New Playstation Plus Subscription Tiers [2022-03-29]

[Nesh]

Games developed in PAL studios that targeted PAL by default and had the framerate dependent execution (like everything those days) would run 20% faster than the devs designed and tested for. That means anything Psygnosis/Studio Liverpool as I understand it.

https://www.ngemu.com/threads/pal-games-that-run-faster-than-intended-on-ntsc.159393/

I appreciate these are very much the minority though.

Some of these games I ve tried in both PAL and NTSC and they play a lot better in NTSC

 

[orangpelupa]

I have no clue how older PlayStation gams worked internally, but I have emulated a bunch running on PC at 1080p, 1440p and 4K, and even when using game-specific patches and upscaling filters, the results as very varied. There is only so much you can do when the textures are inherently low res, the geometry limited, the draw distance measured in meters and the games are blasting pixels straight into the frame buffer.

You probably need to use shades that emulates CRT characteristics for those issues. As some games were designed with crt characteristics in mind.

This makes me wonder, if retroarch on Xbox series actually provide better result than official ps1 emulator from Sony on PS5.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

You probably need to use shades that emulates CRT characteristics for those issues. As some games were designed with crt characteristics in mind.

RetroArch has some very good filters that approximate CRT screens, but on my 55" OLED, even a 4:3 576 PAL original PlayStation games looks pretty damn rough.

 

[orangpelupa]

RetroArch has some very good filters that approximate CRT screens, but on my 55" OLED, even a 4:3 576 PAL original PlayStation games looks pretty damn rough.

How about don't render them at 576 pal like Sony. Instead, Render them at 4k or even 6k (whichever resolution is the integer multiplication).

For me, rendering ps1 games at their native resolutions looks way too ugly. They are blurry and full of aliasing.

By rendering them at way higher resolution, The aliasing on 3d will be practically gone. The blocky textures also become very sharp (or stays blurry with very sharp texture seams...).

Any games with a mix of 3d and 2d will look like a mess. As the 3d models will be ridiculously sharp with zero aliasing. While the 2d stuff looks blocky as heck.

Thus probably deviates from the original vision of the design. Then use crt shader to make things less sharp, blurrier, etc. To make it closer to the original vision of the design.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Increasing the rendering resolution can sometimes create visual artifacts.

Because artefacts clash with the PS1's incredibly clean rendering?

 

[see colon]

Because artefacts clash with the PS1's incredibly clean rendering?

I get what you are saying, but when it comes to emulation, you sort of have to make a decision if you are going for accuracy or updating for modern niceties. The rendering errors I'm talking about are ones that affect gameplay or user experiences, like text not aligning properly or letters being cut off from words, not just things like seeing the gaps in polygons or something like that.

 

[Nesh]

How about don't render them at 576 pal like Sony. Instead, Render them at 4k or even 6k (whichever resolution is the integer multiplication).

For me, rendering ps1 games at their native resolutions looks way too ugly. They are blurry and full of aliasing.

By rendering them at way higher resolution, The aliasing on 3d will be practically gone. The blocky textures also become very sharp (or stays blurry with very sharp texture seams...).

Any games with a mix of 3d and 2d will look like a mess. As the 3d models will be ridiculously sharp with zero aliasing. While the 2d stuff looks blocky as heck.

Thus probably deviates from the original vision of the design. Then use crt shader to make things less sharp, blurrier, etc. To make it closer to the original vision of the design.

I wonder why it is so hard to enhance those games. Sony should have given the option to play with original settings or with enhancements.
Emulators do a fucking amazing job on PC. So why not here?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

How about don't render them at 576 pal like Sony. Instead, Render them at 4k or even 6k (whichever resolution is the integer multiplication).

Support of changing the internal resolution of rendering for PS1 games seems very limited in most emulators. As I said above, I don't know what how the early/crude 3D rendering worked on first generation of 3D consoles but I imagine it's fairly limited. There was likely a lot of addressing specific hardware functions directly and not much in the way of traditional APIs because the overhead would have been crippling to performance. I don't know what layers of abstraction exist in which to increase the literal mathematic resolution/precision to make graphics scale better. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[orangpelupa]

I wonder why it is so hard to enhance those games. Sony should have given the option to play with original settings or with enhancements.
Emulators do a fucking amazing job on PC. So why not here?

Yeah an option like

• Original
• 4k
• 4k with nostalgia (via crt shader)

Would be nice. Or just 2 options: original, and 4k. Then add toggles elsewhere for crt shader and tv/handheld console frame for extra nostalgia taste.

 

[BRiT]

But which original? Original PAL or Original NTSC?

 

[BRiT]

There's reports of users having to pay back any discounts they received before they can upgrade service tiers.

---
https://www.videogameschronicle.com...ave-to-pay-back-ps-plus-discounts-to-upgrade/

Sony support email reportedly confirms that players have to pay back PS Plus discounts to upgrade
THE NEW SERVICE LAUNCHED THIS WEEK IN SOME ASIAN TERRITORIES

An email which has been posted online seems to confirm earlier reports that players subscribed to PlayStation Plus at a discount may have to pay the discount back to Sony in order to upgrade to PS Plus Extra or Premium.

The revamped PlayStation Plus service launched in much of Asia this week, and is due to roll out in Japan, the Americas, Europe and Australia in June.

