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Nov 29 / Ozymandias

360 = PS3 = 360 = PS3 (You do the math)

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Some folks have taken umbrage at my statements on the PS3's graphical prowess in the past. Specifically, I've said that A) 720p is the sweet spot for PS3 and 360 games, B) the 360 and PS3 are basically the same platform in terms of graphics capability, and C) 1080i/p games are going to be very rare, and those games will give up visual features to hit that resolution.

Interestingly, you still see people who don't want to believe. My favorite are the folks who try to call me on my "1080i/p will be rare and not bring any benefits" statement, but never back it up with any facts. They like to point to Ridge Racer and NBA 07 having 1080p support, yet can never show any actual advantage to that. Well, 1UP just released a great article called "What the Cell is going on?" – and in it, they have side-by-side videos comparing identical games on the PS3 and 360. You'll quickly see there's no real difference.

That's not the say the PS3 isn't worth buying – it may well be in the future when quality, exclusive games are released. That's not the case today, and as 1UP says, "The PS3 is here now, it costs an extra $200 (at minimum), and the visual difference is questionable." Save your pennies and pick up a Wii – now that's a fun system.

[Edit: Forgot to link to the 1UP article - sorry about that!]

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  • HOCK

    you tell em brother, so hard to see a difference at 10 feet away using a 42 inch tv,is there a difference?  does not make any sense for a 1080P, unless it is 60inch or more.

  • http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3155393 J.Goodwin

    Link in the URL link here, for those who might want to actually read the referenced piece.

  • Andy

    Well, what you are comparing is the PS3 launch titles and the XBox 360 ’2nd generation’ titles, so it is fair to say that the 360 will have a head start, but the PS3 still performs admirably. How about comparing Perfect Dark with Resistance:FOM?

    I would like to see how Gran Turismo HD compares with the new Forza title. I will still wait and see before committing to purchasing one, but being based in the UK,  I have that luxury anyway :o )

    Andy

  • Aedrin

    Some points that are being forgotten in the whole argument is; does it matter? Will it matter when you can see sweat drops on player’s foreheads.

    I have some games which I find graphically very interesting. I’ll play it for a while because it looks pretty and immersive. But you get used to it, start to realize that the game is boring and stop it.

    I just started played Mario 64 on the DS and I’m having so much fun. This is a game that was released in 1996, and has reduced graphics on the DS yet it is still exciting and immersive.

    Some people will of course be turned off by Mario, but I feel it also applies to other games. Why did Starcraft last so long as it did? The graphics weren’t exciting, but they were done properly and combined with great gameplay it make a perfect combination.

    In my opinion, I’d pick the system that has the better library of games. And looking at what the PS2 offered, there weren’t that many great titles compared to other consoles (including the PSX).

  • The Hedon

    Well, the Xbox 360 was out less than a year, and Gears of War was in development for a few years and was released, and it’s a FIRST gen title that SPANKS anything on the PS3.

  • Joseph the video guy

    You aren’t supposed to be 10′ away from your HDTV.

    The point in the creation and adoption of hdtv is not to provide you with additional resolution. It is to provide additional aspect ratio at the same resolution. Resolution in this case is size of a picture element on the retina.

    You are supposed to sit just as close and have more to see. If you go from a 30" tv to a 40" hdtv then move back a few feet you won’t see a difference. The HD advantage is totally lost. Your hdtv ‘pixels’ will take up about the same space on your eyeball that the sd ‘pixels’ took.

    This is why a divix ripped movie looks fine on a computer monitor from across the room but terrible when you are sitting in your chair.

    So, on a small screen, 40", from 10′ you won’t see an advantage. Now move to a 50+ inch image and  720 looks like mud.

    The rule of thumb for viewing content is to be between 2-3 screen heights from your display. So if you have a 40" hdtv you should be around 5-7 feet away from it.

    That is why there is a breakneck race among tv makers to make bigger and cheaper HDTV’s

    _____________________________________________________

    Heck Lets break some Math!

    VISUAL ACUITY

    The idea viewing distance is where the size of an individual pixel is JUST below the threshold of visual discrimination. Pixels will be big as possible without being able to tell one from another.

