I need a quick holler from those of you who game with your XBOX 360 and/or Playstation 3 in glorious standard definition. That is, the old boob tube.
I am trying to get a picture of which of the two have better performance at the lower rez. Bonus points if you've got both and tell me about your first hand experience!
We can also make this a thread about appreciating widescreen in certain games, cuz I won't be getting any of that anytime soon!
I have heard terrible things (not entirely all believeable) about how those two system upscale and then, being forced to downscale, make the frame rate stutter, etc.
Actually, I've played GTA4 in standard def on a PS3 for at least a couple hours. I thought the performance was miserly.
Text is hard to read in some games nowadays. Playing the RPG Dragon Age is a chore for me right now because the descriptions of items are tiny and smushed together thanks to words in italics.
I'm going to tough it out and wait for my standard-def TV to go on the fritz before upgrading to HD.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited June 2010
Playing Demon's Souls on a standard television felt nigh impossible. The game's dark enough!
I only upgraded to HDTV a couple months ago. There was no change in performance other than I could finally do the missions in Dead Rising.
I still think games should have bigger text. Many games are nearly completely unreadable on SDTV, but even with a good setup I'm having a difficult time with Red Dead's narrow text or FF13's tiny symbols.
Also, I wish I could play PS2 games without them looking horrible. How do we not have a solution for this yet!?
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I play Xbox 360 games on a standard def TV, and they play fine. The graphics are fine, the frame rate is fine, I have no problems with it... Except for those damn developers who put really small text on the screen that is only readable on a hi def TV.
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EshTending bar. FFXIV. Motorcycles.Portland, ORRegistered Userregular
I play Xbox 360 games on a standard def TV, and they play fine. The graphics are fine, the frame rate is fine, I have no problems with it... Except for those damn developers who put really small text on the screen that is only readable on a hi def TV.
Out of curiosity, can you even buy standard definition TVs anymore?
I don't know about the PS3, but on the XBox 360, if the game programmers didn't add a specific SDTV mode to the game, it letterboxes and shrinks the HD image so as to preserve the aspect ratio. As a result, everything gets smaller and you have about 25% of the screen that's empty.
I know that an SDTV mode is one thing that I've been adding to our upcoming RPG, Cthulhu Saves the World since it makes a world of difference in how good something looks on an SDTV.
I play Xbox 360 games on a standard def TV, and they play fine. The graphics are fine, the frame rate is fine, I have no problems with it... Except for those damn developers who put really small text on the screen that is only readable on a hi def TV.
Out of curiosity, can you even buy standard definition TVs anymore?
That's pretty much the only reason I purchased a HDTV a few years back. If I could have gotten a reasonably-sized flat-screen SDTV, I would have.
I don't know about the PS3, but on the XBox 360, if the game programmers didn't add a specific SDTV mode to the game, it letterboxes and shrinks the HD image so as to preserve the aspect ratio. As a result, everything gets smaller and you have about 25% of the screen that's empty.
I know that an SDTV mode is one thing that I've been adding to our upcoming RPG, Cthulhu Saves the World since it makes a world of difference in how good something looks on an SDTV.
It really pisses me off when developers don't bother to accommodate for SDTVs. Neither the 360 nor the PS3 require HDTVs, so neither should their games. Hell, if you're going to just blow off SDTV compatibility, at least put something on the game box that says "HDTV required/recommended". But of course this doesn't happen.
You'd think with all the money they made with their previous games, Bioware and Rockstar could have managed to spend some time making their latest games SDTV friendly, but instead the text in Mass Effect 2 is nigh-unreadable and in Red Dead Redemption I can't see my horse stamina bar or my ammunition count. The funny thing is, Mass Effect 1 and Grand Theft Auto 4 look perfectly fine.
Seconding Mass Effect 2 as being really disappointing as far as readable text goes. I enjoyed reading all the crap from ME1, even read through all the planet descriptions a couple times at least. This is 100% impossible in ME2. The codex is a touch better after the patch, but not by much; it's still a strain on the eyes that gets old quick.
