nush
Gold Member
That's what I think is the issue, SCART was also called Euro connector. I made the assumption that it was a far more common connector outside of the UK. This was before the internet could confirm such things.
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In hindsight: What was it with PAL and its hatred for progressive scan?
- Thread starter Kadve
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That's what I think is the issue, SCART was also called Euro connector. I made the assumption that it was a far more common connector outside of the UK. This was before the internet could confirm such things.
TGO
Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
Although a majority of PAL releases was bad, there was the odd developer that actually bothered and the difference was night and day.
One of the drawbacks of on NTSC running on PAL TV's was scanlines was thicker.
But if the game was optimised for Pal you would get the sharpest full screen picture possible
Crash Bandicoot was one those
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Jaxcellent
Member
I'm from a euro region and It was really annoying back in the day, all/most PAL games looked a bit stretched and most had huge black borders above and below the screen. Strange thing is, i modded my PS1, and you could play NTSC games, full frame, full speed, my modded dreamcast diden't do this for all games, only if there was a 60hz option.
It was so annoying i got a NTSC PS2, much better! Its about the output res, PAL is higher res, but only 50hz (17,5%) less fast.. its a good thing this nightmare was fixed when we moved to HD ready. OG xbox had a video scaler so even pal games looked full screen, not sure about the speed though
It was so annoying i got a NTSC PS2, much better! Its about the output res, PAL is higher res, but only 50hz (17,5%) less fast.. its a good thing this nightmare was fixed when we moved to HD ready. OG xbox had a video scaler so even pal games looked full screen, not sure about the speed though
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D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
European eyes can't see past 50 fps.
MrFunSocks
Banned
I'm not in Europe, and I'm not a fanboy. We're talking about the original PlayStation you muppet. Go spread the word of Tempest somewhere, I'm sure there's a Xbox thread that needs to hear it somewhere.Wow, it makes sense why you are such a raving fanboy, you are probably the only Xbox fan in all of Europe.
Azurro
Banned
Sorry about the confusion mate, was just making a joke.
But yes you are a huge fanboy.
NXGamer
Member
Yep, Never the same Colour Twice was the nick-name, movies and colour was Horrible in NTSC, PAL and even SECAM was much better. I used to buy US VHS imports as they have unrated versions of so many movies.
In the UK we had such a tough time in the late 80s, 90s for aggressive censorship which made me collect US tapes. But I always missed the IQ of the UK tapes and even BETAMAX, the few you could buy or rent.
Games were very different though and, as you say, the SCART cable and RGB feeds made us Europeans much luckier with computer and console options and image quality. Did the US ever get past Composite until HDMI or VGA of the Dreamcast?
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cireza
Member
This has nothing to do with progressive scan though.
You seem to be talking about 16 bits games. These were 240p through RGB SCART, so it was progressive already on CRT. Yes, for these games, we had borders and a slower speed.
Many SEGA games had optimization to fix the music speed on later games for the MegaDrive, because as always, SEGA was actually trying to respect its consumers, unlike the other company who simply did not give a shit.
OP was about PS2 though, this is the realm of 480 lines. CRT can only display 480i or 576i, meaning interlaced. They cannot do progressive.
Still the situation for 480/576i games wasn't as bad as on 16 bits console, depending on which console you were playing. Because you know what ? There was an awesome company out there who was actually trying to do things properly. Guess which company it was ?
Well it was SEGA, no shit !
On Saturn, almost all SEGA games are actually optimized for PAL regions, meaning that they run at the proper speed and without borders (or very limited borders). This was true on the Saturn, but even 32X games had optimizations (at least for speed) for SEGA games. A game like Knuckles Chaotix is actually optimized for 288p, meaning that the field of view is bigger in PAL than in NTSC.
Of course third parties did not give a shit, just like Sony and Nintendo, and never optimized anything. So you had to run these games in 60Hz. Well do you know the great news ? SEGA actually made it extremely easy to switch the Saturn in frequency. You just have to solder two points at the back of the console, next to the memory battery.
Can't believe that we kicked out of the market the most consumer friendly manufacturer. Did I even state that SEGA was the only company providing true SCART RGB cables with all its consoles, starting from the Master System ? While Nintendo and Sony have been providing composite up to the Wii and PS3 ? What a joke ! SEGA was doing better with the Master System, 15 years earlier.
People just like being taken for fools I guess.
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We had S-Video starting with the SNES. It's a noticeable improvement over composite but not as good as RGB or Component.
