PC Resolutions vs. Console Resolutions

[BadCompany]

Hi guys. I tried asking this question at an XBox forum, but they weren't too helpful. So I'll give it a shot here at this magical place. (A lot of my research is done here.) This is gonna be a long one, so I apologize in advance and thank you for your time if you decide to read this.

I've been a PC gamer for about 8 solid years now, and I just decided to pick myself up an XBox 360 Elite. A couple weeks ago, I bought myself a nice shiny LG L227WTG and played some Counter Strike: Source in 1680x 1050 while awaiting my XBox, and it was simply amazing. Super, super sharp. Every pixel rendered perfectly. So, naturally, I was giddy just thinking about XBox games looking as good. So my XBox arrives, I change the settings to fit my monitor's native resolution (The New XBox Experience now "supports" 1680x1050 res), and, to my dismay, there were black bars on the top and bottom, and the image looked blurred and compressed. So I did a little research and find out that, basically, it's my own fault for buying a 16x10 monitor when playing games rendered in 16x9. Fine.

So I bring my XBox upstairs and hook it up to my parents' Sony 40W3000 HDTV expecting to see what 1080p really looks like, and, incredibly, the picture looked WORSE than on my monitor. What!? That TV is a 16x9 1080p TV, what XBox 360 and PS3 owners would kill for, and it looks like THAT? The picture certainly doesn't look 1080p, and aliasing ("jaggies" in console speak, apparently) is abundant. Being a PC Gamer, I expect 1080p to look this this, a picture of a PC game in 1080p: http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/7506/fallout3200811182040170ic9.jpg

I do a little more research and find out that most games aren't RENDERED in 1080p; they're only upscaled to it. Fine. So I download the demo of a true 1080p game, which looks better on my monitor (which I now have on 720p res and stretched to fit my monitor) and quite bad on the HDTV. What's going on?

Here's the thing: I'm thinking about returning my monitor for a 16x9 one, because I'll be playing mainly XBox on it (and the gloss is starting to bug me), but if looks as bad on the 1080p HDTV, I don't expect it to look any better on a 1080p monitor.

So I'm coming to you guys as a PC gamer. What the hell is the difference between the crystal sharp resolutions we're used to on a computer and the resolutions of a console? Shouldn't a 1920x1080 computer image looks exactly the same as a 1080p console image? What the hell am I missing?

I have until tomorrow to return my monitor, but I think I'm just going to cut my losses and do a bit more research instead, and maybe sell it later if a 16x9 monitor will make a difference. So thanks again for reading; any input on this would be greatly appreciated. Take care.

 

[SH1]

Had a similar disappointment with GTA IV on the PS3 compared to the earlier ones on my computer.

Consoles have lifecycles of years and get left behind against ever more powerful graphics cards. And there's the whole issue of true rendering at lower resolutions you mention. Can't comment on the specific 1080P game...

 

[PvtChurch]

Well you nailed it as far as resolution and aspect ratio are concerned. You're getting black bars because you're rendering 1920x1080 pixels on a monitor with 1920x1200 pixels. You're actually lucky, the alternative is vertical stretching and it looks god awful. Most 360 games render at or below 720p and are then scaled up by the 360 to the resolution you specify in the console settings. My best guess for the 1080p game is it's just a crappy looking game, it takes a lot to render a game in 1080p and it really stresses the 360 hardware so every other aspect of good picture quality takes a substantial hit (poly count, lighting, framerate, texture resolution, etc). What was the 1080p game out of curiosity?

Also is the TV calibrated? If it's just using out of the box setting then everything is going to look like crap. Turn off all post processing effects and crank the sharpness down to 0 or else everything will look to edgy and overly enhanced (this also makes aliasing much more evident). You're also probably seeing more aliasing then your used to as well because most 360 games use 2x antialiasing or none at all. I can't think of one that uses more than 4x.