Sony lied about Killzone Shadow Fall's resolution.

So it seems the KZ Multiplayer runs at 960*1080 instead of 1920*1080 which is considered 'native' 1080p.

So why is this a big deal? Well Sony sold this game as native 1080p and 60 fps back at launch. We all know it doesn't hit 60fps unless you are staring at a wall in a secluded area and now we know they flat out lied about the resolution being native 1080p.

I gotta say I am surprised no one caught this sooner. We all figured the MP didn't look as good as the SP because they toned down some effects from the SP, but nothing like this. This is hilarious.

For the record, 960*1080 is 1,036,800 total pixels which is much closer to 720p (a little under a million pixels) than native 1080p which is over 2 million pixels.

I get that it's a sort of betrayal, but honestly it's still one of the best looking "next gen" games I've played. And more fun than any other Killzone I've played. I honestly never cared for the series much until Shadow Fall. I think the OWL plays a role in that. It's a fun novelty that adds something to the otherwise rote gunplay.

I honestly don't blame them if they lied about it. The way people have been going nuts over specs through the early parts of this gen, I'd probably try to keep it on the down lo as well.

Um I thought the were pretty open with the single player being 30fps 1080p and the multiplayer being 960x1080 targetting 60fps. I can definitely remember Guerilla games explaining they chose it so the mp would be more fluid. This isn't new information or a lie, just someone else being wrong

lol Sony has always lied, its nothing new. Its just mp, and still is HD. 1080p MP framerate takes a hit on a FPS, so its obvious why they did it.

960x1080, is that even possible without making the game look like shit?

Nope they didn't. I was at a Developer Q&A session where he confirmed both native 1080p and 60 fps as long as all 24 players weren't throwing grenades at the same time. It was all BS.

It's expected. Some Bluray movies are 960x1080 res, look beautiful, and are advertised as full TRUE HD. Not even picky people could tell a difference, its nothing to complain about.

I'm with barry on this one. I remember reading this as well. They went for 30 FPS in the single player to pack in more detail and they left an unlocked 60 FPS for multiplayer. Most likely different people from the studio. One guy talks BS and the other talks sense.

They did talk about variable 60 fps but made no mention of the resolution.

Find the link. You wont be able to.

It was always clear that the graphics of the MP wasn't as impressive/clear as those of the SP, but I thought it was an AA thing. Live and learn.

Sounds like Guerilla came up with some new graphics rendering technique. It looks nice(though not as nice as true 1080p), but it isn't 1080p.

Odd how nobody (including the DF) detected the lie until now. Here's one of the GAF's tech analysts offering up his thoughts.

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http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=778172&page=20

Liabe Brave

Member (Today, 09:54 AM) Quote #951

Originally Posted by Gestault

...our resident pixel-counter missed it completely and is only now claiming he can tell it's not native 1080p...

Though plenty of other GAFfers are capable pixel counters, I believe you're referring to me. I'm not infallible, but you can quit with the character assassination. I couldn't tell before because in some situations this technique will defeat pixel counting. I can now tell, given new screenshots, but even with some of those the true resolution is not apparent.

I hope you can forgive me for not detecting an interpolation method that has apparently never been used before, just as I will forgive you for being a jerk in the name of winning an argument.

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*Shrugs* I love the MP (played a couple hours this weekend) because they did a great job of balancing everything out of the gate and this resolutiongate isn't going to change that, but the lie is certainly something to keep in mind when Sony is talking tech in the future.

I also love the MP but I noticed it right away. After playing the gorgeous SP I was pretty excited to finally play a MP game in 1080p but then I noticed, just like all KZ games, The MP graphics can't match the SP in clarity. It's an issue I've had with the series since 2.

If I had a choice, I would trade the frame rate increase to a solid 30 @ 1080p, or 60 FPS with scaled back graphics until it runs well @ 1080p.

You do realise my friend that all these so called "1080p native" games are all really just around 900p upscaled! The difference is so minimal it would be impossible to spot out any differences without setting two tv's side by side comparing 1080p to 900p. This is why Xbox owners couldnt give two shits about 720p, why? because there is little to no difference.

my biggest problem with the mp is the horrendous lag. apparently no one in tge u.s is playing anymore so I keep getting stuck with people in Europe. don't like the variable framerate either.

Dude I dont even know why you're bothering with KZ:SF to begin with, the Mp isn't even that great. If you want some outrageous MP, honest to god get Plants vs Zombies GardenWarfare, its pure 100% fun and addictive, if you dont own an xbox bro thats fine its coming out for PS soon man.

1080p or no 1080p the game still sucks.

It was a mediocre shooter at best.

I own an XOne, but not interested in Garden Warfare. I've played CoD Ghosts, BF4 and KZSF and find it the best shooter of them all. It has its issues, but so do BF4 and Ghosts.

