PS2 Shmups upscaled on PS3 - anyone tested it yet ?

[Fudoh]

Hi fellows,

with today's PS3 update PS2 games can be played upscaling via HDMI (and YUV). Has anyone tested this with a 2D shmup yet ??

I currently don't get around to try it, but I'd be very interested how the upscaling (to 720p e.g.) compares to the usage of a external upscaler (XRGB) or videoprocessor (Crystalio in my case).

Thanks,
Tobias

[antron]

Gradius V looks good (using 1080p via HDMI)
there is a smoothing setting. doesn't do much in this game.
I read that if a game supports 480p, and smoothing is turned on, it will display it natively.

[Strider77]

the scaling looks fine, don't expect it to look like a xbox game on the 360 though. all it's doing is scaling the image, nothing more.

it looks fine though, I still prefer my xrgb for low res stuff so i can get those scanlines back.

[cody]

Smoothing makes a noticeable difference to my eye in e.g. rtype final.

Otherwise, the actual resolution isnt much different from the set's internal scaler.

[Endymion]

Unfortunately, the only way that the upscaling will work is by deinterlacing it, then upscaling the deinterlace. Deinterlacing as a consequence degrades the image, so you will notice that the game is a little fuzzy when using the upscaling option. It looks worse with some games than others, but by and large it does NOT look as nice as just turning on progressive scan (without upscaling) on a PS2 game, it's just not as bright, as vivid, or as clear. The texture smoothing is another hit and miss, some games look nicer with it, others not so much, or not even noticeable. I tend to find the older the game is, the more impact it has. (TimeSplitters looked great with smoothing on for instance.) If you have been gaming with an SDTV you might find a slight improvement, but the fuzziness the upscaling brings is glaring when you have been gaming on an HDTV.

Other consequences of the upscaling are timing. Deinterlacing the fields means the GPU has to get two fields before it can go to work, so there will always be a delay to the output. This is problematic in games that have critical timing, like Virtua Fighter or Street Fighter games, where single-frame precision can mean the difference between a hit, block, miss, or counter. It kills most rhythm games as well.

[cody]

I think there are two points where you are off-base:

1. If the game is already progressive, the ps3 doesn't (necessarily) have to deinterlace it in order to scale it.

2. Given that you are displaying it on a fixed-resolution hdtv (read: effectively all of them) at full screen size, scaler lag can only be worse if you're letting the set do the scaling instead of the ps3. Many hdtv scalers are really laggy, much more than 2 frames.

[Endymion]

I think there are two points where you are off-base:

1. If the game is already progressive, the ps3 doesn't (necessarily) have to deinterlace it in order to scale it.

Do you have a PS3? Have you used one? If you allow the PS3 to do any upscaling at all, it WILL do it by deinterlacing the interlaced mode of the game. It's just the way it works. The reason for this is because game a may enable progressive mode in a way that is different than game b--which is also why not all PS2 games are interlaced.

Additionally, if you use the game's built-in progressive mode? The PS3's upscaling will be turned off. You can confirm this by looking at which mode your HDTV is running. I can guarantee you it will be 480p if you use what the game supports.

2. Given that you are displaying it on a fixed-resolution hdtv (read: effectively all of them) at full screen size, scaler lag can only be worse if you're letting the set do the scaling instead of the ps3. Many hdtv scalers are really laggy, much more than 2 frames.

You're dead wrong about the lag here. There's always lag at the source when running PS2 games upscaled--add that in along with your set's scaler and you have a dealbreaker for running many games acceptably. Also, just fyi, this issue has existed since day one of the PS3 release if you are using an HDMI cable, i.e. the HDMI output of the RSX will only send a progressive signal. It has always done this by deinterlacing, so Street Fighters and other games have always been screwed. Now if you only use component cables or don't mind downgrading every time you play . . . there you go.