SkylineRKR
Member
Yep lots of PAL saturn games actually played fine. If you flicked 60hz, they would be too fast. On PS1 the European developed games were fine, such as Tomb Raider. I think they actually looked better than NTSC versions. The solder mod is only very easy for model 1 saturns. But if you don't add a switch, get a 4 in 1 and import anyway. Lots of PAL versions are going to run weird.
The biggest offenders were Capcom and Square. Those had ridiculous borders, almost all of them. And Namco's PAL games weren't that good either. I played Tekken 3 religiously in the Arcade and after I tried the PAL version in a store I went to the arcade and the difference was immense. The NTSC was pretty much a perfect conversion in terms of feel and speed. My experience with Soul Edge was similar.
The biggest offenders were Capcom and Square. Those had ridiculous borders, almost all of them. And Namco's PAL games weren't that good either. I played Tekken 3 religiously in the Arcade and after I tried the PAL version in a store I went to the arcade and the difference was immense. The NTSC was pretty much a perfect conversion in terms of feel and speed. My experience with Soul Edge was similar.
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theclaw135
Banned
They all did. You can restore support with a simple softmod as the option is stil there, just normally inaccessible. (some even supported 720p)
List of Xbox games with alternate display modes
en.everybodywiki.com
Now compare it with ps2
List of PlayStation 2 games with alternative display modes
The following is a list of PlayStation 2 games with support for HDTVs and EDTVs as well as the games that have a 16:9 widescreen mode. Generally, progressive scan...en.everybodywiki.com
And turns out i was wrong with Gamecube, no PAL game whatsoever supported it! (even if some supported 60hz)
List of GameCube games with alternate display modes
That isn't quite what I meant. I don't know if every PAL version Xbox game actually left in 480p.
After all, with a softmod what each game's original developer did is irrelevant.
You can hack/force 480p into unsupported games. Or just use the unlocked region to play NTSC releases.
My PS1, bought at launch in Germany had RGB out and I remember I was hooking it up to Sony Trinitron TV via the supplied RGB to SCART cable. The standard in Europe was called PAL/SECAM (eh! French) and US and JApAN had NTSC. My memory could be hazy but I do recall having few Japanese imports that I managed to play by using the swap disc method to trick my PAL PS. One of the appeals of Japanese or US game imports was that they run at 60Hz.
theclaw135
Banned
RGB out is one thing Sony got right. Virtually any PS1, PS2, or PS3 worldwide could use RGB cables.
Except IIRC the ill fated PSX DVR omitted it.
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i dont think so. it was subsequently removed from 3rd revision (cca 1996) models. none of the aussie ps1 had it.
theclaw135
Banned
The yellow RCA plug on the back was composite video.
Yes. My original PAL PS1 had both AV/RGB out and the yellow composite video plug.
If I remember correctly, Australian PS1's from mid 96 only had the composite out.
Regards
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Trimesh
Banned
All PS1s have RGB available on the Multi-AV connector, although the supplied cable was composite only on the later models - the early ones (SCPH-1002) also had a separate RCA type AV output on the rear panel in addition to the one on the Multi-AV.
The Australian/NZ, European and UK variants all used exactly the same console just packed with different accessories.
Trimesh
Banned
They existed, but they were far from common. Typically it was a feature you only found on the high-end scan doubled (I.E. "100Hz") TVs - since they had to use a scan converter anyway and all you needed for 576p support in that case was faster ADCs and some software support.
There was certainly a huge lack of awareness - I got one of my friends (living in the UK) a region-free progressive scan DVD player from Hong Kong and discovered that (unsurprisingly) his TV didn't support progressive mode. So we went out to buy one that did - and in places like Currys and Dixons they literally had no idea what we were talking about. We actually found a TV that did in Dixons (it was one of those 100Hz Philips Matchline ones IIRC) - but we only found it was compatible by harassing them to find the manual.
You are wrong. I distinctly remember my launch Euro PS1 having AV port and Australian model 2 years later didn't have one.
PlayStation models - Wikipedia
Look at the table.
Regards
nush
Gold Member
You are wrong. I distinctly remember my launch Euro PS1 having AV port and Australian model 2 years later didn't have one.
PlayStation models - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Look at the table.
Regards
Sounds like they gave you the APAC version in Australia, not the UK/Euro PAL version. Well, that sucks.
I brought mine (Euro PAL) over from Germany when I emigrated to Australia. I didn't have to buy the "Aussie" version without the direct AV.
Jaxcellent
Member
To my knowledge, there is no way to get 480p out of PAL unmodded OG xbox.
Trimesh
Banned
You are wrong. I distinctly remember my launch Euro PS1 having AV port and Australian model 2 years later didn't have one.
