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[SuperLumberjack]

Hello everybody !

I create this thread because I want to discuss about a subject that we don't hear about so much: the PS1 games and the aspect ratio!

I began to talk about that on this thread, but I think it isn't exactly the right place (I couldn't create threads some days ago, because I'm still a bit young on these forums) : https://www.neogaf.com/threads/what-playstation-one-emulators-do-you-use.1564035/page-5
So I think it's better that this question has its own thread.

If I wanted to explore that subject, it's because we generally have the habit to say that the PS1 games have a 4:3 aspect ratio et that's all ! These games were designed to be displayed on CRT screens.

But was it always perfectly correct?

It's what I would like to know...


---------------

To explore this question, I want to take the 1st Tomb Raider game as an example.

I tried with 2 emulators: PCSXR-PGXP and DuckStation.

With PCSXR-PGXP, I tried with 2 video plugins: the "P.E.Op.S. PSX DirectDraw Soft Renderer" and the "P.E.Op.S. PSX OpenGL Renderer (1.78)".

I will show the settings that I choose each time.


OK. I show you some screenshots with the related informations ! You will see that it's very diversified.


PCSXR-PGXP emulator

Spoiler: PCSXR-PGXP - P.E.Op.S. PSX DirectDraw Soft Renderer settings - default custom AR

(resolution: 1512 x 1080)

Spoiler: PCSXR-PGXP - P.E.Op.S. PSX DirectDraw Soft Renderer settings - 4:3 AR

(resolution: 1440 x 1080)

Spoiler: PCSXR-PGXP - P.E.Op.S. PSX OpenGL Renderer (1.78) settings - Keep psx aspect ratio

(resolution: 1656 x 1080)


DuckStation emulator

Spoiler: DuckStation - Video Settings - Auto (Game Native) Aspect Ratio

(resolution: 1410 x 1080)


Tomb Raider on PC (Steam) - ATI GLRage version

(resoluion: 1440 x 1080)

Spoiler: Tomb Raider PC in widescreen

---------------

Already, we can ask lots of questions :

- Why does the "P.E.Op.S. PSX DirectDraw Soft Renderer" in PCSXR-PGXP propose a custom aspect ratio of 42:30 by default?

- Why is the camera closer to Lara in the PS1 version compared to the PC version? (but we know that the FOV is different, so it's not really important)

- Why if the "P.E.Op.S. PSX DirectDraw Soft Renderer" in PCSXR-PGXP respects the 4:3 aspect ratio (if we choose the 4:3 AR of course), is the picture compressed horizontally in Tomb Raider compared to the PC version?

- Why does the "P.E.Op.S. PSX OpenGL Renderer (1.78) settings" in PCSXR-PGXP propose a different aspect ratio than 4:3 in Tomb Raider if we check "Keep psx aspect ratio" in the settings? And why is it correct compared to the PC version?

- Why does DuckStation display a resolution of "1410 x 1080" (64:49 AR) instead of "1440 x 1080" (4:3 AR) with Tomb Raider? Why is the picture compressed horizontally compared to the PC version?


For me, nothing is really clear ! It's why I think that it's an interesting subject.

What do you think about all of this ? Thanks for sharing your impressions !

(sorry for my bad English)



Edit:

I have come to these conclusions concerning:

- The good display settings to choose with DuckStation:
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/the-...on-of-the-aspect-ratio.1599974/post-263052269
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/the-...on-of-the-aspect-ratio.1599974/post-263063585

- The special beast that is "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night": https://www.neogaf.com/threads/the-...on-of-the-aspect-ratio.1599974/post-263194412

- The good aspect ratios to choose with the "Tomb Raider" games to match the aspect ratio of the PC versions: https://www.neogaf.com/threads/the-...on-of-the-aspect-ratio.1599974/post-263335907

 

[Esppiral]

Why don't you use the wide-screen hqck available in the emator? Sorry I think I don't get your point

 

[alabtrosMyster]

The PC version has proper 16:9 aspect ratio.

If an emulator gives you correct FOV fix, it will be fine on 3d games in 16:9.