    This measure in human vision is called angular subtense. For a person with 20/20 vision this is onr arc minute (1/60)deg. With your hand at arms length the width of your pinky nail is 1 deg. A nail size display will have 60 scan lines.

    TV sizes

    Charles Poyton apporximates this by saying the distance =3400/(pixels per inch)

    So for SD tv the view distance should be

    (3400/480(lines in sdtv))* (Picture height )

    This solves to

    SDTV view distance =7.08*(picture height)

    For 720p this is 4.7 * picture height

    For 1080(i/p) this is 3.14* picture height

    RESULTS

    For a 30" sdtv the screen height is 18" and the view distance should be 127". This is very close to the Lechner distance

    (http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Tech-Corner/f_EBU_likes_progressive.shtml)

    For the 40" 720 set the view distance is 94" or 8′

    The 40" 1080 set the view distance is 62" or 5′

    The proper HDTV(1080) size at 8 feet is 60"

    TADA!

  • APK

    You cannot compare a game on the 360 last year to a game on the ps3 this year.  If anything the bar is higher because

    A: the ps2 was older than the xbox, therefore they had more time to develop the follow on and

    B: the devs for the ps3 had a year of playing 360 games to learn from

    Is seems that sony is making the same mistakes Sega made with the Saturn.  Those mistakes let Sony dominate.

    Sony seems to be ignoring the market and its own devs, thinking it knows the way to go…in most business cases this kind of hubris is rewarded with failure.  

  • You knows it’s true…

    The "first vs second" generation argument doesn’t hold. Look at every console launch to date, PS2 vs. Dreamcast, Xbox1 vs. PS2. It has *always* been the case that the games on the newer console look better than those on the older console… EXCEPT this time, when they look the same. And why? Well, could it be anything to do with the fact that they effectively ARE the same? Hmmm….

  • RomeoDude

    I did some math myself:  while the price is about the same, when it comes to the fun factor: 360 + Wii > PS3…. I just played a PS3 at target and was quite unimpressed with the graphics.  I don’t know if it was just the monitor, but I don’t exactly have a high end TV, so I look for something that looks good on any monitor, and the 360 and the Wii have been pretty good on my 27 inch TV.

  • Anonymous

    Forgot to include the link to the 1UP article – sorry about that! It’s in the article above, and you can also find it here: http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3155393

  • Maynard

    Even if these people who continually question your judgement were to see the results, first hand, right in front of their face, with a professional describing why they’re the same or one is better than the other, they still wouldn’t listen to what you had to say, Ozy.  Fanboys are tough to sway.

  • http://rijit.spaces.live.com/ rijit

    "Fanboys are tough to sway."

    True, even us 360 fanboys…

  • http://www.wii60.com/forum Drew

    I’m tired of that bullshit "Well, this is the first generation of PS3 titles, give them a break." argument. The PS3 has been in development longer than the Xbox 360, and has had dev kits in the hands of developers longer than the Xbox 360. "First-gen" my ass. Even the titles that were supposedly "improved" just for the PS3 don’t look much different than their Xbox 360 counterparts. Hell, even Ridge Racer 7 looks almost identical to, and in some cases worse, than the ’360 version. The verdict? The PS3 is a failure. Save your money, and like Ozy said, get a Wii.

  • http://www.gov11648464276955.co.uk/ Hector

    Very interesting site, read it all :)

  • Joseph

    Ports really should work the same.

    The comparison is akin to saying the street fighter 2  on XBL doesn’t look that much better than SF2 on the Super Nintendo then concluding that the Xbox 360 isn’t much better than Super Nintendo.

    Maybe I should do that with the Wii once the virtual arcade gets going:)

    The test was done wrong also. To eliminate bias the images should have been shown without system tags. Once you made your choice it should reveal the system you picked. The articles title also biases the results. If you told people that Coke tastes like cat pee then gave them a sample of soda labled "coke" the results would be more negative than if you used a neutral title and a blind test.

  • Porktree

    I feel like I should be using LOL, and other 733t speak.  This so reminds me of when the PS2 came out and was compared to the Dreamcast, all the Dreamcast fanboys hollering about 1-price and 2-graphics.  It’s deja vu all over again. Thank you very much "Joseph the Video Guy" for the  great job on explaining how the eye works with hdtv, that was some fascinating stuff.

