Compression, Scaling, Gaming, and You

[nathanddrews]

So we're in an era of gaming in which there are many newer/better/faster methods of compressing data, rendering data, transmitting data, and displaying data in ways that reduce bandwidth and provide better performance. The question is, how much of it are you OK with? What combinations might result in negative experiences? What are you willing to sacrifice for the experience? Do you only tolerate objective performance improvements in 8-bit 4:4:4 at full native resolution? Or are you willing to accept something on the subjective merits of it being playable/not distracting?

I was just thinking about graphics in the context of how music has evolved from the CD/DVD (arguably the pinnacle of transparency) to 96-192kbps streaming services and MP3/AAC.

Off the top of my head, these are some of the technologies on PC/console/mobile that are either already in use for many years, recently deployed, or on the horizon:

- Delta Color Compression
- GPU Accelerated Texture Compression
- Misc. Dynamic Resolution Scaling
- 4:2:2/4:2:0 Chroma Compression
- Display Stream Compression
- Wide Color Gamut and High Dynamic Range (more data/complexity per scene)
- Supersampling (DSR/VSR)
- Asyncronous Warp (misc. Frame Creation/Interpolation)
- Multi-Res Shading
- Occlusion Culling
- Checkerboard Scaling
- Variable Refresh (HDMI VRR, GSync, FreeSync)

 

[CakeMonster]

I tolerate lossless, that's it.

Scaling is something we will have to get used to for games. It might look fuzzy on today's displays but there's no way around it when PC monitors get the smartphone treatment and 8K becomes the standard, and 4K the bare minimum. I just want Windows to get support for playing games in fullscreen/borderless scaled from any resolution WITHOUT messing up window size of all open applications.