Not to drop nerdy tech terms on you this early in the morning, but we thought some of what went into (or came out of!) Sony’s first 3D PlayStation 3 games was quite interesting. It seems that they had to rework some things and reduce detail to get some wiggle room in games like WipEout HD and Motorstorm: Pacific Rift.
Take WipEout: The original 2D version ran at a slick 1080p. The 3D needed to be bumped down to 720p to free up some pixel processing power. Sony senior dev manager Simon Benson also said that a refresh rate drop down to 30Hz was needed to give the PS3 more room for 3D calculations.
Motorstorm: PR saw similar changes. It was already running at 720p, but they lowered the resolution a bit and used hardware upscaling to make 3D possible.
Of course, when games are coded specifically for 3D, they can work to be efficient from the very start. It’ll be less about compromises and more about careful coding.
PlayStation 3’s 3D implementation explained, may require upscaling and reduction in detail to work [engadget]
