Does the majority of people een know what HD means?

[Spindel]

Ok I was surfing by VGCartz forum (I do that from time to time I find it funny to read) and came across this topic:

Which Nintendo franchises do you wanna see in HD? | VGChartz - Top selling hardware and software, industry news, financial reports

Since I cba to sign up in their forum I will do a rant about that topic in here.


HD ≠ better looking game/graphics

HD just means the game runs at a higher resolution nothing else.

Take a stipulated HD SMG:
If the only thing that we change is to make the game run in HD resolutions the game will look exactly the same, except it will have a bit less jagged lines (which aren't really noticable in SMG when you are playing the game unless you stand still and look for them).

The same can be said about any game you chose. Just making the game HD won't change the graphics (much).

What people actually wants (and I think the 3rd post in that thread is the only one to mention it and it seems to pass by totally unnoticed) is higher polygon counts, higher resolution textures (why you wouls want that in SMG is a mystery to me since higher res textures wouldn't change much to the visuals in that particular game) and heavier use of shaders.

Now it's totally OK with me to feel you would like to see nintendo games with higher poly count, better textures, more shader etc. But that isn't HD that is just improved visuals in the old fashioned way.

The only thing the "HD" tag means is that there are more pixels drawn by the machine.

Let me make an example, I have Comand & Conquer 3 for my mac sitting next to me right now. When I play that game I play it at my screens native resolution of 1920*1200 pixels. That cis HDat 16:10 aspect ratio.
Now I play with visuals of the game maxed out (geometry, texture quality, particle effects, shaders etc) but even if I set the game to the lowest graphical settings, but keep the resolution, the game runs at HD because the resolution is unchanged. It will look pants but it's still HD. On the other hand if I lower the resolution to let's say 720*480 (I actually don't think I can lower the resolution that much ), and leave the graphics maxed out, the game is no longer HD but it will still look better than running it on HD with everything on lowest.

In the current gen the 360 and PS3 are far superior over the Wii in sheer processing power. So they can have higher poly count, higher resolution textures, more shader effects etc. And it's THAT what makes the games "look" better.

Also you could increase the polycount etc even further if you wanted and stuck to SD (lets say it's 480p for simplicity here). Just because the reduction of pixels that have to be drawn with each frame, which sucks computing power. (I'm not saying that it should, but that it could)

As a comparison:

480p 720*480=345 600 pixels

720p 1280*720=921 600 pixels

1080p 1920*1080=2 073 600 pixels

That is a huge difference in required computing power.


But anyhow what I wanted to get through with this post is that:

HD = higher resolution ≠ better graphics;
just more pixels on the screen

[Darth Daver]

I look at VGChartz occasionally and it totally winds me up. thye have some excellent members but most of them are arrogant, trolls or just plain stupid. Anyway, to reply to your post I agree in a way but to have the sharp, crisper edges tographics then you need HD resolution. Textures, shader ffects, bit rates etc all play an important part too but you can't just discount resolution.

[boffo]

The higher resolution doesn't necessarily make the graphics better but it does make them much clearer and sharper. When I first got the PS3 I was playing it through the out of the box cables in 480i and it looked good. I upgraded the cables after a week or so and went to 720p and it made a rather big difference to the look of the game. It almost feels like there was a layer of film over the screen that got removed once the jump was made to HD.

thye have some excellent members but most of them are arrogant, trolls or just plain stupid.

I've found that just about every video gaming site is like that. The bad members always far outweigh the good ones.

[Darth Daver]

The bad ones always seem to have to race to get the highest post counts imo...

[boffo]

And the bigger the forum the worse it gets. I guess there's no real accountability so some people are willing to act and sound stupid just because no one knows who they are. From all accounts it sounds like playing games over Xbox Live isn't any different.

And it's one of the main reasons I go to the official Playstation forums. Some of the stuff asked about and said on there is too funny to miss.

[AkaneJones]

Interesting how people can be stupid some times and forget HD simply means High Definition. Its simply more pixels on screen, its got nothing to do with realism or even polly count and anti-analyzation. One could only argue high-rez textures go with HD even though it doesn't mean its given.

Still the correct answer to what Nintendo series should be in HD are A; Pikmin , hard to see what's going on in zoomed out mode. B; any drawn art games like Wario Land, because more pixels means larger sprites like Street Fight 2 HD. Other series wouldn't benefit that much from the HD.

What I'd want is a 2D Castlevania in HD with out compromises in art style. Yes all it's gore and nudity included, especially if they blew the whole budget on the best animation the could throw at it. That and remembered Circle of the Moon challenge level was the sweet spot.

[LieutenantDan67]

To the original question, I'd say no....the majority of people don't know what HD means or what it's about.

I think the numbers are starting to close as we get closer to shutting down analog tv, but I happen to know some average Joe, non-tech consumers (who make up the MAJORITY) who have no idea what BluRay is.

As to anonymity (sp?) on XBL and forums, yeah, there's a LOT of idiots out there that don't care about acting like asshats because they are 'safe' from being found out or held accountable.

But if someone winds me up enough on XBL, I'll take the time to file a complaint AND submit a negative player review. Life's too short to have your blood pressure spiked when you're gaming by flaming idiots whom you want to strangle through the tv/computer screen.

[NintendoMaster]

I'd guess that more than half of the world doesn't know what high-definition is.

[Xisiqomelir]

No.

[E6600]

HD means Hard Disk so HDTV means Hard Disk Television

A more complete list from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD