DF Retro: PlayStation 3 - The 1080p Dream Part 1 - 2006-2007 - Full HD Gaming Tested On The Triple!
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- čas přidán 2. 08. 2024
- In an era defined by sub-HD resolutions and 'challenging' performance, the concept of PlayStation 3 delivering on its promised 1080p dream seems almost ridiculous. And it's true that only a tiny proportion of the library rendered at full HD. And yet, in this DF Retro Special, 88 games are tested - and a majority of them target 60fps! John Linneman is on top form here, presenting the lengthiest DF Retro yet in an epic journey covering four episodes. This is part one!
Many thanks to our retro backers on the DF Supporter Program for making content like this possible. Put simply, work like this, with this level of depth, would not be possible without you! Join us at / digitalfoundry
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Want some DF-branded tee-shirts, mugs, hoodies or pullovers? Check out our store: bit.ly/2BqRTt0 - Hry
Hey John! Lead producer for “Lair” at Factor 5 here. Thanks for the shout-outs! The composer for the score was John Debney, by the way. He did the score for “Elf” and was nominated for an Oscar for “The Passion of the Christ”. I still fire up the Lair soundtrack from time to time. Love DF Retro so much!
I loved Lair! The game was far better than journalists gave credit.
Lair was freakin amazing dude. Great stuff! Thankyou for being part of that amazing revolutionary era ✊🏽
Wish you guys got to release that Rogue Squadron HD collection.
I always wanted to play that but I never had a PS3 and it never got ported. That game always looked awesome, hopefully bluepoint studios gets to it someday
Thanks for dropping by - this channel and 8 bit guy, always get game makers to comment. Quality content attracts quality responses.
I'll never forget this lmao...
Back in 07 or 08 I went to a coworkers house for the first time to play some Xbox and chill. He was was always talking about his nice TV back then.
When I got there, his TV was indeed very good, but there was a huge issue with his Xbox. He was running it in 480p!! Image all stretched out and blurry.
So I asked "How come your not running this in HD?"
"What do u mean," he said "This is HD, it's an Xbox 360 with an HDTV..."
"Dude no..." I said kinda stunned. "That's 480p"
I walked over and looked how he had it connected. I remember assuming he had an older model or something, or he didn't flick that HD switch on the component cable...
Nope. Dude was using straight up composite cables lmao! 😂🤣
I asked if had an HDMI cable, his Xbox did support it. Which was even more hilarious lol. He did. He would hook up his laptop to the TV with HDMI to watch all his burned movies.
Now the reason I'll never forget this is the LOOK ON HIS FACE when we booted up a game 😂. I think it was Gears 2.
He just looked at me and said "I have to replay every single game". I damn near died lol 😂🤣
Great story! Hahahah! I bet he was happy though.
Reminds me of a story of a guy that had built a gaming PC only to have his monitor hooked up to the iGPU for God knows how long.
I don't remember if I read it on the internet or if it happened to someone I know irl lol
@@regencyrow1867 for sure, more than happy lol. I couldn't imagine playing anything all stretched out and low res like that!
Great Story! At that moment I had my PS One and PC 2007. I played Adrinalin 2 Doom 3 and my favorite Test Drive Ulmineted on it
Then I got a PS3, it was 2012 and I played with a composite cable and it seemed that the picture was not stretched, but I knew that everything would be much better with HDMI, which I did later.
I worked at Best Buy at the time and one of the selling points they wanted us to use was that at $600 the PS3 was half the price of every other Blu Ray player on the market.
if it did do anything good it was prob playing movies.
The best movie on the system was MGS 4, so it checks out.
@james vaughn play games, bluray player, wifi support and much more for only $600 that was at the time the best deal out there you couldn’t go wrong with buying a PS3.
And that was exactly why PS3s were being scalped for over $1,000.
They pretty much were the best HTPC you could buy at the time for the money. They loaded BD discs faster than standalone players, you could rip music CDs to the HDD, display photos right off a memory card, play SACDs, it even supported local streaming via a DLNA server. It supported raw .vob files, so I had a whole ton of DVDs ripped on an old laptop I used to use.
The way John scored these games reminded me of the Xbox One launch, seeing those weird 912p, 765p, etc.
Don Matrick and the One almost killed Xbox.
@@karlimo4034 it’s still so mind-bogglingly bad lmao. I had just gotten into video game communities when the One was unveiled, rather than just playing within my friend group, and reading all the articles and forum posts of just “?????????” Was just… really something. Nearly the only thing the One did well on launch was have a good controller lol
@@Turt3752 even then I found the jump from the Dualshock ps3 to ps4 a bigger jump than xbox. Literally no market outside of the us wants batteries inside a controller, contributes to e waste and creates problems to a simple solution
@@ea8455 I don’t disagree on the batteries and actually I retract my original statement - because the best part of the XBone controller to me is that it has a plain old Bluetooth connection so it easily hooks up to phones and PCs. BUT that was only in a later revision of the controller so yeah. The Xbox One controller is still my favorite for overall comfort but it doesn’t even really stand out without the no-fuss Bluetooth at launch
@@ea8455 rechargeable AA batteries fix that issue. Most people throw away entire DS pad when the battery goes bad instead of replacing them also contributing to E waste. (I’m not saying it’s perfect and it kinda sucks you have to go out and buy good rechargeable AA batteries, but they’re a lot less E waste than an entire gamepad.)
