Dreamcast Vs. PlayStation 2

[Rogue Trooper]

ok cool, thanks for taking the time to do that mate! Though I actually have an LG, not sure if I mentioned Samsung before but if I did it was a mistake!

I don't use anything like a game mode normally, I know what you mean though as some people I know have Samsungs and they have mentioned this before but "Game Mode" on an LG effects nothing important, only contrast, brightness and sharpness and all those general settings, it doesn't effect frames or ratios or anything like that

Thinking about it, 3rd party cables, whilst they might use cheaper components than the offical model, should'nt really be causing too much of an issue, as the 'grunt' work is being handled by the DC hardware.

It's doing RGB Natively and upscaling to VGA, all it's doing cable wise is detecting VGA, configuring the video out siginal appropriatley and sending it via the cable.

Have you chance to try the cable on a PC monitor, with Headhunter? and is Headhunter the ONLY game to give black dots?

[dcultrapro]

yeah thats what I mean, I connected Headhunter to both of my monitors via the VGA box with a blue 15 pin VGA cable, I need to do further testing with other games but it is possible that Headhunter is not a particularly good example. I will try some other titles and see how I get on

[Rogue Trooper]

:-( You don't think 'we' might be looking at the wrong end of the stick here (ie problem) by thinking it's the VGA box or TV/Monitor, hate to even suggest it it, but...have you chance to try same games with a different Dreamcast? might be something amiss with your video card?.

Hopefully i'm sooo wrong it makes me look like an even bigger fool, but my paranoia demands i cover all the bases, lol.

[dcultrapro]

well yeah I did say that might be a possibility earlier on, I need to check it this weekend for all the possibilities

[Rogue Trooper]

well yeah I did say that might be a possibility earlier on, I need to check it this weekend for all the possibilities

Sorry, my bad there, think i got too wrapped up in looking at the cable or what monitor/TV was being used.

Let us know how you get on.

[dcultrapro]

no need to apologise bud its all good... I'm gonna hopefully try it out Sunday though I just found out its double xp on Call Of Duty Black Ops 2.... so I may get SLIGHTLY distracted lol

[Rogue Trooper]

Going back a few steps to the issue of PS2/GC/DC etc on HDTV's, been re-reading Edge magazines HD:Defined article (done when 360 launched).

They make some very good points, such as:  '....... HDTV provides a crystal-clear depiction of everything it recives, the amount of visual junk your existing CRT TV neatly sweeps under the carpet would and indeed will, surprise you'.

'..the inbuilt scaler (upscaler) of 1 HDTV will differ in quality from 1 to another'

'RGB SCART can reveal a surprising amount of colour bleed on HDTV-Something it's traditonally been known to avoid'.

'The problem is, not even the most expensive cables will eliminate the inherent blur of a badly delaced image'

Heres a KEY point:


'It's worth stressing that the only current generation system to which the interlacing issue significantly applies is PS2 (specifically the majority of games which don't output a progressive signal).The majority of GameCube titles, conversely, will output in Progressive via Component Cables, as of course will original Xbox games.Dreamcast futhermore, is capable of outputting a VGA signal via the appropriate lead'.


So yet again, it's clear PS2 DOES have the weakest video out of ALL the consoles from that generation.It's NOT due to poor or lazy coding, but a hardware short coming and thus why many of us are struggling to get a decent picture on HDTV these days via PS2.

[dcultrapro]

fair points etc, but to be fair when I had my ps2 connected it looked alright, if I got close it looked pretty bad but as long as I was sat away from it a good distance it looked fine. The DC really pops off the screen though even just through RGB Scart

[Rogue Trooper]

I'm 'close' well, reasonably so, to my TV, PS2 does look lot worse via Component than DC on SCART, but after reading up on so many articles etc, won't be wasting too much time trying to resolve it.

Silk purse out of a pigs ear etc :-), pity Sony scrimped so badly in this dept.

[dcultrapro]

I'm waiting for a component to arrive before I bother with the PS2 again, I'm actually quite looking forward to playing God Of War 2 some more, I think I finished the first but never the second. And I wouldn't mind doing Shadow Of The colossus again this time on my lovely big new tely

[Rogue Trooper]

Completed God Of War games in this order:Chains Of Olymp. (PSP), God Of War 3 (PS3), then God Of War 2, was stuck on that 'rotating tower'o death' near end of 1st game, did'nt try for months, went back to it, got past that 3rd time trying, now stuck on last Boss fight QTE's.

Had Original PS2 God Of War, but picked up 1st HD Collection on PS3 to play 2nd, probably will end up buying Vol.2, just for the 2nd PSP game.

Only on 3rd Creature on Shadow Of The Col. (bought PS3 HD Collection).

Next thing i need to try on PS2 is:'Killer 7'.

[Greyfox]

yes the PS2 had some amazing stuff on it didn't it...and I'm completely pissed why the Dreamcast didn't get stuff like this it deserved, and has to be one of the most hard done by console ever to exsist, it had all the making of true arcade and original experiences maybe more so than the ps2 did, but fan base, based on the ps1 made sure this was not to be..

[Rogue Trooper]

Yep, much as developers moaned about how hard PS2 was to code for, how they had to spend resources developing basic tools etc, they'd made the decision to back it, rather than DC early on, as the Playstation brand was so strong.

Reading interviews with DC programming teams like Argonaut, you'd hear things like:

'Dreamcast is great for artists because of high res.textures and rich colours, the number of textures we could cram into a games level, would shame any other system bar an expensive top of the range PC'

Or Clockwork Games:

'Dreamcast is more than a match for PS2, technically  competive with the competition, but much easier to develop for'

Where as PS2 developers were saying things like:

Core: 'Video Ram is in short supply, meaning texture management becomes a factor, getting the Anti-Alising on PS2 is more tricky than it should be'.

And Free Radical finding the CPU 'A little slow', Oddworld's Lorrne Lanning got fed up with PS2 development 'you end up spending a lot of time+money in areas you expected to be avaiable in basic hardware functions+system tools', so he jumped over to XBOX, but most stayed with PS2, because they knew it'd have the huge user base.

As i mentioned in the fact/fiction thread, developers like Namco, Konami etc were often shy to use the PS2's Anti-Alising solution as it either did'nt deliver what they wanted, or it was a resource+system hog, with every polygon used, needing to be distance sorted and required using full hieght frame buffers, which took a huge chunk out of already very limited texture memory.

The software solution was a full screen blur,which suited some but not others.

Things like LE Mans of PS2 had lower quality textures, Quake 3 bots having weaker than PC or DC versions A.I etc, all there in various magazine interviews with the people making the games, yet people still seem to see the PS2 as this uber powerful beast compared to Dreamcast.

Yes it had lighting effects DC could'nt do and yep, pushed more Polys, but it was far from the 75 Million Polys oh sorry, 66 Million polys pushing beast Sony claimed.

The VRam limits on PS2, i 1st really noticed on Ace Combat 4, flying anything above 300 feet, lovely ground textures, giving 'impression' of detailed city below you, drop below that and textures blured, thus loosing all the detail.

Surprised to see slowdown in quite so many PS2 games, R-Type Final, Mark Of Kri, Sky Gunner, Super Trucks, S.O.S being the most recent i've found.

I was very much looking forward to EXO on PS2, said at the time, to be the PS2's Halo' and coming from Amiga/ST 'Powerdrome/Warhead' coder, Glyn Williams, i had very high hopes.

But sadly, it was abandoned as he+the team found it impossible to get a decent frame rate for the game on PS2, espically given the early, 'immature' development tools+documentation Sony supplied.

He went on to say the PS2's limited texture Ram, meant they had to aim for low texture, but high quality (good lighting and modelling) visuals, but even then system struggle in terms of frame rate.

Another Halo for PS2, developer, Guerilla, whilst very praise-worthy of PS2's flexibility on things like Vertex Shaders etc, hit a brick wall with frame rate issues again, as they found once you put in game logic like NPC character movement and enemy A.I, the frame rate took a big hit.Lowering graphical detail did little if anything to improve matters.

Whilst numerous coders found PS2 a techno-junkies dream to work with (allowing you to get closer to the metal, as they put it), the realisation that what it could do, compared to Sonys 'DC destroying' tech claims were 2 very different things, Hideo K.had planned for thousands of soliders on-screen after hearing the PS2 annoucement, he soon scaled that back soon as the 1st PS2 dev.kits arrived.

 

As for Suda-Very much enjoyed Shadows Of The Damned on 360, as i did Lollipop Chainsaw on PS3, have PS3 No More Heroes sat here to try as well, so looking forward to Killer 7, just need to finish Halo 4 1st.

[dcultrapro]

hey guys

so I tried out my PS2 via component for the first time properly have to say I've been pleasantly surprised! I did some googling and apparently theres an issue with PAL games playing in progressive even if their NTSC counterpart does. Either way I happen to think all the games looked much better even just through the standard component settings. the usual suspects all looked much better than before and while I don't think its as crystal clear as the Dreamcast I am certainly going to retract my previous statements about how horrible the picture is. Drakengard, Tekken 5, Transformers, couple others I tried they all looked really lovely! I'm surprised that neither God Of War game on the PS2 has 60hz mode... that was pretty shocking. And in order to play ps1 games you have to go back to the rgb scart but hey ho, anyway bottom line, I'm very happy with my new and improved ps2 picture and I'm looking forward to trying Killzone on it again

[Rogue Trooper]

Tried out a few PS2 games today to try and 'nail down' my beef with the picture quality, even via Component, hopefully the following will describe it best:

Started with SOS, 50 Hz only, not exactly a benchmark PS2 game, but does display the isues best.Whilst the character and building (models) look fine (jaaggies aside), things like:hedges, bushes, tree's and ground textures all look 'blurry' and out of focus when not moving and there's a 'shimmering effect' when in motion.

Next up:Wipeout Fusion, again only saw a Widescreen option, so turned that ON, 50 Hz only (and Dolby Pro Logic II but for intro only?), track+craft look fine, game runs nice and smoothly, but there it is again, that 'blurry' look, this time on the 'people' in the stadium stands.

Predator:Concrete Jungle next, another 50 Hz only game, seemed fine for little i played of it (game camera is horrendous no matter which type i selected).

Space Channel 5, 60 Hz option, selected, game looked fine (jaggies not counting).

War Of The Monsters, again 50 Hz only, majority of game looked great, but again, this low res/blur look to trees etc.

Primal will be next, 60 Hz+Progressive scan options.


So what i've found so far:

Seems very hit and miss to find a 60 Hz (or indeed a Widescreen) option on PS2 games, claims of Dolby 5.1 in games by Sony VERY miss-leading, it's cutscenes if that and even Dolby 2 support seems thin on the ground.

The 'blur' or shimmer, really is odd, looks like low res texture's being upscaled/streched.Possibly due to PS2's limited texture Ram?.

Will go through my games collection and report further.