[PS3] 1080p resolution issue

[MonkeyFinger]

I'm wondering if anyone is playing 'XCOM Enemy Unknown' on the PS3 at 1080p? The box lists that rez as the native resolution of the game but by default it's not running there for me. I can see my TV do a rez switch to 1080p when the game starts, the screen sits blank for a moment then it switches to 720p and the game starts. If I uncheck 720p from the resolutions supported, it will start up and run just fine in 1080p. I don't know if this is an issue with the game or something about my PS3 setup.

Sent an email to 2K support and this is what I got back:

Thank you for providing this information. We apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused. This bug report information has been logged for research and development towards future updates, which would be in the form of a patch or a title update.
Best Regards,
Brad P.

Was expecting something more along the lines of "the box is wrong" which I've seen with other titles but this makes it seem like there might be something else going on.

[Blackjack]

On PC, they (perhaps mistakenly, or maybe they meant to let us chose) included both 720 and 1080p cinematics/movies and recently patched that to only use the 1080p ones. So perhaps something similar went on with the PS3 gameplay resolution.

I haven't read anything about PS3 resolutions in gameplay being locked to lower rez that way, but perhaps that's what happened there too. I've seen a post or two complaining about low rez XBox360 version textures but it's not quite clear if the people are complaining about movies or gameplay resolution.

[MonkeyFinger]

FWIW, turns out they closed the issue after I got that reply. So I guess they've acknowledged it as a bug. And may fix it. Someday.

Still wondering if there are other PS3 players out there and what they are seeing, resolution wise...

[MonkeyFinger]

Changed the subject slightly as I'm now seeing a wider issue. The last three games I've purchased - XCOM, AC3 and NFS - all list 1080p as their default resolution and they all exhibit this frustrating symptom. They'll try to go 1080p, my TV sits for a moment with a blank screen and then they drop to 720p. If I remove 720p as a supported rez from the PS3 it still does the two rez changes but the second one is still 1080p and the game runs fine there.  This with a fairly new 320GB Slim.

Obviously, this isn't a game issue but rather something with the system. I'm thinking I should try replacing the HDMI cable, not sure what else I could do. Hmmm, guess I could put my old launch 60GB in its place and see if it exhibits the same symptoms cabled into the same setup...

[Rumpy]

Yeah, I know what you mean. It's as if 720p is the safe resolution and is used as the default system-wide and if a game supports 1080p and the system is using that, as in the dashboard, the system doesn't seem to cycle back to 1080p for games themselves. Very odd. You'd think it would change the resolution based on the system's resolution. One shouldn't have to force it to enable it.

[MonkeyFinger]

In case anyone is interested, I've been going back and forth with Sony support on this. Tried the official support forums but all that got me was the advice that my PS3 (as well as others reporting the same issue) must be defective. 

After a couple of false starts, it seems to come down to the fact that the games are mislabeled on the retail box... at least that is what I am reading into my latest reply quoted below. While they do support and can run in 1080p, their default is actually 720p. Not really surprising as the vast majority of PS3 games are 720p but frustrating when what is on the box is wrong.

Unfortunately, if the game is defaulting to 720p then that is the Native Resolution. As you stated, the only way to get the higher output is to force the system into 1080p at all times. Although, if you put in a game that only supports 720p or lower, it wont play at all. The game developers set their games this way, because the game performs better in the Native Resolution than a higher one. Furthermore, some games will only support the highest resolution during cut scenes, and will use lower resolutions during game play. For more information on a specific game please contact the developer for that game.

The "it won't play at all" part is wrong, they drop down to 480p.