Wow, talk about breaking news. At the end of the day, this does not take away from the overall game experience. What it does do is raise some concern as to what lengths Sony will go, in order to get the advantage on the competition. Word of mouth, especially in the social media and net space is a powerful tool. And one Sony has reaped the benefits of, through E3, fake insiders ( ex, Thuway )and resolution gate. Speaking of those supposed insiders, it is interesting to see them being called out for pushing false information.

What I find even more interesting, is the hypocrisy around the gaming community. Had this been a MS related story, the venom being spewed by Sony fans would have been ten fold.

At some point we need to put the resolution crap behind us. Sony fans seem to think that 1080p 60fps is end all, be all of what defines next gen resolution. Well now that we know KZ MP is not running at this resolution, we can still agree that the game does look very good. On top of that, the difference in resolution is negligible between the SP & MP . As developers figure out the complexity of developing for the Xbox One, we will see an even negligible difference in multi-plat games between both consoles.

This has nothing to do with the XBONE. This is the developers at GG trying to match CODs framerate because clearly MP fans are more prone to buying 60fps shooters. They are trying to get 60 fps with an engine pushing a lot of tech and polygons, which is also clearly designed for 30/1080p, And it can handle 30/1080p fine. The gulf between the two consoles are going to stay the same no matter how much you prey, in fact it will likely grow as games start pushing the consoles harder. Xbones bandwidth is not going to magically increase.

@F1Lengend: You are correct that the horse power will never magically increase on the Xbox One. What you are failing to understand, is that as software developers figure out how to manipulate the Xbox One, the visuals will improve. Their are certain tools that devs can use to really polish things up. What I am saying is that the gap in multi platform titles will shrink. Have you read how Theif runs better on the Xbox One than PS4?

Suit yourself man, but again dont be turned off from its childish graphics or think its a simple cash in. Its not. They're is a shit tone more strategy and team worked involved in this game than Battlefield could even dream of.

I wouldnt go so far as to say that. We all saw the downgrade from SP to MP, but didn't think much of it since GG confirmed it was native 1080p. We figured they used a poor form of AA, and well historically, MP always looks worse than SP. No one had any idea it was that resolution though.

...and no one noticed until now, which is further evidence that pixel counting is nothing but masturbatory bullshit.

No I didn't read that. I did however read that it runs marginally better on PS4 and at a higher rez and with more effects, the only downfall being texture filtering which is weird because its not taxing at all. And as for your first point, developers will find ways to manipulate the PS4 as well, and to greater effect. Wait until these port jobs are done with and bandwidth concerns are stretched to the limit, but I'm done talking about this, time will prove all, as it has already.

I noticed it right away. In fact after I played the TItantall beta, I noticed how it was even clearer to me than KZ, something I've had beef with the series since KZ2 MP and I appreciated Respawns focus on clarity even if its running at 720p. Whatever GG is doing in MP is not worth the trade off for more FPS. It still looks good but if we could get SPs visuals (which as super crisp) it would have been outstanding. Hell there is your proof right there, just compare SP to MP and see how much better SP looks. Its the perfect comparison to show how valuable a high res is.

The reason nobody caught this sooner is because of how many people are lying about how big of a difference resolution makes to them, when in reality they just want to belittle people who like Xbox One.

lol wtf is up with you people and the attempts to play down the effect resolutions have on IQ? I really dont get this. It's a known scientific fact ffs.

People did notice the hit on the IQ but GG has been really sneaky about this resolution downgrade. It is 1080 so pixel counters weren't able to find proof right away. The image is also native 1080p if you are not moving so it's tougher for it show up on screens. Regardless people did notice, but they figured it was FXAA ruining the IQ like it usually does.

I laughed when I heard the news. System wars goes crazy over resolution since the PS4 is always doing "Native 1080p" so it was funny to find out otherwise, and it felt like the crushing blow that nobody noticed this.

This is strange. I was led to believe that Sony would NEVER lie about graphics and that this generation is somehow different. :|

Yuuup.

Look, both vader and I know you like the back of our wank hands: had you had an inkling of this fact you would have been screaming bloody betrayal from the rooftops since day one. The fact that you did not testifies that the whole 1080p poppycock is almost entirely irrelevant.

well .... I guess the Difference Between PS4 and Xbox one is less than we thought .

of course PS4 is the more powerful console while being the cheaper one , but the diffrence is not that much .

This is really the only take away form this. Everyone thought it looked good cause it was 1080p, but now we know it wasn't. The fact that we know now doesn't make the game look any worse. It just further proves those comparison videos where it takes a solid minute to find a hiccup between the two shots of different resolutions.

Gen 8 didn't improve much in my opinion, the transfer from gen 6 to gen 7 was amazing but gen 8 is pretty meh.

The SP is 1080p (an easy mistake to make if one reads the topic title and not the topic). Its the MP that is sub-1080p.

Here you and @dvader654 both need to read this explanation from a gaffer who actually does Face/Offs for Digital Foundry. It's a simple explanation that points out why we didn't notice it (because it's not your standard upscaling) and why 720p upscaling to 1080p is a big deal.