 

[chaseroni]

PS1 games switch resolution and aspect ratio so often. It's a weird one with every developer doing something seemingly different

 

[SuperLumberjack]

Why don't you use the wide-screen hqck available in the emator? Sorry I think I don't get your point

Because there are glitches with the widescreen hack and it doesn't fix the problem of the aspect ratio.

In fact, we should do the disctinction between the PAR (pixel aspect ratio) and the DAR (display aspect ratio).

Spoiler: Watch the pictures to understand

Here for exemple, the DAR is identical and the PAR different :

We can clearly see that in both cases, the DAR is in 4:3. The resolution is 1440x 1080.
For the PS1 version (even if the FOV is different), the PAR is different and the picture is more compressed horizontally than the PC version.


But here the DAR is different and the PAR identical :

 

[SuperLumberjack]

And here, what is good for you ?

Spoiler: This?

Spoiler: Or this?

Spoiler: Settings

 

[cireza]

But was it always perfectly correct?

Of course not.

You have a ton of games that use a ton of different resolution. You will get 256x240, 320x240 and more exotic things. CRT do the magic : they stretch whatever the signal, and make beautiful rectangle pixels. To match the exact display and size of these rectangle pixels, you need insanely high resolutions on our shitty LCD displays. You can opt for integer scaling, it will do the best it can, but you probably won't be able to get exactly 4/3 depending on the games.

 

[SuperLumberjack]

Of course not.

You have a ton of games that use a ton of different resolution. You will get 256x240, 320x240 and more exotic things. CRT do the magic : they stretch whatever the signal, and make beautiful rectangle pixels. To match the exact display and size of these rectangle pixels, you need insanely high resolutions on our shitty LCD displays. You can opt for integer scaling, it will do the best it can, but you probably won't be able to get exactly 4/3 depending on the games.

I didn't think "perfectly" that much

I think you rather think about 2D games no? But generally with 2D games, I use an integer scaling combined to a linear filtering. My only goal here is to have a correct and relevant aspect ratio on a modern display, not a CRT.
But I agree that CRT did the magic trick alone at the time.

But in this era, we didn't care so much about the precision of the image. It's why there were so many different aspect ratios I think. It's the same thing with the Super Nintendo games for example. Some games look stretched with a 4:3 AR and some others not. And even in 4:3, the aspect ratio should be more close to 64:49 to be digitally correct in this case (the Super Nes Classic Mini uses this aspect ratio, not 4:3).

 

[SuperLumberjack]

I found some interesting things :

http://junkerhq.net/xrgb/index.php?title=Optimal_timings

Dot clock rates - Pin Eight

pineight.com

 

[cireza]

It's the same thing with the Super Nintendo games for example. Some games look stretched with a 4:3 AR and some others not. And even in 4:3, the aspect ratio should be more close to 64:49 to be digitally correct in this case (the Super Nes Classic Mini uses this aspect ratio, not 4:3).

All SNES games are 256x224, but on CRT it was stretched to fill the 4/3 AR screen. If a game does not look stretched on SNES, that's because the developer somehow took into account that the game was going to be stretched, and made thinner sprites. Pixels will still look rectangle. This is a rare occurrence, but I think it was the case for Mortal Kombat II.

I don't find that we cared less before and thus had a ton of different resolutions. Nowadays, it seems worse to me. You have PS Vita games running at 360p on a 544p display, Switch is a joke with sub 720p resolution everywhere, and Xbox One/PS4 rarely have displayed 1080p, which means that things were stretched to 1080 by our TVs.

I think that the rule back then on CRT was the number of lines. It was always 224/240 or 448/480 (not talking about PAL here), and they adjusted with the number of columns, as the TVs could stretch only this way. So we got nice rectangle pixels and a clean picture, even picture. No blur resulting from the operation.

Nowadays, stuff is stretched both vertically and horizontally, and TVs don't do rectangle pixels, so blur happens and it sucks a lot.

 

[SuperLumberjack]

Yes, but some developers forgot this I think
See "Super Metroid", "Mr. Nutz" or "Super Mario World" for example. In 4:3, these games don't look right.

