Lower resolution image in 1080p than in 720p on PS3

[MajrDisastr]

Please either drop the 1080p, or allow an option _within the game_ to turn it off! It looks terrible in 1080p - looks like the image is rendered in 1280x720, but then scaled to 960x1080, with terrible blur all over! It's very annoying to have to go to PS3 options and turn the 1080p mode on and off every time I want to watch a movie or to play Bioshock 2!

Here are a few screen caps:

720p-1
720p-2
1080p-1
1080p-2

Why would developers want to do this is beyond me. What's the point in "supporting" 1080p, when you make the image quality much worse???

[colt45joe]

hmm.. thats something they'll definitely never fix.

[J.S Steinman]

im having problems with the image as well. i have a 32in 720p LG and i was expecting a nice crisp HD intro video like i saw on youtube before but was greeted to a blurry mess. MW2 and all other games look nice so i know it isnt the tv.

[MajrDisastr]

hmm.. thats something they'll definitely never fix.

Probably not... It's amazing how things like this are making it past QA. You have to be blind not to notice it. Sacrificing the image quality just so that they can write "1080p" on the box??? It's a well established fact that no serious game can work in 1080p on the PS3. All this accomplishes is just alienating the user base.

[Futon]

I feel your pain. The first thing I noticed was the whole image was badly upscaled. I put the console itself down to 720p and let my tv do the scaling and its back looking crisp again, like the pc version. (I played the first on pc, and was used to it having a crisper look)

Sucks though, cos other games do it ok. MW2 is way under 720p but upscales really well within the ps3 to 1080p. The same problem occured with the original bioshock when it was released on ps3, but the difference was not this big.

It's not a QA issue either. They did it because the ps3 has compatibility problems with certain HD tvs, and if they cant do 720p, the ps3 itself defaults down to 540p, which looks like poo. These tvs CAN accept at 1080i or 1080p input though, but the game has to support it. They made it so bioshock supports 1080 for those people with tvs that wont accept the 720p input to stop them being stuck in 540. Sucks for those of us with tvs that do everything ok, because most people would have thier consoles set to 1080p and be thinking its the game that looks bad, when its just the crappy upscaling they have implemented over the top of it.

If youre running the ps3 version and think it looks a bit meh, and you have a 1080p tv (dont bother with this if you dont, and dont fill up this thread if you dont either). then set your CONSOLE to 720p and it will look how its meant to.

And by meant to, I mean it looks awesome.

And I know this is the internet and people are stupid - but seriously, even *I* remember the orginal post that explained this. There was a post from one of the 2k staffers who explained they had got an email from one (!) person who was talking about this problem with their TV. They convinced the coders to change the game so it would work on their tv in 1080p. No big deal, except however they scale it, it isnt do a very good job of it.

Just set your ps3 to 720p before you play. I know it sucks, but this way everyone gets to play it in HD, and you just gotta take one for the team and change one setting on your console before you play. No need to kill yourself over it, just be glad that changing it to 720p makes the image crisp again at ALL. It could have been that it looked crappy and blurry on all display modes. Then maybe you could cry about it.

And a special not to the devs: I get why you did it, but the loudest voice isnt always the majority. It's nice you guys care about the gamers who cant pony up for a new tv, but in the real world most people have their console set to 1080, and may not have the 2 brain cells it takes to figure out the fix - or even come read the forum. Thanks for trying to please as many people as possible though, was very noble of the dev team to try at all

[Dara]

Hmm, but why the most games runs&looks well in 720p with full HD 1080p is set on the PS3? Bioshock2 on PS3 looks the way too -> with only 720p is activated on a FullHD TV.
There are not many games with that problem (like 10-15 older games)
It kills my nerves when i must set every time the ps3 to 720p... the ps3 browser cuts off some size and the text is way to big on my fullHD Tv when the XMB is on 720p.
When older fullHD tvs got a problem with 1080i why i got 1080p instead of 720p when i turned 1080p off? As i said: The most games dont have this problem!
I hope 2k will release a patch. I think many Users dont know about the Problem and wondering about the unsharp/bad PS3 image on their fullHD 1080p TVs!

2K plz patch it asap and dont release newer Games with that problem!!

[MajrDisastr]

It's really weird that every time it comes to Bioshock - it's "the more - the worse": when rendering image for 16:9 aspect ratio resolutions, instead of expanding the field of view of a 4:3 resolution, as all other games do, Bioshock cuts top and bottom of the 4:3 frame to fit it within the 16:9 screen. When they need to scale the image up to 1080p - they lower the resolution and just blur it...

