RipTen Videogame Blog » HDTV

E3 2011: Wii Games won’t be Upscaled on Wii U

Sam Naylor — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 16:40:40 +0000

The Wii U may be fully backwards compatible with Wii games but they won’t be upscaled on your HDTV.

Mark Franklin, head of Nintendo‘s public relations, told Giant Bomb that Wii games will play the same as they did on a Wii, with no upscaling. Seems a little odd for Nintendo to omit, but Nintendo’s recent track record with keeping up with HD technology hasn’t exactly been brilliant.

Vanquish Demo Reveals “SDTV mode”

Sam Naylor — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:03:02 +0000

Remember when you put Dead Rising in your Xbox 360 for the first time and discovered that the text was completely unreadable because of your SDTV? You’ll not have that trouble with Vanquish.

The recently released demo has revealed that the game will feature an “SDTV mode” which makes the text and icons larger and visible on a standard definition screen. That’s great news for people who don’t have an HDTV yet- although you should probably look into getting one. I appreciate it can be difficult to look into anything with your cathode-ray damaged eyes, but give it a go if you can, would you?

Img via Joystiq

Play Crysis on Your Playstation 3

Patrick Steen — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:14:19 +0000

Want to play Crysis on your Playstation 3? With StreamMyGame you can do just that. Install Linux on your PS3 and start streaming PC games…for free.

Yup, the StreamMyGames server is free. The server works by remotely converting the game’s video and audio into a Game Stream and sending it over your LAN network to a second computer, laptop, or Linux enabled PS3. PC games can be played on the console/second computer without any lag or having to install the game on this machine. Crysis and PS3 unite!

Richard Faria, CEO of StreamMyGame talks of the service’s advantages:

Playing the latest PC game on the PS3 is now a reality at HD resolution and fast frame-rates. I have a PS3 in my living room and PC in my office and my two kids both have old PCs in their bedrooms.

Now we can play games anywhere around the home. StreamMyGame’s technology networks the power of a main PC so it can be used to play high end games on other PCs, PS3s and Linux devices.

What’s the catch? Well there’s two. Currently this streaming only works over an LAN network, but the service is set to expand to broadband in March this year. This means you’ll be able to stream games further than your living room, to anywhere in the world even.

The second catch is that only the basic version is free, which is stuck at streaming a 640×480 video output. For HD you’ll have to subscribe to a years membership for $9.99, or $19.99 for the premium service, which doesn’t appear to have any observable advantages.

In the below video you can see Crysis being streamed to a PS3. Most would question why the guy doesn’t just get a long lead to plug his PC into his HDTV. However, those people would lack foresight! Your PC might be upstairs, and your HDTV downstairs!

Seriously though, this is reminiscent of PSP streaming from the PS3, and so begs the question; Could we be playing Crysis on our PSP, on the train to work? Streaming from your PC to your PS3 and then to your PSP doesn’t sound outlandish. Sony will most likely be the ones to stop us in our tracks, and the lag might be unbearable, but it’s worth dreaming isn’t it?

You can learn more about StreamMyGame here and even register for the free software.

[youtube width="425" height="335"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeBtgPeul3Y&eurl=http://www.streammygame.com/smg/modules.php?name=Tutorial[/youtube]

Via Beyond3d

Ratchet and Clank HD Pixelation Issue? Insomniac Responds

Patrick Steen — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:53:14 +0000

There has been some discussion about the recently released demo of Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction for the Playstation 3 on the well known gaming forum Neogaf. A very select few have been having some visual troubles with the game, resulting in a pixelated mess on their HDTVs. This is surprising, since most who have experienced the beauty of Insomniac’s game can see that it is very sharp and pretty damn special to say the least. So what is going on here?

On some 1080p HDTV’s Ratchet and Clank appears to be pixelated, or in the best possible words – a garbled mess. Now reports of this have been few and far between, but it seems that although being a 720p game, when 720p is selected on the display options for the Playstation 3 the game does not appear as it should on some HDTV’s (a 52inch 1080p Sony Bravia is one of the mentioned televisions). When 720p is unchecked, leaving only 1080i and 1080p the picture in fact clears up but at the bottom-right of the screen is a block of broken up, fuzziness.

What could be the problem? Well some research has been done at the Beyond3d forums, suggesting that Ratchet and Clank is 704p or 704by1280 pixels instead of the regular 720by1280. This is unlike the Halo 3 problem of being a 640p image (or even Conan at 576p) being upscaled to 720p (and higher) since Ratchet and Clank is not upscaled by the Playstation3.

Upscaling from 640p to 720p would cause some strange exaggeration of aliasing, and other minor problems with picture quality. Instead, Ratchet and Clank cuts off 8pixels above and below, meaning the remaining image will still be rendered at 720p but with small black bars above and below, such as you would see when you watch an HD film on your television. A 1080p film will have black borders above and below, thus not using all the pixels, but the quality that is displayed still means it is 1080p. Ratchet and Clank is even less extreme than this, since the black borders would be almost unnoticeable if your HDTV didn’t use overscan to remove them completely. This image is sent from the Playstation to your television, and then the overscan of your television will make the final picture fit the screen, thus not showing the black bars.

Ratchet and Clank being 704p is thus a clever way to save some pixels without impacting visual quality, for Ratchet and Clank is so gorgeous to experience, especially at 60fps, that you will double check to make sure you are not playing through a Pixar film. But could this be a problem for some 1080i/p HDTV’s? It’s not clear if it is, but it could be due to these televisions upscaling from 704p without overscan.

Whatever the problem is, Insomniac seems to be keen to get it fixed for every HDTV out there. ~~While we have yet to confirm that the following is indeed from an employee of Insomniac, it appears that one~~ One of the Insomniac team members has personally posted on the Neogaf forum asking exactly what the trouble is. ~~If it is a member of Insomniac, it would be~~ This is proof of just how down to earth the developer is.

“Hey guys,

Can you send me any brand/model numbers of TVs you have if you are having issues and what the issue is, plus what settings you are running (screen caps are helpful too).

We believe the lower right corner garbling issue appears to only be happening with 1080i/p output forced and with no-overscan. The vast majority of people shouldn’t experience it, and we highly recommend ensuring your PS3 has 720p output enabled as RCF will look best at that resolution and it should correct the issue.

If you’re having the strange pixelation issues, we want to try to replicate that here. We’ve never seen it in-house on all of our various HD sets, and knowing what TVs we need to track down would be helpful.

Appreciate your help
JS”

So let’s hope Insomniac gets this fixed for those that have the problem, otherwise some sorry sods will be missing out on one of the best looking games the Playstation 3 has to offer.

(Note: Insomniac has not confirmed that the game is rendered at 704p.)

Sources: Neogaf, Beyond3d

Update – 10/16 7:36 PM EST
The poster on the Neogaf board has been confirmed as an actual employee of Insomniac. Well known to the board, and featured in several of Insomniac’s Podcasts.