PS3 upconversion vs psx emulation

[Tavy Garcia]

I am very curious about the PS3's ability to upconvert games to high resolution. I was wondering how this upscale compares visually to the psx emulators out there. Does anyone have experience with this and have an opinion. Thanks.

[StriderVM]

It's..... Almost no different from bilinear filtering. That's it. Not exactly, but something like it. This means PS1 emulators with Direct3D plugins will look better me thinks.

[cottonvibes]

i have the PS3, and it's upscaler suxorz.
its like it just takes the image, and then does something similair to bilinear filtering like Strider said.
it dosn't actually higher the internal resolution.
using PCSX2 and GSdx w/ custom internal resolution, you get way better looking games.
i'm sure its the same for PSX games as well..

[Cid Highwind]

Ah, same thing Bleem did on a Dreamcast a couple of years ago (8 or something), at least they added Anti Aliasing

[burncloud]

Regardless; playstations archive of games and legacy is continually building its empire. PS3 is cool partly because of its lasting roots in history, as far as gaming is concerned. For those who don't emulate, I'm sure the backwards compatibilty in HD no less is more than a meger selling point. Think squaresoft orchestras in sexy High def. I likes it, me does.

Sound quality is important for the rpg enthusiast. I'm sure the ps3 fairs well, yeah? Compared to, say, the psx emulators out there.

[Tavy Garcia]

So the ps3 will not anti alias. Aw man. I was hoping it would. By the way what is bilinear filtering? Does it improve the graphics significantly? I thought the ps3 upconverted the ps1 games and that is why I figured that they would look like psxe graphics. Does anybody know where I can find some recent screenshots of psx games on ps3.

I use the hdtv xploder to play ps2 games, but it will not play psx games. The hdtv xploder has its pros and cons, I can play at a better resolution, but if I want to play in 720 p it reduces the size of the picture. I was waiting for the ps3. to fix this problem.




I

I guess what I'm trying to get at is this. Will the ps1 games on ps3 (on an lcd tv) look at least as good as the ps1 games did back on a regular tube tv. When I made the transition from tube tv to lcd tv, the graphics on my ps1 games became almost unbearible to play. The same game looked better on my old tv. So was just hoping to at least play my old games with the same quality on my new, larger lcd tv.


And on a side not, does anybody else notice that psx emulation does poorly for 2D backgrounds like in the final fantasy games and RE games. Last time I tried, the 3D graphics were awesome, but the 2D background graphics looked pretty bad.

[skid]

Originally Posted by Tavy Garcia

what is bilinear filtering? Does it improve the graphics significantly?

It's like a subtle blur effect. It does not improve the graphics by much.

Originally Posted by Tavy Garcia

Will the ps1 games on ps3 (on an lcd tv) look at least as good as the ps1 games did back on a regular tube tv.

erm.. yeah they will actually. Though a PSX emu on your tv will have the best look, the ps3's upscaler will look similar to how your ps1 looked on your tube tv.

[cottonvibes]

Originally Posted by Tavy Garcia

but if I want to play in 720 p it reduces the size of the picture. I was waiting for the ps3. to fix this problem.

the ps3 shrinks the size of the picture as well.
i don't know why though... i wish there was an option so it dosn't shrink the picture size.

Originally Posted by Tavy Garcia

I guess what I'm trying to get at is this. Will the ps1 games on ps3 (on an lcd tv) look at least as good as the ps1 games did back on a regular tube tv. When I made the transition from tube tv to lcd tv, the graphics on my ps1 games became almost unbearible to play. The same game looked better on my old tv. So was just hoping to at least play my old games with the same quality on my new, larger lcd tv.

no the games will look worse than they did on an old TV.
HDTV's sadly make all old games look like crap.
I can't play any of my old PS1 games cuz they all look very ugly on my HDTV.
even if i use emulators, they help alittle, but they still don't look as good as they did back on an old tv screen.

but if your tv is only a 720p set, then they will look better than on my 1080p set.

[Dark Watcher]

Hmm..It does a little more the bilinear filtering. The increased resolution does mask some anti aliasing, but PSOne emulation on PC does look better.

For PS2 on the other hand, the graphics do look significantly better. We are sure emulation will eventually surpass it, but for now its a good DW bonus.

BTW we shelled out a few bucks for the 60 GB PS3 with PS2 hardware compatibility

[cottonvibes]

DW,
are you using a HDTV?

[Hackers89cool]

Maybe HDTV..urrm..I also have PS3..hmm custom resolution

[TheCloudOfSmoke]

Originally Posted by Tavy Garcia

And on a side not, does anybody else notice that psx emulation does poorly for 2D backgrounds like in the final fantasy games and RE games. Last time I tried, the 3D graphics were awesome, but the 2D background graphics looked pretty bad.

