Platform differences and decision

[workshed]

Do you want to play portrait? It's probably easier on PC than console.

Is it even possible on any consoles? I haven't found a way for the PS3 or PS4, but I'd be all over that if it could be done.

 

[JPelter]

Is it even possible on any consoles? I haven't found a way for the PS3 or PS4, but I'd be all over that if it could be done.

It was impossible on the PS3 last I checked. Can't say if it's possible for PS4 though, sorry. That was actually the biggest reason I decided to just stop on the PS3 for good. Portrait mode is just too good.

 

[SickBoy]

Admittedly I've only ever demoed the game on consoles. I game on PC 99.999% of the time. When my brother visits we play around with his Wii-U, etc... so ultimately I have no idea if it's even possible to go portrait mode on the console versions.

However, while I'd say portrait is king, there's something to consider (which is ultimately me arguing against myself... go figure ).

The vast majority of modern monitors can indeed go into portrait mode.... buuuuut they have an issue almost everyone forgets to mention. When you put a monitor in portrait mode you'll have a very strange visual effect. If you look at a typical landscape LCD monitor from the top, you'll notice that it's almost like looking at the negative of an image. It's not exactly that, but in general stuff goes crazy... it absolutely does *not* look like what the standard landscape view gives.

Now, when you go into portrait mode you'll be looking at a screen with two eyes... one will see your standard image, the other will see the crazy "almost negative" version. This can, and most likely will, start to really mess with your eyes/head. I recently stopped playing in portrait mode until I can get a monitor that doesn't have this effect because it was screwing with my vision too much.

My brother works in the digital art field (art as in museums/galleries, not advertisements) and he runs into this problem constantly with digital art installations that need a portrait mode. His advice is to find a *TV* that has "smart angle" capabilities... and in terms of portrait mode pinball he says to only use the tv for that as any other game/etc. will look like crap on it. A 1080p TV will be absolutely awful compared to a 1080p monitor. Why monitors haven't been made to be as dynamic as TVs is beyond me... but that's the general gist.

 

[Biff]

Consoles don't allow you to set a custom resolution for portrait mode and the console versions of TPA aren't designed for this mode.

I currently have a typical landscape LCD but I can still play in portrait mode when I sit right in front of my screen.

Wikipedia: Rotation of LCD monitors

 

[JPelter]

Admittedly I've only ever demoed the game on consoles. I game on PC 99.999% of the time. When my brother visits we play around with his Wii-U, etc... so ultimately I have no idea if it's even possible to go portrait mode on the console versions.

However, while I'd say portrait is king, there's something to consider (which is ultimately me arguing against myself... go figure ).

The vast majority of modern monitors can indeed go into portrait mode.... buuuuut they have an issue almost everyone forgets to mention. When you put a monitor in portrait mode you'll have a very strange visual effect. If you look at a typical landscape LCD monitor from the top, you'll notice that it's almost like looking at the negative of an image. It's not exactly that, but in general stuff goes crazy... it absolutely does *not* look like what the standard landscape view gives.

Now, when you go into portrait mode you'll be looking at a screen with two eyes... one will see your standard image, the other will see the crazy "almost negative" version. This can, and most likely will, start to really mess with your eyes/head. I recently stopped playing in portrait mode until I can get a monitor that doesn't have this effect because it was screwing with my vision too much.

My brother works in the digital art field (art as in museums/galleries, not advertisements) and he runs into this problem constantly with digital art installations that need a portrait mode. His advice is to find a *TV* that has "smart angle" capabilities... and in terms of portrait mode pinball he says to only use the tv for that as any other game/etc. will look like crap on it. A 1080p TV will be absolutely awful compared to a 1080p monitor. Why monitors haven't been made to be as dynamic as TVs is beyond me... but that's the general gist.

I'm pretty sure high quality modern monitors don't have this problem. What you're talking about is screens with extremely limited view angles. My Dell doesn't have this issue at all. I'd be hard pressed to think any screen that is newer than 5 years and not the absolute most budget version has enough of an issue with this that it's actually visible. I might be wrong and you're describing some entirely different problem, but I've never seen the thing if that's the case.

e: And I do mean just normal use. I'm sure if you're trying to view it from the next room over sideways it might look a little weird, but generally speaking if you're playing TPA on a screen you're going to be directly in front of it.

 

[EldarOfSuburbia]

LCDs (and maybe plasmas too?) have this problem.
LEDs don't.

The monitors linked to in previous posts are both LEDs.

 

[JPelter]

LCDs (and maybe plasmas too?) have this problem.
LEDs don't.

The monitors linked to in previous posts are both LEDs.

Aren't LED monitors just LCD monitors with backlighting supplied by LEDs? I'm not an expert so I get confused by the terminology.

 

[Biff]

I think he means OLEDs, which, of course, also have disadvantages.

(btw, my LCD link, that I posted previously, also describes the problem with the viewing angle)

Wikipedia:
OLED
Rotation of LCD monitors

 

[Zaphod77]

TN panels are the ones that have the viewing angle issues, and bad color reproduction. they DO have very fast response times though. most laptops use these.

IPS and many other technologies have much better viewing angles, but tend to have slower response times, which means display lag throwing off your shots and causing you to miss your alley passes completely.

Microsoft's consoles have rapid hardware scalers in them, which lets them run at native resolution of your tv with ease. this makes the x360 (and XBONE) the best console platforms in general. Much harder to deal with lag on the PC. Sub frame latency (less then 1 frame of lag) is very important, especially when the table is a fast one. ONE frame of lag is acceptable when playing TPA in my opinion. any more than that and it's unplayable.

