Yea or Nay for using Scanlines on 480i/p games?

[austin532]

Now I know 480i/p games were not built around scanlines like 240p games but I think they can help sometimes. They do help with the aliasing issues that plagued that generation of gaming but enabling them also tends to degrade the image as you are only getting half of the picture. I currently don't use scanlines for 480i/p games. I didn't like how the image looked at first but eventually got used to there being no scanlines.

My question is how many of you actually use scanlines for 480i/p or what are your pro's and con's about it?

[gray117]

Depends... interlacing in general drives me nuts. Fking hate it.

IMHO simple case is many 480i ports really want to be 240p or 480p. Pretty much you can tell on 2d games how that goes - what resolution was the art at.

In terms of 3d anti-aliasing... er either the game was aliased or it wasn't... you're going to be enjoying 480 resolution max anyway so you better enjoy jaggies to a certain extent!

Rather than scanlining, to avoid issues with aliasing in 480p games (if you have them) I'd maybe look into emulating and up res/alias as you like to get the image you'd prefer... Otherwise no I wouldn't scanline a 480p game myself...

...if it's ambiguous what res a 480i 3d game would be best suited to, I tend towards straight 480p with no scanlines.

[austin532]

Depends... interlacing in general drives me nuts. Fking hate it.

Yes, I know what you mean.

IMHO simple case is many 480i ports really want to be 240p or 480p. Pretty much you can tell on 2d games how that goes - what resolution was the art at.

Mega Man Anniversary Collection is the first thing that comes to mind. All of the games are in 480i instead of 240p.

In terms of 3d anti-aliasing... er either the game was aliased or it wasn't... you're going to be enjoying 480 resolution max anyway so you better enjoy jaggies to a certain extent!

Yes, that's the problem with 3D games running at 480i. The aliasing is really noticeable. 480p helps a bit but is still noticeable.

Rather than scanlining, to avoid issues with aliasing in 480p games (if you have them) I'd maybe look into emulating and up res/alias as you like to get the image you'd prefer... Otherwise no I wouldn't scanline a 480p game myself...

Obviously emulation will always be best but there is only so much you can do when playing on original hardware. The best you could do for 480i is force the game into 480p and that usually causes some bugs or makes the game unplayable. I would only use scanlines if the game has 0 anti-aliasing were the jaggies are really noticable.

...if it's ambiguous what res a 480i 3d game would be best suited to, I tend towards straight 480p with no scanlines.

Yes, that's not always an option though.

[Xan]

Mega Man Anniversary Collection is the first thing that comes to mind. All of the games are in 480i instead of 240p.

...no?

Edit: checked it out, they really messed that one up. I initially assumed it would be in 240p since the Mega Man X collection is 240p as well (the SNES/PS1 games anyway). Inexplicably there is more underscan compared to the originals and the music doesn't hold a candle to an actual NES... I've had this game for some time and never even tried it, now I regret buying it

[bobrocks95]

Mega Man Anniversary is pretty awful. On the Gamecube I would use Swiss to force it into 240p and play on a CRT, but of course A and B would still be switched for no reason, the sound emulation would still be ear-splitting, and there'd still be input lag.

As for the original question, I don't mind jaggies at all when it can't be helped, to me it's just like visible blocky pixels. I don't love visible jaggies as much as visible pixels, but I appreciate them just as much and don't mind seeing them as a nostalgiac factor. That said I try to force everything that's 480i into 480p on my EDTV, and if it can't be done, either live with it or switch to the CRT (and I would force 240p there, but if 480p can't be forced it's unlikely 240p could be. The PS2 is my least used console because of all this).

[austin532]

Yeah, the Mega Man games are in 480i. They really butchered this port. Why Capcom choose Atomic Planet is beyond me. The music quality is terrible and sounds like they recorded it off the speakers. The sound effects are typical poor emulation were they loop over each other which cause the sound to become very loud. As you said the games have some serious underscan issues. There might even be a little bit of lag as well. Why they couldn't render this game in 240p is a mystery to me. This is one 480i game though that benefits from using scanlines.

I believe the XBOX version can do 480p. If so then that definitely makes a difference. Either way there are much better ways to play these games now:

NES modded for RGB
Wii U Virtual Console
3DS Virtual Console
PC/Mac/Handheld Emulation

...the list goes on.


The X collection is better? I guess... but still has some minor video and audio issues as well. Again the menu's are in 480i which is no big deal as the games are in 240p as they should be until you realize that every time you finish a stage it takes you to the Save to Memory Card menu which is in 480i.....this becomes very annoying if you are using the Frameister. Another issue is that the cutscenes and intros for X4-X6 are now in 480i so again this is annoying with the Frameister. This is another game were scanlines help.

