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@meauxdal told me this might be the thread for getting to know if I can hack my PS3 w/o getting banned from PSN?? also maybe play PSP/PS2/etc games. idk where to start
i finished installing the MODE in my saturn today. install wasn’t bad and the MODE interface rocks
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Did you download the cover art database? I did, and the performance on Saturn is a bit slow, but it’s still cool!
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yeah it’s too slow for me with the art on (on the saturn anyway, i heard the dreamcast isn’t so bad) but it is very cool, and the 480i menu is slick as hell
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Is this the 300 yen saturn? You ended up with that, right?
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Whatcha doin’?
reflowing the cracked solder around the power jack which is preventing it from staying powered on stably
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done - she’s back working perfectly again, no more flickers or unstable power
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Really into this mod, the old proprietary chargers are such a pain and adding more depth to an SP could be perfect. I could see adding contouring like the GBC on top of this.
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i really want to fix up my old DMG gameboy and i’ve been looking into screen mods but this stuff is a little confusing. i think i want the funnyplaying IPS kit and maybe a new shell that is preconfigured to fit the new screen?
lots of good info here: https://handheldlegend.freshdesk.com/support/home
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Hey guys. Almost 2 years since I last posted here… really?
I’ve checked the thread, looks lovely that you guys picked it back up.
You were all probably inspired by not allowing anyone else to gut a DC as much as I’ve shown here.
Point here: saw both @DaleNixon and @ticky that they did some PS2 capture, and actually play it hardware. I have to admit I admire you guys.
I used to own a big ass tube, and PS2 games… I feel there’s a difference playing those game on hardware. It was the best time of my life around that console.
Now a days I own a OSSC and a big LG screen. Looks good and I can play it, but I’ve grown to hate that console video output (or actually Sony’s guidelines for developers). 480i sucks ass, RGB, Component, or even VGA output.
OSSC is a great machine. Both my OG XBOX components, and my Dreamcast VGA outputs 480p (at least the games I want to play), and it does a wonderful and smooth line doubling, enough for me wanting to play Sonic Adventure to completion after I tried the console.
But the PS2 games are almost all 480i. Components to the 4k TV is out of the question (tried it though… ugly is not enough). And with OSSC I have 3 options. 1x and a simple fast deinterlacer, 2x with flickering with annoying interlaced flickering that you get used to, and 4x (3x no works) with less annoying but more headache fine flickering of interlaced.
TBH the console is having a rest for the past 2 years, but I have to admit I used it heavily in the past. I have the FMCB + Network + HDD combo for over 10 years, and I can’t begin to count the number of games I actually finished on the system.
The setup I have now (Component > OSSC > 4KLED) is simply not working for me now.
I recently finished streaming taking the entire main Armored Core franchise to 100% completion on every game, and the PS2 games I simply emulated.
Plenty of factors weighted on that.
First on Armored Core sometimes the controls are… not optimal. It’s fine during the PS1 gen, but with gameplay picking up the pace on PS2 the scheme was not optimal. Remaping on emulation is simple.
Second the scaled 3D graphics actually provided a very interesting new experience on most titles. I played them the first time on hardware and I like the graphics there more, but emulation does a good pick-me-up with that “it’s so retro” low poli aesthetic everyone’s been loving for 5 years.
Third (480i > OSSC > Capture Card) looks… really ugly imho. No really… PS1 (240p > OSSC > Capture Card) looks fucking amazing. But PS2… no… not really… dun like. NOOOOOOOOOO.
This is not so much about modding, but more I guess about PS2 setups.
Gratz both of you guys on your PS2 setups =).
[edit]
PS: Also thanks @meauxdal for keeping the thread alive =P
[/edit]
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The Framemeister does some miracles with the PS2 signal, but I’m not sure how great the compatibility is with modern 4k tvs (I’m using one of the last Mitsu DLPs).
Sadly, 480i PS2 looks best on a CRT running at a silky smooth 60fps with lots of particle effects where the interlacing almost becomes part of what makes the experience great. It’ll probably be impossible to replicate with modern display tech.
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the problem you are having is that the OSSC is really not particularly great at deinterlacing, despite it being great at nearly everything else
the ossc pro should eventually do a good job as well. and now there are rumours of a retrotink-5x coming soon - could be interesting (esp considering how well the 2x pro multiformat handles 480i already)
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i do feel you on the mapping thing, though. the cave snowboarding game for ps2 is completely fucking unplayable due to unconscionable, un-remappable controls
480i is rough, and let’s be real 576i is worse, but I find bob deintelacing (the one where it tries to use persistence of vision to get away with it) to work pretty well for my eyes and our setup (our 2016 model Sony 4K TV seems to handle 50Hz signals without any judder, which is surprising!) but yeah, it’s really rather rough. The other side though is that I think most games for the PS2 look dreadful artificially run at higher res in an emulator, so despite the failing, this still wins for me in most cases!
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That’s a thing I can’t get on my USB Capture card. LG TV is fine, but even with 576p the capture card just gets no support (yeah I run US backup versions of my EU games on PS2, but many have 60Hz at least).
