How to run Grand Theft Auto IV at 1080p

This is common sense

OMG!!! You can do this???!! I never knew!!!!

Me toooo i never knew that do you know why ?? BECAUSE IM A NOOB

common sense?. i dont think so.. its common sense to set the setting and think your ps3 will use the highest available setting.. I had to do this with Call of Duty to get it to play in 1080p.. kinda stupid you have to do this to.. thought it would have done it on its own.. kinda sucks cause when you start a game thats in 720p it looks like crap.. hope sony fixes this minor problem.. just dont like having to exit a game just to set the Video settings..

Why would someone want to play GTA IV in 1080p if the game itself is not made for this resolution?? The game will look crappier in 1080p than in 720p. I suggest setting the videos definition manually for disable the 1080p option. Just turn it on to see 1080p movies. 99% of the games are 720p.

[...] to it in the end: apparently it runs at 640p, not 630p, but we figured life was too short), but TalkPlayStation.com reckons it’s easy enough to make the game run at 1080p, assuming you have the right TV, [...]

Wrong Me, Any game 1080p capable on the PS3 always looks better on 1080p settings. Trust me I know, and I immediately know when COD4 is using 720p instead of 1080p. The text lines look more jagged, etc. Any and all 1080p capable games on the PS3 always look better running at that setting… or it would be stupid to even make them 1080p capable. Who would make a higher resolution setting that looks worse, that makes no sense. But it is strange that the PS3 doesn’t auto-seek for the highest setting possible. I just leave 720p and 1080i unchecked, forcing the PS3 to go 1080p on the games I play. When I go to a game that isn’t 1080p capable it simply knocks the resolution down to a crappy 480p setting and I have to go back in and enable 720p. It is a little hassle, but I prefer my 1080p games running at 1080p, it looks better.

artsaber: there are only a couple of games that are native 1080p. The rest are 720p or less which means your PS3 is simply scaling them to 1080p when you set that output resolution.

If you have a 1080p native TV it *may* look better to have the PS3 upscale them instead of your TV… but only if the scaler in the PS3 is better than your TV.

A lot of people have a TV or receiver with a good scaler meaning that setting 1080p on the PS3 will actually make 720p native games look worse.

setting your ps3 to 1080p will absolutely make it look better, if you have a 1080p set. basically if you have it default outputting to 720p, then the ps3 will resize the original render from 640 to 720, then you tv will resize it from 720 to 1080, losing 2 generations. if you set your ps3 to 1080, it will resize it from 640 to 1080 directly, and wit willl look a whole lot more comparable and arguably better than the 360 (cuz it’s dithering and lighting sucks). that’s why the 720p comparisons of 360vsPS3 make the 360 look much clearer, when it is not, cuz a generation is lost on the ps3 pics. so unless you’re running a tv with 1280×720 resolution, run at 1080p. and sell the 1280×720 tv, it is almost worthless.

christ! why isn’t this more widely known. does anyone know what it does for the commodore 64 crowds in pro evo?

[...] to run Grand Theft Auto IV at 1080p Talkplaystation.com has put together  a little how-to guide on how to run Grand Theft Auto at 1080p on the Playstation [...]

I confirm! Every game looks better in 1080p, if it is capable. Not only native 1080p ones.

This is the way for upscale to 1080p, not really pure. There are any differences of normal 720p and upscaled 1080p. Sorry, this is ineffective..

Re: GT4 - to all those saying switching off all but 1080p is not pure, but only upscaling: what about the fact it lists 1080p as one of the compatible resolutions (along with 720 and, IIRC, 1080i)? Not having a go here, I’d honestly like to know if that’s relevant before I go and change my settings for this one game.

What you need a 1080p set to output in 1080p? Who would have thought of that eh I thought it would do it with a SD telly amazing eh

Loads of titles do this Ninja Gaiden Sigma is another example (althought it goes blurry on that with scaling).

This aint news this is a dark ages history lesson of how we all learnt to get 1080p/i on officially unsupported games when the PS3 was released

I have a quick question here
I have a 32″ 720p hd tv, but I can change the setting into 1080p
this is weird, and it’s not 1080i but it’s 1080p
what’s up with that?