Here:

Originally Posted by walltowall

So are we back to resolution doesn't matter now?

The more important question is, do you actually understand why resolution mattered in the first place?

The answer is simple; upscaling is ugly.

If we were using displays without fixed resolutions, 1280x720 would actually still appear perfectly clean and attractive. You would lose some detail but the image would be totally acceptable. This resolution does not divide perfectly into 1920x1080, however, and the resulting pixels are distorted which requires a type of bilinear filtering to smooth out the uneven pixels. The end result is ugly.

This is why 720p, 900p, and anything else in between is considered less than optimal. If all TVs were 1440p then 1920x1080 would actually appear rather unsightly as well.

1080p isn't a magic number, it's simply a number that matches the native resolution of most TVs.

The method used in Killzone manages to avoid upscaling blur completely. While there is some loss in detail, the end result is still sharp and relatively clean.

The whole argument in favor of 1080p should revolve around the elimination of upscaling on fixed pixel displays.

Funny thing people made such a fuss about the Xbox One and its 720p games while clamoring if was easy to see the difference between 720p and 1080p.

It's very easy to see the difference between native 720p and 1080p. This situation is completely different and sidesteps the problems with using 720p.

@S0lidSnake: "Ugly" and "perfectly" are reative concepts: it might look ugly to these technology snobs who spend more time counting pixels than actually playing videogames and will shit on anything that isn't the absolute latest and greatest in tecnhnology, and "it's not perfect" might well mean it's 99% perfect instead of 100%. Who gives a monkey's toss? The games look fine, let's discuss gameplay over graphics, that's what matters the most.

So why don't you send an email to MS and Sony and let them know we don't need any more hardware upgrades since graphics don't matter.

We aren't in the business of choosing "what matters most", gaming can and should be improving on all facets as developers keep pushing the medium forward. Improve the gameplay, graphics, storytelling, sound, design and so on.

As Solid already pointed out, fixed resolution display is the main reason 1080p is important as it is the current standard in television sets across the world. Its also a massive step up from 720p in clarity. This is a tech driven industry and considering we pay for the hardware, we shouldn't be shortchanged.

Hardware upgrades don't only serve to improve graphics. I got to play Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption and FarCry 3 this gen, with their huge worlds that were not possible on older consoles. That's what hardware upgrades are for in my personal book. I don't care if those games are in 720p instead of 1080p. I literally don't care, even if I own a 1080p TV.

Well good for you. now what are you doing in this thread?

Busting your nuts cause i'm bored. All my games are 720p and I don't know what to play :P

Didn't know you bought an Xbox One. Congrats!

Hater. I give you a 3/10 ;)

@F1Lengend:As Solid already pointed out, fixed resolution display is the main reason 1080p is important as it is the current standard in television sets across the world. Its also a massive step up from 720p in clarity. This is a tech driven industry and considering we pay for the hardware, we shouldn't be shortchanged.

Running one game at that res/fps is not the same as running another, so it's not as if anything MS or Sony could have conjured up in the way of hardware would guarantee 1080p/60fps on every game. We aren't being shortchanged, we're just dealing with development on fixed technology platforms that aren't on the cutting edge. Inevitably in this sort of environment a dev will get right up on that line of max performance, wherever the technology in place draws it, and start walking that tight-rope, balancing res and framerate against the degree of inclusion of various graphic enhancing elements(superior textures, superior lightning techniques, etc). Their success in large part is going to be determined by their talent, and whoever said GG was a talented tech company?

You're going to continue to see trade-offs in res/fps for increased quality in other areas, and I really don't see this as a bad thing...I see this as an understanding of the fact that there are other things that go into making a game look good. I know just from modding graphics on PC that there are a quite a few graphical effects I'm willing to give up a few fps for. Hey, it'd be great if I could just run every mod AND get 1080p/60fps+, but like consoles, my PC is not on the cutting edge, so I have to make trades...and I frequently find myself willing to trade in a few fps for things like realistic ground cover and realtime reflections. This is not to say that fps/res aren't important, just that once you hit a certain point, you see diminishing returns in that there are other things you could be asking of your gpu that would go a whole lot further in sating the appetites of us graphic whores. Focusing on that singular benchmark of 1080p/60fps just isn't the way to get the most out of your hardware and in no way ensures getting your money's worth from a piece of technology.

The problem with this particular discussion is that we don't know what specifically we got in return for that decrease in res - how would mp looked/played had they held it at the claimed resolution? We may have all concluded it was a fair trade or we may have concluded that GG was incompetent. But since no of us really seemed to care while we were playing it, I'm not sure why we care now. I wasn't exactly expecting the graphical benchmark for this gen to be set by GG, either.

I read the topic and don't appreciate your sly presumptuous comment. Everyone is talking about the MP resolution. That's what the thread is about. My post was implied. Why the hell would I be talking about the SP resolution when no one else is.