Have a handful of other games for 360 (no PS3) that I'll likely never play until I eventually go HD. Bummer.
But one day, I will know what the fuck all these little blobs on my mini-maps in every game are supposed to be.
The 360 actually has games that force you to be in 60Hz mode - Eternal Sonata is one of them. The shitty TV in my house does not support 60Hz well - it has huge overscan and the usual blurriness occur. It got so bad that I had to buy a cheap knock off VGA cable on Ebay and just plug it into my monitor to see things clearly.
i have a 27'' 720p tv. it's nothing amazing but it looks waaay better than my old huge CRT
i also sit probably 2-3 feet from the thing so i don't need much bigger... though it'd be cool to have a 42'' someday
the main reason i wanted one was, to tell the truth, how much games with black bars annoyed me. gears and assassin's creed both run with black bars on top if you play on older TVs. it really bothered me for some reason, like i couldn't stop noticing it. plus i got this HD DVD player from a friend and a good pile of movies.
i do plan to get a bluray player soon, i'd like a PS3 but they have $70 bluray players at walmart now and that's almost in my price range for something like that
OP should invest in a 16:9 21-24" LCD monitor that supports hdmi/vga, it's far cheaper than buying a so called HDTV and you can use it for everything and not just xbox/ps3.
As for Lost odyssey on sdtv, I recall it was alright when I played it.
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EDIT: rather, I don't think either actually has modes which specifically change settings to maximize performance at a lower resolution
Actually, I've played GTA4 in standard def on a PS3 for at least a couple hours. I thought the performance was miserly.
They both look equally horrible too.
I'm going to tough it out and wait for my standard-def TV to go on the fritz before upgrading to HD.
My friend's 360 looked fine on that TV though.
I still think games should have bigger text. Many games are nearly completely unreadable on SDTV, but even with a good setup I'm having a difficult time with Red Dead's narrow text or FF13's tiny symbols.
Also, I wish I could play PS2 games without them looking horrible. How do we not have a solution for this yet!?
Out of curiosity, can you even buy standard definition TVs anymore?
I know that an SDTV mode is one thing that I've been adding to our upcoming RPG, Cthulhu Saves the World since it makes a world of difference in how good something looks on an SDTV.
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That's pretty much the only reason I purchased a HDTV a few years back. If I could have gotten a reasonably-sized flat-screen SDTV, I would have.
You've sold me on it already by title alone.
You'd think with all the money they made with their previous games, Bioware and Rockstar could have managed to spend some time making their latest games SDTV friendly, but instead the text in Mass Effect 2 is nigh-unreadable and in Red Dead Redemption I can't see my horse stamina bar or my ammunition count. The funny thing is, Mass Effect 1 and Grand Theft Auto 4 look perfectly fine.
/rage
It's 2010, I guarantee the most the world still owns SD.
Have a handful of other games for 360 (no PS3) that I'll likely never play until I eventually go HD. Bummer.
But one day, I will know what the fuck all these little blobs on my mini-maps in every game are supposed to be.
eeeedddddit: Has anyone played Lost Odyssey on SD? Readable?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16889107040
There's a 16 inch 720p LCD HDTV. For 160 bucks. Very few games do 1080p natively, so 720p is really all you need.
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i also sit probably 2-3 feet from the thing so i don't need much bigger... though it'd be cool to have a 42'' someday
the main reason i wanted one was, to tell the truth, how much games with black bars annoyed me. gears and assassin's creed both run with black bars on top if you play on older TVs. it really bothered me for some reason, like i couldn't stop noticing it. plus i got this HD DVD player from a friend and a good pile of movies.
i do plan to get a bluray player soon, i'd like a PS3 but they have $70 bluray players at walmart now and that's almost in my price range for something like that
As for Lost odyssey on sdtv, I recall it was alright when I played it.
I just finished it, and as long as your tv isn't too small you should be fine.
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