50 HZ and your opinions

[sjewkestheloon]

ok as a pal gamer i have many 50hz only shmups kicking about and after some extensive testing with gunbird and it's sequel in the pal special edition package, i've realised how much the speed reduction affects the games. not only are the games easier but they also genuinely feel different due to the borders placed at the top and bottom of the screen. as a result, with the exception of my megadrive games which i'll keep regardless, i'm very tempted to sell off all my shmups that run slow and place the money into a few good ports that run in full speed. this way i'll be able to convincingly compete against high scores etc.

as a result i may well just get rid of most of my ps1 collection and just buy only one quality game like raiden dx or gradius gaiden.

what do you think?

[Ceph]

Unless the speed of a game has been adjusted for 50Hz (like for instance Alien Solider) there is indeed a huge difference, making games depending on speed (eg shmups) much easier.

For the older systems 50Hz also always means a squeezed picture (because PAL has 625 lines and NTSC has 525; therefore there are 50 black lines added at the bottom and 50 at the top) which I find even more annoying than the speed difference.

For this reason I am buying mostly 60hz PSX/Saturn games and have a multinorm SNES and Mega Drive which can be toggled between 50Hz and 60Hz. That way I can play even European cartridges at 60hz, which is working fine most of the time (unless the game in question has been speed-adjusted).

[Michaelm]

If I were you I knew I would regret selling those games later on.
Now if you first get the 60Hz version and then sell 'm you can't regret it.
Just my thoughts.

[elvis]

If I were you I knew I would regret selling those games later on.
Now if you first get the 60Hz version and then sell 'm you can't regret it.
Just my thoughts.

Agreed. There has never been a time where 2 years down the track I've looked back at selling a game and thought "gee that was a good move".

Keep your 50Hz stuff, and just concentrate on buynig 60Hz stuff in the future. I'm also in a PAL region and much of my early collection is all 50Hz. These days with 50/60Hz auto-switching TVs being cheap and common, as well as import gaming being far easier thanks to all these great english-speaking online stores, I buy only 60Hz stuff. But there's no way in hell I'd get rid of my early gear just because it's 50Hz.

Slow gaming is better than no gaming.

[SAM]

Well, against common belive, I found that most 60Hz shmups ports actuall run faster then the orginal acrade version. These is true even you have the WAIT option to ON.

Example of these includes: PS R-Types, PS DDP, PS2 Sns2, SS Batsugun, PS2 Gunbird 1&2 .... I think there are even more, but people just cann't tell since most of us haven't actual got our hands on the acrade PCBs.

I haven't got the chance to play shmups on a PAL system. But chances is they might be closer to actual acrade board in terms of speed.

In the worst situation, the game speed would be...
PAL Games < Acrade PCBs < NTSC Games
So the choice might actually be slighter slower or slighter faster.

IIRC, the PAL systems actually got more shmups release then in the US. And you could get PAL version of the same game cheaper locally.

So IMO, acquire a Japanese console to play Japanese Release only Import might be a good idea. But to sold your existing PAL collections and Import the same games again might not be so wise. Unless you really want to get rid of the borders placed at the top and bottom of the screen.

BTW, some games like DP, DDP & Batsugun got over scan in Tate mode, i.e. part of the game screen at the top or bottom (Left or Right of the game, since the game is Tate) gone off the TV's screen. This situation won't happened in PAL version, since you constantly got under scan.

Well, what I don't know is whether those game with over scan problem got release in PAL in the first place...

[raiden]

like Ceph wrote, you can mod (or have modded) your Megadrive to play Pal cartridges in 60hz. Same goes for Saturn. For Playstation, there is a 60hz boot CD availlable, don´t ask me where, I don´t know, but dave4shmups got one last year. I got mine some 7 or 8 years ago from a store which closed down.

I haven't got the chance to play shmups on a PAL system. But chances is they might be closer to actual acrade board in terms of speed.

trust me, they aren´t. The phenomenon you describe results from PCBs running in less than 60hz, but that´s usually 57-58hz, so the 60hz version ist still closer. The only cases a Pal version would be closer are the Seibu games running in 54hz, but as they don´t exist in a Pal version, that doesn´t change anything.

[SAM]

I haven't got the chance to play shmups on a PAL system. But chances is they might be closer to actual acrade board in terms of speed.

trust me, they aren´t. The phenomenon you describe results from PCBs running in less than 60hz, but that´s usually 57-58hz, so the 60hz version ist still closer. The only cases a Pal version would be closer are the Seibu games running in 54hz, but as they don´t exist in a Pal version, that doesn´t change anything.

So this is true...

In the worst situation, the game speed would be...
PAL Games < Acrade PCBs < NTSC Games
So the choice might actually be slighter slower or slighter faster.

It should be ...

Code: Select all

PAL Games << Acrade PCBs < NTSC Games

i.e. either slower or slighter faster.

[sjewkestheloon]

oh it definately will be a replacement thing. i really like steel dragon ex/shienryu explosion but the slow pace as well as the biggggg borders make it stupidly easy for an already easy game. this may be my first replacement.

as for the megadrive mod:

how do i do it? can someone point me to a source? i would love a switch mod for what is one of my favourite consoles as it would allow me to play both my jap and pal games without fecking borders

[Michaelm]

http://www.segaxtreme.net/misc/faqs_html/md2_switch/

[Ghegs]

The only cases a Pal version would be closer are the Seibu games running in 54hz, but as they don´t exist in a Pal version, that doesn´t change anything.

...aside from Raiden Project, which did get a PAL release.

[raiden]

The only cases a Pal version would be closer are the Seibu games running in 54hz, but as they don´t exist in a Pal version, that doesn´t change anything.

...aside from Raiden Project, which did get a PAL release.

ok, I was talking about SPI games. As for Raiden Project, the Pal version is definitely NOT closer to the arcade than the Ntsc versions.

[SAM]

The only cases a Pal version would be closer are the Seibu games running in 54hz, but as they don´t exist in a Pal version, that doesn´t change anything.

So, that's why I always think the bullets in Raiden games is so fast that I cann't handle.
(I was playing the PSX version most of the time)

[zaphod]

Yes, shmups tend to have their frame rate adjusted to one that matches the tv. This speeds up the game usually a little with NTSC, because while some arcade games run at 60 hz, some run at 58 or even 55. They would rather speed up the game a lil then cause it to get jerky or have tearing. if they tried to run it at the arcade native framerate, you'd get partial frame updates on PAL, or extra partial frames on NTSC. The only way around this is tp "speedfix" the game so that the bullets/ships/etc travel a greater or lesser distance between frames. And this is VERY dificult to do without breaking the gameplay. That's why almost no one does it.