 

[johntown]

I always stretch all 4:3 games to 16:9. I know some purists are bothered by this but for me I like the game to take up the whole screen. I don't care if characters and a little fat. It's not like any of these games had photo-realistic graphics.

For PS1 games Retroarch has the best options and settings hands down that make PS1 games look amazing.

 

[StateofMajora]

Xbox One/PS4 rarely have displayed 1080p, which means that things were stretched to 1080 by our TVs.

1080p is more common than not on ps4, in fact it was rare for it to be sub 1080p prior to ps4 pro. Unless it was battlefield or a Ubisoft open world game.

 

[SuperLumberjack]

I always stretch all 4:3 games to 16:9. I know some purists are bothered by this but for me I like the game to take up the whole screen. I don't care if characters and a little fat. It's not like any of these games had photo-realistic graphics.

I don't judge But...

I am joking !

 

[a multicultural team of v]

I always stretch all 4:3 games to 16:9. I know some purists are bothered by this but for me I like the game to take up the whole screen. I don't care if characters and a little fat. It's not like any of these games had photo-realistic graphics.

For PS1 games Retroarch has the best options and settings hands down that make PS1 games look amazing.

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

I always stretch all 4:3 games to 16:9.

 

[SuperLumberjack]

I don't find that we cared less before and thus had a ton of different resolutions. Nowadays, it seems worse to me. You have PS Vita games running at 360p on a 544p display, Switch is a joke with sub 720p resolution everywhere, and Xbox One/PS4 rarely have displayed 1080p, which means that things were stretched to 1080 by our TVs.

I think that the rule back then on CRT was the number of lines. It was always 224/240 or 448/480 (not talking about PAL here), and they adjusted with the number of columns, as the TVs could stretch only this way. So we got nice rectangle pixels and a clean picture, even picture. No blur resulting from the operation.

Nowadays, stuff is stretched both vertically and horizontally, and TVs don't do rectangle pixels, so blur happens and it sucks a lot.

Yes, I agree with you with these points!

I remember how all these old games were nice on a CRT screen and for a long time I really had trouble accepting how the old 2D games look on a modern screen. It didn't look fine to me... so blocky!
I tried everything to have a good look, lots of shaders, etc. But nothing was right! I was almost obsessed by that and hated the modern screens for this reason!

In fact, I think that it's some modern pixel art games that helped me to accept a bit more this blocky look, games like "Celeste" (excellent game), "The Messenger" or "Carrion". But yes, it looks different, it's clearly not the same. In the old times, it wasn't suppose to look pixelated.

But on the other hand, I tell myself that it would be difficult to come back to a CRT screen for some other things. They weren't perfect, but they had lots of qualities, that's true.

It's why I try to accept that some things won't be like before anymore and some others can be enhanced nowadays.

 

[ethomaz]

All SNES games are 256x224, but on CRT it was stretched to fill the 4/3 AR screen. If a game does not look stretched on SNES, that's because the developer somehow took into account that the game was going to be stretched, and made thinner sprites. Pixels will still look rectangle. This is a rare occurrence, but I think it was the case for Mortal Kombat II.

I don't find that we cared less before and thus had a ton of different resolutions. Nowadays, it seems worse to me. You have PS Vita games running at 360p on a 544p display, Switch is a joke with sub 720p resolution everywhere, and Xbox One/PS4 rarely have displayed 1080p, which means that things were stretched to 1080 by our TVs.

I think that the rule back then on CRT was the number of lines. It was always 224/240 or 448/480 (not talking about PAL here), and they adjusted with the number of columns, as the TVs could stretch only this way. So we got nice rectangle pixels and a clean picture, even picture. No blur resulting from the operation.

Nowadays, stuff is stretched both vertically and horizontally, and TVs don't do rectangle pixels, so blur happens and it sucks a lot.

Over 90% of the PS4 library is native 1080p... you can count the exceptions that were 900p... it was very solid with resolution... the opposite with PS3.