The shots with the gameplay footage reflecting off of the ps3’s glossy finish are pure art
Shut up.
yea man, but i am in love with the deisgn of the ps2, this console is just beautiful, and the oberation system look, and the screensaver with the "whit noise waves" sound...... sadly the new console are not even close to the pure quality of this design.
The console itself was 1080p
you know time flies when the ps3 is considered retro gaming
Early PS3 titles are definetly retro by now but the entire console hasn't reached that point yet. I refuse to call a console that can run GTA V retro just yet.
It's almost been 10 years since the end of the ps3 era (2013).
@@spiral7041 PS3 is retro already, accept it and move on
@@Bearded.Jim1989 The PS3 generation is one of the longest ones we've ever experienced, it makes more sense to divide it into two. One half is definetly retro, but the other still has a lot of modern titles on it.
@@spiral7041 The whole gen is retro now regardless how long it lasted. PS4|Xbox One generation lasted just as long. Games released late in the 360|PS3 generation actually look and run worse than earlier game releases, hence why some games got remaster releases in the following gen.
Thanks John! That was a trip down memory lane. I never got to own a ps3, but my best friend got one bundled with a Sony 50 or 60” rear projection T.V. So we spent a lot of time at his house drinking, playing games, and watching Blu-Rays. Those were the days.
Hey Karl, same here! I never owned one, but a few of my friends did. We used to spend a lot of time in their place playing call of duty, fifa, little big planet, band hero, or any story based game while eating snacks. Loved those days.
I'm from India btw, love your stuff.
Karl Bhaiya, God Hand aur Urban Reign khelo.
I didn't get a PS3 until 2017 when Gamestop was dumping them for $40 and thought at that price how the hell do I not go buy one. When combined with the deluge of $2 to $5 PS3 blockbusters and critical hits on PSN every week got to build up a pretty awesome library with Demon's Souls, the inFAMOUS games, all the MGS games on PS3, the Ratchet & Clank Future series, Yakuza 4 & 5, Ni No Kuni, most of the really renowned indies like Journey, Flower, Okami, Puppeteer, Unfinished Swan, etc for like $120. Only games that cost me any more than maybe $6 on that system were Yakuza 3 and 3D Dot Game Heroes.
Lol I remember them janky ass tv's we had to replace the lamp for ours back then wtf??? A lamp in a tv???
It was a DLP TV.
Theres no way he bought a standard rear projection TV in 2006-2007.
Any chance for per game chapters? Here's a warm-up :)
00:00:00 Introduction
2006 LAUNCH TITLES
00:06:16 RIIIIIIIIDGE RACER 7
00:08:11 NBA07 Full HD 1080p
00:10:56 Issues with PS3's resolution scaling
00:11:46 Blast Factor
00:13:15 CA$H GUNS CHAO$
00:14:46 Commercial break
00:15:16 Marvel's Ultimate Alliance
2006 POST LAUNCH TITLES
00:18:49 Gran Turismo HD
00:20:48 Tekken Dark Resurrection Online
00:22:58 Full Auto 2: Battlelines
2007 TITLES
00:27:25 NBA Street: Homecourt\
00:30:49 NBA08
00:31:37 flOw
00:33:34 Virtual Tennis 3
00:35:20 Super Rub 'a' Dub
00:36:57 Calling All Cars (Extra points for Neverhood music playing in the background)
00:38:41 Super Stardust HD
00:41:00 LAIR (check out "Lair: What went wrong" deep dive on Polygon)
00:46:07 PixelJunk Racers/LocoRoco Cocoreccho!
00:48:32 Everyday Shooter
00:49:41 Cars Mater-National Championship
00:52:34 PixelJunk Monsters
00:53:04 Gran Turismo 5 Prologue
00:55:24 Snakeball
What’s the game at 00:11:00? Can’t remember the name!
@@vFxMzModz Looks like Daytona USA
you are a legend
God sent
Starting to believe that John is best CZcams "gaming" content creator. His ability to explain the how and why makes it easy to navigate which games are worth your time.
Best of all, he's explaining it in the here and now.
I've been feeling this way about this channel for a while. The thorough journalistic/doc/tech dudes approach is what you want from a gaming channel. I also like strafefox.
