Ibara port's graphics

Post by **Dave_K.** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 7:08 am

Well I tried taking more pics, but you really can't get a clean shot of an interlaced picture (unless the shutterspeed is 1/60th of second to capture one field). So no matter what I do, its always coming out blurry for the moving parts of the pic. Anyway, you can see scanlines in the non-interlaced, and no scanlines (or not very noticable scanlines) in the interlaced port. Ideally I'd need a frame/field grab of the RGBHV signal to get a real comparison.

PCB

PS2 Port

Post by **Dave_K.** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 7:12 am

SuperPang wrote:Dave_K, that a Windy 2? Are they JVS only? What's the monitor like?

Yes its a Windy 2, and yes its JVS with Tri-Sync monitor. I use a Konami JVS->Jamma I/O Adapter. The monitor has a flatter radius than the typical dual res, but its not perfectly flat. This particular monitor has some noticable burn-in and ghosting at highres (I have to look into troubleshooting it), but the low res mode looks fine.

sammaza · Post by **sammaza** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 7:51 am

your PCB shot is exactly how Espgaluda looks on my neocandy 29 at 15khz...so we all agree that Espgaluda is the model for a perfect ps2 arcade port...

Most likely comes down to 2 lines of code on the ps2...Ive seen this before in the 3D SDK from Sony :

"Soften = 1"
"Flicker = 5"

it should be

"Soften = 0"
"Flicker = 0"

0,0 gives the effect we see in Espgaluda...No flicker filter and no pixel softing.

Now ...Here is where it gets promising...

IF....we could parse the ps2 code for these lines we could easily change these 2 variables....and make ourselves a perfect port !

So ...on that note....Can anyone find these hex strings?

elvis · Post by **elvis** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 8:51 am

sammaza wrote:Most likely comes down to 2 lines of code on the ps2...Ive seen this before in the 3D SDK from Sony :

Games like "Neo Geo Battle Colloseum" on PS2 give you 5 levels of choice for softening. Likewise Treasure's "Treasurebox" (Gunstar Heros and some other crap) PS2 port gives you the choice of 240p, 480i, filtering (softening) on/off and flicker control on/off.

Are listening Cave and Taito? Give us the choice to pick our own modes like other developers have, and then we've got no reason to whine about it!

sammaza · Post by **sammaza** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 12:31 pm

This only makes me think a flicker = 0, soften = 0 patch could be applied

Hex value to search for

66 6c 69 63 6b 65 72 20 3d 20 flicker =

73 6f 66 74 65 6e 20 3d 20 31 soften = 1

zakk · Post by **zakk** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 2:01 pm

I really doubt the strings "flicker =" and "soften =" will show up in the binary. Compilers just don't work that way. Even if they did, it would be in some part where it didn't matter. Likely those values are either sent as arguments to some initialization routine (so all you'll have are two values somewhere you have to change, but you'll need to know the function) OR, at build time they cause a specific function to be called. They also possibly trigger different library linkage, in which case you're screwed and you cannot do anything about it.

it290 · Post by **it290** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 4:38 pm

Even if you did, it's not going to change the main thing which is the resolution and lack of scanlines. Looking at Ibara vs. NGBC, I don't think Ibara's graphics are softened/filtered much at all, although there is some flicker filtering -- if you got rid of that I daresay the game would be harder on the eyes. Perhaps it would be possible to patch the game to display in low-res mode, but there are difficulties with that -- it might screw up some aspect of the game, such as timing. There is also the question of whether the graphics are scaled in realtime by the hardware, or if they are prescaled in the data files. Given the hardware, I would presume the former, though.

Fudoh · Post by **Fudoh** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:54 pm

As promised the first results of the "re-gaining the scanlines project".

http://scanlines.hazard-city.de/

I haven updated the website yet, since the cabling is just video for now. RGB will be up soon and I'll update the website with all infos then.

Here's OutRun2 XBox running in glorious real low-res with scanlines. These are not fake scanlines (like those you can produce using an upscaler like the XRGB2+), those are real.

Ibara in real low-res on PS2 - here we come

Bye
Fudoh

roker · Post by **roker** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 6:06 pm

since this is a thread about Ibara's graphics, I'll say this:

this game is beautiful

a little thing like resolution shouldn't deter anyone from appreciating the beauty of this game

Fudoh · Post by **Fudoh** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 6:10 pm

Of course you're right.

But don't we all all want our home arcade ports to look as near to the original PBC graphics as possible ?

I'll update with Ibara graphics quite soon. OR2 was just an example what's possible since the XBox was just up and running...

Fudoh

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:20 pm

oops, nevermind.

Frogacuda · Post by **Frogacuda** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:39 pm

Am I the only one that likes filtering? At least it looks better than the dirty scaling in stuff like Mars Matrix.

elvis · Post by **elvis** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:09 pm

Frogacuda wrote:Am I the only one that likes filtering?

Yes.

Kron · Post by **Kron** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:45 pm

Frogacuda wrote:Am I the only one that likes filtering?

You and Stevie Wonder.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:58 pm

Here's OutRun2 XBox running in glorious real low-res with scanlines. These are not fake scanlines (like those you can produce using an upscaler like the XRGB2+), those are real.

Nice idea, but why would you want to run high res games in low res? Chihiro games are 31khz games.

your PCB shot is exactly how Espgaluda looks on my neocandy 29 at 15khz...so we all agree that Espgaluda is the model for a perfect ps2 arcade port...

I'm late to comment on this, but....

Are you referring to TATE mode, or YOKO? Yoko is not the ideal perfect port, although it's arguably the best filtering out there. It would be nice to have PAR hack force a 15-khz non interlaced mode, but I doubt this is possible.

Fudoh · Post by **Fudoh** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 12:12 am

Nice idea, but why would you want to run high res games in low res? Chihiro games are 31khz games.

Oh, I surely don't want to. OR2 was plain and simply an example of what's possible since it was up and running at the moment.

The whole idea points at using badly done home conversions (like Ibara on PS2) or RGB monitors or even within cabs.

Basically what this thread is about: Ibara port's graphics.

They are quite f***** up like so many other PS2 ports of the past years. Using the method I used you can play all these games looking VERY CLOSE to the original PCBs - and definitely better than before.

Fudoh

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 1:46 am

Did you write the article? It is very informative. I put a post up about it in my forums.

So which hardware exactly is being used in your Outrun2 pics? I would have to make some type of special cable, as that's what I'm using now for a Sony RGB monitor (one of the few choices us Yanks has). I will not live in the states forever though.

chtimi-CLA · Post by **chtimi-CLA** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 10:57 am

very interesting, is there any practical way i can implement this yet?

elvis · Post by **elvis** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 12:43 pm

chtimi-CLA wrote:very interesting, is there any practical way i can implement this yet?

Yes, we're all waiting with baited breath to find out how we can do this without spending $1500 on a scan converter.

Fudoh · Post by **Fudoh** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 3:03 pm

For all people interested in the "scanline regeneration project". It's finished now and I've started a new thread here:

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=8289

Fudoh