Questions that do not deserve a thread

[Blair]

@bobrocks95 and @Fudoh

I know the patches exist because, I've used them on my own games. Virtua Fighter 4, Wild Arms 3, and Okage: Shadow King.

I played through all of them in 480p. think I still have the raw patch files around here somewhere (I'm terribly disorganized right now)

if you can't find the patch files, from what I remember you can make your own. last time I messed with any of it was over a year ago (might've been a link I found through NeoGaf, or NGEMU. it was attached to some Screenshoot thread)

although, now that I think about it patching every single game is probably a waste of time if you have a decent 480i processing machine. (that's probably why I stopped bothering with it. ripping and burning over 100 games would take a while)

I got GSM and the widescreen patch program (forget the name off the top of my head) working together, but abysmal GSM compatibility ended up making it kind of a moot point.

then why not use exploder instead?

[bobrocks95]

@bobrocks95 and @Fudoh

I know the patches exist because, I've used them on my own games. Virtua Fighter 4, Wild Arms 3, and Okage: Shadow King.

I played through all of them in 480p. think I still have the raw patch files around here somewhere (I'm terribly disorganized right now)

if you can't find the patch files, from what I remember you can make your own. last time I messed with any of it was over a year ago (might've been a link I found through NeoGaf, or NGEMU. it was attached to some Screenshoot thread)

although, now that I think about it patching every single game is probably a waste of time if you have a decent 480i processing machine. (that's probably why I stopped bothering with it. ripping and burning over 100 games would take a while)

I found a couple of odd games with patches. One or two Persona titles, a fighting game or two... They were all complicated hex iso edits that didn't imply there was any general way to do it, and there didn't seem to be any from all but the most dedicated communities (and those games might have worked with GSM anyway?).

Also couldn't find any patches for Wild Arms 3 or Okage, so I think your memory may be off there. Similar to what you asked me, are you sure you didn't use Xploder with those?

I got GSM and the widescreen patch program (forget the name off the top of my head) working together, but abysmal GSM compatibility ended up making it kind of a moot point.

then why not use exploder instead?

Xploder is just a de-interlacer, it doesn't alter the game rendering at all. My EDTV is slow enough, so if no 480p breakthrough is made I'll just play it on a CRT. As far as I'm concerned it's the only 480i mainstream console.

[Blair]

Xploder is just a de-interlacer

well yeah, I just said that in this thread, lol (if I knew you had a good CRT I wouldn't have suggested it) (what exactly is your setup?)

I'll have to check again, but I'm 90% sure that I played those games in 480p. (especially WA3)

regardless. it's much easier for me to use my video processors instead of manually patching everything, (quality on my EG seems to be about as good as true 480p when I set it to "nice mode" I remember doing a few comparisons either last year or the year before that. I'll look through some of my old pictures).

[ZellSF]

Here's a question, I've got xploder/GSM forcing ps2 games into 480p RGsB and have it going through my Extron to get RGBHV for my PC CRT but the levels seem crushed, is there a solution to simple change the limited RGB levels to Full with some sort of VGA dongle?

Try explicitly forcing VGA modes and not just 480p modes meant for component? I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but you should try.

One of the main problems I have with GSM (unless they fixed this, do they?) is that a lot of games will lose resolution and look extremely jaggy (Rez is a good example of this)

It's probably not possible to fix that, those games use specially rendered mode that relies on the interlacing somehow. There's a reason PCSX2 and Xploder both display the same titles interlaced. They have different ways of deinterlacing it sure, but it's always apparent that the source is still interlaced.

Maybe I'm missing something, but PCSX2 will render at whatever resolution you tell it to render at, so what would the purpose of a 480p patch be? You can set it to 1080p if you want.

PCSX2 still renders in interlaced, you can see that in the titlebar and that the GPU plugins have different deinterlace modes. I think PCSX2 tries to force progressive, but for games that use field rendering modes on a PS2 (say, Rez) then PCSX2 will output them interlaced.

I'll have to check again, but I'm 90% sure that I played those games in 480p. (especially WA3)

Wild Arms 3 is a game I never got working in 480p, and I do pay attention to PS2 news. Are you sure you're not mistaken?

