PS1 / PS2 resolution and framerate

[sribo]

Hi

Thinking about the best looking games to me on PS1 (fully 3D) and PS2 I realized that they are often at higher resolution or 60 fps, for example on PS1 it's the case for Tomb Raider III-V which are at 512x240 with fairly open areas (unlike Crash Bandicoot games or fighting games) and on PS2 many are 60 fps such as Onimusha 3, Shadow of Rome, and even Shadow of The Colossus (despite a less stable framerate).
I don't really understand these choices since it doesn't allow to have the best possible graphics in theory, maybe the higher resolution on PS1 was used to make the jaggies less obvious and they couldn't significantly push the hardware further even without increasing the resolution?, for 60 fps on PS2 this makes obviously more sense but what I understand less is why there is no or few 30 fps games that are as impressive as these 60 fps games, same for PS1 with fairly open games at 320x240, unless resolution and framerate are among the strengths of PS1 and PS2.
Sorry if these questions seem too basic for you guys but it seems weird to me, and for other consoles it appears to be less true (except maybe for Gamecube with the Star Wars games and Metroid Prime but the latest best looking games were rather 30 fps)

 

[Nesh]

Shadow of the colossus has unlocked framerate if I recall. Wouldn't call it a 60fps game.

 

[Karamazov]

Gran Turismo Hi-Fi, Ridge racer remaster included in ridge racer type 4 deluxe edition.

 

[Sonic]

We have a recent thread about PS2 resolutions. I hope you find the discussion in it to be informative and educational.

Render resolutions of 6th gen consoles - PS2 couldn't render more than 224 lines? *spawn

PS2 can only render at 448 interlaced at best, anything higher is upscaled after being rendered at the PS2's lower 224 lines. This is often ignored in comparisons. 480p rendering (like most Dreamcast games) and even a 640x480 PC game is a significantly higher rendering resolution than what the...

forum.beyond3d.com

 

[Globalisateur]

Shadow of the colossus has unlocked framerate if I recall. Wouldn't call it a 60fps game.

Indeed. It was mostly a 20fps game. And 15fps during many Colossus fight.

and about 17% less fps in PAL land...

 

[Roly]

I was pondering, probably because of the rise of more graphics options and performance settings in the modern console generations, the extent to which turning down or off some of the edge AA, the VI blend, and even having multiple resolution options would be for the N64, would have been a worthwhile avenue. I really love the N64 (and have been running one UltraHDMI in most recent playing sessions, albeit, a few years ago).

Without edge AA, and with a resolution cut, perhaps 12 - 15fps becomes 20 - 30fps a bit more often. Given the modest texel counts in most games, I half wonder whether lower output resolution, in the era of CRT, would make that much difference.

The PS1 and Saturn generally seemed to manage better in terms of frame rates and resolutions (as I saw it in a PAL region), though without the N64 'quality of pixel' (approximated bilinear, high precision 'stable' geometry, perspective correction etc.).

Apologies, in retrospect, too tangential to the thread.

 

[sribo]

Shadow of the colossus has unlocked framerate if I recall. Wouldn't call it a 60fps game.

yeah, I think it's especially during the colossus fights that the framerate drops, on the other hand during horseback travel it stays close to 60fps normally (according to videos I made which are 60fps and I didn't see duplicate frames with virtualdub)

Gran Turismo Hi-Fi, Ridge racer remaster included in ridge racer type 4 deluxe edition.

racing games. i classify them a bit like crash bandicoot and fighting games, somewhat biased to really be considered technical showcases (even if they really push the hardware)

We have a recent thread about PS2 resolutions. I hope you find the discussion in it to be informative and educational.

Render resolutions of 6th gen consoles - PS2 couldn't render more than 224 lines? *spawn

PS2 can only render at 448 interlaced at best, anything higher is upscaled after being rendered at the PS2's lower 224 lines. This is often ignored in comparisons. 480p rendering (like most Dreamcast games) and even a 640x480 PC game is a significantly higher rendering resolution than what the...

forum.beyond3d.com

great, I'll see

Indeed. It was mostly a 20fps game. And 15fps during many Colossus fight.

and about 17% less fps in PAL land...

the PAL version allows you to choose 60hz, for the framerate (according to videos I made) it's very close to 60fps when it's not during the colossus fights (but they were short videos in 2 areas so I'm not 100% sure)

I was pondering, probably because of the rise of more graphics options and performance settings in the modern console generations, the extent to which turning down or off some of the edge AA, the VI blend, and even having multiple resolution options would be for the N64, would have been a worthwhile avenue. I really love the N64 (and have been running one UltraHDMI in most recent playing sessions, albeit, a few years ago).