[D]

? I thought that all games ever on any console are progressive, but that it somewhere along the line is transformed into a interlaced signal.
So what about all that bullcrack with those blaze VGA cables that enable progressive modes on PS2 games then? It's supposed to work with about 90% of the games. Will this lag too? Will the PS2 de-interlace the allready interlaced game and output in progressive?
Interesting.....
Why is there so little knowledge about this stuff. Why don't all those bullshit magazines write about this stuff. I love to know about hardware.
Where can I learn more about how all this stuff works?
I really wanna know how all this works. And not just for ps2/ps3, but for all consoles.

[cody]

Do you have a PS3? Have you used one? . . .
Additionally, if you use the game's built-in progressive mode? The PS3's upscaling will be turned off.

Yes, I do own a ps3, and have used it, too I am aware that at as it stands currently, using a games' built in progressive mode disables upscaling (were you aware that it does not disable smoothing?). I don't think there's a technical necessity for that, however. Do you have any actual information on the subject, beyond the vague "it's because different games enable it in different ways"?

You're dead wrong about the lag here. There's always lag at the source when running PS2 games upscaled--add that in along with your set's scaler

No, I am not. My point is that if the ps3 upscales once to 1080p, with a supposed 2 frame lag, my set's internal scaler WILL NOT be involved; it will simply display the 1080p signal at 1:1, without any additional lag. Obviously if you have a set that has a non-hdtv native resolution (the plasmas and lcds with weird 1024 or 136* resolutions), it will have to scale every incoming signal, but again, this is not a technical necessity.

ps3 -- 2frame lag --> 1080p in --> -- 0 lag --> screen

ps3 -- 0 lag --> 480i/p in --> -- greater than 2 frame lag --> 1080p --> screen

Which would you choose?

and you have a dealbreaker for running many games acceptably. Also, just fyi, this issue has existed since day one of the PS3 release if you are using an HDMI cable, i.e. the HDMI output of the RSX will only send a progressive signal. It has always done this by deinterlacing, so Street Fighters and other games have always been screwed. Now if you only use component cables or don't mind downgrading every time you play . . . there you go.

Fubarduck never did explain how he arrived at his "2 frames" of lag determination. If he ever gets around to playing vf5 with me, i'll have to ask him about that . . .

I'm willing to bet that 2 frames is within the range of variance of reaction time for say, 10 repeated tests for a normal human . . . the limits on human reaction time are above 10 frames.

[Endymion]

Do you have a PS3? Have you used one? . . .
Additionally, if you use the game's built-in progressive mode? The PS3's upscaling will be turned off.

Yes, I do own a ps3, and have used it, too I am aware that at as it stands currently, using a games' built in progressive mode disables upscaling (were you aware that it does not disable smoothing?).

Yes. But, you should bear in mind the title of the thread for context.

I don't think there's a technical necessity for that, however. Do you have any actual information on the subject, beyond the vague "it's because different games enable it in different ways"?

. . . there is not any one mode that activates progressive scan in any PS2 game. I can't be any more clear than that. Progressive scan was always optional for PS2 development. Many games don't even have it, because it is literally programmed in by the developer--not done by way of a set API provided by Sony. The flipside of this is the better documented and standardized method that microsoft always provided from day one for the Xbox. Xbox devs never had to get dirty, roll back their sleeves and roll their own to make this work.

You're dead wrong about the lag here. There's always lag at the source when running PS2 games upscaled--add that in along with your set's scaler

No, I am not. My point is that if the ps3 upscales once to 1080p, with a supposed 2 frame lag, my set's internal scaler WILL NOT be involved; it will simply display the 1080p signal at 1:1, without any additional lag.

Two problems here:

Your hypothetical does not eliminate the lag, which should, I would hope, be your goal, and you also presuppose that there is no scaling going on, which I would gather will only be the case for you if your set is 1920x1080 native. Lots of sets, even ones that display 1080p, aren't. And again, you've still introduced two full frames of delay there.

Obviously if you have a set that has a non-hdtv native resolution (the plasmas and lcds with weird 1024 or 136* resolutions), it will have to scale every incoming signal, but again, this is not a technical necessity.

