GT5 going to be in 3D ?

[WolfRacer543]

Say each frame is drawn in 1/60th of a second, you get 60 fps, BUT half those frames go to the left eye and half go to the right eye, so each eye only recieves 30 fps.

After watching Avatar I looked up RealD (which is what I believe Avatar was using) and discovered it was using alternate frames circularly polarised, at 144 times per second (according to wikipedia). One thing I noticed in Avatar was how poor motion was, and I'm wondering if the alternating frames was the cause.

Its one thing to have 60fps where the previous image stays until the next one appears, but what about when the image is flashed up for 8 milliseconds, then flicks off for 8 milliseconds, then back on with the new frame for 8 milliseconds (thus 120fps, 60fps per eye). Wouldn't that screw up your perception of motion? (I ask because I dont really know, just my observation of Avatar 3D was that it had poor motion, far worse than what I'd consider acceptable for a game to feel comfortable)

 

[kikie]

GT5 in 3D? Yes please. If it's an option that you can switch on or off, 3D or not, why not?

I played some race games in 3D on a 4 year old 4:3 19 inch LCD monitor. You don't need an expensive 3D TV.

I'm not sure but does the PS3 have a nVidia graphics card? If so, than it's not hard for PD to implement 3D. nVidia's graphics cards for pc work perfectly well with nVidia 3D drivers. The only problem with nVidia's 3D vision soultion is that you need shutter glasses, which isn't really good for your brain, I think.

It's possible that PD installs this driver on the BR dvd and you can choose to install this driver or not. If you do, you only need this:

or this: polarized glasses

You can download a 3D driver for pc for free and play 3D games on every monitor and LCD TV, for free.

 

[PaMu1337]

GT5 in 3D? Yes please. If it's an option that you can switch on or off, 3D or not, why not?

I played some race games in 3D on a 4 year old 4:3 19 inch LCD monitor. You don't need an expensive 3D TV.

I'm not sure but does the PS3 have a nVidia graphics card? If so, than it's not hard for PD to implement 3D. nVidia's graphics cards for pc work perfectly well with nVidia 3D drivers. The only problem with nVidia's 3D vision soultion is that you need shutter glasses, which isn't really good for your brain, I think.

It's possible that PD installs this driver on the BR dvd and you can choose to install this driver or not. If you do, you only need this:



or this: polarized glasses



You can download a 3D driver for pc for free and play 3D games on every monitor and LCD TV, for free.

Polarized glasses still require a special monitor, and the red/blue glasses are a lot worse than shutter glasses.

To answer the OP: To get GT5 in 3D would only require a firmware update to the PS3, to change the way it renders a game camera. No change would be required in the game itself. This is the way the nvidia drivers work, and the reason why they work with almost all games.

The problem with 3D is, however, that you need the render every frame twice. NOTE: this doesn't take twice the processing power, since you don't have to redo phisics calculations and the entire scene is already loaded onto the GPU. But since the rendering is the most intensive calculation you need about 1.5x the amount of processing power (depends a lot on the game, this is just a guess for GT5). I think a PS3 could pull this of if they stick to 720P, or if Sony made the developers only use a limited piece of the processing power to enable 3D using the other bit (I read once that a part of the PS3s processor was blocked, maybe this is the reason?).

 

[oqvist]

I skimped some posts here but stereo3D is nothing new for PC Gamers... The technology got a bit obsolete when CRTs was replaced for LCDs though . It´s back again now but requires true 120 lcd tvs or if it was 100 hz... Anyway those that are are few and either crappy or very expensive. Avatar wasn´t groundbreaking in any way for me though it was very well implemented surely. The impressive parts of it is that you don´t have to sit in the center of the monitor like you have to with nvidias stere3D solution. Of course having to sit in the center of the screen is not a limiation for us cockpit runners.

Interested what the requirements would be. I wouldn´t be surprised if you had to have two PS 3s to cope with the more beefy hardware requirements... And to sell more PS 3consoles... Interleaving solutions won´t make anyone happy!

Time will tell the bluray 3D standard is all set so hopefully there will be more info on system requirements soon! For bluray playback I am sure one console is enough though

 

[Stonemonkey]

After watching Avatar I looked up RealD (which is what I believe Avatar was using) and discovered it was using alternate frames circularly polarised, at 144 times per second (according to wikipedia). One thing I noticed in Avatar was how poor motion was, and I'm wondering if the alternating frames was the cause.