 

[ethomaz]

I always stretch all 4:3 games to 16:9. I know some purists are bothered by this but for me I like the game to take up the whole screen. I don't care if characters and a little fat. It's not like any of these games had photo-realistic graphics.

For PS1 games Retroarch has the best options and settings hands down that make PS1 games look amazing.

How can you play like that?

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

I always stretch all 4:3 games to 16:9. I know some purists are bothered by this but for me I like the game to take up the whole screen. I don't care if characters and a little fat. It's not like any of these games had photo-realistic graphics.

 

[DGrayson]

Dont stretch retro games

 

[stranno]

On top of native widescreen patches for games and generic emulator widescreen hacks, there's a RetroArch shader that stretches elements on the sides of the screen while keeping the aspect ratio of the central elements.

Of course it is not a good idea for some games (like platformers) but I guess RPGs could benefit from it.

 

[StateofMajora]

Dont stretch retro games

But like, it's not realistic anyway, dood.

Spoiler: .

Cardinal gaming sin

 

[SuperLumberjack]

An interesting video :

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

In fact, I think that it's some modern pixel art games that helped me to accept a bit more this blocky look, games like "Celeste" (excellent game), "The Messenger" or "Carrion". But yes, it looks different, it's clearly not the same. In the old times, it wasn't suppose to look pixelated.

I've tried Celeste on a CRT. The softer look fits the game much better than the sharp, crude pixels 99.999% of players will see on digital screens. And it isn't just a matter of adding fake scanlines.

 

[SuperLumberjack]

Spoiler: Some other videos

 

[SuperLumberjack]

I've tried Celeste on a CRT. The softer look fits the game much better than the sharp, crude pixels 99.999% of players will see on digital screens. And it isn't just a matter of adding fake scanlines.

I would like to see that!

Have you a photo please?

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

I would like to see that!

Have you a photo please?

I do (sorry about the reflections, I took this quickly and without too much care to show it to some friends):

 

[SuperLumberjack]

I created a thread yesterday on GitHub.com for a "Feature Request" concerning the possibility to add custom aspect ratios in DuckStation :

Could you add the possibility to enter custom aspect ratio please ? · Issue #1945 · stenzek/duckstation

Hello ! :-) Two days ago, some people recommanded me your wonderful emulator and I have to say that I'm really impressed ! The picture quality is amazing ! Until now, I was using the "PCSX...

github.com

But the guys who answered me are right. The aspect ratio of the PS1 games are displayed as they should with the emulator.

The resolution displayed is "1410 x 1080" (without the borders on the side), exactly as the Super Nes games should be displayed for example (the right AR is 64:49, like the Super Nes Classic does, not exactly 4:3). So it's coherent for me, I have to admit.

(And we have to take the dot clock rates into account apparently : https://pineight.com/mw/index.php?title=Dot_clock_rates )


So the real questions are:

- Why some games have different aspect ratio between their PS1 and PC version?
- Why the aspect ratio of the PS1 games wasn't originally correct (circles not perfectly circular, squares not perfectly squared, etc.), even on a CRT TV ?

I don't know why...

 

[SuperLumberjack]

I do (sorry about the reflections, I took this quickly and without too much care to show it to some friends)

Nice!

It looks very great!

I found this

Spoiler: Here

 

[cireza]

you can count the exceptions that were 900p

Yeah yeah, I get it that PS4 is great etc... it wasn't the discussion here anyway.

And 900p is not great. There are only two resolutions to me :
- The great, the perfect one : the native resolution of your screen
- The bad, the awful, the worst : anything below native resolution that has to be, somehow, stretched to fill the screen

 

[cireza]

Yes, I agree with you with these points!

I remember how all these old games were nice on a CRT screen and for a long time I really had trouble accepting how the old 2D games look on a modern screen. It didn't look fine to me... so blocky!
I tried everything to have a good look, lots of shaders, etc. But nothing was right! I was almost obsessed by that and hated the modern screens for this reason!

In fact, I think that it's some modern pixel art games that helped me to accept a bit more this blocky look, games like "Celeste" (excellent game), "The Messenger" or "Carrion". But yes, it looks different, it's clearly not the same. In the old times, it wasn't suppose to look pixelated.