Plenty of nonstandard resolutions abound, 1366x768, 1400x900, etc. etc. you could go on and on.

ps3 -- 2frame lag --> 1080p in --> -- 0 lag --> screen

ps3 -- 0 lag --> 480i/p in --> -- greater than 2 frame lag --> 1080p --> screen

Which would you choose?

Don't forget: ps2 -- 2frame lag --> 1080p in --> greater than 2 frame lag --> 1080p screen = unplayable.

Fubarduck never did explain how he arrived at his "2 frames" of lag determination. If he ever gets around to playing vf5 with me, i'll have to ask him about that . . .

. . . I can't believe you just said that. I can't believe you are even wondering it. Do you even know what deinterlacing is? Deinterlacing is a process by which two fields are juxtaposed to create a single frame, if you are keeping up this means two fields must be created before the process of deinterlacing can even begin.

I'm willing to bet that 2 frames is within the range of variance of reaction time for say, 10 repeated tests for a normal human . . . the limits on human reaction time are above 10 frames.

And I'm willing to bet that games that require frame precision (not just Virtua Fighter 5) or sound-sync with the display require it to be exactly that, in sync, if you are ever going to have reliable gameplay, instead of just "guessing".

Oh and, it'll still look like shit.

[cody]

. . . there is not any one mode that activates progressive scan in any PS2 game. I can't be any more clear than that. Progressive scan was always optional for PS2 development. Many games don't even have it, because it is literally programmed in by the developer--not done by way of a set API provided by Sony.

Unless you can give some actual information, I'm going to read this as "durr, well, you have to hold down different buttons to enable progressive scan in different games, so it must be diffferent."

Even if sony didn't provide an api (I don't have that information, one way or another, and I doubt you do either short of breaking an NDA) to set 720x480 non-interlaced, and developers had to write their own library to do it, the end is the same: the appropriate value set in the appropriate register, resulting in a video mode that a consumer hdtv will accept. I don't know much about ps2 development, but as far as I can tell, in the ps2 homebrew sdk, setting the video mode is as simple as providing a constant to gsKit_init_global. See
svn://svn.pspdev.org/ps2/trunk/gsKit/ee/gs/src/gsInit.c
grep for GS_MODE_DTV_480P

Are you really saying that 1. a bunch of homebrew geeks provided a better api than sony and 2. there are lots of ps2 games that output many different non-standard progressive signals (regardless of what tweaks the developer had to do behind the scenes in order to get a decent framerate, which menu option in the game enables it, etc) ? I'm willing to believe that, but, again, I think the burden is on you to provide actual information.

Your hypothetical does not eliminate the lag, which should, I would hope, be your goal, and you also presuppose that there is no scaling going on, which I would gather will only be the case for you if your set is 1920x1080 native.

It's an hdtv. Unless you're feeding it a native resolution signal, its going to lag. Eliminating the lag is otherwise impossible. My point is that it's stupid to bitch about the ps3 upscaling having a "2 frame" lag, when that upscaling can potentially eliminate the much larger source of lag, namely the set's internal scaler. As for whether a set is 1920x1080 native, I know for a fact that my prior set did 1:1 pixel mapping at 1080p, and that they are available in the marketplace.

. . . I can't believe you just said that. I can't believe you are even wondering it. Do you even know what deinterlacing is? Deinterlacing is a process by which two fields are juxtaposed to create a single frame, if you are keeping up this means two fields must be created before the process of deinterlacing can even begin.

Do you know what "bob deinterlacing" means? Do you know for a fact what method the ps3 uses? BTW, I never said I thought it was LESS than two frames of lag; I'd be somewhat surprised if it was only two frames. Accurately measuring the lag caused by upscaling is not trivial, which is why I was a little curious about fubarduck's claim; as I recall, I wasn't the only one.

And I'm willing to bet that games that require frame precision (not just Virtua Fighter 5) or sound-sync with the display require it to be exactly that, in sync, if you are ever going to have reliable gameplay, instead of just "guessing".