I got GSM and the widescreen patch program (forget the name off the top of my head) working together, but abysmal GSM compatibility ended up making it kind of a moot point.

then why not use exploder instead?

Xploder is just a de-interlacer, it doesn't alter the game rendering at all. My EDTV is slow enough, so if no 480p breakthrough is made I'll just play it on a CRT. As far as I'm concerned it's the only 480i mainstream console.

Sure about that? I seem to recall getting Gradius V working at proper 480p in Xploder. For games that uses field rendering like Rez then yeah, it's just a deinterlacer, but for games that can be forced progressive? I think it does the same job as GSM.

GSM compatibility isn't perfect, but abysmal is definitely not a word I would use, it gives the impression that it's basically worthless. There's plenty of games you can and should force into 480p. Of course there's also plenty of games that are interlace only.

[Blair]

Wild Arms 3 is a game I never got working in 480p, and I do pay attention to PS2 news. Are you sure you're not mistaken?

I think I found my disc, it's labeled version 1.1 (I remember something about random crashes with earlier versions, and I did have a few of those with shadow King but it was labeled 1.0 as I recall)

checking my original hard copy (480i) and this re-burn I'm not seeing anything too different (the patch version seems to have a slightly heavy underscan on both the bottom and the top of the screen)

but I'm not noticing any graphical glitches or loss of resolution, and I'm not seeing any flickery text in menus like the exploder might show. I think it's actual 480p (or whatever the closest resolution a PS2 can managed to that).

here's some screenshots (taken on a CRT: PVM 20L5)

Spoiler

[album link: https://imgur.com/a/rtUOr/all]

[Einzelherz]

Did your monitor trigger a 480p refresh change when the game booted?

[bobrocks95]

well yeah, I just said that in this thread, lol (if I knew you had a good CRT I wouldn't have suggested it) (what exactly is your setup?)

I'll have to check again, but I'm 90% sure that I played those games in 480p. (especially WA3)

regardless. it's much easier for me to use my video processors instead of manually patching everything, (quality on my EG seems to be about as good as true 480p when I set it to "nice mode" I remember doing a few comparisons either last year or the year before that. I'll look through some of my old pictures).

Sorry if I missed you saying that. How much lag does your EG add when doing the nicer de-interlacing?

I have a Panasonic TH-42PWD8UK EDTV (854x480p resolution) for 6th gen consoles and the Wii and a KV-32FV310 Trinitron for anything older. The Panasonic is pretty laggy though and only does fast weave de-interlacing which looks fairly bad, so it's 480p or bust in its case pretty much.

One of the main problems I have with GSM (unless they fixed this, do they?) is that a lot of games will lose resolution and look extremely jaggy (Rez is a good example of this)

It's probably not possible to fix that, those games use specially rendered mode that relies on the interlacing somehow. There's a reason PCSX2 and Xploder both display the same titles interlaced. They have different ways of deinterlacing it sure, but it's always apparent that the source is still interlaced.

It's been proven to be theoretically possible (I might be able to find the thread if you'd like, but it's on PSX-Scene) for most field rendering titles, but nothing's materialized from it.

Xploder is just a de-interlacer, it doesn't alter the game rendering at all. My EDTV is slow enough, so if no 480p breakthrough is made I'll just play it on a CRT. As far as I'm concerned it's the only 480i mainstream console.

Sure about that? I seem to recall getting Gradius V working at proper 480p in Xploder. For games that uses field rendering like Rez then yeah, it's just a deinterlacer, but for games that can be forced progressive? I think it does the same job as GSM.

GSM compatibility isn't perfect, but abysmal is definitely not a word I would use, it gives the impression that it's basically worthless. There's plenty of games you can and should force into 480p. Of course there's also plenty of games that are interlace only.

Maybe Xploder can force 480p on non-field rendered games?
As for GSM, around half of the games I tried that I was interested in used field rendering, and plenty more used a low-res backbuffer and had resolution cut off when using GSM. Others crashed entirely. So like 2 or 3 games I tried worked actually well.

In comparison to other consoles like the Gamecube or Xbox, where nearly every notable title already supports 480p and those which don't can be easily forced via a softmod, the PS2 as a whole is pretty terrible as far as 480p compatibility goes.

Wild Arms 3 is a game I never got working in 480p, and I do pay attention to PS2 news. Are you sure you're not mistaken?