But on the other hand, I tell myself that it would be difficult to come back to a CRT screen for some other things. They weren't perfect, but they had lots of qualities, that's true.

It's why I try to accept that some things won't be like before anymore and some others can be enhanced nowadays.

Well I made the choice to keep a CRT and enjoy the best of two worlds. I actually don't have an issue with blocky/apparent pixels on HD TVs. It think it is fine and even pretty nice, and I tend to dislike artificial scanlines as well.

However, I hate it anytime we don't get proper integer scaling. This leads to shimmering, and it is awful. And of course, our modern TV don't have the motion clarity of CRT, so scrolling is blurry. That's another pretty big issue as many old 2D games had horizontal or vertical scrolling.

 

[SuperLumberjack]

Yes, I don't like fake scanlines either, even if some shaders aren't bad. But it's far from an original CRT.

I agree for the clarity in motion on modern screens, it's not very good, except for the OLED screens I think.
The only problem is the input lag and the sample-and-hold effect.

I can't believe that we still have LCDs in 2021 !

For the shimmering issue, yes, the only way to counter this on a modern screen is with a linear interpolation I think.

 

[johntown]

 

[johntown]

How can you play like that?

It just doesn't bother me. I just don't like 4:3. I do look for widescreen fixes and things that are available. I won't even mention what I do to N64 games......that may be too much for people to handle.

 

[baphomet]

4:3 is the correct display ratio no matter what the internal resolution is.

 

[StateofMajora]

Yeah yeah, I get it that PS4 is great etc... it wasn't the discussion here anyway.

And 900p is not great. There are only two resolutions to me :
- The great, the perfect one : the native resolution of your screen
- The bad, the awful, the worst : anything below native resolution that has to be, somehow, stretched to fill the screen

Not saying upscaling is optimal, but a better tv would help. Not all upscalers are equal. And the higher resolution you go the less upscaling affects the image.

Hell gamecube looks pretty nice on my Bravia with my settings. All things considered.

 

[SuperLumberjack]

I found this information :

"Actually, the PSX version runs at 384*240. TRII runs at 384*240 as well. TR3, TR:TLR and TR:C all run at 512*240. This is the reason why Lara is always thinner in the PSX versions than she is in the PC versions (this is especially true for the last 3)."

and:

"Resolution has nothing to do with being "thin" or "fat", it's all up to pixel aspect ratio and how the renderer expects the screen to be displayed. (then there's the PAL and NTSC aspect ratio differences too -if the rederer doesn't expect it, all PAl stuff will look short/wide compared to NTSC)

For 320x200 in DOS (stretched to 4:3 as VGA intends it to), Lara looks normally skinny, but in 640x480 looks too wide.
For TRII on PC, it seems to correct things, but assume 4:3 screen size for all resolutions. (ie 1440x900 looks fine as long as it's displayed on a VGA monitor filling a 4:3 screen, so it assumes non-square pixels)


As for 384x240, again, you'd need to have the dot clock to show that real-world. (ie depending on the clock, it could be the same resolution as the Saturn or lower for practical on-screen viewing -assuming they used a 7.16 MHz dot clock, you'd have a max of about 340 pixels on most TVs, or a bit less)"

Tomb Raider was over rated - Page 7

I've been playing Tomb Raider again but while the early levels are fun the clunky controls and bad camera angles just become more of an issue in the later levels. When fighting in close quarters most of the time the camera is not pointing where the enemy is, and later the fact the later levels...

www.sega-16.com

 

[SuperLumberjack]

The consoles resolutions: https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Resolution

 

[Mopey bloke]

I've been thinking about this without many people to ask about. So usually PSX games expect an overscan of 16 scanlines in 240p or 32 scanlines in 480i. So if the developer wanted you to play the game in 4:3, the graphics would have to be designed to be 4:3 once you cut those scanlines away. Duckstation cuts that overscan area by default, but I don't think other PSX emulators do. Its "auto" aspect ratio is also different from 4:3.