DF has the best team, Alex and John are the best and Richard holds it all together
John is great but he really dropped the ball on the coverage of Cyberpunk and with Starfield it is looking like he’s going to make the same mistake
@@angelurbina2049 They are a continuation of 90s magazine approach. Unlike other modern gaming channels which went way over the line.
I can't take John saying "ABAP. As Ballin' As Possible" with his usual straight tone and face, I'm laughing like a hyena right now, thank you
The humour in this video was flawless in general!
Lmao same, it had me rolling 💀
I bought a PS3 and a Samsung LE40M86 full 1080p HDTV. On the same day, close to the PAL launch and my 21st birthday. Was a wallet buster. Being a sad techie that was obviously a very memorable day in my life. Ripped through Ridge Racer in native 1080p over HDMI and it was unbelievably crisp and fluid. Alas little else really lived up to that promise. Wipeout HD a while later was a real treat, a few indie titles blew my eyes out. In the end though it was the generation of sub 720p and often sub 30FPS titles. The TV went to LCD heaven just after PS4 arrived, perfect time to replace it. The PS3? I still have an original working CECHC03 60GB model, although I fitted a dirt cheap 120GB SSD to it a few years back. It boots and runs really quickly, and many of those painful loading times are much improved. GT6 and MGS4 for example.
Heya John! A minor correction, the PS3 version of VT3 was done solely at SEGA AM3, Sumo was involved with all versions that had networking (i.e. all the other versions).
I worked on them all (VT3 was my introduction to the industry 🙂)
"One of the most infamous press conferences in gaming history"
I expected that a giant enemy crab would appear
Interesting video! A similar topic I'd like to see you cover is games that ran at 720p on the original Xbox. There were a surprisingly high number of them IIRC. Some of them had major performance issues though. Would be interesting to see which HD games on original Xbox hold up best!
I had no idea you could change the resolution in the settings and it would effect the frame rate in game. I’ve been a PS3 owner since 2007 and never knew that. Great video!! Can’t wait for part 2
I’m really glad John has picked up on the PS3 so hard this year. I’ve been fascinated with the console since early 2021 because looking back it’s such an odd piece of gaming hardware (especially that launch model).
Learning more about it and it’s games is always a joy and of course no one goes as in depth into this stuff as DF. I was seriously missing any detailed content about the PS3 at the peak of my fascination in 2021 but now I’m getting it in droves with these DF retro episodes
I love that the ps3 is now an artifact for study and demystification, and John is the Indiana Jones we never thought we'd get... or to be more appropriate, the Nathan Drake!
Not really odd it was built like that to fight people pirate the games and then became probably the hardest console to make games for
I forgot about how the early launch models had true hardware back compat and then the 1.1 models no longer had the chip in them and used a software layer instead. I was assistant manager at a high volume GameStop during that era and now I remember that being a big deal for anyone in the know about it. People
gobbled those last few shipments up immediately after restock until the new chipless ones came in.
Agreed. I own a back compat hardware launch model and it's a dream. It's such a weird relic to own but awesome relic
I've bought a PS3 SuperSlim back in 2012 because I was broke and my expensive gaming PC which I've bough two years ago, when I had the money, has literally fried - mainboard, CPU, GPU were dead due to power supply failure. I couldn't afford any decent PC, but wanted something to game on and PS3 SuperSlim was cheap as chips back then... bought the HDD slot bracket too and re-used one of my old HDDs for the console (as PS3SS came without one and only 4GB of flash storage). Second-hand games were also cheap back then and later on, when I've found a job with decent pay, I've received a box of them from work colleague whose console got stolen. He wasn't mourning the loss, as he wasn't playing that much at that point.
I though that PS3 will be a stop-gap for me, that I'll sell it when better times come and I'll buy a PC once again. But even after it happened, I've kept the console, because I've fallen in love with the machine. It does have its shortcomings, especially the low budget model I own, but overall it is insanely good gaming device with library so diverse it puts any following console to shame. And many games impress with visuals and gameplay to this day.
Killzone 2 is one of my favourite examples, the game not only looks great, it have some of the most impactful animations and great use of inverse kinetics to enhance the overall visual feedback. Google "Killzone 2 is next gen". The way how enemies react to being shot at puts modern games to shame. The attention to detail is jaw-dropping.
When Forza Horizon 5 dropped and I've played it on PC I was thinking to myself "damn, I wish this would have a split-screen multiplayer so I can play this with my wife". The I've remembered that I have a copy of Motorstorm Pacific Rift for PS3. Fired it up for the first time in like 8 years and I was blown away by how the game looks, runs and plays. We've been having fun with it in split-screen for weeks to come.
PS3 have buckets of great local multiplayer titles with that arcade-ish feel. These days the focus is either on deep single-player games or online play.