Its one thing to have 60fps where the previous image stays until the next one appears, but what about when the image is flashed up for 8 milliseconds, then flicks off for 8 milliseconds, then back on with the new frame for 8 milliseconds (thus 120fps, 60fps per eye). Wouldn't that screw up your perception of motion? (I ask because I dont really know, just my observation of Avatar 3D was that it had poor motion, far worse than what I'd consider acceptable for a game to feel comfortable)

Movies in the cinema are 24 fps, even in this case. The 144Hz switching means that for each 1/24th sec. frame it switches between the left and right view 6 times. Each eye sees each frame flash up 3 times in 1/24th of a second.
All cinema movies play at 24fps which isn't great for a lot of movement and some movies are worse than others.

 

[Myansie]

Say each frame is drawn in 1/60th of a second, you get 60 fps, BUT half those frames go to the left eye and half go to the right eye, so each eye only recieves 30 fps.

It doesn`t quite work like that. For each frame in 2D we progress forward in time 1/60th of a second, given a consistent framerate. When you`re moving forward in time you have a bunch of extra variables like physics, animation, changes in lighting, sound etc.

To make the jump to 3D all you have to do is render a second camera at the exact same point in time. So we can ignore all those variables above. Shifting the camera doesn`t slow things down. You`re already doing that when you move from one pixel to the next. After your scene and simulation are setup a pixel in the second camera takes exactly the same time to render as a pixel in the first. They both contain the same variables, just with different values.

It does produce extra work, but it`s like what PaMu1337 explained, it`s definitely less than twice. Like I said before, it`s the same price as doubling your resolution.

The proof is in the fact that it`s already been demoed with GT5: Prologue as Dave A mentioned.

 

[Stonemonkey]

It doesn`t quite work like that. For each frame in 2D we progress forward in time 1/60th of a second, given a consistent framerate. When you`re moving forward in time you have a bunch of extra variables like physics, animation, changes in lighting, sound etc.

I pretty much agree with that. Occlusion and sorting would probably only need to be done once also.

To make the jump to 3D all you have to do is render a second camera at the exact same point in time. So we can ignore all those variables above. Shifting the camera doesn`t slow things down. You`re already doing that when you move from one pixel to the next. After your scene and simulation are setup a pixel in the second camera takes exactly the same time to render as a pixel in the first. They both contain the same variables, just with different values.

for stereoscopic rendering you have to full render to two different targets/buffers, each render needs it's own geometry transforms, it's own culling, it's own clipping, it's own lighting (unless only diffuse), calculations for env. mapping. That is before you get to filling pixels

env. maps and shadow maps can be re-used.

It does produce extra work, but it`s like what PaMu1337 explained, it`s definitely less than twice. Like I said before, it`s the same price as doubling your resolution.

The proof is in the fact that it`s already been demoed with GT5: Prologue as Dave A mentioned.

doubling resolution only means more time is spent in the rasteriser, stereoscopic rendering requires double the geometry calcs and tri calls

 

[Myansie]

for stereoscopic rendering you have to full render to two different targets/buffers, each render needs it's own geometry transforms, it's own culling, it's own clipping, it's own lighting (unless only diffuse), calculations for env. mapping. That is before you get to filling pixels

Yeah ok, I get what you mean, but we know Sony have done it. Obviously they know something we don`t

Anyway, this is all something being done by Sony on the firmware side, just as Nvidia have done there 3D on the driver side. It`s not going to cause delays and according to demos not a huge hit to resolution, AA etc.

I`m hopeful it`ll make it. I`ll be investing in a new TV if so.

 

[Lain]

I've just looked into some information on the new NVidia 3D technology and I have the odd and even frames idea wrong. That is a method of falsley increaseing screen resolution as I'm sure your aware and I figured that was how Sony achieved the 3D view in thier PS3 demos. But NVidia are alternating entire frames between the left and right perspective, so frame 1 is left, frame 2 right, frame 3 left etc. Again though, this does not require the computer to process any more data than it would otherwise be rendering per frame. Which was my original point, that the PS3 is not capable doubling the rendring data for GT5, but Sony have GT5 in 3D, although I couldn't find anytihng that stated how it was achieved, it would make sense that it's similar in principal to what NVidia have done to overcome the technical barriers that a home computer would have.

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't the 3D demo of GT5P running on multiple PS3s?

 

[WolfRacer543]

Yeah ok, I get what you mean, but we know Sony have done it. Obviously they know something we don`t

Anyway, this is all something being done by Sony on the firmware side, just as Nvidia have done there 3D on the driver side. It`s not going to cause delays and according to demos not a huge hit to resolution, AA etc.

I`m hopeful it`ll make it. I`ll be investing in a new TV if so.

Wasn't the GT 3D demo just a video, not an actual playable game? To get an actual playable 3D GT game may require more than a PS3 can deliver.