Also you cannot derive aspect ratio from pixel counts, as all of them would just stretch to fill what screen there was. This is especially evident with games that deviate from the most common resolution of 320 pixels-wide. The last Tomb Raider games, Threads of Fate, the Crash Bandicoot franchise, Soul Reaver, etc. were all 512 pixels wide and the games look ridiculous when rendered in square pixels.

 

[cireza]

Resolution has nothing to do with being "thin" or "fat"

Only for 3D.

 

[SuperLumberjack]

I've been thinking about this without many people to ask about. So usually PSX games expect an overscan of 16 scanlines in 240p or 32 scanlines in 480i. So if the developer wanted you to play the game in 4:3, the graphics would have to be designed to be 4:3 once you cut those scanlines away. Duckstation cuts that overscan area by default, but I don't think other PSX emulators do. Its "auto" aspect ratio is also different from 4:3.

Also you cannot derive aspect ratio from pixel counts, as all of them would just stretch to fill what screen there was. This is especially evident with games that deviate from the most common resolution of 320 pixels-wide. The last Tomb Raider games, Threads of Fate, the Crash Bandicoot franchise, Soul Reaver, etc. were all 512 pixels wide and the games look ridiculous when rendered in square pixels.

Yes, the "Auto" aspect ratio in DuckStation aren't exactly 4:3, but it seems that it's the AR that is displayed by lots of other emulator by default. I think about BizHawk for example.

It's funny, because last night I was watching some videos in the TASVideosChannel : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFKeJVmqdApqOS8onQWznfA

I know that they generally are very strict about the respect of the 4:3 or native aspect ratio.


I agree, for games like Soul Reaver, it doesn't look right when it's not render with a 4:3 AR. In this video for example, it's not 4:3 :

Spoiler: https://youtu.be/pg1VVwG1T1c

And for me the picture is distorded. Look at the circle :

But if I remove the black borders and I stretch the picture in 4:3, it becomes perfectly circular :

And for this video of Crash Bandicoot, the aspect ratio is 4:3 :

Spoiler: https://youtu.be/Teq6fOuSPyo

For me, the circles are perfectly circular :

So for me, the perfect aspect ratio must definitively be 4:3, but without black borders on the sides.


And I suppose that for Tomb Raider, it should be the same, even if the aspect ratio of the PS1 version is different from the PC version. I don't know why the developers choose to propose different FOV and aspect ratio...

But in this case, I would be tempted to choose the same aspect ratio than the PC version (if it's possible, or a 3:2 AR which is the closest), which corresponds to a resolution of "1656 x 1080" with a 1080p resolution, like the "P.E.Op.S. PSX OpenGL Renderer (1.78)" does.

 

[SuperLumberjack]

Hi guys !

After some investigations, I have come to some conclusions concerning the question of the aspect ratio

I can say that to have the good aspect ratio on our modern screens, there is only one configuration that is good. This one :

Indeed, in DuckStation the 4:3 aspect ratio must be chosen and the crop option need to be on "All Borders"

The 4:3 aspect ratio removes the black borders on the sides contrary to the "Auto (Game Native)" aspect ratio, but it's not enough, because in the Crop option, the picture will be distorted if we chose "Only Overscan Area" which is selcted by default.

I checked in MS Paint if the circles are really circular and the squares are squared, so I have no doubt anymore.

See these pictures to compare!

(Note : Sometimes, the circles can look circular whereas they aren't and sometimes the contrary. It's why it's better to check with MS Paint.)


"Only Overscan Area" vs "All Borders" in the Crop option:

The difference with "Tomb Raider" is particularly impressive!


By the way, for the aspect ratio, I think that the Tomb Raider games are particular cases The aspect ratio with the PSX version are different than the PC version (and the FOV of course), it's a fact!
I don't know why the developers chose to do that. But if you want to be closer to the PC version, I think you can choose the 3:2 aspect ratio:

Here you can compare the difference between the 4:3 and the 3:2 aspect ratio:

Spoiler: The PC version

I don't know if it's exactly the same "pixel aspect ratio" (not display aspect ratio of course) than the PC version, but the textures looks squared :

And to finish, here are some screenshots of the Tomb Raider games in the 3:2 aspect ratio

Thanks to sunnysideup who recommanded to me the DuckStation emulator!

