Help me setup/understand PS3 and 1080p

[Schfifty Five]

I recently got a 46" LCD (samsung 46" LN46A950) that supports 1080p.

My previous TV was a 42" plasma that did 720p/1080i.

I am confused on when people talk about the TV being the upscaler vs the game upscaling.

For example: I throw in a game that's native 720p. I go into my PS3 settings and uncheck everything in the display settings only leaving 1080p. When I fire up the game, does that mean the PS3 or my TV is upscaling the game to 1080p?

If i left all the display settings CHECKED and then ran the game, will it be displaying a 720p picture on 1920x1080 real estate? In other words, is it stretching the 720p across 1920x1080?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[erwos]

Your PS3 will only output in the resolutions you've checked off.

Some games, in software, will upscale to 1080p if they can't render natively in 1080p (GTA4 comes to mind) and you don't have any other display modes enabled - this involves a (often serious) performance hit because the game has to do more work to get the image up to that resolution. Other games will flatly refuse to work. This is in contrast to the 360, which has a hardware scaler and will always output all games in 1080p, either through hardware-based upscaling (no performance hit) or native rendering.

IOW, don't be clever and only check off 1080p as a method of "getting everything in 1080p" on the PS3. It doesn't work like that, and will probably result in a degraded play experience.

 

[Schfifty Five]

Originally posted by: erwos
Your PS3 will only output in the resolutions you've checked off.

Some games, in software, will upscale to 1080p if they can't render natively in 1080p (GTA4 comes to mind) and you don't have any other display modes enabled - this involves a (often serious) performance hit because the game has to do more work to get the image up to that resolution. Other games will flatly refuse to work. This is in contrast to the 360, which has a hardware scaler and will always output all games in 1080p, either through hardware-based upscaling (no performance hit) or native rendering.

IOW, don't be clever and only check off 1080p as a method of "getting everything in 1080p" on the PS3. It doesn't work like that, and will probably result in a degraded play experience.

Thanks for the good info.

I guess what I'm still a little confused about is this. Let's say I run a 720p native game and leave my display settings in the PS3 to auto (everything checked pretty much). The image fills the entire TV (1920x1080), but the resolution is 720p.

What does that mean? Does it mean the 720p has been stretched and thus, looks worse. Or does it mean that the game is being upscaled to 1080p by the TV?

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: Schfifty Five
I guess what I'm still a little confused about is this. Let's say I run a 720p native game and leave my display settings in the PS3 to auto (everything checked pretty much). The image fills the entire TV (1920x1080), but the resolution is 720p.

What does that mean? Does it mean the 720p has been stretched and thus, looks worse. Or does it mean that the game is being upscaled to 1080p by the TV?

It means your TV is doing the upscaling, yes. Depending on the TV, you should be able to hit a button on the remote to see what the resolution of the source material is.

 

[Schfifty Five]

Originally posted by: erwos

Originally posted by: Schfifty Five
I guess what I'm still a little confused about is this. Let's say I run a 720p native game and leave my display settings in the PS3 to auto (everything checked pretty much). The image fills the entire TV (1920x1080), but the resolution is 720p.

What does that mean? Does it mean the 720p has been stretched and thus, looks worse. Or does it mean that the game is being upscaled to 1080p by the TV?

It means your TV is doing the upscaling, yes. Depending on the TV, you should be able to hit a button on the remote to see what the resolution of the source material is.

Ok cool. Again appreciate the info.

One last question (ok maybe not the last):

Just to make sure I understand this correctly. If I force the PS3 to output 1080p only, then the software/PS3 is doing the upscaling and my TV essentially does not have to upscale because it is receiving a 1080p signal.

If I let the PS3 output at the native resolutions (say 720p game), then my TV will receive a 720p signal and will upscale to 1080p.

Either way the final image/display is at 1080p but the big difference is that in the former case, the PS3 has to work a lot harder and has potential performance hit as you mentioned in your first post.

Do I have that correct?

 

[Schfifty Five]

bump to see if my post above this one is correct =)

 

[spidey07]

That post is correct. Depending on your TV it may be better to let it do the scaling. Try both to see which you like better.

 

[Schfifty Five]

Originally posted by: spidey07
That post is correct. Depending on your TV it may be better to let it do the scaling. Try both to see which you like better.

Cool thanks for the confirmation.