I got a PS3 and played resistance fall of man and was disappointed by the graphics, it looks no better than the last call of duty did for the CPU. I'm playing it on a 20 year old TV though, but it made me a little hesitant about popping $2k on a 50" HDTV... though of course I want the TV mainly for HD discs, how much better will the PS3 games look on the 1080P screen?

It will look amazing and you will smack yourself in the mouth for using a 20 year old TV. And 50" TV's don't cost $2000 anymore.

What he said.

The difference is pretty damn earthshattering.

awesome! thanks for the re-assurance

I'll be going for the 46" samsung LCD screen, which is a little above $2K, I know 50" plasmas are a little less expensive, I might go for that, haven't decided yet for sure!
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-LNT467...2140080&sr=8-5

When my brother and I picked up our systems last year we went to his place to play Resistance. Well, he had a 32" LCD which supported HDMI but he didn't have a HDMI cable so he hooked up with the provided standard composite cables and Resistance looked like crap. We're talking like early PS2 graphics. I knew it had to do with him not using HDMI but he was upset because he thought he had just wasted $600 on another PS2. So, we went to the store and picked him up an HDMI cable, came back, hooked it up and it looked 1000x better. Needless to say my brother was happy.

So, to answer your question - YES, it will look much, much better on an HDTV.

HDMI isn't necessary, though. I have my PS3 and 360 hooked up via component and it looks awesome. This is on a basic 27 inch tube HDTV.

^^What he said. Just make sure the resolution is set to the maximum.

Yup, you can get HD through component as well. My brother's component inputs were already being used by his DVR and Xbox 360 so he had to use the HDMI because it was the only input left open.

Get the Samsung LCD, you can thank me later...

http://www.gametrailers.com has videos of games that you can watch in SD and HD that will give you a good comparison.

Also, do you notice how much sharper pics and text look on your monitor compared to how it looks on SDTV. This is the same difference since monitors are natively higher resolution.

86% better.

Another benefit is that you'll be playing the PS3 games in the 16:9 ratio which is really what they're being designed for, despite accomodating 4:3 screens.

Oh, and although it's been said many times, many ways, don't buy your HDMI cables at a store because they're massively marked up. Order from monoprice.com, and don't bother with the higher gauges unless you need a cable longer than 15 feet. 28AWG will pass 1080p just fine at shorter lengths. The shipping charge starts at about $7 and goes up a little with each additional item, so it pays to find 3 or more things you want and order them together.