What PlayStation One emulators do you use?

It's strangley apt, but at the moment i'm at my dads old place, he sadly passed away unexpected two weeks ago so i'm back here tyding up stuff. We were both avid collectors of everything since the 80's. I havent even been in our retro cupboard but so far i've found around the house.. A CD32...

www.neogaf.com

 

[SuperLumberjack]

Hello everybody

I was just still wondering about 2 things

A contributor to the work on the DuckStation emulator said that to me:

"Please understand that the default settings are as they are because they are suited for the general case. "All Borders" is not appropriate for this because it ignores CRT positioning parameters that many games use for proper visible centering and other graphical effects. Getting perfect circles on one game may result in imperfect circles on another game due to how those games are individually programmed, and that's not something that is our responsibility to fix or account for."

Could you add the possibility to enter custom aspect ratio please ? · Issue #1945 · stenzek/duckstation

Hello ! :-) Two days ago, some people recommanded me your wonderful emulator and I have to say that I'm really impressed ! The picture quality is amazing ! Until now, I was using the "PCSX...

github.com

So, to be clear, the Aspect Ratio set on "Auto (Game Native)" and the Crop option set on "Only Overscan Area" should be what a CRT TV expects to receive:

So I wanted to check if he is right, even if I don't call into question his knowledge.

I used this video to see how the game "Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver" is originally displayed on a Sony PVM:




Here is the result with DuckStation set on Aspect Ratio "Auto (Game Native)" and Crop "Only Overscan Area":

And yes, what the guy said is correct :

But I think we all agree to say that on PS1, the picture doesn't look very natural and a bit squished horizontally. So I put the settings on Aspect Ratio "4:3" and Crop "All Borders" and compared to the PC and Dreamcast versions. But we won't be surprised that it's correct, because I already compared some games to their PC version above. But now we will be perfectly sure!

And now the PC version:

And the Dreamcast version (it's bonus):

We can see that the pixel aspect ratio is exactly the same on PC and Dreamcast, and with the PS1 version when DuckStation is set on Aspect Ratio "4:3" and Crop "All Borders"!

At the same time, it's curious to notice that some elements are different in the PC and DC versions compared to the PS1 version, with even 2 inverted textures



Some other comparisons between the PS1 and PC versions of these 2 games:


Blood Omen

PS1 - DuckStation - settings on Aspect Ratio "Auto (Game Native)" and Crop "Only Overscan Area"

PS1 - DuckStation - settings on Aspect Ratio "4:3" and Crop "All Borders"

PC

Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus

PS1 - DuckStation - settings on Aspect Ratio "Auto (Game Native)" and Crop "Only Overscan Area"

PS1 - DuckStation - settings on Aspect Ratio "4:3" and Crop "All Borders"

PC

So now, I think we no longer have any doubt!



But as I said above, I was wondering about 2 things!

[It will be a little off-topic. It's why I will hide this part.]

Spoiler: Show this part

We can notice that with the settings put on Aspect Ratio "Auto (Game Native)" and Crop "Only Overscan Area" in DuckStation, the resolution is "1410 x 1080":

And we saw that it's indeed the picture that is expected by a CRT TV. But some of us know that the Super Nes games should be displayed with a 64:49 aspect ratio and not 4:3...
And the native resolution for these games are "256 x 224" with a aspect ratio of "8:7".

So in 1080p we get these resolution:

4:3 AR: 1440 x 1080
64:49 AR: 1410 x 1080

Yes, we have a resolution of "1410 x 1080" too with the Super Nes games and the 64:49 aspect ratio!

And this was really confusing me, because I was asking myself if it's always the pixel aspect ratio expected by a CRT TV or in the case of the Super Nes games the correct aspect ratio to display on a modern screen...
But then I thought to the fact that the picture is cropped because of the overscan with the PS1 and a CRT TV, but it's not necessary on a modern screen, so in this case the correct aspect ratio should be 64:49 with the Super Nes games!

