Games with the worst Gradius syndrome

[Buzzy]

No mention of Dragon Sabre? For shame. It's quite possibly the best example of a top-down, vertical Gradius-style shmup.

Also Gradius Syndrome is best syndrome -- bring back checkpoints and hard recovery in shoot 'em ups!

[Bassa-Bassa]

Nobody here said it does. (Though likely, it can if you force it)

You said "one of the few" 1:1 replicas.

If you meant anything different by that, it bears elaborating

I meant that Mister's NG core is, together with the MD core, some arcade cores, and little else, the only one where the original hardware is understood and simulated well enough to consider it a 1:1 replica. Even if you don't want extra features like better controllers, it's better than an AES due to how poor this console's RGB signal usually was.

That wasn't really related to the 240p discussion.

On Mister you actually can upscale 240p into 480p for the analog output, BTW - most (if not all) cores are ready for usage with VGA CRTs, if I recall. Likely, you can even get 600p and beyond.

[Sweatlord_STG]

Bubble Bobble

Losing your shoes and fast bubbles on a late-game stage can be a complete death sentence

And being so deep into various powerup triggers at that point, it's probably not likely you'll see either again for a loooong while.

That I can actually agree with. Unless you have a secret code for permanent powerups, why even bother trying seriously. The whole game seems to be designed around the fact that you need to find the codes.

All this being said, we DID 1-All the original arcade game with my workmate when we had it in the office back in 90's, when it was being converted to PS1 / Saturn (the less is said about these conversions, the better. Acclaim wanted to use code from Amiga/ST versions to save money)

So you worked on "Bubble Bobble: Also Featuring Rainbow Islands" for PSX/SS?

[BrianC]

Most non-M2 and non-Arika ports of 240p games for the PS2 were indeed upscaled, but not from 224 to 240, but to 448i or 480i.

According to a friend, this made devs' life easier when outputting for LCDs.

Mister's NG emulation these days is supposed to be one of the very few 1:1 replicas, indeed.

Most of the NG PS2 ports were transferred to other developers for the US and EU versions for some reason, but a couple like the Fatal Fury collections support 240p. They wouldn't even display properly on an older LCD screen and are definitely not interlaced.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Yeah, some of the Japanese NG Online Collection titles got 240p output (but with 224 active lines like the originals), but that was not the norm. Those were developed by G1M2, though, which, if I recall, was European. The only ones which were remade (in the US) for the Western markets quite a bit later are the KOF titles.

[Sweatlord_STG]

Most non-M2 and non-Arika ports of 240p games for the PS2 were indeed upscaled, but not from 224 to 240, but to 448i or 480i.

According to a friend, this made devs' life easier when outputting for LCDs.

Mister's NG emulation these days is supposed to be one of the very few 1:1 replicas, indeed.

Most of the NG PS2 ports were transferred to other developers for the US and EU versions for some reason, but a couple like the Fatal Fury collections support 240p. They wouldn't even display properly on an older LCD screen and are definitely not interlaced.

OMG. This topic. I got over it by now, as about 20 years have passed since then. But you have no idea how fucking angry I was about every single game on the DC and the PS2 where they upscaled 15khz games to that ugly 480i for absolutely no reason. There are countless examples, not just the NG games. But I don't want to think of them, still gives me high blood pressure.
There is nothing wrong with games in 480i that were entirely new and that ran in 480i because it was the best the hardware could do (as 480p is more demanding) and it was also the highest most consumer TVs could go at the time, but it was such a shame to see all these older games that were vandalized for no reason on that console generation.
I even went through exhausting efforts to save these releases like buying a line doubler that would turn 480i into 480p, and adding another device that takes out every other line to get 240p in the end. But the line doubler only adds input lag and it still doesn't look as desired in the end.

[Bassa-Bassa]

As I mentioned, there was a reason - home displays. Not only 480i was more compatible with LCDs than 240p, the upscaling it involves allowed automatically getting rid of overscan and underscan issues on CRTs as well. Most CRT TVs just weren't ready for games with 240 or more lines as 224 already filled the screen unless you modified the geometry (which is not possible via the user menu and nobody did). The same goes for horizontal resolution - go beyond 320 pixels and you'll likely face overscanned pixels which might be relevant. Ever since the moment home consoles supported bilinear filtering and scaling became kinda seamless, devs found an easy "solution" which very few people in the end would complain about despite being cheap and ugly (as not many people even used RGB cables, to begin with).

[Sweatlord_STG]

As I mentioned, there was a reason - home displays. Not only 480i was more compatible with LCDs than 240p, the upscaling it involves allowed automatically getting rid of overscan and underscan issues on CRTs as well. Most CRT TVs just weren't ready for games with 240 or more lines as 224 already filled the screen unless you modified the geometry (which is not possible via the user menu and nobody did). The same goes for horizontal resolution - go beyond 320 pixels and you'll likely face overscanned pixels which might be relevant. Ever since the moment home consoles supported bilinear filtering and scaling became kinda seamless, devs found an easy "solution" which very few people in the end would complain about despite being cheap and ugly (as not many people even used RGB cables, to begin with).

That's strange because nobody had flat TVs yet at that time. And if at all the early ones were mostly plasma I think. The PS2 was from like 2000 until 2006. I have never seen a PS2 hooked up to anything else other than a CRT TV during that time. I've also never heard that those CRTs could do 224p but not 240p, I'm pretty sure that's not correct, because they were 15khz so of course they can do 240p. If they couldn't do 240p then they wouldn't be able to do 480i either because both is 15khz.
However, I'm not an expert when it comes to this topic and I only know the bare minimum about it.