It’s since been claimed by some Asian players that anyone who purchased PS Plus subscriptions at a discounted price, including those who chose to stack subscriptions before the option was disabled earlier this month, is being charged extra to upgrade to a different PS Plus tier, wiping out any previous savings they made buying reduced cost memberships.

...

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Yeah an option like

orangpelupa, you keep saying that Sony's implementation should use a higher internal resolution. What emulators can do this? How would you approach doing this technically? Is it even possible? If you have game code writing pixels into a frame buffers that match one half of the interlaced output resolution of the TV connected and the PS1 has fixed ram, how do you fake more vram, higher resolution buffers, higher resolution precision 3D co-ordinates without breaking games?

I would really be interested if there are any emulators on Windows, macOS or linux that can emulate PS1 and run game code at even 1080p internal resolution, let alone 4K.

 

[Reynaldo]

orangpelupa, you keep saying that Sony's implementation should use a higher internal resolution. What emulators can do this? How would you approach doing this technically? Is it even possible? If you have game code writing pixels into a frame buffers that match one half of the interlaced output resolution of the TV connected and the PS1 has fixed ram, how do you fake more vram, higher resolution buffers, higher resolution precision 3D co-ordinates without breaking games?

I would really be interested if there are any emulators on Windows, macOS or linux that can emulate PS1 and run game code at even 1080p internal resolution, let alone 4K.

I think pretty much any emulator can do that? Even Bleem! on Dreamcast iirc rendered in higher res than on original ps1.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I think pretty much any emulator can do that? Even Bleem! on Dreamcast iirc rendered in higher res than on original ps1.

Internally? Why do all PS1 emulators output look like crap and the polygons do not approach the resolution of the target window's resolution?

Higher res yes, but 1080 or 4K?

 

[Reynaldo]

Internally? Why do all PS1 emulators output look like crap and the polygons do not approach the resolution of the target window's resolution?

Yes, internally. I've not tried a PS1 emulator in many years but it was possible way back, I'm talking early 2000. There were different GPU plugins for ePSXe with different features. Pete's GPU plugins come to mind.
For example:

 

[Silent_Buddha]

In addition to the bonkers back charge in order for owners in Asia to use the new upgraded PS+ subscription tiers if you had gotten your former PS+ subscription due to discounts, apparently there's only around 260 titles available instead of the 500+ that they are advertising.

Thankfully, due to that being made public Sony might possibly be backtracking on it. Alternatively they may only do the right thing if a user complains to them.

Sony Appears to Backtrack on Bonkers PS Plus Discount Scandal - Push Square

Users are still generally satisified with the service but they are disappointed by the false advertising WRT the Asia region.

Seems strange to me that they would discriminate against the Asian region.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Internally? Why do all PS1 emulators output look like crap and the polygons do not approach the resolution of the target window's resolution?

Higher res yes, but 1080 or 4K?

There's two options for higher res in some/most emulators. Internally render at a higher resolution (more taxing on hardware) or render at X resolution (original game or something between that and native display resolution) then upscale it to display resolution (or windowed resolution if on a computer).

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Yes, internally. I've not tried a PS1 emulator in many years but it was possible way back, I'm talking early 2000. There were different GPU plugins for ePSXe with different features. Pete's GPU plugins come to mind.

YouTube encoding tends to blur this stuff, but if you use modern emulators like the cores in RetroArch, and try and rendering PS1 games at higher resolutions, you get the scaling artefacts that others are talking about. You can apply additional filters which smooth them out and a bunch of games also include bespoke patches which help in specific cases but the results are very inconsistent.

Tekken 2 (and other Tekken games) are among the games that seem to show the least amount of artefacts which is why there are so many videos of them run in emulators.

There's two options for higher res in some/most emulators. Internally render at a higher resolution (more taxing on hardware) or render at X resolution (original game or something between that and native display resolution) then upscale it to display resolution (or windowed resolution if on a computer).

I've yet to find any emulator that was able to fake the internal resolution higher than 2X. For whatever reason, anything more seems impossible. Perhaps somebody with experience of writing PS1 code will be able to explain. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[BRiT]

apparently there's only around 260 titles available instead of the 500+ that they are advertising.

I think that's down to PSNow / Game Streaming not being offered in those regions. If that's the situation, they miss out on all PS3 titles.

 

[Reynaldo]

YouTube encoding tends to blur this stuff, but if you use modern emulators like the cores in RetroArch, and try and rendering PS1 games at higher resolutions, you get the scaling artefacts that others are talking about. You can apply additional filters which smooth them out and a bunch of games also include bespoke patches which help in specific cases but the results are very inconsistent.

Tekken 2 (and other Tekken games) are among the games that seem to show the least amount of artefacts which is why there are so many videos of them run in emulators.



I've yet to find any emulator that was able to fake the internal resolution higher than 2X. For whatever reason, anything more seems impossible. Perhaps somebody with experience of writing PS1 code will be able to explain. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Most if not all 3D games upscale great. Artifacts are very noticeable on textures with texture enhancements and/or upsampling, if you leave textures without enhancements they're fine, and with geometry enhancements (PGXP) games even look like 3d PC games or Arcade games, with clean, non wobbly or jittery polygons. Just downloaded Duckstation to check, and while you don't select the exact resolution to render at, you select a multiplier, up to 9x, so thy don't match the output resolution making them look not as sharp as expected.

EDIT: Added an Ape Escape screenshot I just took from Duckstation