The ps3 does NOT have a hardware scaler, and thus can introduce lag when set to a low resolution. Many cheaper TVs also have dolby digital lag, which means the TV take too long to decode the audio, and delays the video output until the audio is decoded. If SOME games lag and not others, even though they run in the same resolution, that's why. Switching to analog audio out and an external sound system always fixes it. disabling dolby digital/etc over HDMI, and only allowing PCM directly fixes the lag issue as well, unless you have a really crappy TV that can't even decode PCM in real time.

I consider PC the superior platform. I'm also used to playing on keyboard from my Visual Pinball days.

 

[Snorzel]

I play season 4 on pc. I cant say about xbone, but for me if dx11 hits and is as good as Im hoping then Im going to be coughing up the $90 to re-buy all previous seasons. Ps4 has seen little to no bug fixes. Pc can connect to the tv with an hdmi, and using ds4tool ps4 remote on pc. I just hope we get tournaments if I go the pc route

 

[Biff]

The ps3 does NOT have a hardware scaler

Google gives me a lot of results for "PS3 hardware scaler".

It seems like that Sony slowly unlocked the functionality of the hardware scaler.
This article was last updated in March 2007 and it tells us, that in 2007, SCEI gave access to hardware accelerated horizontal scaling.
I assume that vertical scaling came a little later.

"Amongst the newer versions of the various tools included in the SDK lies a new function: the ability for developers to use some of the functionality of the fabled hardware scaler, a scaler many previously doubted existed at all."

"Horizontal scaling on its own cannot upscale a 720p image into 1080p/i --this would require both horizontal and vertical scaling."

"At the time of publication, the reasons why SCEI didn’t give developers access to both horizontal and vertical scaling are still unknown, as are the reasons they didn’t grant developers access to horizontal scaling until now."

"In conclusion, the foretold yet hitherto unseen PlayStation 3 hardware scaler has made its entry onto the development scene with this SDK update."

http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/16/2

 

[Zaphod77]

The xbox360 can jut run the game internally at 720p, or less, and the system will auto scale it to your TV's native resoution. the PS3 cannot do this, even now as far as I know.

every xbox360 game can output 1080p. but for some of them, it's scaled by the system,

 

[JPelter]

TN panels are the ones that have the viewing angle issues, and bad color reproduction. they DO have very fast response times though. most laptops use these.

IPS and many other technologies have much better viewing angles, but tend to have slower response times, which means display lag throwing off your shots and causing you to miss your alley passes completely.

It depends on the screen but modern IPS style panels tend to have reasonable response times too. My Dell was at 7.9ms in testing, which is a little below half a frame at 60fps, and you can shave a little more off that by disabling the internal processing system on it, which doesn't really affect much unless doing actual graphics work.

The actual difference between response time of the screen and actual input lag is more complicated than that though. With the internal adjusting running the screen has around 24ms input lag so around a frame and a half. Disabling it brings it down to 9ms. Most of the difference is a lot more involved signal processing which takes more time. TN panel screens tend to have around 5-7ms total input lag, but worse image quality and inaccurate colours.

e: For reference one frame at 60fps is ~16.67ms.

 

[Michael DiFilippo]

I just made the switch to PC.

I have an XB1, the experience is great but keep in mind that major big fixes will be fixed alot sooner on PC.

I GAVE UP on consoles after the ps4 fiasco on season 2. Tpa is an investment for me. Pc and TPA will out live any console, remember that!

 

[SickBoy]

I'm pretty sure high quality modern monitors don't have this problem. What you're talking about is screens with extremely limited view angles. My Dell doesn't have this issue at all. I'd be hard pressed to think any screen that is newer than 5 years and not the absolute most budget version has enough of an issue with this that it's actually visible. I might be wrong and you're describing some entirely different problem, but I've never seen the thing if that's the case.

e: And I do mean just normal use. I'm sure if you're trying to view it from the next room over sideways it might look a little weird, but generally speaking if you're playing TPA on a screen you're going to be directly in front of it.

You may very well be correct. I got out of the hardware game long ago because stuff was advancing way too quickly for me to keep up with. However, my brother works primarily with a top end graduate school for digital arts in the USA (RED cameras at the ready, computer labs with 5 digit setups for every computer, etc) and world renowned artists that drop millions on single installations for some collector in Dubai, and I tend to trust his experience since he's working with stuff the vast majority of individuals will never have the chance to play with.

The general problem seems to be that PC monitors are notorious for not being "angle friendly". If there's an angle you can view a monitor at that distorts the coloration/contrast/etc., then it's a problem in terms of playing pinball in portrait mode... as much as it pains me to say.

"Smart angle" stuff (+ lots of tooling around with configurations to get contrast, color, etc. correct) is designed to make viewing in portrait as similar as possible to viewing in landscape... something PCs just don't have. Now, if you're on a MAC that's a different story most likely, but I have never owned one and have zero experience. But with regular PCs you can easily figure out if you're going to have a problem by looking at your monitor from non-landscape angles (top-down primarily). High end monitors may have cut down on the problem to some degree, but there are massive amounts of $$$ going into art installations that have to deal with this problem. And quite frankly, your average user isn't going to have access to high end models.

Again, I could be wrong in this since I'm speaking on behalf of my personal resident expert... perhaps there are super high end models out there that this is no longer a problem. But for someone with access to the best of the best (and even beyond that) to say "hey, it's not possible with a regular PC monitor", I'm going to go with that. Maybe I'll end up eating my own words, but my brother has access to things I could never dream of, so I'm going to go with him on this one