How much money are you willing to bet that you can repeatably recognize a difference of .034 seconds under controlled conditions? If its a sufficiently amusing number, I'll write an application to test it. Put up or shut up.

[Strider77]

480p out of the PS2 ain't bad, 480p via a xrgb ain't bad either. There may be lag with the ps3... I don't notice it at all. With XRGB I don't notice it either but am willing to bet there is none b/c there.... is, well no lag!!

I bet most people who bitch and moan about the PS3 lagging aren't even that good a player to notice it. Only fighting game folks (tourny level players at that) would even begin to notice something like that.

How do you know the PS3 isn't line doubling every frame to 480p rather than waiting for 2 frames to put back together?

[Endymion]

Unless you can give some actual information, I'm going to read this as "durr, well, you have to hold down different buttons to enable progressive scan in different games, so it must be diffferent."

Don't be an ass. I didn't say that.

Even if sony didn't provide an api (I don't have that information, one way or another, and I doubt you do either short of breaking an NDA) to set 720x480 non-interlaced, and developers had to write their own library to do it, the end is the same: the appropriate value set in the appropriate register, resulting in a video mode that a consumer hdtv will accept.

WOW! You mean it is THAT SIMPLE? REALLY!

Then why are there so many PS2 games that only function in an interlaced mode? Why do the only two ways of forcing an interlace-only PS2 game into progressive on a PS2 (the Blaze and the Xploder, Matrix Infinity doesn't count because it uses the Blaze method) produce such wildly varying results? I mean, if there were an API which they all used in common, then changing that ought to give consistent results. Right?

I don't know much about ps2 development, but as far as I can tell, in the ps2 homebrew sdk, setting the video mode is as simple as providing a constant to gsKit_init_global. See
svn://svn.pspdev.org/ps2/trunk/gsKit/ee/gs/src/gsInit.c
grep for GS_MODE_DTV_480P

. . . that is how you enable the mode, which starts the progressive scan at the framebuffer. Making a render that is prepared for this is another matter--and one that many PS2 developers never bothered to do because it was not required of them. That is what Blaze & Xploder do. It doesn't fix the problem with all games even when it works, and it doesn't work at all with some games. Now, you can be a doubting Thomas and figure this means nothing, and surely, code can break when it isn't tested against a new variable howeer small it may be--the original coders didn't test it against that and so you can't bet on it working. But I can point you to an instance where an API was provided, and was standardized, and still there were developers who chose not to enable it for some games, and yet if you force the mode in those games? It works. In all instances.

You can infer something from this, or choose not to. When you see how enabling the output to the progressive mode changes what you get in multiple titles that actually DO work however, (different size screens, improperly centered screens, junk in overscan, etc. etc.) with or without actual Sony developer documentation, you should see a STRONG CASE for the situation to draw your own conclusion.

What I know, even apart from all that, is that by allowing the system to render and draw as it would normally, then deinterlacing? They have zero incompatibility problems caused by that step. None. It's smart of them to do it that way for compatibility's sake alone. But again . . . if the whole process were standardized before they made it there . . . they would not have to. You can gripe about the 360's quantity of compatible titles, but there is no contest with the quality of the results of the games that do work. It's because microsoft handed down the tools from on high.

Are you really saying that 1. a bunch of homebrew geeks provided a better api than sony

No. Don't be an idiot. I am close to inferring here that you do not know what an API is by way of your comment, btw.

Do you know what "bob deinterlacing" means? Do you know for a fact what method the ps3 uses?

I know what the line double is, yes. But do you honestly think so many people would have bitched so hard about the effect the PS3 deinterlacing had on Guitar Hero, DDR, Street Fighters, Virtua Fighters, etc. if it was as fast as it needed to be? Do you really think everybody just looked at it and said "hey this looks fuzzy" and saw no other issue? Nobody felt the float? They were all making it up?