I like that you took some time to explore 720p and 480p modes! :D
Love how John never fails to plug some Chad Warden in his ps3 videos lol
I think only Richard that can surpass how they like Chad Warden
Thank you, John, for continuing to keep the Chad Warden legacy alive.
I wonder where he is now
I can’t believe he brought up Chad Warden with a straight face 🤣🤣🤣
@@mikemiles2241 He's enjoying that PS Quintuple
I’m sorry, the what?
@@mysticalplatypus87 The PS Quintuple. It followed the PS Quadruple.
Just recently purchased Ridge Racer 7 for the first time and man them graphics and performance still hold up today very well at a smooth 60fps. I currently have my Launch PS3 60gb connected to my LG C1 65 inch OLED and boy oh boy it makes the game look more crisp and run very smooth. Ridge Racer 7 definitely used all the power of the PS3 and was way ahead of its time for sure.
God I wish I wouldn't have sold my OG 60 Gb Ps3. I loved how it played PS1, PS2 and PS3 games. Sold it for like $90 to a friend for no real reason.
@J.C. Denton Mine died from the YLOD. Even sent it to Sony to fix, and it died again six months later. It's caused by bad tantalum capacitors apparently. For those just getting into PS3, the Slim is the best overall model to get. Which is what I ultimately ended up replacing my Phat 60GB with. It's reliable and doesn't look as cheap as the Super Slim. But I do miss the features the original models had.
@@MmntechCa like SD card support. I would show my family my photography from them, back in the day when 1GB SD Card was $30
Still have mine set up for that reason, it sounds like an airplane though
@J.C. Denton Yeah, true. But it ran perfect for years up until 2020. Never had a single issue with it.
@J.C. Denton you can fix the YLOD yourself by soldering the gfx card/ cpu yourself to the motherboard.
Seeing the game box lair made me so happy. I've had the lair profile picture since the PlayStation 3 and have never changed it and never will. I was one of the few who really loved that game.
Same! I'm glad he pointed out that reviewers did not get the release code because I remember buying it at launch and loving the game. I remember being confused why it got trashed and how the sixaxis controls weren't that difficult.
I remember reading about the PS3’s 1080p capabilities around 2005 and the article saying something like “we’re not even sure 1080p’s possible!” because back then the very early HD broadcasts were only in either 720p or 1080i. There were no 1080p TVs being sold yet!
Most tv broadcasts still are 1080i😂😂😂
@@Loophole23742 I know but back then ppl didn’t even know 1080p could exist.
@@AlexRN the people writing must have been clueless... it's always been down to the display standard, and indeed by that time 1080p was well within the realm of possibility.
@@AlexRN There were PC monitors supporting 1600x1200 resolutions as early as 2001-2002. I actually had one, but didn't have a fast enough graphics card to push those resolutions at playable framerates in games except in some early 3D titles like Quake and Tomb Raider. The sharpness and clarity was insane when you could push that fidelity though.
@@elimalinsky7069 PC monitors always had modern clarity, while the consoles were a blurry mess until the 360/ps3. that was just a whole different world. even worse in the 50 hz countries. slower games and horrible flickering on top of the already crappy picture quality.
It's kind of insane for me to believe that a 2006 console promised games at 1080p, it's surprising considering the time and considering that several games achieved that resolution on the console.
Even more so considering that consoles that came much later, like the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, struggle at that resolution to this day.
At the end of the day resolution doesn't mean much. If I play Tetris are 1080p is it impressive? Being able to play games that are up to current standards at said resolution is what's important and I'd saay the ps3 ultimately failed at that. 720p was the sweet spot that generation.
The original Xbox had 720p and 1080i back in 2001!
@@devantetoppin7879games like ridge racer 7 are much more complicated than tetris lol
What was the hate about the XMB about, I loved it. Scroll left or right to pick a category then up and down to pick the app. Simple and functional.
It was slow if called ingame.
PS3 XMB and 360 Blades GUI were the best things from that period.
@@0xybelis That's less to do with actual UI itself and more that Sony just not really designing it with background usage in mind. Which is clear since the in-game XMB was added later in a firmware update.
It really does lag like a mf depending on the game, that's for sure. Which is a shame because it's super fluid and quick normally.
It wsa very responsive actually. Like the PS4 XMB and even Xbox 360's many UI refreshes, they got slower over time. XMB was fine for small libraries, but as your library grew, or your system aged, it started to be slow and somewhat cumbersome to use. PS4 was the same, fine for the time, but now the thing is just so slow. PSN was also even fine before they made it the refresh UI sytem that has been around for all the PS4's lifespan too. I remember the old PSN store was slow due to server overload in the beginning, but it evened out and was respectfully useful to navigate and smoother than the crap we have now. I hate using it, and just have to use the PS App these days.
Folders and some nice dynamic backgrounds
I remember being a kid, having a 360 while my dad had a Ps3. I remember being super jealous because I thought the games on his console looked more 'cinematic', turns out it was just the lower frame rate in games that for some reason at the time I thought looked cooler.
