PS3 3D games to feature dowgraded graphics
Sony is pushing 3D gaming on the PS3, and 3D in general, pretty hard. However, according to a recent statement from Sony’s Ian Bickerstaff, who revealed that the 3D games showcased at GCD 2010 were downgraded from 1080p to 720p, games like WipeOut. The PS3 is not powerful enough — or optimized — to project two different 1080p frames to each eye to create a 3D effect. Instead, two 720 frames are used.
For native 720p games like MotorStorm, the 3D version was scaled down even more, to standard-def graphics. For Motorstorm, the developers used the technology from the split screen mode in the game, which renders two different environments at the same time. Motorstorm in 3D then projects two 480p images for the left and right eye.
Sony expects to optimize the technology to offer a full 1080p resolution, but there’s a lot of optimization to be done, since the games will have to deliver twice the amount of frames per second to be in 3D and in the same resolution.
Whether Sony can do this without sacrificing image quality remains to be unknown. One solution would be to have the regular, 2D mode with image quality running at the highest setting, and when 3D is used, image quality would be scaled back in order to provide twice the amount of frames.
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