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I doubt it's going anywhere, just like Dynamic resolution.
(Next up, 2160d for dynamic resolution?)
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What should "4K / 2160p Checkerboard Rendering" be shortened to?
- Thread starter Deleted member 9317
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(Next up, 2160d for dynamic resolution?)
CIVIL, SCIENTIFIC AND PRESERVATION DISCUSSION ONLY (with light comedy). No console war BS.
Checkerboard rendering (or interpolation) has become so common that it's ignorant to not call it by it's name. Marketing and companies get away with called checkerboard rendering "4K", when it's really "2x1080p".
With such wide use of the rendering technique, it's time to stop fooling ourselves: we need an acronym for 4K Checkboard Rendering as a whole. This includes common resolutions that come real close to checkerboard rendering, but not product that is deliberately a weird resolution (Like Halo: MCC 1080pr).
Few suggestions:
- 2160i (aka 4Ki) - i for interlaced. Consistent with 720i/1080i
- 2160c (aka 4Kc) - c for checkerboard
- 2x1080p - Call it what it is: 2 x 1080p
- 2160p (aka 4K) - Fuck it, 4K is 2160p to me, damnit!
- f4Ke (aka FauxK) - By popular demand.
Can anyone please explain to me the difference between interlaced and progressive in a simple way? I tried to understand the difference from the day both appeared but I never grasped it. I thought that interlaced system disappeared the moment the newer LCD and LED flat TVs appeared meaning around 10 years ago.
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Simplest explanation:
Interlaced interchanges between odd and even frames every 1/60th of a second. It's so fast that you cannot see it.
Huh. So it means interlaced is better than progressive? I always thought progressive was the better option.
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Oh no, it's not. I added a picture in my post. I think it's 1/2 of that of 1080p displayed as faux 1080p. It displays less frames but your eyes think you're seeing more.
Progressive means all lines from the current frame are shown at once, a "solid" image refreshed as frequently as the framerate. Interlaced means that every other field is updated at a different rate from the newest image, and it generally means using those lines from the previous frame (which is how it worked in traditional video).
I'd say the most important thing people are noting if they say an image is interlaced, is that in motion, you'll see artifacting from where the different fields don't quite match up. A still scene in interlaced video is mostly indistinguishable from a progressive image, but if you pan the camera or have an object moving quickly, you'll see the alternating fields show up.
2160c works. Alternatively, 2160r could be used to signify that it is reconstructed, as that may not always be checkerboarding; e.g. NVIDIA DLSS.
You may be confusing an interlaced output with an interlaced source that has been deinterlaced.
For example, 1080i60 can be deinterlaced to 1080p30, 1080p24, or 540p60.
Interlacing can be used to display 30 full resolution frames per second, or 60 half resolution frames per second.
An interlaced output at 60Hz is certainly not "so fast that you cannot see it". But unless you are using a CRT display, or playing Castlevania Requiem with the interlacing option enabled, you're unlikely to see it these days.Simplest explanation:
Interlaced interchanges between odd and even frames every 1/60th of a second. It's so fast that you cannot see it.
You may be confusing an interlaced output with an interlaced source that has been deinterlaced.
For example, 1080i60 can be deinterlaced to 1080p30, 1080p24, or 540p60.
Progressive is better than interlaced because it can transmit 60 full frames per second.
Interlacing can be used to display 30 full resolution frames per second, or 60 half resolution frames per second.
2160c works for me. I really hate the stigma around checkerboarding. It's not as good as native 4K, obviously, but the benefit-to-cost ratio makes it an incredibly valuable rendering technique.
Also, anybody who thinks checkerboarding is the same as interlacing has a fundamental misunderstanding about how checkerboarding works.
Also, anybody who thinks checkerboarding is the same as interlacing has a fundamental misunderstanding about how checkerboarding works.
So 900p games on base Xbox One are 1080p, "not native, but 1080p" then
I voted for 2160i because this was my thinking.
But since its wrong too, then maybe something else would be better.
You put f4Ke as an option and then ask for "no console war". That's funny.
Thanks. That is the early idea I got about it back then and you just confirmed this for me.
From what I saw, Checkerboard works in a comparable way somehow.
Yes. But 1080i at 60hz deinterlaces to 1080p at 30fps, that's my point. This is how broadcast HDTV works - although it's transmitting in 1080i, filmic content ends up displaying at a full 1080p on your TV as it deinterlaces the alternate 60hz frames to assemble a full, native 1080p 30hz output.
A 2160i 60hz resolution can obviously provide a perfect and native 2160p at 30fps via deinterlacing, without artefacts. Which is obviously better than checkerboard. So 2160i is not suitable terminology.