 

[kikie]

I wonder if you connect the PS3 to a 120Hz 3D Vision Ready Samsung LCD monitor and put on shutter glasses, GT5 will be in 3D (if PD implements 3D in GT5 and Sony releases the right firmware for the PS3)?

 

[fcautoX]

It needs two full renders per frame.

Actually it doesnt. At 60 fps it can alternate perspectives every other frame, which takes the same amount of processing power as normal.

 

[oqvist]

I wonder if you connect the PS3 to a 120Hz 3D Vision Ready Samsung LCD monitor and put on shutter glasses, GT5 will be in 3D (if PD implements 3D in GT5 and Sony releases the right firmware for the PS3)?

Sony will probably want to use their own solution so I suspect that is unlikely. Would been nice though

 

[Dave A]

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't the 3D demo of GT5P running on multiple PS3s?

No, I've not read anything anywhere to suggest such and I'm pretty sure that int he pictures there was only ever a single PS3 in the cases. They have have 3 screen setups of GT in the past using 3 PS3 to give a 3D view of sorts but that's using the centre TV as your forward view and then the two side TV's to give you a full 180 degree view in total. But that's very different to this.

 

[Stonemonkey]

Actually it doesnt. At 60 fps it can alternate perspectives every other frame, which takes the same amount of processing power as normal.

But that results in each eye recieving only 30 fps update.

 

[Dave A]

Yes, we know that. No one is saying you will get each view rendered at 60fps. The game will still technically be 60fps but it will likely alternate the frames so it's 30fps per view. I'm not sure what your point is to be honest, I thought we covered this yesterday? It's the only way to do it with firmware and keep within the technical capabilities of the PS3 that games like GT5 are already pusning. If they were rendering both views in each frame at 60fps the PS3 probably couldn't cope unless they lowered the games resolution which they didn't do with GT5 and I'm pretty sure is not an option and if it could cope then it would only be with certain games and would cause trouble with others. Besides, this feature is going to be firmware and to have firmware automatically changing a games resolution could result is some pretty odd looking games. In that case the games would need to be optomised for 3D, but to keep the resolution and to alternate the frames simply requires the firmware to modify the camera perspectives to create a left and right eye view within the game. That won't require any optomisation work in a 3D game which pretty much every game is these days.

 

[Lain]

But that results in each eye recieving only 30 fps update.

Ok, so users will have the option to play in 2D at 60 FPS or in 3D at 30.

 

[Stonemonkey]

Yes, we know that. No one is saying you will get each view rendered at 60fps. The game will still technically be 60fps but it will likely alternate the frames so it's 30fps per view. I'm not sure what your point is to be honest, I thought we covered this yesterday? It's the only way to do it with firmware and keep within the technical capabilities of the PS3 that games like GT5 are already pusning. If they were rendering both views in each frame at 60fps the PS3 probably couldn't cope unless they lowered the games resolution which they didn't do with GT5 and I'm pretty sure is not an option and if it could cope then it would only be with certain games and would cause trouble with others. Besides, this feature is going to be firmware and to have firmware automatically changing a games resolution could result is some pretty odd looking games. In that case the games would need to be optomised for 3D, but to keep the resolution and to alternate the frames simply requires the firmware to modify the camera perspectives to create a left and right eye view within the game. That won't require any optomisation work in a 3D game which pretty much every game is these days.

My point is that some people seem to think that stereoscopic rendering doesn't take more work than a normal render.

A stereoscopic render BY DEFINITION comprises of two frames, each only visible to one eye, whether they are rendered to be displayed simultaneously (colour coded/polarised/seperated) or to be displayed alternately (shutter glasses/circular polarised) it still takes (almost) twice the amount of time to generate the 2 frames.

If a machine is being pushed to it's limits to generate a monoscopic render at 60fps (which i hope is the case for GT5) then you have to make concessions of some sort. Reduce resolution or reduce detail or reduce framerate.

A lot of people believe it's important that GT5 runs at 60 fps but if 60 fps mono is pushing the limits then only 30 fps stereo is going to be possible.

 

[Stonemonkey]

Ok, so users will have the option to play in 2D at 60 FPS or in 3D at 30.

That is what I've been trying to say.Thankyou.

Unless Sony have been anticipating this right from the initial design of the PS3 and have been hiding something. Which I doubt.

 

[WolfRacer543]

Ok, so users will have the option to play in 2D at 60 FPS or in 3D at 30.

That'd be nice, but I dont think it'd work that well, scaling is never linear. GT already has issues maintaining 60fps at all times, I'm guessing in 3D you'll probably have drops below 10fps occasionally.