There's really not much you can do to improve the quality of a complex 2D image like the still background images in RE. If there is a way to make it look really good, it will still be somewhat blurry at the least and it would require a lot of power to upscale the image, calculate how it's going to render the new pixels in between after the upscale depending on the algorithm, and repeat that same process 60 times per second. 3D models are essentially just lines/polygons that can be scaled to a larger size without quality loss which is why 3D models look crisp, though the actual detailed skin that are mapped to the models (textures) are also just still images which don't look crisp when upscaled. They need upscale filters to be applied to them also to make them look better on the upscaled 3D model. I guess you can expect the background images in PS games to be better when new algorithms are used in the future and we have better computers with better processing power that can do all of those calculations at a playable speed. I hope that everything I said was ok. I don't want to sound like an idiot.

[james.miller]

i actualy did a comparison last year of gt2 (ps1) which should explain it to you. take a look:

gt2 on the ps3, upscaled to 1080p


gt2 on the pc, upscaled to 720p (!!)


ignoring the aspect ratio, its pretty clear which is better.

[cottonvibes]

james, nice comparison pics.
that really shows which is better

i wish sony did a better job with the upscaling in PS1 and PS2 games.
then i wouldn't have to use emulation...

[Cid Highwind]

That's a pretty darn awful upscaling they use. Bleemcast definitely did a better job at it, and in that respect I have to say I'm disappointed in Sony. If a three person team, and I think only 2 of them were doing the coding, can pull off something that looks better on an inferior system, it's pretty obvious they didn't put much effort into themselves. Or perhaps it's just another sign of how talented the emulation coders here really are.

Hmm, I wonder if Randy still visits this place

In any case, bilinear filtering improves the graphics a lot, especially with these old games. If early PS2 games wouldn't have this type of texture filtering people would not have been able to see the difference between PS1 at all I'm afraid, since it's one of the best notable graphical improvements that were made during the Voodoo era in PC gaming as well. If you still have some old PC games like Need for Speed 3, or Populous 3: The Beginning you should install them again, and compare the "Software renderer" versus "Direct3D" to see the effects.

Best example of the difference I could find:

[Spyhop]

Yah. If you want true upscaling, epsxe will do a much better job. So far as I understand PS3's "upscaling", it doesn't actually render the 3d at higher resolutions. Rather, it renders at the same res and the upscales the video output, much the same as it would upscale a DVD movie. I've compared FFVII on my PS3 vs FFVII on epsxe and epsxe destroyed it for quality. Like, it wasn't even close.

[cottonvibes]

Originally Posted by Spyhop

Yah. If you want true upscaling, epsxe will do a much better job. So far as I understand PS3's "upscaling", it doesn't actually render the 3d at higher resolutions. Rather, it renders at the same res and the upscales the video output, much the same as it would upscale a DVD movie. I've compared FFVII on my PS3 vs FFVII on epsxe and epsxe destroyed it for quality. Like, it wasn't even close.

i've heard the reason for this is that raising the internal resolution can break some games...
but i still rather just have an option like "custom internal resolution."

[Phil]

Well a modern middle to high end computer is far more powerful than a PS3...so a better looking picture is to be expected

[cottonvibes]

Originally Posted by Phil

Well a modern middle to high end computer is far more powerful than a PS3...so a better looking picture is to be expected

its not about how powerful it is,
its just that the PS3's way of emulating ps1 and ps2 games was done crapily.

the ps3 can easily make a game look as good as ePSXe if it's ps1 emulator was coded better.

and in some ways, the PS3 is more powerful than high end rigs, with its 8 cell processors.

[PCXL-Fan]

Originally Posted by TheCloudOfSmoke

There's really not much you can do to improve the quality of a complex 2D image like the still background images in RE. If there is a way to make it look really good, it will still be somewhat blurry at the least and it would require a lot of power to upscale the image, calculate how it's going to render the new pixels in between after the upscale depending on the algorithm, and repeat that same process 60 times per second. 3D models are essentially just lines/polygons that can be scaled to a larger size without quality loss which is why 3D models look crisp, though the actual detailed skin that are mapped to the models (textures) are also just still images which don't look crisp when upscaled. They need upscale filters to be applied to them also to make them look better on the upscaled 3D model. I guess you can expect the background images in PS games to be better when new algorithms are used in the future and we have better computers with better processing power that can do all of those calculations at a playable speed. I hope that everything I said was ok. I don't want to sound like an idiot.

Awesome saucem! TCoS breaks out the techno-nerd!

What form of 2D image enlargment would be give the best IQ yet be reasonable enough that it would be possible on computers now or say within the next few years to upscale 2d backgrounds on the psx?
Fractal image enlargment? Since your usually not dealing with very large images. Could it be during the disk loading (say in FFVII when the next scene or area is loading)?