We have some interesting news to bring you now, as although it was a known fact that Battlefield 3 on console will run at a 720p resolution, fresh details have emerged and revealed that EA DICE will be using a few sneaky tactics in order to achieve their native 720p objective.
Johan Andersson who is the Rendering Architect at DICE has revealed that Battlefield 3 on console will use small black lines at the top and bottom of the screen to achieve their desired 720p result. However, before you panic it has been set straight that these black lines shouldn’t be visible in game as Andersson states below that this is due to overscan.
Here is what he said in a recent comment over at framerate specialists Digital Foundry, as reported from Eurogamer:
”Battlefield 3 is 1280×704 on both PS3 and 360. Removing a few lines from 720p saves good performance and memory for us. We have tiny eight-pixel black bars that often are invisible due to overscan – scaling would just ruin the picture”
Considering that these black lines are going to be invisible going on Andersson’s word, this shouldn’t be too much of an issue to deal with, as long as it doesn’t affect the overall gameplay experience of Battlefield 3. Of course, it will still run at 30FPS compared to the 60FPS on the console versions of Modern Warfare 3, but the fact that BF3 uses black lines to achieve 720p definitely shouldn’t be used as bragging rights – although it probably will we’re willing to bet.
This may raise an eyerbrow or two with hardcore gamers who are clued up on game resolutions and frames per second performances within FPS games, but for the average gamer just looking to pick up Battlefield 3 after playing an excellent Bad Company 2 game, this is definitely not cause for concern.
What are your thoughts on EA DICE using black lines to achieve a native 720p resolution – big deal or not?
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