 

[Stonemonkey]

That'd be nice, but I dont think it'd work that well, scaling is never linear. GT already has issues maintaining 60fps at all times, I'm guessing in 3D you'll probably have drops below 10fps occasionally.

I'm sorry but that's just nonsense.

Scaling of what exactly? and how did you come to below 10fps?

As has been discussed, the rendering of half a stereo image is pretty much the same as rendering a single mono image. The only difference between alternating stereo rendering and mono rendering is that the camera setup is slightly altered for alternating frames and that isn't going to cause any extra problems.

 

[WolfRacer543]

I'm sorry but that's just nonsense.

Scaling of what exactly? and how did you come to below 10fps?

As has been discussed, the rendering of half a stereo image is pretty much the same as rendering a single mono image. The only difference between alternating stereo rendering and mono rendering is that the camera setup is slightly altered for alternating frames and that isn't going to cause any extra problems.

I just mean when you try doing 2 things at once (stereo images, alternating frames) it never works out exactly. Like running 2 processes simultaneously, you never exactly halve the performance, its always worse, running 2 GPUs or CPUs simultaneously you never get twice the performance. Hence the word "scaling".

10fps I pulled out of the air, its just the pessimist in me But if GT at the moment runs at 60fps with drops into the 40s and possibly 30s, I'd expect trying to run at 30fps in 3D would have similar drops into the 20s, teens, and possibly snail pace. Maybe I'm just too used to having my framerate showing in PC games and watching (and feeling) my smooth 60fps drop down to 30fps as soon as a few things happen at once on screen. Thus the pessimist in me feeling that if GT currently runs at a shaky 60fps, that in 3D it'll run at an even shakier rate.

 

[Stonemonkey]

I just mean when you try doing 2 things at once (stereo images, alternating frames) it never works out exactly. Like running 2 processes simultaneously, you never exactly halve the performance, its always worse, running 2 GPUs or CPUs simultaneously you never get twice the performance. Hence the word "scaling".

10fps I pulled out of the air, its just the pessimist in me But if GT at the moment runs at 60fps with drops into the 40s and possibly 30s, I'd expect trying to run at 30fps in 3D would have similar drops into the 20s, teens, and possibly snail pace. Maybe I'm just too used to having my framerate showing in PC games and watching (and feeling) my smooth 60fps drop down to 30fps as soon as a few things happen at once on screen. Thus the pessimist in me feeling that if GT currently runs at a shaky 60fps, that in 3D it'll run at an even shakier rate.

if there are stutters in the full game at 60 fps mono (I hope there isn't) then that would also be noticed if they were to give the option of 30 fps alternating stereo, but the 30 fps stereo itself would not give rise to any problems. The camera is always moving anyway, the fact that it is moving a bit more from side to side than usual for each frame should make no difference.

 

[LordVonPS3]

The camera is always moving anyway, the fact that it is moving a bit more from side to side than usual for each frame should make no difference.

On the contrary, if the scene moves from side to side, you should expect the scene viewed by both eyes to move from side to side, not just one eye!

The only question worth exploring is what happens when the frame rate drops...

Unfortunately this is a valid point for GT5P & the GT Academy Time Trial demo.

For the purposes of an example lets assume GT5 in 3D experiences a single torn frame where the tear is high up the screen and so the majority of the display is comprised of the previous frame buffer content. As GT5 runs in 60fps (N.B. 30fps per eye), one might assume that the 2nd (torn frame) eye would merely experience a frame rate drop. That is not correct. The second eye would actually see the other eye's perspective and thus completely lose the 3D effect. The first eye would probably not see any drop if the frame rate immediately recovered (N.B. Just one torn frame). The effect would seem like one of your eyes suddenly twitched horribly.

i.e. This.....

Total frames = 6 (i.e. 60 fps).
Frames per eye = 3 (i.e. 30fps).

LEFT EYE. ~ RIGHT EYE.
1. OK. ~ 2. OK.
3. OK. ~ 4. TORN (high - such that majority of previous buffer still shown).
5. OK. ~ 6. OK.

Left eye sees 3 frames out of 6 (i.e. 30fps from 60fps).
Right eye sees 2 frames out of 6 (i.e. 20fps from 60fps).

Compared to playing GT5 at 60fps the majority of the time in 2D, playing GT5 in 3D would often see one eye experiencing the equivalent of 2 frame drops because of the switch to the left eye. The difference in quality from 60fps racing to 30fps racing is significant enough, but a drop from 60fps to the occasional 3D to 2D glitch from 30fps to 20fps would be truly horrible.