Again there are better ways to play these games now.


I don't know why jaggies bother some people and not others. 480i is the worst resolutions in my opinion. It's a low resolution which causes jaggies plus it's interlaced which makes them pop out even more. PS2 games are the absolute worst when it comes to this problem. Scanlines do help with this issue but can also effect the image. Nolstalgia also has a lot to do with the image. After playing a certain game on a HDTV I thought this doesn't look good there are jaggies everywhere. Then when playing the same game on a CRT TV I was surprised and noticed the jaggies are still there. A bad case of Nostalgia Goggles

A lot of it is we are spoiled with crisp clean 1080p images with current consoles.

[Xan]

I've played X1-X4 just recently on the PS2 X collection and noticed all of the points you mentioned (especially the bad sound effects), but frankly, they got the most important thing right with the games themselves being in 240p. Given the pricing of some of the X games these days I have trouble coming up with any other solution that doesn't involve either unofficial emulation or digital distribution (Wii VC). Of course you can always fire up some emulator on the PC, but those tearing issues are very annoying in sidescrollers...

But yeah, the Anniversary Collection is a disaster. Aren't the NES games on there actually based on those "Rockman Complete Works" PS1 ports, or something? Were those already in 480i? The higher resolution helps those new menus, but the interlacing is of course terrible on games like this.

IQ issues on PS2 games are either due to use of fake 480i (don't know how common that would have been, but I've heard that some early games used it) or, especially, lack of mipmapping. Means the image is overall noisier than even most DC games, which usually had mipmapping. Just an issue with 4 MB VRAM and no hardware texture compression on the PS2. I've also noticed that PS2 games have a tendency to not use a deflicker filter, which was the standard on GC games. For instance even a late game like GTA SA doesn't seem to use it, makes it harder on the eyes.

To add a different aspect, when displaying 640x480 on a high-res VGA CRT you naturally get scanlines. Of course they don't hide anything of the actual image, so I find them rather beneficial even in 3D games. Emulated scanlines just hide every second line even on the XRGB-mini, don't they? With 720p output I can certainly see the limits. Going the transcoder route on a VGA CRT seems the better solution to me. Of course there is the caveat of those being not exactly common and issues with games booting in 15 kHz...

[austin532]

Yes, the Mega Man games have gone up quite a bit in price over the years and the X Collection is a nice alternative.

The Anniversary Collection is just a port of Rockman Complete Works 1-6. You are right. It looks like the original PS1 version ran in 480i. It's uncommon but some PS1 did run in 480i.

The up and down flickering that I think you are talking about does not bother me as much as jaggies as it's only noticeable for me on static images like menus, illustrations, life bars, and text. I'd even go as far to say that it helps reduce the amount of flaws on screen. I really wish Sony spent more time with the PS2 specs and thought ahead into the future instead of just rushing it out the door.

So I wonder if PS2, GC, and Xbox were developed using VGA CRT's and had scanlines in mind or if they were developed using PVM RGB monitors without them.

[Xan]

Well remember, the vast majority of people used those consoles with plain composite cables. That means 480i and some thought went into deflicker filters to make look not as rough on the eyes. The only 6th gen console that was officially designed to work on VGA was the Dreamcast (not quite sure what the deal was with Xbox was since it seems to have H/V sync on the pinout?). I don't know whether an EDTV would have displayed scanlines for the other consoles hooked up with 480p through component, but I would assume no since the tubes weren't as hi-res as VGA CRTs.

To illustrate that even developers back in the day weren't always clear on the terminology, here is a statement form Jason Rubin (Naughty Dog): http://www.ign.com/articles/2000/07/01/ ... ed-no-more. He first adresses the deflicker filter on DC games and then goes on about how the reduced detail is limiting when using an RGB cable. While this statement isn't necessarily false, the two matters aren't really related. RGB SCART cables were irrelevant for the NTSC-U region audience anyway, and he doesn't mention 480p on the Dreamcast at all.

[austin532]

Right. Aliasing is not a big deal if playing on a CRT TV with Composite or worse...RF. As soon as you use S-Video, Component, or RGB that's when it starts to become noticeable. I know adding anti-aliasing filters was up to the developer but for most games it seems like it couldn't be done without effecting performance. Tekken Tag Tournament is a beautiful example of what all PS2 games can look like if every game used FSAA. Hardly any jaggies and the ones that are there are very minor.