I change the setting from ps3 btw to make it clear

yeah u can run it in 1080p on your 720 tv, but you’ll just be losing another generation.

it goes 640p (game) > 1080p (ps3 upscale) > 720p (tv downscale)

so it will be less clear than just running in 720p. and of course u can run 1080p on it (unless it is too old), and with component cables too, only when HDCP (copy protection) isn’t needed

again the optimal way to see the game, depends on your tv

if you have a true 720p set, let the game run in 720
if you have a 1080p set, set it to run in 1080

I have a tv that has a greater true resolution than 720, but less than 1080, so i set it to 1080 and have the tv downscale it to whatever it can handle. it looks like CRAP when i have it set on 720, which is why i wasn’t suprised when i read it rendered at 640

[...] there are reports that the game is booting at 720p as opposed to the full 1080p. Here is a tip from talkplaystation which helps you how to remedy this. Go to to the display option under settings Select video output [...]

Great tutorial, works perfect and looks alot better than 720p on my 50 inch hdtv!

The native resolution of GTA4 on the PS3 is 630p. The PS3 then upscales this resolution to the closest possible (720p). This is exactly the same native resolution that CoD4 ran in. Enjoy the placebo effect of 1080p, because upscaling aside you are further distorting the native 640p resolution the higher you upscale. For you HD n00bs out there 720p is going to be the optimal resolution for upscaling no matter what you think you see.

Works great thanks!

i have a samsung 50″ 1080p DLP TV and i was wondering if there is any way i can tell if my games are at the resulation that they can support. thanks

n00bfender, you’re straight up wrong.

putting it in the highest resolution doesn’t make it look any worse due to “distortion”. the ps3 has really good upscaling, and the upscaling will look better (most likely) than the tv’s upscaling. either that, or you leave it in 720p, which usually doesn’t look as good on a 1080p tv. tv’s almost ALWAYS look better in their native resolution, upscaled or not.

y does the tv have 2 be above 40″ 4 the 1080p 2 work well the tv that im planning ob buying is a 32″ 1080p hd tv

yeah it lets me select 720p, 1080i, and 1080p in my settings but when i go to start up a game it dosent tell me what its setting it at like most tvs. is there any way i can find out?

You know, the rez is a bit better and the colors are a little more vibrant in GTA IV in 1080p. And some details I noticed. But 1080p is only for a nitpicker like myself.

You always want it native to your panel so if its 720p choose that instead of 1080i if its 1080p choose that unless the PS3 scaling alters it (as in the case on Sigma scaling to 1080p you loose definition). This also means if you have a set what can do 1:1 full pixel you can also enable that when its native and see more of the image. When the 360 and PS3 scale properly on the games you wont loose any definition and its much better to use their scalers for this than your TV.

People forget Halo3 wasnt 720p either and that looked fine upscaled to 1080p on 360.

I tried this and I can’t tell the difference. I have a 46″ Sony Bravia X. Maybe my TVs upscaler is as good as the PS3 cause they are both Sony?

Like I said, COMMON SENSE. If you didnt know this, then just accept the fact that you have no common sense. Or common knowledge on this technology. It is very simple to figure out, and was known SINCE THE RELEASE OF THE PS3. IT CHOOSES THE FIRST GOD DAMN RESOLUTION YOU MORONS. So you click all three and do the fucking math. 720 comes first. GOd damn your stupid.

at big t: you’re a cunt

Ok so here’s the deal:

On a 1080p set or monitor, setting the PS3 to scale to 1080p will look ever so slightly less fuzzy. Here’s why:

Each time you scale something up, it will look slightly fuzzier. The thing is, the PS3 version runs at 640p. So before changing this setting, the PS3 is scaling from 640p to 720p, then the screen is scaling from 720p to 1080p. This is two scaling passes, and each pass will add an extra amount of fuzz.

However, if the PS3 scales directly to 1080p, it cuts out the middle scaling pass (the one that brings it up to 720p). Think of it like chinese whispers, the message gets distorted each time.

Of course, this is assuming the PS3 is scaling directly from 640p to 1080p as opposed to scaling from 640 to 720 to 1080 when you set this option on.