Ibara on PS2

[rs1n]

Hi folks,

I recently dusted off my old PS2 and got back into shmups. I have been playing Ibara, and man that game is a tough cookie! I started looking up Youtube videos to see how "pros" beat this game, and then slowly started reading up a lot about the game (its mechanics to even the debate on PS2 vs PCB pros and cons). Anyway, eventually my internet clicking lead me to some discussion about how some consider the PS2 port to be inferior. Since I do not own a PCB, I cannot tell what the actual difference is and just what exactly makes the PS2 version worse. Supposedly it lacks slowdown, has blurry/flickering graphics. However, there was some sort of patch for it, too? Anyway, does anyone have working links on a comparison between the PS2 and PCB version (Youtube videos don't help because everything is scaled weirdly, and compression makes it hard to tell any difference). Most of the old posts I found have only broken image links.

Can anyone give me some more insight into the differences and what possible fixes are available?

Thanks!

[Bassa-Bassa]

For full screen mode and SD CRT usage, the awful interlaced video used in the PS2 version can indeed be patched to use 15kHz progressive and this is one game where the hack reeeeally shines. Look for "PS2 deinterlacing patches" or something along the lines. It requires non-standard usage of your system, so the first time it may get tricky and tedious, but it's well worth the effort assuming you'll be playing something else (Open PS2 Loader is what you'll need to check).

As for the slowdown differences with the original, they are there. So much as to ruin the game? I'm not the one to tell, but it sure makes of it an alternate version with non-comparable scoring. These days, the PS2 version is best regarded as the only one with a unique, well-made arrange mode which constitutes the link between original Ibara and Ibara Kuro. For original Ibara, Groovymame, together with properly measured blitter and CPU clock settings, is supposedly achieving very, very similar results to those of the PCB, and it also will let you save your settings, unlike mame. The only issue is, nobody's sharing the proper blitter and CPU clock settings these days, and not just for Ibara.

[rs1n]

Thanks Bassa-Bassa. I did manage to find more info but there is likely still a bit of confusion on my part. A lot of the information seems to point toward playing PS2 games on modern hardware, or via emulation and at high resolutions. At the moment, I am still using S-Video on an older TV. However, it's not a typical CRT (i.e. no tube). In fact, it's a BOSCH MON192CL10. (Link to manual). I also have an old Panasonic CT32G9J TV that is CRT, but I haven't tested anything on it (have to pull it out of storage). I guess what I don't understand is: why is de-interlacing necessary when the older hardware (CRTs) were made to handle interlaced video? In my case, my BOSCH display handles the de-interlacing just fine. (I actually downloaded PCSX2 to see the jittering effect in the vertical direction that I kept reading about. This, fortunately, doesn't happen on my BOSCH display despite being an LCD display. It seems its built-in de-interlace function works well enough.) I can understand needing it for more modern hardware, but you're saying that de-interlacing will even help for older SD CRTs? Or is there something else I'm not grasping?

On the other hand, I DO notice the blurred image quality of the sprites in Ibara. (Again, tested only on the BOSCH display; I suspect it would be similar on a real CRT). Do the patches return these "blurred" sprites back to their true pixels?

Thanks again for your time!

[it290]

Ibara (arcade) runs at 240p. The PS2 port, like a lot of suboptimal PS2 ports, runs at 480i, which means that it's nowhere near as crisp as it should be. Of the CAVE games on PS2, Ibara and Mushihimesama both have this problem; Espgaluda and DDP DOJ on the other hand run at the correct resolution. The deinterlacing patch for Ibara forces the game to run in the proper 240p mode, which cleans up the image considerably, especially when running on a 15khz CRT. It still doesn't look quite as clean as Espgaluda, but it's way better than the unpatched version. It's a bit hard to explain the difference without looking at the same game running in 240p vs 480i, but suffice it to say the former is a lot sharper and shows the pixels the way they were intended.

However, with the hardware you're running you're unlikely to really see the benefits of the patch. It may look a tad cleaner, but truthfully upscaling a 15khz S-Video source to a 1280x1024 LCD panel (looks like your monitor's native resolution based on the manual) is never going to look great. You'd be mildly better off with your Panasonic, but ideally you want something that can take component or RGB. On a CRT you'll definitely be able to tell the difference but you won't get the full benefit using S-Video. Do note that if you decide to rotate your CRT TV you'll want to unplug it for 10-15 minutes whenever you change orientation.

Of course, all this assumes you're running the game in tate/vertical mode to begin with! If you're not, you're never going to get the full resolution/image quality.

Generally speaking, if you want to play on the Bosch monitor or something comparable without using RGB and an OSSC or similar upscaler, you're probably better off emulating—you'll gain the ability to upscale the source image in a much cleaner way, add shaders for scanlines etc., and wont' have to deal with the PS2's loading times etc.

The other option, if you really want to use the PS2 version and go all out on the hardware, is to run it via RGB to a CRT through a 'downscaler' that supports 480i->240p, like the Extron Super Emotia or Mimo Genius II. For more info, see Fudoh's guide here. I don't necessarily recommend this route unless you're kinda crazy—these are great pieces of kit for other purposes, but I was never really happy with the 240p mode on my Super Emotia.

[rs1n]

it290 -- thank you for the great info! This clarifies a lot of my confusion.

One last question for running it on the PS2. Is the Ibara patch all that different from what GSM does when using Open PS Loader? Or are they going to be different results? I have a few SoG monitors lying around and have read that I would only need a component to VGA cable.

[Bassa-Bassa]

It should be the same, yeah (but notice you want to force 240 progressive and not 480. PC SOG CRT monitors are great for many PS2 games, but not so much for those with low resolution graphics such as Ibara, since these monitors are for 640x480 and up. They'll be much better than your LCD, mind you, if only because you'll get rid of the input lag that panel will likely add. So the deinterlacing patches make sense for SD CRTs, and these are better if they support RGB or YPbPs (Svideo may do or may not depending on your standards, composite video, not so much).

[RawlingGunnar]

So like.... if I got a downscaler and forced it to 240p from 480i, I should then, in theory, be able to upscale over a Framemeister to get an uber clear picture, right?

[Bassa-Bassa]

So like.... if I got a downscaler and forced it to 240p from 480i, I should then, in theory, be able to upscale over a Framemeister to get an uber clear picture, right?

Well, that, I'm not sure. The source was not natively upscaled in a clean way, at the very least, it got an antiflicker filter in the process, so you'll be downscaling a filtered 480 picture (not even sure if it's 480, actually, it could be 448). The software patch doesn't remove this filter either I believe, but somehow the result makes it almost imperceptible. It'll really depend on how the downscaling is processed, I guess. Why would you want to downscale it through hardware when a software solution is available, I wonder.

[iplaymyshmups]

Totally wish M2 would remaster this one and Ibara Kuro.

[Jonpachi]

I love the remix mode on this one. After sweating the harsh difficulty of the original mode, it's a blast to feel so OP.