I think I found my disc, it's labeled version 1.1 (I remember something about random crashes with earlier versions, and I did have a few of those with shadow King but it was labeled 1.0 as I recall)]

Not doubting you, since it's always theoretically possible, but I still can't find anything online about it unfortunately :\

[ZellSF]

Any chance you can upload the elf file for Wild Arms 3?

[Blair]

Did your monitor trigger a 480p refresh change when the game booted?

Yes, I heard the click of the tube changing from 15kHz to 31kHz

Sorry if I missed you saying that. How much lag does your EG add when doing the nicer de-interlacing?

I have a Panasonic TH-42PWD8UK EDTV (854x480p resolution) for 6th gen consoles and the Wii and a KV-32FV310 Trinitron for anything older. The Panasonic is pretty laggy though and only does fast weave de-interlacing which looks fairly bad, so it's 480p or bust in its case pretty much.

Is it really laggy with all content, or just interlaced content? What's the base input lag? (I'm assuming it doesn't have a game mode)


For my EG's deinterlace modes, Game Mode is 6ms (it actually looks really good, only problem you might have is with thin white UI elements being a tiny bit flickery, but it sounds like it's already miles ahead of the processing your display can do on its own).

Normal (nice) mode is around 50ms which seems high, but paired with a fast display is not a big deal at all. my Samsung has an input lag of about 30ms in game mode. When I use Normal mode I can play pretty much everything fairly comfortably, for instance I can still reliably beat the final boss in Virtua fighter 4 (Dural) on hard mode using a wireless controller with my favorite characters, no problem.

98% of the time I play with game mode off, as very few ps2 games need that type of twitch input precision. However, on a really slow display that already has input lag issues Game Mode will look perfectly fine for most things as well, games where you're staring at a lot of static menus might slightly annoy you, but it's still not that big a deal (and it works better than the exploder method, I think)

(and if you have a mod chip with flicker filter settings you can probably eliminate that small issue as well, but for the vast majority of games that's not even necessary).

[VP50s have two game modes, Game Mode 1, 6ms (performs/looks the same as Game Mode on Edge models) Game Mode 2, 22ms (looks as good as normal/nice mode on Edge models) ]

Not doubting you, since it's always theoretically possible, but I still can't find anything online about it unfortunately :\

That's probably because you're searching in the wrong place (Google isn't going to help you much, especially since they seem to be making it harder to find game hacks and mods because of piracy issues), I find a lot of weird stuff on Russian and Chinese hacker sites (I guess they still play a lot of PS2 games over there?)

Regardless, after playing my original store-bought copy of WA3 and this hacked ISO (side-by-side) there are a few differences, the fairly apparent underscan (especially annoying when playing on a CRT) some of the special effects in battles are displayed incorrectly (almost like they're rendering at a lower resolution than the rest of the game), and I noticed some loading/frame rate hiccup issues (but that might have something to do with the quality of the burn I made). Almost makes me wonder if it's based off the PAL version...

So again the video processor wins out on this one, that's still the simplest and most reliable solution to improving PS2 game resolution. (Although, when I have time I want to further investigate widescreen modes).

Any chance you can upload the elf file for Wild Arms 3?

Sorry dude, I think that's against the rules.

[ZellSF]

Any chance you can upload the elf file for Wild Arms 3?

Sorry dude, I think that's against the rules.

Don't think so, piracy might be, but you can't pirate the game with just the elf file (you wouldn't have any of the game's data).

[Blair]

there's still copyrighted material (code?) inside the .elf right? (pretty sure there is) I just don't want to get any of the administrators mad at me.

[bobrocks95]

Is it really laggy with all content, or just interlaced content? What's the base input lag? (I'm assuming it doesn't have a game mode)

For my EG's deinterlace modes, Game Mode is 6ms (it actually looks really good, only problem you might have is with thin white UI elements being a tiny bit flickery, but it sounds like it's already miles ahead of the processing your display can do on its own).

Normal (nice) mode is around 50ms which seems high, but paired with a fast display is not a big deal at all. my Samsung has an input lag of about 30ms in game mode. When I use Normal mode I can play pretty much everything fairly comfortably, for instance I can still reliably beat the final boss in Virtua fighter 4 (Dural) on hard mode using a wireless controller with my favorite characters, no problem.