I used to think that too. I thought high frame rates gave me headaches and that games should be like films (24fps).
That's hilarious 🤣
C I N E M A T I C F R A M E R A T E
Wow that's crazy lol. Funny how much we didn't know back when we were kids
I still enjoy cinematic frame rates more than high frame rate in a lot of games. Not all games, but many of them. Screen tearing however is like nails on a chalkboard and instantly takes me out of the experience and hurts my eyes.
I remember walking through the new basketball arena in downtown KC back in 2006 and they had a whole area set up with a dozen PS3s and copies of NBA 07 Full 1080p HD. I walked through there as a teenage Xbox and Wii gamer, and was amazed by the crisp image quality. I didn’t even know the terminology back then, but the 1080p60 experience with depth-of-field truly wowed me.
The "DF Full HD Score" rating out of 1080p made me laugh out loud every time 😂 Fantastic work as always John, can't wait to see the following parts!
I'm feeling nostalgic now for that time in gaming history when people assumed that the output resolution of the console was the same as the native resolution of their game! I remember hunting through forums to posts by people who had counted the pixels. It wasn't as easy as watching the latest Digital Foundry video!
counting pixels? Lol
I remember being so excited when I first popped MGS4 into my PS3 and a notice on the tv popped up that said 1080p. Little did I know the native resolution was only something like 1024x768 for some reason, but man I still believed it.
@@saucyx4 Yes that was a real thing people had to do and sometimes still do, when games run at sub-native resolutions the best way to find out the exact resolution is the zoom in a long way and count how many pixels there are inside a specific area. For example, if you zoom in to a 16x16 block on a game, with a diagonal edge in the centre, it should have 16 pixel steps. But if it only has 12, it’s running at 75% resolution. That maths might not be exactly right as I’m not an expert but that’s the basic theory. Sub-native games were very common in the 7th generation so most games needed to be pixel counted to find their real resolution. Today pixel counting is still used for dynamic res games, e.g. the Doom 2016 Switch port video, John did a bunch of different pixel counts to find it’s different resolutions.
@@HaonProductions Yes, all the time. Console wars were just as big back then as they are now. I remember people freaking the f out that Far Cry 2 ran at 668p on PS3 and 720p on Xbox 360, it was huge at the time even though it seems like such a small issue. edit; Sorry! Meant this to the person above you, Saucy!
@@saucyx4 that’s still how Digital Foundry figures out the real internal resolutions of games, even when they have software upscaling or reconstruction built in further obfuscating the true resolution. They find a sharp diagonal line on a good frame and count the steps basically.
Loved the xmb, ps4 user interface was such a step backwards. And I loved the photo screensaver mode.
My 11 year old was just asking me about the ps3 era last night, will show him this video. The release titles on my ps3 (full phat with emotion chip) on the 1080p screen at the time really left an impression on me.
I'm curious as to what you think of the PS5s UI
@AudioPhile I completely agree! The XMB was so fluid and simple to use. I really hated the PS4 UI and the PS5 UI is somewhat similar to that also.
After researching into the origins of the XMB it looks like Q-Games was ultimately responsible for its design (studio also known for games development) developed technology directly with Sony Japan for the PlayStation 3. The PS3's XMB (Xross Media Bar) interface, background and music visualizer were developed by Q-Games and they are credited with 3D Graphics Technology in the About PS3 section of the PS3's OS.
PS3’s 3D gaming was also worth looking back at. I remember playing Uncharted 3 and Crysis 3 on a 3D TV and it was a surreal experience not replicated anywhere else, PC or otherwise. It was a truly unique feature that many people had not experienced.
Still have my 3D TV that I bought and used with the PS3. Wipeout HD was a particularly great experience on it.
@@datfatpug me too. I have my 2011 Samsung 3D tv and a Sony PlayStation 3D monitor with simu view, the one that lets 2 people see different unique perspectives through their 3D glasses. Was great for 2 player games because you didn’t need split screen, shame that there wasn’t enough games to support that feature. Only game I remember playing was motor storm apocalypse.
Killzone 3 was excellent on a 3d tv.
Its kinda hard to demonstrate 3D games on CZcams though, considering we are all looking at a 2D screen.
I bought a 3D Samsung monitor back then in 2010 for this, was in heavy discount cause of its refresh rate and contrast it’s better than most modern monitors (besides ports) lol. Ahh 3D the gimmick back then
Lair is the sort of game I would love to see remade. Wish they'd sometimes pick those flawed-but-ambitious titles rather than games that don't particularly need it.
I agree. It was a little ahead of it's time I think and would've run much better once developers got a better hang of the cell architecture and gave the option for analog controls from the start. The game is so infamous though that it's been buried and forgotten.