See "Progressive Source Material" in this deinterlacing wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinterlacing
You're still mixing up video formats and rendering resolutions. Your scenario is something filmed in 24 or 30 frame progressive format then being output at 1080i. Something filmed in native 1080i would indeed have artifacts in deinterlacing (though deinterlacing algorithms have gotten pretty good). So, it's not truly interlaced content. It's progressive content that was converted to an interlaced output format.
The only game I know of that actually rendered in an 1080i format was Gran Turismo 4 for PS2. My understanding is that they were able to get 1080i on PS2 by rendering separate 540p fields. However, this certainly would not have resolved to the equivalent of a native 1080p image
That being said, I agree that 2160i is not a suitable term.
I think since majority of games are NOT native 4K, calling them native 4K is easier to market. Whereas, we have games that are 1440p upscale to 4K.
Then we have games like God of War and Horizon, which are 2160c and games like Spider-Man that use temporal injection to achieve 4K that is super clean with minimal artitifacting.
None of these, however, work like interlacing. The comment by another user that 30fps checkerboard games update at 15fps is completely wrong. That is not how temporal AA, reconstruction, or injection work.
Have you reached out to Rockstar about their awful PA4 Pro reconstruction solution? It almoat looks like they just stretched the horizontal pixels and dropped a bunch of AA to "smooth" it out.
Then we have games like God of War and Horizon, which are 2160c and games like Spider-Man that use temporal injection to achieve 4K that is super clean with minimal artitifacting.
None of these, however, work like interlacing. The comment by another user that 30fps checkerboard games update at 15fps is completely wrong. That is not how temporal AA, reconstruction, or injection work.
Do you mean... can't stop you?
Have you reached out to Rockstar about their awful PA4 Pro reconstruction solution? It almoat looks like they just stretched the horizontal pixels and dropped a bunch of AA to "smooth" it out.
Where did you get this image? Did you make it yourself? Whatever the source, it's going to cause a lot of confusion. Representing the sparse newly-sampled buffer of a CBR game as "2x1080p" is already misleading, because it implies both non-sparse rendering and a particular aspect ratio. (CBR requires neither for its MRTs.) Furthermore, your bald assertion that 3840x2160 is "really '2x1080'" is completely false. It doesn't even match the image you posted, because it ignores the "with checkerboard interpolation" part of the process. And finally, there are multiple methods of interpolation, and not specifying how CBR usually differs from the standard types obscures information. (To my eyes, this image actually looks more like a bilinear or bicubic interpolation than CBR usually does, but even if results sometimes are the same they definitely aren't always.)
Checkerboard rendering (or interpolation) has become so common that it's ignorant to not call it by it's name. Marketing and companies get away with called checkerboard rendering "4K", when it's really "2x1080p".
I might also point out that, whether by accident or not, you've chosen a worst-case scenario for CBR in a still screenshot. Because of the sampling positions, diagonal lines are more difficult to properly resolve, especially near-45° angles. This is what Guerrilla's tangram approach is intended to improve (and does).
Why? They're different approaches, and when examined on a granular level can have wildly divergent technical implementations. That you can sum them up with vague language that encompasses both just indicates the coarseness of your definition. Yes, at a certain (high) level of abstraction CBR and upscaling have affinities. But note that the connecting trait "A render process that creates unique values for each display pixel" also subsumes native 4K images. You agree that, if we pay attention to detail, native rendering is distinguishable from CBR and upscaling. My point is that the same attention to detail also easily distinguishes CBR from upscaling. The only way to unite them is to use terminology that also fails to exclude other methods of rendering.
I agree, with one very small caveat (in detail below).
Nvidia's AI upscaling is barely different from current temporal reconstruction. It has both advantages and disadvantages, both of which wash out the longer and more varied your game gets. CBR can be distinguished from native with the naked eye, but not in every situation. Going from stills to video makes it harder to tell apart; going from closeup to viewing difference makes it harder. And if even then they can sometimes be differentiated, sometimes they cannot. There are some scenarios in some games where they are literally indistinguishable.
No, 1440p can't be used as a source for CBR. It's more than half the final number of pixels for 2160c. It can be used as a source for other temporal reconstruction methods, though.
The Xbox One platform also has reconstructed games, for all models.
I've taken to using 2160t for other temporal techniques. (If a same-frame solution is ever implemented, it could be 2160u or 2160r, depending.) Technically, CBR is a subset of that class, but I think it's distinct enough in implementation and in drawbacks that it still deserves a unique tag.
CBR specifically may fade away. But reconstruction techniques will be around for many years, most like. The same way that the "fake" approximation ambient occlusion has stuck around, and is only gradually being replaced.
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