Sony has poured a lot of resources and effort into pushing its 3D-related offerings, ranging from 3D-capable source devices to 3D TV displays. Key in the company’s strategic roadmap is its heavy involvement in developing and supporting 3D games which is seen as the “killer 3D content” crucial to stimulating 3D TV adoption. So far Sony has released a firmware update that adds 3D gaming functionality to the Playstation 3 (PS3), and launched several 3D games such as Wipeout HD, Super Stardust HD, PAIN, and a demo version of MotorStorm Pacific Rift, with further eagerly awaited 3D incarnations of Killzone 3 and Gran Turismo 5 to follow.
But there remain some doubts whether the Sony PS3’s inherent hardware bottleneck can truly allow 3D games to flourish – in a previous news article we pointed out that the rendering of 3D games places a much higher processing demand on the console’s chipset compared to 2D games, and so necessitating a compromise in either graphics quality or frame rate.
True enough, according to the official guidelines unveiled at a conference event for European game developers this week, Sony has placed a maximum resolution limit of 720p for 3D games played on the PS3. Speaking at the Develop Conference in Brighton, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s senior development manager Simon Benson said that although the Sony PS3 is capable of rendering 3D images at 1080p, the console will scale down native 1080p games (for example Super Stardust HD) to 720p resolution when running in 3D mode.
He explained that the ceiling resolution of 720p is imposed to prevent 3D games from dropping below 60fps (frames per second), therefore ensuring that gamers can still enjoy a smooth 3D gaming experience. Mr Benson conceded that a “more cinematic game” may benefit from a higher resolution but at a lower frame rate (after all Sony is going to release a firmware update in September that will enable the PS3 to playback 3D Blu-ray movies in 1080p at 24fps), but unfortunately such a setting is not permitted within the current framework.
Mr Benson was quick to reassure that this 720p resolution cap for 3D games would probably go unnoticed by the majority of gamers, claiming that even well-trained computer graphics designers can barely tell the difference between 720p and 1080p in 3D. Most 2D games do not run natively in 1080p anyway, so this 720p resolution cap for the sake of 3D can hardly be construed as a significant downgrade.
I’m glad they’re doing what they can to preserve frame rate. I’ve argued for years that for video games, frame rate is more important than resolution. There are more 60fps (2D) games on the Wii than there are on the so called “next gen” consoles – very sad.
I think the more appropriate solution would be to put fps cap instead of resolution cap because some games can put 1080p 3d at 60 fps(like stardust, ecochrome etc. ).
Although I wonder if that is possible with the default hdmi technology. Hdmi 1.4 has 3d @ 1080p with 24hz .
Will people stop getting their facts wrong! There is no difference between the video bandwidth of HDMI 1.3 and 1.4, so the PS3 is not ‘limited’ because it ‘only’ has HDMI 1.3 hardware. A Firmware update next month will add 1080p/24 support to the PS3 so it can play 3D Blu Ray disks… even over its ‘old HDMI 1.3 socket.
The HDMI 1.4 spec only adds one optional hardware feature, which is an Ethernet data channel along the same cable. This does not affect the video bandwidth at all, it is a separate channel.
Most of the HDMI 1.4 spec is definitions of new structures of data, for instance new video resolutions, and ‘frame packing’ resolutions for 3D (so 2 720p or 1080p frames are ‘packed’ one after the other into 1 ‘3D frame’). The HDMI 1.4 spec only defines 3 ‘frame packing’ resolutions/frame rates:
2 x 1080p/24
2 x 720p/50
2 x 720p/60
These are the ONLY options Sony can choose from. 24 frames per second is too slow for games. So that leaves the 720p options.
Its also not limited to 720p because it cannot render 2 1080p frames fast enough. The article even states that the resolution limitation is not due to restrictions in the PS3:
“….the Sony PS3 is capable of rendering 3D images at 1080p, the console will scale down native 1080p games to 720p resolution when running in 3D mode.”
The only reason for this downscale is because there is no 2 x 1080p/60 mode defined in the HDMI 1.4 3D spec. If its not in the spec, display manufacturers do not need to have this capability in their products to claim it is HDMI 1.4 / 3D compatible. So even if Sony added 2 x 1080p/60 to PS3, no TV on the market would display it!
So the title of this article is misinformation at best, lies at worst.
Its really unfortunate that the PS3 will only do 720p 3d, because “passive” 3D televisions can only produce half the resolution. That means that you only get 360p. I
can really see a difference when I compare 3D games on the playstation vs the Xbox. Some people say that the Xbox only upscales into 1080p, and even if this is true it still looks better. 3D PS3 games on a “passive” 3D television not only look sub par when compared to the Xbox, they look terrible.