Yeah like TLoU twice. Even just a PSN port with minor touchups would be nice
Just a 4K 60FPS "remaster" would do wonders for it
I agree for ps4/ps5, or a PC version.
@@Beaut_Beau or 1080P at 60 fps. People always want 4K and should not underestimate 1080P gaming
John
If you're reading this just wanted to remind you that you're amazing!
Incredible writing, filming, editing and performing here. Just outstanding job sir! Can't wait for Part 2
The last generation where there were “custom” non-standard CPU designs.
Sayonara Power-PC!
@MenaceInc was just about to say this. Didn't they also use it for GC and wii?
I was aware of Lair's existence at the time, but never really saw it played. It looks amazing!
Thanks you so much John !
Amazing video, great information, it's so good to see someone talking about this and the weird change the PS3 had when switching to 720P or 1080P.
In a way, it was a little like PC and changing graphical settings but on console.
Shame it was never really well explained, even the press didn't really know this.
I’ve waited this video for so long, with the weekly tease in the weekly podcast !
I love it
These videos are fantastic, John. Love the humor (the “rating” system you use is great), the little editing touches like timing your intro text with the music, and as always the actual content is informative and entertaining.
People laugh at me but I still say this is my favorite Game System ever. I still have a Metal Gear Solid 4 Special Edition Console too. I love the grey color it has but that OG Piano Black Edition with the smooth as silk finish?!! Straight Fire 🔥
What a fun, informative and nostalgic video! I really do believe all the work DF / John had done over the past few years had a positive influence on game developers by pushing them to really think through performance trade offs. Performance matters just as much as appearance!
24 frames per second. “Very cinematic” 😂
@John and DF this video was a joy from start to finish. Dare I say one of the best DF retro videos. Keep up the great work!
Movies run at that so it's true
@@RobertK1993 yes that's why it's funny
5:46 you have no idea how much that screen brought back memories. I would fall asleep every night as an edgy teen to some screamo-music, which that little earth spinned and spinned and spinned all night long in the background. And no, I never was able to sleep due to people screaming in my ears.
yes! i loved listening to music on the ps3 and relaxing to the visualizer
Thank you john for the time and effort putting this/these together. Much appreciated
I definitely wish lair got some sort of remaster by Sony. That game really does look amazing at much higher res and 60fps when using analog mode.
Of all the 1080p games on PS3 what I remember most was the PS2 remasters that really just took the image quality to another level. Tekken 5 Dark resurrection, ico, Tekken tag tournament HD, Final fantasy 10 and 10 2...along with their clean art styles due to no shaders, it really brought into focus just how good old games could look blown up to higher res for a console pleb of this era considering how low their original resolutions on PS2 actually were
1080p is still a nice resolution, especially on smaller displays and with some quality post-processing
With all the amazing reconstruction techniques we're quickly approaching a post-resolution era.
Agree, and little bro 720p is never a bad alternative either :)
1080p is perfect in my book, but I'll take higher FPS any day over higher resolution. That's just how I was raised (by my PC master race parents). lol
@@rubendiaz9444 720p is terrible
@@madoc1 terrible? Hardly
The original Xbox was very similar, in that over 50 games* supported 720p output, but several of those were preferable in 480p mode due to better frame rate.
* Lots of those games were basketball too!
It could run technologically advanced games. Hulk ultimate destruction was open world and very cpu intensive with all the destruction and was full 720p. You can even mod it to run most anything at 720p and most are playable with zero optimization or hardware upgrades. Even halo ce runs single player around 20-25fps
@@robarmstrong5404Its the GPU that would allow for higher resolution
Great video! Love the advert breaks, love the Ps scores, love the fun. Great video I had loads of fun watching this.
What a fun video. Please keep these technical deepdives coming!
Hard to express how much I appreciate this video! I've been defaulting to 720p output for some time hoping to improve performance on ps3 games, but now I feel 100% reassured I'm not crazy :D
Final fantasy 13 is the most interesting story on ps3 for me. Square were on top of the world going into the ps3 generation. And it's not a bad game but its clear they had alot of difficulty moving into hd and holding onto their title of being the king of graphical fidelity.
And ff13 is definitely one of the best looking ps3 games but I came at a cost interms of game design.
The story behind FFXIII is definitely interesting. A lot of stuff going on behind the scenes leading the game to fall short of their initial ideas
That game is gorgeous specially back in 2010. The areas are jawdroping.
Excellent video John! Looking forward to part 2. Also I love that you upload on Sundays. Makes Sundays feel less boring, so thanks!
Thank you for this video and all the effort that has gone into this!
I love these types of ambitious projects
What a fantastic vid !!
This is giving me some heavy 7th gen nostalgia... it wasn't perfect but it was still a good time!
Great video, I think you're putting out the best content for gaming on CZcams right now.
I also really like the highly researched, highly produced documentaries that NoClip creates.