One would think, smart people who can create an artificial intelligence for NPCs, calculate all the physics and lots of other things in real time would have enough intelligence NOT to do stupid things, and yet they've done it once, and they've done it _yet again_. It's just mind boggling.

[Dara]

any news? hello devs?

[MajrDisastr]

any news? hello devs?

I've just sent an e-mail to their Support team, and encourage everyone who's having this issue to do the same: http://www.2kgames.com/support/

[Futon]

I'd also like to know what the technical reason was behind lowering the actual texture quality in the sequel. They are a fair bit lower in resolution than Bioshock 1, but it ran great anyway. Are there more shaders this time around? Did you guys want to keep above a certain framerate?

If you have both, check out the Securis doors, and the pneumo tubes for good examples of the differences between the two - that and most floor and wall textures too They did such a good job on porting the first one too, I thought (apart from the 1080p display mode thing)

[MajrDisastr]

So I did some comparisons today and yes, indeed the game in 1080p mode is actually running at 960x1080 (and I'm not sure about the 1080 part either - looks more like 540). You can clearly see the difference if you, while in the game, push the PS button to bring the XMB up and check the slash symbol in the date in the upper right corner (that's if you live in the USA - if in Europe or somewhere else, the date format might be different, without slash - I'm nit sure). The symbol looks all pixelated, with jaggies, and blurry. Then quit the game, turn all 1080 modes off in the PS3 settings, leave only 720p, launch the game and repeat the same - the slash will now look clear and sharp.

So 2k once again gives worse image to those with better televisions

[icy1007]

A game designed for 720p will always look better in 720p.

[TaurusTheBlack]

"1080p mode is actually running at 960x1080"

You mean 1920x1080, don't you? This is what 1080p stands for... and there's no such resolution as 960x1080...

And game is running 1080p, but the upscaling algorithm is unfortunately so screwed, that it makes things only worse...

2K please... There are 2 things you can do to help us, and yourselves... Either remove 1080p option or create/buy some working piece of code that will upscale the game as it's expected...

Most of games run @720p and that's OK!!! Killzone 2 is 720p only and it owns anyway... There's nothing to be ashamed for that your game can't handle FullHD. But while trying to hit the top res and put 1080p on the box, you only make it look more awful than the game ran on this mode...

BTW putting info about 1080p on the box is quite dirty... That's what MS does with all games, all of them run on 1080p... Funny, huh? The only problem is that this 1080p is upscaled (cheated) and it should be reserved only to those games, that support native 1080p...

[Tech Chris]

To the OP, What kind of connection are you using between your TV and PS3? (HDMI?)

Also do you have the frame limiter switched on or off? If you have the option please try setting between on and off as the off option can increase performance at the cost of texture quality.

[MajrDisastr]

You mean 1920x1080, don't you? This is what 1080p stands for... and there's no such resolution as 960x1080...

No, I mean exactly what I said: 960x1080. PS3 does have a hardware upscaler, but it's only horizontal upscaler. What it means is that a game can provide a 960x1080, 1280x1080 or 1440x1080 image and PS3 will _in hardware_ upscale it up to 1920x1080. So what Bioshock 2 (and, in fact, the original Bioshock as well) is doing is squeeze 1280x720 image horizontally into 960 and vertically stretch to 1080 (or worse - just render the whole thing in 960x540 to make it easier to scale to 1080 and let PS3 do the scaling up to 1920).

See here if you want more details: The mysterious PS3 hardware scaler exposed (Beyond3D)

BTW putting info about 1080p on the box is quite dirty... That's what MS does with all games, all of them run on 1080p... Funny, huh? The only problem is that this 1080p is upscaled (cheated) and it should be reserved only to those games, that support native 1080p...

Unlike PS3, on Xbox 360 upscaled games look fantastic - it has hardware upscaling with antialiasing that can scale _ANY_ resolution up to 1920x1080 without developers having to even move a finger.

[MajrDisastr]

To the OP, What kind of connection are you using between your TV and PS3? (HDMI?)

Also do you have the frame limiter switched on or off? If you have the option please try setting between on and off as the off option can increase performance at the cost of texture quality.