98% of the time I play with game mode off, as very few ps2 games need that type of twitch input precision. However, on a really slow display that already has input lag issues Game Mode will look perfectly fine for most things as well, games where you're staring at a lot of static menus might slightly annoy you, but it's still not that big a deal (and it works better than the exploder method, I think)

(and if you have a mod chip with flicker filter settings you can probably eliminate that small issue as well, but for the vast majority of games that's not even necessary).

[VP50s have two game modes, Game Mode 1, 6ms (performs/looks the same as Game Mode on Edge models) Game Mode 2, 22ms (looks as good as normal/nice mode on Edge models) ]

My EDTV has around 5 frames of delay if the picture test method in the 240p suite applies to a plasma (I know they display the picture a bit differently).

What it comes down to is I don't really want to buy an expensive video processor for just one system either way. 480p forcing is the actual solution to the problem, and having to dig through Russian forums to find patches further proves the point that they aren't widespread.

As a note on .elf's, they just have some header data and then the code within them would presumably contain the 480p patch itself. Presumably it's just patching memory addresses, and memory addresses certainly aren't copyrighted.

[Ikaruga11]

When are the HDMI GameCube cables coming out? What are the advantages of the plug-n-play vs the board mod installation?

[atheistgod1999]

What are the advantages of the plug-n-play vs the board mod installation?

Not having to put a hole in your GameCube?

[Blair]

What it comes down to is I don't really want to buy an expensive video processor for just one system either way. 480p forcing is the actual solution to the problem, and having to dig through Russian forums to find patches further proves the point that they aren't widespread.

I guess so, although you're not really buying the video processor for one one system as it works with all of them and can improve signals across the board, ( something to think about, especially since you won't have the same TV forever).

I understand the expensive angle, I had to hunt for specific deals to fit within my budget (I couldn't afford to pay over $100 for a video processor) but with enough diligence and time I was able to find what I wanted for the price I needed.

if you're going to play a lot of PS2 games, then I think the investment and something with quality deinterlacing is worth it, messing around with various patches takes time and effort, which is basically money (I guess?)

but if you only care about like 10 maybe 15 games then it's probably not worth it for you. alternatively, component/rgb crt's still work great (even S-video would probably be fine if that's all you could get) (outside of emulation you really can't do much to improve the graphics on PlayStation 2, even with a good progressive signal the're still extremely lo-res titles).

As a note on .elf's, they just have some header data and then the code within them would presumably contain the 480p patch itself. Presumably it's just patching memory addresses, and memory addresses certainly aren't copyrighted.

still, posting anything from the ISO itself makes me a little nervous. when I find the original patch files. i'll post them here (WA3 was probably an ISO file that I found on Games/Ru, I'll just put up the NFO file). (I have to organize like 20 of my old hard drives).

[bobrocks95]

When are the HDMI GameCube cables coming out? What are the advantages of the plug-n-play vs the board mod installation?

Somewhere between this month or the end of time at this point, since they've been teased for what feels like an eternity.

As a note, the version that will be offered by videogameperfection (though I still don't know if they're only doing installations or also selling a DIY kit???) will require cutting a hole in the back of the Gamecube but lets you keep your digital port, while the version that badassconsoles will be offering initially will have a stock-looking replacement for the digital port, though of course you lose the original functionality of it.

I guess so, although you're not really buying the video processor for one one system as it works with all of them and can improve signals across the board, ( something to think about, especially since you won't have the same TV forever).

I understand the expensive angle, I had to hunt for specific deals to fit within my budget (I couldn't afford to pay over $100 for a video processor) but with enough diligence and time I was able to find what I wanted for the price I needed.

if you're going to play a lot of PS2 games, then I think the investment and something with quality deinterlacing is worth it, messing around with various patches takes time and effort, which is basically money (I guess?)

but if you only care about like 10 maybe 15 games then it's probably not worth it for you. alternatively, component/rgb crt's still work great (even S-video would probably be fine if that's all you could get) (outside of emulation you really can't do much to improve the graphics on PlayStation 2, even with a good progressive signal the're still extremely lo-res titles).