But John's output, quality and technical knowledge is something else.
Can't wait for part 2 I love this type of videos
High quality content as always. Loved the rating system specially lmao
Wow I can't even imagine the amount of time and effort that was put into this work
This is an outstanding video. John, kudos! DF retro is amazing.
John isn't lying about the music in Lair. What an incredible score that game has. Glad it got a shout out 🙂
What a great trip down memory lane. So many games I forgot from the era.
I love this series 😎
dude thank you for this series, can't wait to watch
This was a super ambitious project. Great work John!
Yeah the same marketing tricks with PS5 and it's 8K support :p
This series is gonna be great! I've rebought all the titles I had over my past three PS3s and now trying to get into games I never tried before.
Great work John. Your gameplay captures are so crispy and clean, really shows the Tripple at its best!
John please keep this scoring this is amazing! 😭 I love it so much.
I remember, seeing a PS3 game for the first time. The graphical quality was amazing. I almost couldnj't believe how realistic those games looked.
Nowdays, when I look back, they seem ancient in comparison to what games looklike now. Technology is truly amazing.
I still have my PlayStation 3 first model fully functional, I loved the consol and the design and technology under the hood.
My 60GB launch model had a YLOD around 2011 or so. It was during a timeframe where Sony was accepting YLOD 20/60GB PS3’s outside of warranty and sending you a refurbed slim model for some smaller amount of money, I can’t quite remember.
Had it happened to me today, I would have been able to repair it and I would have done that instead.
Anyway, I guess they needed those models for a contract with the air force to maintain a certain supply of spare parts for the PS3 cluster they built?
Man, i can't believe LAIR is from 2007, the stuff going on there is insane, the PS3 was an old beast, i bet with the help from the SPEs, that would reach 30fps.
Simply THE best quality content on CZcams. Keep up the fantastic work!
Love the video! So many obscure titles that I would love to try myself.
Excellent effort! The amount of work put into this is much appreciated! The technical break down of each title, while putting everything into historical context was quite the undertaking, and you nailed it as usual! We hope this gets millions of views!
This is the stuff that earns subscribers. Great work John!
Was so hyped for this video. And, as expected, John delivered big time.
This kind of video is why I'm subbed to DF
Love this type of content.
Very infomative and nostalgic at the same time.
Feels really good.
Please make for PS retro systems too.
John, amazing episode of digital foundry retro. I’m ready to go for episode 2. Thanks 🙏🏼
Man I just binged this Hour long video even tho I only watch 10 mins videos and never had a ps or a xbox in 20 years of my life.
Got my PS3 way back 2007 and still finding new or collecting games for it. Say what you want about this console but It did gives us some of the best gaming memories we may never have again.
That's right, of the whole PlayStation family, the PS2 and PS3. It has become my favorite one and the most played from the whole PlayStation family to the point where I own 10 of them (including dev kit/test kit) and just missing the prototype model lol.
@@solid_rob3236 Wow what a collection! I still have my PS3 20gb with the 6 usb slots kinda sad that it's having YLOD from sometime now especially when I game for longer periods of time and the fan gets louder but still collecting games for it until now. And all these time I haven't tried to play a PS1 or PS2 disc I always wanted to try it lol but I do have some PS1 and PS2 digital games that I bought from the Playstation store.
No one is arguing that as the 360 and ps3 were the peak of gaming we assumed it would get better but that may be the only thing we are wrong about as gaming is nothing close to what it use to be
@@krispydream6907 4 USB ports not 6
Fantastic work John, thanks for this. I remember playing Fallout 3 on PS3 and regularly going into rooms where it would just be me and wireframe geometry. Good times?
absolute awesome work, thank you
Really interesting content! Thanks for this, John. Keep at it!
I've been waiting for this!*
*Akihiko says as I play Persona 3 on my PS3 as a PS2 Classic.
Digital Foundry is truly a hidden gem. Games should come with a DF Seal of approval. I guarantee we get better more complete games.
With 1.25M subs I wouldn't call this channel 'hidden' LoL
Games always advertise their IGN score but if they said "Performance tested and approved by Digital Foundry" I would definitely consider buying it
@@JuanSinMiedo441 there are a million+ people playing call of duty... 1 million over the entire community is a small number...
Love your retro retrospectives, looking forward to the next part
It's been an amazing, high quality, funny, entertaining journey through the early ps3 era. Thank you very much for your work!
do a dreamcast full documentary
you forgot to say please
I'd love that! He already did a video on soul calibur 1 but I'd love to see sonic adventure, crazy taxi, dead or alive 2 etc highlighted
That’ll be awesome. I remember the Powerstone games from Capcom that released on Dreamcast. Absolutely addictive games.
It's crazy that we're reaching the 20th anniversary of the PS3. I remember being a kid watching the E3 wanting one so badly.
