Recent analysis of Remedy's Quantum Break revealed a 720p resolution output for the Xbox One version. Although the game's use of anti aliasing and other graphical effects is impressive, the relatively low resolution left a few Xbox One owners upset.
About a decade ago, the HDTV standard was set by the ITU standards folks (engineering types). They defined two different resolutions for HDTV (High Definition TV), 720 resolution (1280720) and 1080 (19201080). Now, there are various ways to deal with each, such as 1080i, 1080p, and so on, but not in this article. The fundamental difference between 720p and 1080p is the number of pixels for displaying information. You can do the math. 1080 has 2.25 times as many pixels in use. That means, for any size display, there are far more and they are much smaller (and therefore less likely to be visible), creating a smoother, more detailed image to enjoy!
I Thought The War Was Over 720p
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Also, for those of you planning (or already having) a dedicated home theater where you will invest many thousands in furniture, thousands more, each, for wiring, painting, installation, and audio equipment, and probably thousands more for this and that (popcorn machines, poster artwork, sconces for the walls), it certainly would seem questionable not to buy a 1080p projector, when the difference between a 720p projector and a 1080p projector, is maybe only 10-30% of the cost of the entire theater.
Shown here, the 720p resolution, Panasonic PT-AX100U, considered by most, to be the best selling home theater projector in the US. LCD based, it has excellent placement flexibility, and is also the brightest of the home theater projectors
What other elements need to be considered, besides resolution? For you to make an intelligent choice, there are a number of non-resolution issues. For example, most 1080p projectors are not as bright as their 720p equivalents.
Move to the more serious comparison of 720p projectors to 1080p projectors, and things get just a touch murkier. However, as a group, I cannot think of any good reason why a 1080p projector would not produce at least as good an image as a 720p projector on either standard TV, or standard DVD.
The result is a release that pays appropriate homage to the original PSP titles but doesn't look embarrassing on the PlayStation 3. The games still look old-skool, with the detail increases subtly applied, but in motion both titles in the Collection manage to impress. Over and above the artwork improvements, it's worth noting is that Ready at Dawn appears to have significantly upgraded lighting over the PSP game, which can have a very dramatic effect on many different scenes.
To get an idea of how successful the developer has been with its remastering, check out this comparison footage, taken from both Chains of Olympus and the technologically more challenging Ghost of Sparta. Here, we've captured the same clips from the PSP version, upscaled them, and put them side-by-side with the PS3 version running at 720p.
The new God of War Collection actually has the ability to run at three different resolutions, depending on how the PlayStation 3's XMB is set. If you have 1080p engaged, both Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta will default to a full 1920x1080 framebuffer. The developer could have downscaled this for 720p users in order to provide supersampling anti-aliasing (Sacred 2 follows this approach) but instead opts for native 1280x720, resulting in a more consistent frame-rate. Finally, both games also support stereoscopic 3D, with 720p per eye packed into the usual HDMI 1.4 format.
A commonality between all rendering formats is that Ready at Dawn has elected not to implement anti-aliasing at all. This is just about the only disappointment we have with the in-game look of the new release (the last God of War Collection supported 2x multisample anti-aliasing, but there was no 1080p mode). Especially in 720p mode, the jaggies are quite pronounced - mostly down to the high contrast edges and the relatively low poly count. While anti-aliasing on a full 1080p framebuffer might have been asking a bit too much, some kind of edge-smoothing at 720p would have made a great deal of difference.
Ready at Dawn hasn't just concentrated on improving physical resolution. The comparison video above, running at 50 per cent speed, demonstrates quite clearly that the move to 60FPS is just as important as the massive boost in the amount of pixels being rendered. Both of the developer's PSP outings really pushed the hardware and this resulted in a fairly choppy update - 30FPS was targeted but as you can see from the video, there's a lot of screen-tear in there, suggesting that the game was often over budget in its rendering, and actually operating significantly below the target frame-rate in heavy scenes.
For the purist looking for the best possible gameplay experience, 720p mode is the way to go. Aside from a few frame-rate dips on cinematics, the actual in-game action is essentially running at a locked 60FPS. Similar to the first God of War Collection, the only impact to frame-rate comes from screen-filling fiery and magical effects but even here the impact to gameplay is minimal.