I don't have any use for a video processor at the moment past the PS2 and maybe Mega Man 9/10. I can't think of any other 480i games I own right now that can't be forced to 480p. Most of the PS2 games I'm interested in were re-released on the PS3 anyway, and the rest I'll just play on a CRT in 480i. Spending so much time trying to force 480p kind of generated contempt towards the PS2 for me haha.

Not that a video processor isn't a good option for others who like the PS2 more, but it's not the option for me right now.

[Blair]

Spending so much time trying to force 480p kind of generated contempt towards the PS2 for me haha.

it's a frustrating system on many levels, probably because the person who designed it was a madman who thought making the system as difficult to program for as possible would somehow lead to better games.

not to mention including only 4 MB of video memory when the Dreamcast had 8 MB, Sony was rolling in dough back then and it wouldn't have really cost him that much more. can only imagine how much better games of that era would've looked. (I'm still surprised that most of the Dreamcast library is for 480p it's too bad Sony didn't have a VGA box accessory they could've pushed like Sega did)

(I know they did have a official VGA cable thing, but it was mostly intended for developers as I recall, and it didn't really work the same way the Dreamcast's VGA boxes did)

[Guspaz]

probably because the person who designed it was a madman who thought making the system as difficult to program for as possible would somehow lead to better games.

We didn't call him Crazy Ken for no reason. He was brilliant, though, just not a good businessman.

[cfx]

.

[Einzelherz]

Speaking of MegaMan 9 and 10 - has anyone figured out how to display the WiiWare version in 240p? A brief Google search says no/unsure.

[Guspaz]

Downscaling may be an option? Fudoh has an extensive page on that.

[Fudoh]

Courtesy of Arasoi. MM9/10 from a PS3 (or XBox360?) running through an Emotia GX.

[Blair]

Speaking of MegaMan 9 and 10 - has anyone figured out how to display the WiiWare version in 240p? A brief Google search says no/unsure.

the Wii versions of MegaMan 9 and 10 output in 480i regardless of your system video settings (not sure what capcom or Inti Creates was thinking with that, but whatever) so they first have to be de-interlaced to 480p and then depending on what type of display you're using, either use a scanline generator or downscale them with some type of video processor (like Fudoh's example above)

(the PS3 and 360 versions already output in progressive resolutions so you can skip the de-interlace part, and just add scanlines or downscale).

[Einzelherz]

I meant by modifying the files. Or "natively," I suppose.

[bobrocks95]

In HD resolutions I know the 360 version has an awful blur filter, does it not in 480i or maybe the PS3 version doesn't have the blur filter at all?

@Einzelherz I mentioned MM9 partly because I was thinking again about trying to force either 240p or 480p on it. Nothing online is helpful though. Last time I tried to patch a WAD for 480p it would crash the Wii, but maybe 240p would work?

[Ikaruga11]

The Wii hacking and homebrew community is huge. I wonder if anyone knows how to edit VC and WiiWare games to output native 240p or 480p.

[bobrocks95]

The Wii hacking and homebrew community is huge. I wonder if anyone knows how to edit VC and WiiWare games to output native 240p or 480p.

It's doable on plenty of titles and there are programs for it. I just haven't gotten it to work with MM9 before.

[BazookaBen]

I'm starting to think the best way to play Wiiware titles in 240p is to just play them in dolphin on a 15khz compatible video card. They aren't the most complex games in the world so I figure the video and sound should be pretty accurate.

Courtesy of Arasoi. MM9/10 from a PS3 (or XBox360?) running through an Emotia GX.

Huh? You sure it's one of those two? I thought they used bilinear filtering at every resolution which would make it hard to get a clean-looking downsample to 240p.

I know another user on this forum modded MM9 to play at 480p, then he used the Emotia to convert to 240p.

[ZellSF]

I've tried forcing WiiWare version into 480p, but only got fake 480p. Didn't try 240p though.

I think I looked at the PS3 version and concluded it wasn't pixel perfect (the black bars in any output mode did not match a pixel perfect scale), but I could be mistaken.

[Shoryukev]

I'd love to play through MM9 & 10 again if I could do it on my CRT in 240p. Those screenshots look awesome!!! I have a small Extron unit I can try running my PS3 through and downscaling it...might have to give it a try this weekend