I use HDMI. VSync (to which you're referring as frame limiter) has nothing to do with how the game is upscaled to 1080p. Read my post carefully - I only refer to blurry image, which is a result of a shoddy job with upscaling the 2K has done.

[Tech Paul]

From the XMB, Please go to the following:

Settings > Display Settings > Video Output Settings.

Then select HDMI, then ensure only NTSC/PAL and 1080p and selected, then select your aspect ratio, then press X.

This will lock the display settings to 1080p.

[MajrDisastr]

From the XMB, Please go to the following:

Settings > Display Settings > Video Output Settings.

Then select HDMI, then ensure only NTSC/PAL and 1080p and selected, then select your aspect ratio, then press X.

This will lock the display settings to 1080p.

And then what?

Dear Tech Paul! In the original post I said that you need to do exactly the opposite in order to get a clear sharp picture: you need to disable all 1080 modes, because in 1080 the game looks very bad: it looks blurry. It looks fine only in 720p.

Once again - from the original post - this is what the image looks like in 1080p: 1080p-1

And this is - that same scene (reloaded saved game) in 720p: 720p-1

The text above the door in the 1080 image is barely readable, as well as all other details are now blurry - this is _clearly_ not the improved image quality, as any normal person would expect in the higher resolution mode.

[Mr.Big_Daddy]

And then what?

Dear Tech Paul! In the original post I said that you need to do exactly the opposite in order to get a clear sharp picture: you need to disable all 1080 modes, because in 1080 the game looks very bad: it looks blurry. It looks fine only in 720p.

Once again - from the original post - this is what the image looks like in 1080p: 1080p-1

And this is - that same scene (reloaded saved game) in 720p: 720p-1

The text above the door in the 1080 image is barely readable, as well as all other details are now blurry - this is _clearly_ not the improved image quality, as any normal person would expect in the higher resolution mode.

Wow that's alot of difference. I heard Bio 2 was Native 720p, maybe the reason why the 1080p is blurry is because it is upscaled by the PS3/TV? This is exactly like Assassin's Creed 2 is, in 1080p textures were blurry but in the Native resolution of 720p the textures did not have the blurry filter.

[MajrDisastr]

Wow that's alot of difference. I heard Bio 2 was Native 720p, maybe the reason why the 1080p is blurry is because it is upscaled by the PS3/TV? This is exactly like Assassin's Creed 2 is, in 1080p textures were blurry but in the Native resolution of 720p the textures did not have the blurry filter.

Assassin's Creed 2 works in 720p mode, if it's enabled in your PS3 settings, even if you also have the 1080p mode enabled. On my PS3 it switches to 720p automatically. Bioshock 2 should do the same: switch to 720p mode automatically, if it's enabled, and work in 1080 mode only if 720p is not enabled.

[crunchyfrog555]

I can't say this issue bothers me in the slightest, personally, as I feel graphics mean very little to gameplay, but you're entitled to your opinion, and if it bothers you, then yes, it is a problem.

Maybe one obvious reason for slightly downgrading the graphics is to smooth the multiplayer experience? I'm fairly sure with the original game's standard of graphics, it would increase the lag no end.

This may not be the case at all, I could be completely wrong (so don't jump on me), but it's the most obviou thought that springs to mind.

[Futon]

Sorry to say that you are wrong :P The one area this games textures are ok is IN the multiplayer. Lower framerate yes, but better textures - most of them were from straight bioshock 1 as well.

[TaurusTheBlack]

This thread isn't about the quality of textures anyway. It's about game looking much worse @ 1080p than 720p because of bad upscaling.

No, I mean exactly what I said: 960x1080. PS3 does have a hardware upscaler, but it's only horizontal upscaler.

You're right, my bad.

Unlike PS3, on Xbox 360 upscaled games look fantastic - it has hardware upscaling with antialiasing that can scale _ANY_ resolution up to 1920x1080 without developers having to even move a finger.

Still, it's only upscaled, not native... There are some games on PS3 which upscaled look good though, so can't see the fault of PS3's upscaler. Yes, it does screw the job, but then it shouldn't be used...

[TaurusTheBlack]

For those who can't imagine what's the problem, here's mine visualisation.

First screen shows crispy nice 720p graphics (it may seem that it's bad because of pixels, but I played it on FullHD screen, so it's been upscaled by the monitor, but still looks way better than game's 1080p)

720p vs 1080p

[layzer253]

Arent all the halo 360 games the same way>? It should be known that his gen of consoles cannot hold up true 1080p very well.