BTW, I never said I thought it was LESS than two frames of lag; I'd be somewhat surprised if it was only two frames. Accurately measuring the lag caused by upscaling is not trivial, which is why I was a little curious about fubarduck's claim; as I recall, I wasn't the only one.

So you want to bitch about accuracy of precision when the problem is that it isn't precise under any circumstance? Even when the pixel ratio is 1:1?

How much money are you willing to bet that you can repeatably recognize a difference of .034 seconds under controlled conditions? If its a sufficiently amusing number, I'll write an application to test it. Put up or shut up.

Nice try to move the playing field, but I'll bet you one dollar you can't consistently counter The Boss' CQC attacks in Metal Gear Solid 3 on European Extreme when upscaled on a PS3. And no, it's not impossibly difficult to do that even on a perfectly non-lagged display.

And none of this arguing still solves the problem that PS2 games upscaled just look like blurred garbage.

[cody]

I'm more than willing to be polite, but that somewhat depends on the extent to which you are . . .

Regarding enabling progressive scan, I was by no means claiming that forcing progressive scan works in all games (hence "regardless of what the developer had to do . . ."). I was saying that IF a game supports progressive scan, I see no reason preventing the option to get a non-interlaced frame out of the framebuffer and then upscale it. I doubt this is very much of a priority for them, however, and is somewhat moot given the point about bob deinterlacing.

Regarding your crack about 'API', care to enlighten the crowd as to how exactly an API is anything other than a layer of abstraction, i.e. an interface?

So you want to bitch about accuracy of precision when the problem is that it isn't precise under any circumstance? Even when the pixel ratio is 1:1?

What? I didn't say it isn't precise under any circumstance, I said that accurately measuring it is non-trivial. I think fubarduck used the GHII lag compensation as a measure, which I hope you can see is woefully inaccurate.

I dunno about MGS3 (got bored at the sniper battle, havent bothered to play it since), but yes, VF4 "feels" off to me if it's upscaled. I wouldn't take this to mean that I could identify the number of frames of lag, nor claim that I could tell the difference caused by one or two frames.

To be clear, I'm not saying that the problem doesn't exist, I'm saying:

1. There is no technical reason preventing PS3 upscaling from being done in less than .034 seconds.

2. Complaining about a .034 second lag is silly if it has the potential to eliminate even more lag in the set's scaler.

3. Complaining about a .034 second lag is silly if you cannot accurately identify that quantity of time.

And none of this arguing still solves the problem that PS2 games upscaled just look like blurred garbage.

Depends on the game. I think Gradius V and R-Type look fine, and I generally hate antialiasing. VF4 looks like crap, as does CCC2.

[D]

Awesome report guys. This should be printed in a mag.
Well, what about PS1 games then? Do they look even more craptastic or does the PS3 respect ps1 games?
So games that run max 480i on PS2 are just upscaled to 480p instead of being produced in 480p? Jezus; that blows. How many good Japanese arcade racers even have 480p then?
Outrun 2?
GT3, GT4
The amount of knowledge on this forum is just fenominal. Where else could I get this info?
This thread is the thread ever.

[Strider77]

Awesome report guys. This should be printed in a mag.

I wouldn't do that without verification... this is all guess work on how the ps3 scales/deinterlaces.

The PS3 does an awsome job now with the updates. Any lag that might be there would ONLY be noticable on a rythem game or fighter.

You can turn the smoothing and 480p off or on. It looks fine and I'm glad it's there/an option, but if it really bothers you then turn it off.

I don't notice any lag when I'm playing games, it could be there but it doesn't affect me nor do I notice it.

If it's 2D I still put it through my XRGB unless it's hi-res but anything else I use the PS3 for as it looks much better.

[elvis]

Interesting article on RacketBoy regarding playing PS1 games via emulation with a wide range of graphics enhancements and plugins:
http://www.racketboy.com/retro/sony/ps1 ... tings.html

I've played a few of my PSX originals via ePSXe some years ago (just popped the original PSX disc in the PC CDROM and it picked it up no worries), and for the 3D stuff quite liked the ability to render out the polygon stuff in higher resolution. Might go back and try again with these new plugins.