PlayStation models - Wikipedia
Look at the table.
Regards
I suggest you look at the table yourself, since that confirms what I said.
The launch models (SCPH-1002 in PAL territories) had both a 10-pin Multi-AV socket and RCA outputs. In the later models (starting from the SCPH-5502) they deleted the RCA jacks and left only the Multi-AV.
Top unit is SCPH-5502, lower is SCPH-1002:
As you can see, the ports that Sony deleted on the later models were the RCA jacks for left and right audio, the yellow composite video output and the 2.5mm RF unit power jack. The RGB signals are output on the 10-pin multi-AV socket, and they are present on all versions of the console up to and including the PSone.
Also note there was never any specific Australian version of the main unit - SCEE had 3 different SKUs with A B and C suffixes (for Australia/NZ, UK and Europe respectively) - but these were just sales package changes (different manuals, power and video cables) and they all contained the same version of the actual console.
I also remember some HDTV CRT TVs, they were very expensive, but at that point LCD TV were already available.
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Jack Videogames
Member
Anyone else in Europe still calls EU versions of games "PAL version"?
Man, the 90s were devastating to EU gamers. Just look at this DMC playthrough
Man, the 90s were devastating to EU gamers. Just look at this DMC playthrough
Play some PSX game like Tekken 2 if you really want to cry.
I remember the first T2 tournament, I used to play the PAL version and I thought I was strong with that game , so since they used a modded psx with the ntsc game, I was litteraly WTF! I lost badly at the first play, what a shame.
Trimesh
Banned
Yeah, but this was pre-HDTV - there was a short time window when they were making high scan rate SDTVs using high deflection angle CRTs, mostly in widescreen format. Some of them also supported progressive scan (576p in PAL) inputs although about the only sources that were capable of using it were certain DVD players. There were SDTV flatscreens too - I had an old Pioneer 4:3 aspect ratio plasma screen that would support 640x480 progressive scan over the VGA input, but rather annoyingly couldn't handle 480p video.
No, Australia/NZ were included in the SCEE area - which makes sense since they use PAL and have a 240V power grid. Of course Hong Kong also used PAL and has a 240V power grid - but the official import PlayStations here were the SCPH-xxx3 APAC modes with NTSC output and booting Japan region discs.
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theclaw135
Banned
True. But I was referring to whether the individual games kept their support.
Jaxcellent
Member
Exactly the other way around for me, I played the NTSC Japanese version close to launch on my modded PAL PSX.
When the game finally launched in Europe, (remember that? Sometimes it took ages!)I thought I was ready to kick some ass, but my timing was way off on the slower version of the game.
I suggest you look at the table yourself, since that confirms what I said.
The launch models (SCPH-1002 in PAL territories) had both a 10-pin Multi-AV socket and RCA outputs. In the later models (starting from the SCPH-5502) they deleted the RCA jacks and left only the Multi-AV.
Top unit is SCPH-5502, lower is SCPH-1002:
As you can see, the ports that Sony deleted on the later models were the RCA jacks for left and right audio, the yellow composite video output and the 2.5mm RF unit power jack. The RGB signals are output on the 10-pin multi-AV socket, and they are present on all versions of the console up to and including the PSone.
Also note there was never any specific Australian version of the main unit - SCEE had 3 different SKUs with A B and C suffixes (for Australia/NZ, UK and Europe respectively) - but these were just sales package changes (different manuals, power and video cables) and they all contained the same version of the actual console.
I didn't imply that there was specific unit for Australia. That wouldn't 've made any sense. It was a model (APAC) that happend to be sold in Australia. Anyway I will rest my case now.
Regards
Trimesh
Banned
No, you specifically claimed that there were models sold in AU that didn't have RGB output - which is complete nonsense, because every PS1 ever made had RGB output. And, incidentally, the models officially sold in Australia were the SCPH-xxx2 PAL versions, not the SCPH-xxx3 APAC ones.
If you're actually saying you had a modded or imported console and it was playing in black and white then that's entirely possible - mismatches between the game region, console region and the standards the TV used will do that. But that doesn't mean the console doesn't support RGB (in fact, using an RGB connection in this case will allow the color to display).
Sure. Ok.
PhoenixTank
Member
I haven't heard Sonic PAL's Green Hill in 25+ years. It was definitely burned into part of my brain.
We didn't know how bad we had it at the time.
At least with GC 480i60 was available for most games, but sadly not progressive AFAIK even if I bought the rare component cables. I think I could force it on the Wii sometimes, so some games were capable?