Scarface; that is simply not true.

Of course it is.

Scarface has only said 1) they overblew the importance of HD in his observation from playing a 360 and 2) the games look great in SDTV and 3) HD does not make a game look any more real, it only makes it clearer.

Higher resolution means more clarity of detail. The games still have the same textures, same models, same lighting and shadowing, and so forth. Looking at a picture of a dog that is 4x3 inches it will still look like a dog whether it is 640x480 or 1600x1200. A 640x480 dog picture is going to look much more real than any current gen game of a "dog" at 1600x1200. The added resolution cannot make up for what is missing in the detail (texture) and lighting.

HD is a GOOD thing, but it is frequently overstated. I *still* would take the CGI in 480i from a movie like Toy Story or I, Robot over any of the next gen games in 720p. Extra lines of resolution to give better definition go only so far--you cannot create more detail if it ain't already there. I was watching I, Robot (DVD) on a 42" HDTV and was thinking the entire time, "The next gen of hardware is not even close in regards to this movie, and it is not even HD".

Beyond CGI at low resolution we can see how this is playing out right now: Is THAW running at 720p better than PGR3 at 1024x600? Of course not. PGR3 is the most technically advanced game on the box. The lack of resolution does not hurt PGR3 because lighting/shadowing (which the game has a TON of different techniques in use) are not necessarily restricted by resolution.

Toss out my examples even--I have heard a couple developers specifically bemoan the idea of forced 720p. Why? Because @ 480p you in theory have 3x as much shader power. That means a lot more graphic work per object. John Carmak has gone on record on this very point--he would have preferred to have had the option to CHOOSE the resolution based on his game engine and design.

Having 3x as much power to toss at a big problem--like shadowing and lighting--can make a huge impact. So much an impact that going to a lower resolution is desirable because any tradeoff in resolution is trumped in a more realistic world.

Do we want THAW at 720p or PGR3 at 480p?

I am all for HDTV (as a PC gamer I have been using HD displays for almost 2 decades) and HD does look better when comparing the SAME media. But if the media does not have substantual amounts of detail being obscured by resolution there is not much upping the resolution will do except make the image more clear. And like I said before some detail transcends resolution fairly well--not to mention scaling a HD image down to a SDTV is like supersampling and any issues you may see at HD (like texture pixelation, limited amounts of AF, etc) can result in a "cleaner" lower resolution image because it is artifacts that jolt one out of the experience. Of course HD is really nice on big screens, but like I said: I will take low def CGI over HD next gen games any day.

THAW = Tony Hawk's American Wasteland.

I've been playing PDZ almost non stop this last weekend and i must say: I LOVE THIS GAME, single player is ok but it's much more fun going trough it with a friend (online co-op) especially on the higher difficulty's it's SO much fun.... Then u got multiplayer wich is superb allot of different game modes, allot of options to tweak, bots, dark-ops ( wich is like a counterstrike type of setting where u get to buy your weapons wich is allot of fun!)

IMO this is a must have....

(I also got pgr3 wich is also very nice :D)

"3) HD does not make a game look any more real, it only makes it clearer."

And in doing so, it makes it look more real. Seriously, you may not want to think so, but it's true.

A normal TV does something to games, it's not comparable to watching a film for some reason, it's just too sharp and clear in its blurryness. The image is sharp but low res, whereas a movie feed is blurred naturally as an effect of being filmed. When you play a game on a normal TV, no matter how mind blowingly pretty, you'll still go "that there is absolutely without any doubt a game" because you can see the gameyness of it.

On HD, LCD in particular (don't compare to HD CRTs which basically takes a 720p signal and displays on regular TV res) the pictures jump out at you. You can almost breathe the atmosphere because that "plastic film" over your fact that a normal TV makes you feel is gone.

If you want to reduce it to "it's a bit clearer" then fine. Just don't spread that notion around because you're doing other people a disservice.

"The added resolution cannot make up for what is missing in the detail (texture) and lighting."

SDTV takes detail in textures, geometry and models away because it's simply not clear enough to display them. Seriously, playing PS2 and Xbox games on an HDTV suddenly makes it obvious how much better the Xbox hardware is. Even Xbox games in HD is a TREMENDOUS jump over a normal telly, and you simply can't believe how detailed they've been all this time.

I had my mind firmly set to "SDTV is okay, HD is not worth all the money and hassle", but in comparing them I was absolutely breathtaken and I just had to get one. Before this mentality of "HDTV is overrated" is rooted, you should instead encourage people to check out the difference and make their own minds up.

I know few people read my huge posts, but this is my simple bit of insight and wisdom; HDTV is worth it. Sites proclaiming HDTV as something neccessary to get that tingling sensation of a generation jump aren't kidding or exaggerating. That said, the games definitely don't look like plain Xbox games on an SDTV, but HD makes the difference everyone's saying it does. Check it out and it'll be obvious.

:D haha can't wait man, my xboxlive name is FireWire 187 so as soon as u want to do a game or u want to do some "friendly rounds" or just chill hit me up....

Andore, fine, let's use terms we both understand. A CG movie never looks like the ingame graphics, even when the models and the assets are the same. Why?

Because it's rendered and compressed. Edges blur together, and the whole thing is just processed in a way that makes it look different and smoother than realtime rendered graphics. The resolution the models were originally rendered in (very high) causes this, regardless of the final file's resolution.

(I can offer further explanation of the statement above by showing some images if you want. I know a great example using bitmaps that I use all the time when making comics for print.)

On a normal TV, the game displays at 640*480, be it progressive or interlaced, and without the smoothness and the processing attributed to a movie file, it's not going to look like one. What you see is simply a realtime set of pixels and polygons rendered separately with no "relation" to eachother.

Case in point; in PGR3's photo mode, you can add blur and effects that make the image "float" together. This brings it closer to looking like a CG movie, but the game doesn't look like that in motion (thankfully) because we don't want that clogging up what we're looking at. Motion blur when you move the cam around gets you the same result.

So, the only real way of approaching sharpness that take away the gamey aspects of the image is to display everything in higher resolutions, and that's what HD does. It looks like you can lick the models, they're so grasp-able.

And yet Carmack not only builds technically excellent realtime game engines he also has the ear of MS (Vista, Xbox 360) and ATI and NV in regards to 3D hardware rendering technology. Love or hate his games and game themes (/me raises hand), there is no denying his technical excellence in regards to building cutting edge realtime 3D engines.

So those bashing him to dismiss my/his point based on a port of rushed hardware really are barking up the wrong tree. The "poor quality" of Quake IV on the 360 (the result of getting final hardware in Augest and trying to codevelop the game on the PC and Xbox 360 with the goal of the PC launch getting priority) has nothing to do with Carmak's skill and everything to do with MS's screwups in regards to beta kit hardware and a rushed launch by Raven.