But I still wanted to be sure, so I tested by myself with this picture of "Chrono Trigger"

I upscaled it in these different aspect ratios:

8:7 AR (native):

4:3 AR:

64:49 AR:

In fact, the 64:49 aspect ratio is really close to 4:3, but I think the moon on the picture is a bit more circular, so it's the good AR and it has nothing to do with this pixel aspect ratio of the PS1 games on a CRT TV I think. Maybe I'm wrong (it's really confusing sometimes) and so, if someone knows something about this, don't hesitate to give your explanations here

Maybe it's less important for 2D games, I don't know, because when I think about "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night", it's a strange specimen too...

 

[SuperLumberjack]

Oh my gosh! I deleted the album with all my pictures for NeoGAF on Lensdump!
I thought it will delete the selected pictures... but no! The system isn't very smart.

It's almost funny, but I hope I could recover them after all this time... For the moment they still are online and I downloaded all of them directly from this page. But it will take a lot of time if they will be offline the next days to put everything in order...

No chance!

 

[Susurrus]

On top of native widescreen patches for games and generic emulator widescreen hacks, there's a RetroArch shader that stretches elements on the sides of the screen while keeping the aspect ratio of the central elements.

Of course it is not a good idea for some games (like platformers) but I guess RPGs could benefit from it.

Even that short clip of it makes me want to toss my cookies. Everything looks like looking through shitty goggles or something. Kill it with fire.

 

[SuperLumberjack]

Liberation...!

I reuploaded all my images on Lensdump (except the olders for 2 other old threads, because it would have been too long) et edited all my posts with the new links. I had chance!

 

[The_Mike]

You are all talking about emulation, yet here I am too brain dead to get it to work.

I got Roms of games i already own, but when I load them into an emulator nothing happens.

 

[Mopey bloke]

You'll need a PSX BIOS for most PSX emulators. If you can't get one (Duckstation has a guide on how to dump it in their discord server), you'll have to do with Xebra and its replacement BIOS.

 

[SuperLumberjack]

Hello again

I just wanted to speak about that strange beast that is "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night"
This game with all these different resolutions and this particular aspect ratio is I think totally relevant with this topic.

To begin, see all that different resolutions that we have in this game!

The title screen for example with a resolution of 512 x 224:

The menu to select the file with a resolution of 365 x 224:

And the resolution in-game (gameplay) which is 256 x 224:

And of course, all these resolutions are stretched to a 4:3 aspect ratio and are output in a 240p resolution if I'm not wrong.

So this is how it looks if we choose these settings (aspect ratio 4:3):

Yes, it's very stretched horizontally I think! But it's how it should be with a 4:3 aspect ratio.

Here is maybe an explanation about how it looks that stretched:

The PlayStation version of the game uses the system's 256 x 240 display but ultimately only draws 256 x 207 width of pixels.
It's possible that this mode was selected in order to utilize art assets from the PC Engine CD Dracula X title: "Rondo of Blood", a system which almost exclusively features games with 256 pixels width.

It comes from this video of Digital Foundry:




But I checked with videos on YouTube and the PlayStation Classic for example displays the exact same image than above.


Personally, I think that it's a really curious way to display the sprites of this 2D game and I don't like the stretched look.
So I would rather display the picture in its native 8:7 aspect ratio.

There are two ways :

• Choosing "PAR 1:1" in the "Aspect Ratio" option (with "Only Overscan Area", because there are less borders):

But as you can see, the menus will be very stretched.

• Choosing "8:7" in the "Aspect Ratio" option (with "Only Overscan Area" too):

But the menus will be crushed horizontally. The result for the gameplay parts will be identical to the PAR 1:1.


I recommend of course to choose the "Nearest-Neighbor" filtering for the 2D games. And if you check the option "Force 4:3 For 24-Bit Display (disable widescreen for FMVs)", the FMVs will stay in a 4:3 aspect ratio.

And you, how do you prefer "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night"?