GSM HDTV Mode Compatibility List for NTSC U/C PS2 Games

[awe444]

From what I see field flipping doesn't do anything for field rendering games? Of which there are still a lot.

Fantasy Zone, Gradius IV, Maximo, Rez, Shadow Hearts and Wild Arms 3 just to name the first ones I could think of.

OK this makes sense then, there seems to be a significant fraction of the PS2 library affected then.

Also, after closer scrutiny it appears that the “emulate field flipping” GSM option is basically just some kind of bob deinterlacing; the output resolution is definitely not a true rendered 480p. However, when used with the 1280x1024 output mode, you get a 480pX2 (effectively bilinear scaled) 960p output windowed inside the 1024p frame, which is pretty nice and if a generic downsampler ever comes out will provide a way of getting true 480p.

I’m curious if there are other 480p patching options out there besides what GSM offers that might be more successful?

[RocketBelt]

My understanding is that for the field renderers, the back buffer never contains a full frame and so there is no way to somehow extract the full frame as it never exists. The game engine never generates the data. In these cases your best bet is a good deinterlacer.

[awe444]

for the field renderers, the back buffer never contains a full frame and so there is no way to somehow extract the full frame as it never exists. The game engine never generates the data

That makes sense, and it suggests that when there’s no native full frame render to tap into, the progressive patch would need to do the extra work of somehow enabling full frame buffering in the first place. Might be way easier said than done (otherwise it’d have been accomplished years ago), or has it been proven to be impossible for one reason or another?

E.g., does the PS2 have insufficient RAM or VRAM to do full frame buffering plus some function X that these specific field-rendered titles all happen to demand of the hardware?

Maybe when the PS2digital comes out this limitation will get renewed attention since, compared to other HDMI-modded consoles like the DC, Gamecube and Wii, the interlaced-only portion of the PS2’s library seems significantly larger.

[qjkxbmwvz]

1080i perfectly (games have 16:9 aspect ratio option)

I've always found this strange. It's as if the developers wanted to support HDTVs (16:9!), but also didn't know what one was (interlaced!).

[nmalinoski]

Maybe when the PS2digital comes out this limitation will get renewed attention since, compared to other HDMI-modded consoles like the DC, Gamecube and Wii, the interlaced-only portion of the PS2’s library seems significantly larger.

My expectation is that the PS2 Digital will simply be able to work around it with some kind of deinterlacing, even if it's just a bob-deinterlace with black-line insertion (bob-deinterlace with scanlines on OSSC; frankly looks better than a line-doubled bob-deinterlace).