Switching over 1080p gives you the 2.5x resolution boost and fewer issues with jaggies (because, put simply, the edges are that much smaller) but the compromise comes in the form of more screen-tear and more noticeable dips in frame-rate. Once again, cinematics bear the brunt of it, but the full HD support can see tearing encroach into actual gameplay. There's no doubting that there's a definite visual edge in opting for 1080p, but fill-rate issues at 720p are only magnified at the higher resolution, resulting in more noticeable performance dips.
The original opening is basically a combination of the original opening voice over, but done by Lynn Collins, and a much less satisfying version of her 9th ray demonstration. She does it in this breathy voice that sounds way too much like she is channeling Cate Blanchett from the begining of Fellowship of the Rings. There is some very cool landscape eyecandy which we have never seen before, then when it goes to her live, she is in a dark, claustraphobic circular amphitheater, addressing a group of Martian scientists and her father. Plays out the same way as we have seen but it is a different character that sabatoges her machine. Thank god they re-did this scene and we got that beautiful light and spacious throne room.
In the end, China purchased only 58 percent of the total US goods and services exports over 2020-21 that it had committed to buy under the agreement. Put differently, China bought none of the additional $200 billion of US exports committed under the deal (figure 1). A more complete analysis of which US goods and services exports China did (and did not) purchase, as well as why, is found here.
Over the course of 2020-21, this PIIE Chart tracked China's monthly purchases of US goods only covered by the agreement. (Because services data were only available at a considerable time lag and not at the monthly frequency, they were not reported in these updates.) Following the text of the legal agreement, tracking goods purchases required relying on data from both Chinese customs (China's imports) and the US Census Bureau (US exports). The chart then compared those goods purchases with the legal agreement's annual commitments, prorated on a monthly basis based on seasonal adjustments, above two baseline scenarios (see methodology section IV below). As set out in the legal agreement, one 2017 baseline scenario allowed for use of US export statistics and the other allows for Chinese import statistics.
From January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2021, China committed to purchase no less than an additional $162.1 billion of covered goods from the United States relative to these 2017 baselines (figure 2). Defining the 2017 baseline using US export statistics implied a two-year purchase commitment of $352.2 billion. Defining the 2017 baseline using Chinese import statistics implied a two-year commitment of $380.5 billion.
From January 2020 through December 2021, China's total imports of covered products from the United States were $235.3 billion (figure 2, red in panel a) and US exports to China were $210.1 billion (blue in panel a). In the end, China's purchases of all covered products reached 62 percent (Chinese imports) or 60 percent (US exports) of the phase one commitment.
For covered agricultural products, China committed to an additional $32.0 billion of purchases combined over 2020 and 2021 above 2017 levels, implying a two-year commitment of $80.1 billion (Chinese imports, panel b) and $73.9 billion (US exports, panel c). From January 2020 through December 2021, China's imports of covered agricultural products from the United States were $61.4 billion and US exports were $61.1 billion. In the end, China's purchases of covered agricultural products reached 77 percent (Chinese imports) or 83 percent (US exports) of the phase one commitment.
For covered manufactured products, China committed to an additional $77.7 billion of purchases combined over 2020 and 2021 above 2017 levels, implying a two-year commitment of $234.4 billion (Chinese imports) and $210.7 billion (US exports). From January 2020 through December 2021, China's imports of covered manufactured products from the United States were $142.8 billion and US exports to China were $124.0 billion. In the end, China's purchases of covered manufactured products reached 61 percent (Chinese imports) or 59 percent (US exports) of the phase one commitment.
For covered energy products, China committed to an additional $52.4 billion of purchases combined over 2020 and 2021 above 2017 levels, implying a two-year commitment of $66.0 billion (Chinese imports) and $67.7 billion (US exports). From January 2020 through December 2021, China's imports of covered energy products from the United States were $31.1 billion and US exports to China were $25.0 billion. In the end, China's purchases of covered energy products reached 47 percent (Chinese imports) or 37 percent (US exports) of the phase one commitment. 2ff7e9595c
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