To expect GT5 to have 3D is unrealistic. As far as GT5P goes however, it is mostly consistent at achieving 60fps and where frame drops do occur they're singular *torn frames* so even there stand some chance of outputting a majority chunk of the new scene from the frame buffer to the display. It all depends where the tear occurs.

As evidence, I supply a link to Digital Foundry's analysis of GT5P here where you'll see that frame tears whilst driving are not consecutive and the frame rate never drops below 30fps (in the analysis). If GT5P ever drops to 20fps, a 3D version would ensure that the right eye would effectively only see 10fps (one tenth of a second).

Expect PD to work on improving the frame rate for GT6 such as to make 3D a more realistic possibility. A much better alternative would be for Sony & PD to allow two or more PS3's to be networked to a TV, or to ensure that GT6 only sees the light of day on the PS4.

 

[Stonemonkey]

On the contrary, if the scene moves from side to side, you should expect the scene viewed by both eyes to move from side to side, not just one eye!

I don't think you quite got my point. To render the alternating stereoscopic frames means to move the camera slightly to the left for one frame, then to the right for the next and so on and as each alternate frame is only seen be each alternating eye then each eye only sees from one of the viewpoints, doing that will have no additional effect on the length of processing time of each stereo half frame over rendering monoscopically.

Frame rate dropping for other reasons could be problematic but I'm hoping the frame rate for GT5 (mono) will be pretty solid 60fps

 

[Stonemonkey]

Does anyone know for a fact that the stereoscopic stuff demo'd by sony so far (GT5P and wipeout, or anything else) has been rendered with alternating viewpoints at half frame rate to each eye?

 

[Devedander]

I have always wondered, in the move from one view to stereo views, is there any performance trickery that is no longer doable?

I mean are there buffers or predictions that just don't work anymore? Does something like MPEG compression happen in that information is saved and reused without the need to recaclculate it from scratch becuase it's accurate enough right now for a normal view, but jumping to rapidly changing viewpoints causes everything to have to be recalculated everytime?

I always figured something like this might account for framerate drops in rapidly changing situations like taking a turn where a LOT of stuff changes a LOT fast vs going in a straight line where a lot of stuff is pretty close to what it was the last frame a lot of the time...

If so I could see this being a performance hit...

Didn't wee see stuff like this when a few years ago 3D capable video cards were a hot thing? The car performed more that twice as well when not using stereoscopic mode?

Does anyone know for a fact that the stereoscopic stuff demo'd by sony so far (GT5P and wipeout, or anything else) has been rendered with alternating viewpoints at half frame rate to each eye?

I don't know that anyone knows that for a fact around here, but I can't honestly think of any other way to do it... to get two views, one for each eye, you need to render twice from two camera locations and to render twice takes more resources. So unless Sony hid a redundant GPU in the PS3 that is beinng turned on by firmware updateds I can't see how it's not gonna hit FPS.

 

[LordVonPS3]

I don't think you quite got my point. To render the alternating stereoscopic frames means to move the camera slightly to the left for one frame, then to the right for the next and so on and as each alternate frame is only seen be each alternating eye then each eye only sees from one of the viewpoints, doing that will have no additional effect on the length of processing time of each stereo half frame over rendering monoscopically.

OK, I agree with what you've said here about scene rendering time for each eye. The performance impact required in moving the camera position is indeed inconsequential.

As I also stated however, the only question really worth asking is what would happen if frames tear / frame rate drops.

Frame rate dropping for other reasons could be problematic but I'm hoping the frame rate for GT5 (mono) will be pretty solid 60fps

That's where I'd have to cite you for wishful thinking!

 

[LordVonPS3]

Does anyone know for a fact that the stereoscopic stuff demo'd by sony so far (GT5P and wipeout, or anything else) has been rendered with alternating viewpoints at half frame rate to each eye?

You can see this in action here... 30fps per eye, both displayed simultaneously on a special polarized TV.

This prototype system is not what Sony is releasing though... Sony is instead invested with realD to produce shutter based spectacles instead. The point here is that the 3D should be a lot better. The shutter frequency will be linked to the PS3 to prevent opposing frame pollution which primarily causes the blurry effects you might have noticed if you've watched say Avatar in the cinema recently...

 

[Devedander]

You can see this in action here... 30fps per eye, both displayed simultaneously on a special polarized TV.

This prototype system is not what Sony is releasing though... Sony is instead invested with realD to produce shutter based spectacles instead. The point here is that the 3D should be a lot better. The shutter frequency will be linked to the PS3 to prevent opposing frame pollution which primarily causes the blurry effects you might have noticed if you've watched say Avatar in the cinema recently...

It'll be interesting to see how that ties in with delay introduced by a displays processing...