[Bassa-Bassa]

That's strange because nobody had flat TVs yet at that time. And if at all the early ones were mostly plasma I think. The PS2 was from like 2000 until 2006.

KOF2002UM was 2009-2010. And the Samurai Spirits volume, 2008. But plasmas were equally prone to misbehave with 240p signals, anyway. Put "flat panels" instead "LCDs" if you prefer. But I also clarified it was a matter of CRTs as well, those indeed were the transitional years.

I've also never heard that those CRTs could do 224p but not 240p, I'm pretty sure that's not correct, because they were 15khz so of course they can do 240p.

Nobody here said that. Signal-wise, "224p" and "240p" are the same thing. "240p" is just a short form of saying "progressive scan at 15khz". Display-wise though, there's a difference because the picture on a CRT needs to accomodate to get it full screen without overscan depending on the number of lines and scanrate and CRT TVs usually come adjusted for around 224 lines at around 60hz. That doesn't mean that graphics of 240 lines "can't be done", just that you'll need geometry tweaking to get them entirely displayed and you can't do that without access to the service settings.

Now?

[Sumez]

The same goes for horizontal resolution - go beyond 320 pixels and you'll likely face overscanned pixels which might be relevant

Not relevant to the overall conversation, but that's not how CRT technology works
You might theoretically face a maxout in terms of fidelity both due to signal quality, or the shadow mask or aperture grille (though that's beyond my understanding), but there is no inherent horizontal resolution in an analog video signal.

[Bassa-Bassa]

That there's no inherent horizontal resolution doesn't mean horizontal porches can't vary depending on the timings as well. If you think a horizontal resolution of 384 pixels gets the same amount of overscan as say, 320 pixels for being a CRT then you've never wondered why there's always a setting feature for horizontal amplitude, I guess?

[Sweatlord_STG]

The same goes for horizontal resolution - go beyond 320 pixels and you'll likely face overscanned pixels which might be relevant

Not relevant to the overall conversation, but that's not how CRT technology works
You might theoretically face a maxout in terms of fidelity both due to signal quality, or the shadow mask or aperture grille (though that's beyond my understanding), but there is no inherent horizontal resolution in an analog video signal.

There isn't? I thought CRTs didn't have a set resolution (merely a certain range of which resolutions are possible), but the signal did.

[Sumez]

That there's no inherent horizontal resolution doesn't mean horizontal porches can't vary depending on the timings as well. If you think a horizontal resolution of 384 pixels gets the same amount of overscan as say, 320 pixels for being a CRT then you've never wondered why there's always a setting feature for horizontal amplitude, I guess?

Like you already said, it's about the timing, not the internal pixel resolution. The width of visible horizontal lines can vary a lot for sure, especially on arcade hardware. But the pixel resolution happens only inside the the hardware - the video signal has no knowledge of it.
Of course, if a video chip is able to output both 256h and 320h, it's not unreasonable to assume the same clock speed causes it to spend the same amount of time per pixel, and thus draws wider lines at the latter setting. But I'm not sure if there are actually any examples where this is the case?

[MJR]

Bubble Bobble

Losing your shoes and fast bubbles on a late-game stage can be a complete death sentence

And being so deep into various powerup triggers at that point, it's probably not likely you'll see either again for a loooong while.

That I can actually agree with. Unless you have a secret code for permanent powerups, why even bother trying seriously. The whole game seems to be designed around the fact that you need to find the codes.

All this being said, we DID 1-All the original arcade game with my workmate when we had it in the office back in 90's, when it was being converted to PS1 / Saturn (the less is said about these conversions, the better. Acclaim wanted to use code from Amiga/ST versions to save money)

So you worked on "Bubble Bobble: Also Featuring Rainbow Islands" for PSX/SS?

Thank lord, no, I did not work on those abominations. I worked on Spirit Master, canceled beat'em up for PS1 (also helped out a bit on Batman & Robin, another hideous PS1 game) Our team member was assigned to work on redrawing the bubble bobble graphics for PS1. He hated the game and the cutesy graphics :/ Acclaim wanted graphics "modernized", so they ripped them off from the arcade board and rap.. retouched them on Deluxepaint so it would have more colors, as that made them "better" in their minds. Most of the budget went probably on this absolutely hideous FMV sequence, because FMV sequnces loaded from CD were the *shit* back in the day.

Second most interesting thing about it was when David Broadhurst visited office. I heard who he was and went to babble him about the Amiga version which I played a lot. He demonstrated to me how the enemy AI was different from the arcade (in the 16-bit version, they don't chase you by jumping up towards you from lower platforms, in arcade they do). He was there to help them to use the Amiga/ST sourcecode for the PS1/SS version.

Most interesting thing was a photocopy of the documents Taito provided to Graftgold about Rainbow Islands. I never seen so detailed document in my life. And no one was able to read it, since they didn't read japanese. So they just didn't bother with them. I regret to this day for not making a copy for myself - OK I admit, that would have been very naughty thing to do and it would have got me fired (never mind the fact that the offices were thoroughly looted later anyway when Acclaim closed it down.. but I had been gone for years when it happened, so..)

Interesting times indeed.

[MaXXX]

It's pretty bad in the Darius games