[D]

Interesting article on RacketBoy regarding playing PS1 games via emulation with a wide range of graphics enhancements and plugins:
http://www.racketboy.com/retro/sony/ps1 ... tings.html

I've played a few of my PSX originals via ePSXe some years ago (just popped the original PSX disc in the PC CDROM and it picked it up no worries), and for the 3D stuff quite liked the ability to render out the polygon stuff in higher resolution. Might go back and try again with these new plugins.

I saw that too. BTW racketboy is on a roll. he's got so many new articles coming out every week. I now check the site on aa daily basis!

[D]

*This only goes for HDMI and component cable set ups*
Well anyway back on topic.
A PS2 game (Sega Ages Galaxy Force which has 480p as an option) will boot with 480i upscaled to anything you want if you set it that way. 480p, 576p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p.
Then if you select 480p in the settings of the game, regardless of which PS2 settings you set for screen or emulation in the settings, the PS3 will output 480p. so it will not upscale 480p to 720p or 1080i or 1080p at all.
Also I have great news for Strider77. this game has special fake scanlines image options. It will make you pee, trust me. I must admit it looks pretty cool.

[Damocles]

[quote="elvis"http://www.racketboy.com/retro/sony/ps1 ... tings.html[/quote]

...and they're just now catching on to emulation options availabe in 2001...

I might have missed it, but I don't believe he mentions the fact that in doing this most menus aren't displayed. Sure, Twisted Metal 2 looks good, you just have to memorize how to navigate the menus blindfolded.

[neorichieb1971]

Going back a bit, I would think the companies wrote there own API for PS2 progressive scan. IIRC Tekken 4 was the first 480p game on the system followed by Burnout 2 (Which runs on renderware). It took Sony quite along time after that to catch up. What was Sony's first 480p game? GT3!

After that the X /\ boot up option disappeared and the games had it in the video option.

[D]

Who has tested other 480p PS2 games on the PS3?
In particular racing games. Anyone?
Sega Rally 2006
Outrun
GT3/4
Are the only games I know that have their own special 480p mode.

[Strider77]

god of war 1 and 2 also...

[Fudoh]

I can test OR2 this afternoon. I actually wanted to compare PS2-480p-iScan-Display to PS3-Display to PS3-iScan-Display anyway and totally forgot about OR2 having a 480p mode.

[elvis]

Neo Geo Battle Coliseum offers 480p, oddly enough.

[Geezer]

Has anybody tried DDP DOJ/Espgaluda on a monitor/HDTV?

[D]

Has anybody tried DDP DOJ/Espgaluda on a monitor/HDTV?

It will not look worst than on a ps2. In theory it should look better, but it depends on the scaler on your tv hopw much of a difference it will make. These games do not have 480p modes so they are fuzzy on a ps2 and fuzzy on a ps3. d not like fuzzy.

[cody]

These games do not have 480p modes so they are fuzzy on a ps2 and fuzzy on a ps3. d not like fuzzy.

Uhh . . .they're 240p games. They don't look fuzzy at all on my PVM. Nor do they look fuzzy on my hdtv (where they just look like crap).

[D]

These games do not have 480p modes so they are fuzzy on a ps2 and fuzzy on a ps3. d not like fuzzy.

Uhh . . .they're 240p games. They don't look fuzzy at all on my PVM. Nor do they look fuzzy on my hdtv (where they just look like crap).

Uhh . . .they're 480i games. ps1 games are 240p games.
There are some exceptions like Galaxy Force for ps2, which has 240p modes, 480i modes and 480p modes. Another exception is ps1 Ridge Racer Turbo 60fps version which runs at 480i.

[Fudoh]

ESPGaluda & DDP3 on PS3 have a special Tate setting which switches the games from 480i to 240p. They look really great this way, much better than with all other viewing modes.