Without edge AA, and with a resolution cut, perhaps 12 - 15fps becomes 20 - 30fps a bit more often. Given the modest texel counts in most games, I half wonder whether lower output resolution, in the era of CRT, would make that much difference.

The PS1 and Saturn generally seemed to manage better in terms of frame rates and resolutions (as I saw it in a PAL region), though without the N64 'quality of pixel' (approximated bilinear, high precision 'stable' geometry, perspective correction etc.).

Apologies, in retrospect, too tangential to the thread.

I think the framerate issues on N64 were due to its memory speed or something like that (?), which would explain why there are mostly frame-drops, in any case it's clear that disabling some of its features would have helped but Nintendo was too strict at the time (maybe we can at least improve the performance of games via rom hacks)

For the best framerate and resolution on PS1 and Saturn I suppose it's also due to the memory because apart from that I don't see how the N64 was significantly worse than the others.


it's on topic, knowing what capabilities make these differences for these consoles and to what extent it favored these choices.

 

[see colon]

I was pondering, probably because of the rise of more graphics options and performance settings in the modern console generations, the extent to which turning down or off some of the edge AA, the VI blend, and even having multiple resolution options would be for the N64, would have been a worthwhile avenue. I really love the N64 (and have been running one UltraHDMI in most recent playing sessions, albeit, a few years ago).

Without edge AA, and with a resolution cut, perhaps 12 - 15fps becomes 20 - 30fps a bit more often. Given the modest texel counts in most games, I half wonder whether lower output resolution, in the era of CRT, would make that much difference.

The PS1 and Saturn generally seemed to manage better in terms of frame rates and resolutions (as I saw it in a PAL region), though without the N64 'quality of pixel' (approximated bilinear, high precision 'stable' geometry, perspective correction etc.).

Apologies, in retrospect, too tangential to the thread.

While he doesn't talk too much about framerate, long lapsed forum member ERP has posted some performance related information about N64 regarding both shipped games and non-shipped code. Do a search for "N64" by member ERP and you'll get a goldmine of information. Here's a nugget:

I've said this on here before.

Using the original Fast3D graphics code you' be lucky to hit 100K polygons on an N64.

Using the Turbo3D code you'd get about 500-600K PS1 quality polygons (Nintendo never allowed this uCode in a shipping game).

If you are looking at pure transform rate it was possible to do sugnificantly more than that. However the uCode was also responsible for triangle setup, and that always dwarfed the transform time.

The last couple of N64 games I worked on used custom uCode, which distributed the work between the processor and the RSP somewhat differently than any of the SGI uCode, and would pretty easilly push >100K on screen polygons.

If we're talking about graphics and PS1 quality polygons, there really is no comparisson, with the exception of the 4K texture cash an N64 is better in every measurable way. And a damn site harder to get the performance out of.

 

[Nesh]

While he doesn't talk too much about framerate, long lapsed forum member ERP has posted some performance related information about N64 regarding both shipped games and non-shipped code. Do a search for "N64" by member ERP and you'll get a goldmine of information. Here's a nugget:

Why didn't Nintendo allow this for shipping games? This is confusing

 

[Roly]

I remember those discussions (though I was much younger!) - ERP provided such patient and clear explanation. It seemed like, on balance, many features, with the notable exception of edge AA, were 'free' - you got the quality per pixel from the RDP without gaining or losing much (in effect, owing to constraints of the memory subsystem, assuming Z-buffer being used, not Z-Sort). The whole option space for trading frame rate against image quality seems more flexible on Saturn and PS1.

I remember turning on point-sampled texturing in Quake 64 - it was amusing. Almost certain it did nothing in terms of frame rate.

Quake 2 64 did have an interesting change in output mode available with the Expansion Pak - it seemed maybe a higher colour depth or more elaborate VI blend mode preserving high frequencies. I think that cost some performance (hard to tell) - but not of that order of the higher output resolution options in Turok 2 or Perfect Dark (pretty easy to tell there's been a performance decrement on those games when that setting is enabled..)

 

[davis.anthony]

Indeed. It was mostly a 20fps game. And 15fps during many Colossus fight.

and about 17% less fps in PAL land...

PAL wouldn't be 17% with those frame rate examples as they're both below the 50/25fps standard the older PAL targets.