    Anyway, I think the wii+360>ps3 just on fun alone. I think in the long run, you’ll see a slight edge graphically from the ps3, similar to the xbox’s edge over the ps2, not much, but enough for folks with both consoles to buy the ps3 game (like I did the xbox game, when it was on the ps2 and xbox).  Of course if online play is part of the game the ps3 looses (so far) as sony seems to suck at the onine thing.

  • http://www.thedonders.com Anonymous

    the point is, xbox360 has halo 3, game over sony/PS3 lose.

  • Trellium

    Having the labels hidden would be irrelevant. The whole point is that there is almost no difference between the systems. You don’t just look at it and consistently say "This one is better for picture quality".

    Are you people saying that if the name of the system was hidden, that one would have had a resounding success? In that case, the study would be flawed, in my opinion, since there isn’t really a clear winner.

    Certainly, not enough to spend an extra $200.

  • John-Paul

    I’m just pissed because of all the BS sony has said publicly ABOUT the 360 vs. PS3.

    Basically:

    a. The PS3 is WAY WAY better (not exactly, if even at all)

    b. the 360 is already dying (for feck sake..)

    c. The 360 is the Xbox 1.5 (so.. the PS3 is really PS2.5?)

    and I’m pissed about everyone’s initial PS3 vs. Xbox360 comparisons being based on PRE-RENDERED FOOTAGE Sony crapped out during the last couple E3 shows that in NO WAY mirrors what the system ended up doing.

    In other words they are still big freaking liars and anyone who believes ANYthing they say should be shot. They slam their competition with lies, greatly exagurate their own abilities to hype up their zombified fans and then top it off by having the nerve to make extrememly stupid statements about the state of their competition.

    So here we are, both systems out, I say let the comparisons begin. Maybe for once people will let facts dictate their decisions and not just believe all the P.R. bullcrap lead them around.

  • joseph

    Trellium

    The comparison just wasn’t very good. Of course were biased here. We are all reading a xbox 360 blog for a reason.

    Most of the games were direct ports and it shows so it really would have been difficult to tell. Some of them look optimized for per platform. A blind test lets you get results with less bias. It would have been hard to get more bias than this test, although I have learned a few things from the RNC.

    You only say that there wasn’t a clear winner because that is the point of this blog, the blog the article was on and it validates your internal feeling on the subject. To me some of those images DID show graphical differences. Given how the internet is full of fanboys if you want any honest answers you need to hide the system names.

    Just imagine if they said ‘oops our bad instead of a PS3 the second system was a Wii.’ Give that a day to perculate over the internet tubes and see what results are the next day."Wii has best next gen graphics"

  • Trellium

    Joseph, then you should go spend the extra money on PS3. Its a personal thing. Some people see a huge difference, others do not. The labels have nothing to do with that. If you see value in PS3 graphics then have at it.

    I am just saying that the labels have nothing to do with it. For the most part, the systems look very much alike, its not that one system is spectacularly better than the other.

    If I don’t see a difference and can save $200 for it, that should be completely acceptable. THere simply isn’t enough there for me to spend the extra money.

    Its up to the PS3 developers and engineers to create a gaming environment that CLEARLY has enhancements worth paying for, and that this should be true with or without labels. The labels are not relevant, you see what you see and you decide if its worth paying extra for. Some say yes, some say no. Don’t blame the labels though.

  • blackfish 95

    @Joseph the video guy:

    Your linked article points out that 720p is good for up to 50".  I couldn’t agree more as I’m using a Samsung 50" DLP and it looks amazing.  Particularly with solid content like Discovery HD, PBS HD and Xbox 360 games :)

    We sit 8′ from it and it is not comparable to our old 36" tube SDTV.  I hope you weren’t implying that this shouldn’t be the case :)

  • Joseph

    No, not at all. At 8 feet a 50" 720 display should be aces over a SD display.

    I disagree with most of the article but it was the quickest reference to the Lechner distance.