You're 4 years off.
@@DrJones20
Hence "Reaching"
@@MajorisMons Ridiculous thing to say. Might as well say reaching 30 year anniversary since we're gonna pretend several years don't matter.
@@DrJones20
Hence, "Hence 'Reaching' "
'Reach' - arrive at; get as far as.
'ing' - action or process
@@MajorisMons Yeah it's reaching it's 30th anniversary
I didn't think you could top your work on Gran Turismo and other racing titles, but my goodness this is above and beyond. Excellent work John, can't wait for part 2.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE never stop doing videos/documentaries like these... theyre an absolute blast to chuck on the side monitor while playing games and just gather in all the knowledge from an ERA bygone! great stuff, 1080p/1080p is my rating for this video!
I thought the PS3 was a pretty bad system when it came out, but Chad Warden made me see the light. ABAP!
Seriously yeah. I was kinda upset that I had to settle with a 360 but in hindsight for most third party games the 360 played games much better than the PS3.
PS3 is my fav intern of system UI and functionality.
Ps3 is still better than series x
@@pottu3 Ur mother
@@chickenpasta7359 At the beginning of the generation, yes. By the end, big companies like EA had developed tools specifically for PS3's unique architecture and the games basically had parity. Differences were minimal and were even in favor of PS3 at times by then. Too bad it took until the end of the generation, but it turned out PS3 actually was the more powerful machine.
The PS3 is now retro?
Fuck i'm old.
Fantastic video, thanks john :)
Really enjoyed this, thanks John
They weren't kidding about PS3 that "It Only Does Everything"
For its time it really was a console that can do it all and now modders take it to the next level.
It’s still the best multimedia device ever created for viewing local content.
The mods take it to next level. It now supports codecs that didn’t exist ten years ago.
@@OrtadragoonX Do you know what the name of the mod is?
The launch BC PS3 model does everything, it is like a PRO model of the PS3 gens.
@@sladejosephwilson2300 Jailbreak.
There's two types of jailbreak, Custom Firmware (CFW) or Hen, both are fantastic but CFW is better.
I recently got a launch PS3 from Japan and upgraded it to 1TB. This thing is insane, I wish I had experienced it when I was younger.
Full PS1, PS2 and PS3 support right off the bat. PS1 and PS2 games look much cleaner on this system if you're using HDMI. Plus I got CFW so I could bypass region locks for PS1/2 titles and I can make my own game backups on burnt CDs, DVDs or Blurays. It even has an official software based PSP emulator that can run many PSP games. To make it even better it supports virtually any disc based media other than the HD DVD or 4K bluray.
If I could only pick one console to own, it would definitely be the launch PS3 from Japan or US since they both do full PS2 emulation. In conclusion, it's the best console ever created, my only complaint is that the fans are loud but at least they ensure the system doesn't overheat.
Interesting how grey so many of the textures look in retrospect. I always associated that with the PS1 and PS2 era specifically. One could argue that the PS4 generation was the first one to really escape the greyness since the beginning of 3D gaming.
I think it had a lot to do with LED TVs becoming mainstream too. LED TVs have great saturation. If you look at the TV technology through the years, PS1 and 2 had no reason to have vibrant colors because of CRT TVs.
The PS1 and PS2 eras were far more colorful than the PS3. A lot of the blame for that can be placed on the PS3 / 360 gen relying much more heavily on pixel shaders that were still in their infancy and worked best with extremely limited color palettes, which the PS1 and PS2 didn't need to concern themselves with (since they weren't using shaders of that type at all), and by the PS4 things had advanced to the point where the shaders played nicely with saturation.
@@sethsez not sure I agree with the ps2 being more vibrant. Compare any Dreamcast, Xbox, or GameCube game to most ps2 ones, i think it may be a case of lower texture memory and less effective compression
A lot of PS3 games look a bit greyer than their 360 counterparts, for some reason (at least in screen captures). You can see that in some of the games in this video. I can't remember why that is, but was probably something to do with colour space and/or video signals.
@@thestoicwhinger I don't know about PS2 specifically vs Xbox and GameCube (maybe?), but yeah, there was a trend towards duller aesthetics with lots of grey and brown around that time, and it continued for quite a while. Games in the '90s and very early '00s tended to be more colourful, and some of them had very sharp graphics with vivid lighting.
PS2's texturing was weaker than the competition (including Dreamcast), and that may have been one factor in that trend- though not the only reason. (A texture with fewer colours takes less memory, so using just a few shades of brown would work better than trying to fit the whole spectrum! And soft, low saturation graphics are a little less jarring at low resolutions, so there's that as well.)
Of course, there was also the idea back then that grey/brown = realism. Or from 2005 onward, that grey/brown + bloom = realism!
Been waiting for this
Wow. This video is an amazing piece of work.
Oh yeah the PS Triple!