of course) have been fixed before then and there are rumors of more updates to fix the other issues before launch. Not to mention software seems more ready during the europe launch. But it's glad to know theres an actual fix for this issue so many people have been complaining about.

I'm talking to the writer of the article about how long it would take to implement this for games and its pretty simple enough. Changing the framebuffer rendering size is all. I think every game released from VF5 (a 1080p game) and beyond should be fine if they havent gone gold yet.
maybe they actually rushed it to production before all of the features were finely tuned. they probably did it to try and capitalize on the Christmas season. now that that whole debacle is over, we should see some features improved.

nice to see Sony making steps in the right direction and actually implementing their hardware instead of just hyping it.

[Bad_Boy]

maybe they actually rushed it to production before all of the features were finely tuned. they probably did it to try and capitalize on the Christmas season. now that that whole debacle is over, we should see some features improved.

nice to see Sony making steps in the right direction and actually implementing their hardware instead of just hyping it.
Thats basically how I see it. As I said, Europe launch seems to be the real launch but theres no way they could of passed up 2006 holiday season and give 360 a two holiday season lead imo. It explains why everything seems to be 'at the ready' and fixed for europe launch.

I think its going to be more related to BC then PS3 games because if they can up the resolution of PS2 titles it would be awsome. I know as of right now they stated that they wouldn't but who knows in the future they might add the capabilities through a firmware patch.
Talking to Vysez (writer of the article), he didnt really mention PS2 BC on the issue so for now it seems mainly for PS3 games and 480i/1080i CRT owners. It's in the PS3 SDK after all, which doesnt have much to do with PS2 BC.

[|MaguS|]

Thats basically how I see it. As I said, Europe launch seems to be the real launch but theres no way they could of passed up 2006 holiday season and give 360 a two holiday season lead imo. It explains why everything seems to be 'at the ready' and fixed for europe launch.


Talking to Vysez (writer of the article), he didnt really mention PS2 BC on the issue so for now it seems mainly for PS3 games and 480i/1080i CRT owners. It's in the PS3 SDK after all, which doesnt have much to do with PS2 BC.

Thats the thing, they only covered the SDK but who is to say that internally at Sony they aren't going to start using the scaler for BC. This article is written from the perspective of only outside developers, it doesn't cover what Sony might implement themselves in the future. Maybe they might upscale DVDs in the future aswell? Who knows, now atleast we know that the PS3 wouldn't need to do this through software scaling by using the CELL but rather has a dedicated chip.

[Namrok]

Actually, after having actually read the article (I probably should have done that first) I just had a giant WTF moment.

The scaler only supports horizontal scaling. So to support 1080p/i if the game renders in 720p (due to resource constraints) they have to change the resolution from 720p to 960x1080, then stretch it to 1920x1080. There is either no vertical scaler, or Sony for some bizarre reason doesn't want people to use it yet, maybe they don't have firmware written for it. Now intermediate resolutions can be used instead of 960x1080, ones that are closer to 1920x1080 assuming you have power to spare for it. But I really have to wonder what stretching 960 pixels to double it's width would do to IQ. And the fact that you have to tweak and program for all this on a game by game basis is just sloppy, plain and simple. Scaling is something the OS should handle.

Ah well, as much as I think "worst engineering ever" when I read about that, it probably won't effect things too much. It's just retarded is all.

[Marvel_us]

Good to see that there is one, I really had a hard time swallowing that one didn't exist in PS3.

Not to sure on the overall efficiency of this method. Basically Sony is trying to keep their promise of PS3 being "the" 1080p console. So with this method, virtually ALL games should be 1080p compatible.

Devs would keep the 1080 but change the 1920 to either 960, 1280, 1440....etc. Which ever one they can get the best preformance from. It's kind of a "shady" way of doing 1080p but it will work.

EDIT: Namrok pretty much said what I said. I agree with him as well this method is sloppy and allows a lot of room for error if the tools in the SDK aren't great.

[Bad_Boy]

Thats the thing, they only covered the SDK but who is to say that internally at Sony they aren't going to start using the scaler for BC. This article is written from the perspective of only outside developers, it doesn't cover what Sony might implement themselves in the future. Maybe they might upscale DVDs in the future aswell? Who knows, now atleast we know that the PS3 wouldn't need to do this through software scaling by using the CELL but rather has a dedicated chip.
Good points. It would be nice to have some more inside information. I'm happy the PS2 BC has been fixed so anything more than that would be alright with me. :P

[ViN86]

Actually, after having actually read the article (I probably should have done that first) I just had a giant WTF moment.

The scaler only supports horizontal scaling. So to support 1080p/i if the game renders in 720p (due to resource constraints) they have to change the resolution from 720p to 960x1080, then stretch it to 1920x1080. There is either no vertical scaler, or Sony for some bizarre reason doesn't want people to use it yet, maybe they don't have firmware written for it. Now intermediate resolutions can be used instead of 960x1080, ones that are closer to 1920x1080 assuming you have power to spare for it. But I really have to wonder what stretching 960 pixels to double it's width would do to IQ. And the fact that you have to tweak and program for all this on a game by game basis is just sloppy, plain and simple. Scaling is something the OS should handle.

Ah well, as much as I think "worst engineering ever" when I read about that, it probably won't effect things too much. It's just retarded is all.
lol imo this sounds closer to the truth. making a scaler thats merely horizontal doesnt make much sense to me. but then again, im studying chemical engineering, not electrical :p

Good points. It would be nice to have some more inside information. I'm happy the PS2 BC has been fixed so anything more than that would be alright with me. :P
yes, the BC on the PS2 was amazing to me. i loved being able to play my PSX games on my PS2.

[Marvel_us]

lol imo this sounds closer to the truth. making a scaler thats merely horizontal doesnt make much sense to me. but then again, im studying chemical engineering, not electrical :p

Computer engineering FTW!

Muahahaha!

[Bad_Boy]

Computer engineering FTW!

Muahahaha!
Same here heh.:cool:

[|MaguS|]

Computer engineering FTW!

Muahahaha!

Already have my degree :P

[Marvel_us]

Already have my degree :P

Give me about a year and a half.;)

I've always wondered this maybe someone here knows. Would there be anyway for them to use Cell or RSX to implement AA/AF in PS2 backwards compatibility?

[Bad_Boy]

Give me about a year and a half.;)

I've always wondered this maybe someone here knows. Would there be anyway for them to use Cell or RSX to implement AA/AF in PS2 backwards compatibility?
Yeah its possible with software emulation, but right now I'm pretty sure it's using the hardware emulation from the PS2/PS1 chipsets. Who knows if that will change in the future.

[thor1182]

BS of CS and EE ....

and back on topic, the more we sit her and analyze what they are doing, the more all of us, even the Sony hardcore, are doing :confused: and :headexplode:

[|MaguS|]

Yeah its possible with software emulation, but right now I'm pretty sure it's using the hardware emulation from the PS2/PS1 chipsets. Who knows if that will change in the future.

It should be possible even in hardware... The PS2 was able to enhance PSX games right from launch and it had PSX hardware aswell to aid in Backwards compatibility.