    The distances I wrote up are the optimum viewing distances where pixel elements are as big as possible while not being distinct. You should, if you look hard, be able to just about make out the pixels on your dlp at 8′. You should be closer to 10′ but not everyone sees exactly the same. The farther you are from 20 years of age the closer you can sit. I can sit much closer than optimal :)

    At your view distance a 1080 display would have some picture advantage. Roughly doubling the optimal distance is the point where you sould see no differnce between between the next lower resolution.

    So for a 40" set you would see almost no difference between 1080 and 720 at 10 feet.

    For a  30" set at 16 feet SD and HD would look almost the same.

    Most people don’t consider the viewing distance and resolution together when the get displays. Not taking that into account gets very disappointing results. Having multipe resolutions is bad for consumers; I hope that 720 and interlace die off soon. Even videophiles have trouble keeping all of this straight.

  • Joseph

    Trellium-

    The PS3 and the xbox are the same price to me. I care enough about video that a next gen HD format is required,so is a harddrive.

    I wouldn’t use the fact I could see a difference in the test as proof I should buy a PS3. The poll set up was awful. No-one can conclude anything from it.

    It doesn’t support Ozy’s argument points very well if at all. The images were ultra compressed screen grabs of games. The resulting images should have been 1280×720 or 1920*1080. The way the screen captures were made the Wii would be shown to be equal also.

    All the ports show is that those games weren’t optimised for any system. Games that are ported are typically madeto be easy to port, not to be graphically stunning. Oblivion will look almost the same everywhere.

    I do think that both systems are very close right now in graphical ability also but that is only based on screens of Gears of War vs Resistance. In that vein FFX and FFXII also look pretty damn good. Does the xbox360 look $200 better than a PS2? Picking only AAA titles I bet it would be close.

    This blog is a place where MS judges the fan response to its console. You are listened to here in a way not true on most blogs.

    If a biased review makes MS think that the xbox360 customers don’t care about getting better graphics, then development resources will be taken away from graphics and put elsewhere.

    We shouldn’t be saying that the XBOX360 is the same as the PS3; We don’t care about graphics. We should say look at the cool thing the ps3 does, we want devs to do that too. Fanboyism will get you nothing more than you have now.

  • Englishman

    No offense Joseph the video guy, but even compared to what I had to study to attain a masters in the subject, your math bores the heck out of me. All the layman has to know is "does it look good?"

    To use this analogy (yet again, and hopefully someone will listen this time); you buy a PC. 12 Months later, you see a similar PC available, at a 50% higher price. Wouldn’t you be STUNNED if anyone even considered comparing the two? You’d be pretty pissed if the 2nd PC (the PS3 in this analogy for those slow people out there) WASN’T more powerful than the 360 wouldn’t you? And here we are arguing the point…

  • Joseph

    This is getting tiresome so this is my last post in this thread.

    The test that was linked was flat out awful. It was done in a way that the Wii could have won or at least tied the 360 and PS3.

    It is seriously like looking at the XBL arcade games and concluding that the xbox 360 isn’t better than the SNES.

    It’s not an argument against the point it’s an argument for using a reliable source to back up talking points. Blogs don’t NEED facts but, when they  use them it’s nice for them to appear less biased.

    I guess the whole point of the thread is really "are the xbox360 graphics good enough?"

    The answer here is a resounding YES. No one here  cares if the graphics get better than they are now.

    Yes, yes the math in boring. It is the math that is required right now for people to make an informed HDTV purchace. I’d wager that a number of people jumped on the HD bandwagon with a 30" HDTV that looked good 7 feet away in the store and placed it so far away at home that it doesn’t look ANY better than a SD TV would.

  • Englishman

    Sorry Joseph. My remark came out more personal than was intended. It was made after a hard day at work and an even harder time reading Sony/Microsoft fanboys’ comments. You obviously know your stuff and it was in no way meant to detract from that. (Now, are we still on for Saturday night???)

  • Joseph

    No offense taken. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, even if it is not the same as mine.

    I did have a laugh out loud monent reading your post though. That second PC that costs %50 more and isn’t any faster, yeah that was a MAC ;)

  • very broken

    1Up doesn’t work with IE 3 times out of four. Funny that they would want to throw away page views, but I almost always get an operation aborted dialog box.

    Happened with IE6 and 7.