And I also use simple 1x bob deinterlacing. When playing by myself I used 4x, but the flicker really bothers Kasia and to play Global Defense Force with her I gotta bring the deinterlacer down.
Works well, but I believe it is expensive and that is why they can’t run it together with the line doubler.
@meauxdal I understand a 1st or 3rd person shooter on the PS1 have look-up-down and strafe on the shoulder buttons. For a time there wasn’t even analog sticks. But 3 heavy sometimes speed mecha action games on PS2 under the same controls… NOOOOOOOOOOO.
Also the video looks pretty much like my 1x bob deinterlacing captures. it’s fine, works.
My capture card is a bitch and it does the same as an HD TV. Says it captures various resolutions but what it does is:
- gets whatever resolution
- scales it to 1080p hardware, like if it was a TV
- scales down to whatever resolution you tell him to have that is supposed to support.
Getting 480p capture from my cube, even with point scaling, had less quality than simply capture at 1080p.
My setup is cheap. OSSC has that big advantage. You have plenty of consoles and you want to stream or record? It works for most part and it is dirty cheap comparing to the better options.
My capture card is “like” those USB3 elgato ones, but a bit dodgy. When I got it there were… I would like to say “hardly” any other “half the elgato” choices, but I can almost safely say that there were none.
I’m happy. I can stream. I’ve done plenty and I keep doing it with consoles, PC, emulation.
I always try to being the most interesting result to it, most of the times is the hardware, some times is not.
good example: Demon’s Souls.
I just finished a huge stream series where I took every FromSoftware Soulslike to the NG+Max Difficulty. In DeS is 6 runs (NG+5). 4 and half of those runs I did it on PS3 emulation, 1080p scaled graphics that look pretty fucking amazing (if horribly dated), 60fps (even if the input timing was still 30fps, and it didn’t increase the number of frames on animations =P).
I have the PS3. Damn, the thing is softmodded and runs games from the HDD. I have the disc and shit. But that lagless experience was so pleasant (did 4 runs of the game on console).
Apart from some over the screen effects specific to the PS3 hardware there was hardly any difference for that game (the graphics are simple themselves).
The emulation has hardly any errors. One that I remember is the big heart on Latria now showing up after falling on the tower. Hard not to notice but not a bother in any way.
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i envy you. i heard a loading screen audio crackle while playing jet moto on my raspberry pi configured with crtpi and it just instantly deflated my enjoyment of the game. i thought to myself “i’m a fuckin’ cliche” lol.
i’m too fickle with games to deal with things like that that just completely take me out of it. i was having fun too! i think audio is the big one. if i hear stupid pops or stutters, i’m out, peace. and it turns out it’s really hard to sync audio and video so you get minor irritations there too
i have access to a PS3 now, and as a result i don’t think i can consider playing through all of demon’s on emulation instead despite also having a decent PC. the moment i hit some weird glitch or stutter it’s going to heavily dampen my enjoyment
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I’ve grown very used to them tbh. I’ve been playing emulators for over 20 years (playstation was raging and I got my first Megadrive emulator for DOS). There’s plenty of titles that I’ve only played on emulation.
I guess most of the times I prioritize trying out something that I am curious about over the final quality of the experience.
Also I tend to play emulation that gives priority to accuracy.
For PS2 generation you don’t even have PS2 emulation that can create an accurate portrait of how games looked, and you either you have very “accurate” (try and error) or you gonna get sound glitches.
But before that… most of the machine got some crazy enough guy that dedicated heart and soul to creating accuracy on emulating that machine. Would like to mention XEBRA for PS1. I think no other emulation gets the pixel ratio right, and definitely no other has the natural “translucent dithering” graphics that the machine created with hardware (I.E. fog and dark in Silent Hill).
I compared on capture both XEBRA and PS1+OSSC on a Silent Hill pause screen, and the difference in capture was getting slightly sharper pixels on the emulation (+ OBS scaling) than with the capture card. Even the visual difference between colors looked similar (slightly shifted HUE and Brightness, which can be blamed on capt card or any Tube TV you connect).
But I kinda lost my point here. I’m not really defending emulation, the thing for me is that when I was a kid there was always a cable that wasn’t working right, or the channel tuning went off, or the cartridge ain’t connecting properly.
Fixing the game was… I guess, always part of my process of playing the game. So I guess I grew used to it, doesn’t really bother, and most times than not was catalyst to learn shit.
As for DeS, I played on a laptop while streaming. Both playing and streaming at 1080p. Felt fine. Felt better than on console. While it might have had those occasional audio stutters (can’t remember really =/ ), and some some occasional frame drop to 30fps, even an hickup… better than the constant roller coaster of framerate that are areas like The Valley of Defilement, or the Shrine of Storms.
Like I said, played at least 4 runs on both versions, and to me felt better on emulation.
In fact, while with the PS2 I wish I didn’t had to emulate ANY game, for PS3 I wish I could emulate EVERY game. IMHO that’s the generation that created a rift. No console coming out didn’t had an architecture built around a more-or-less generic GPU very similar to the ones for PCs. Even if PS3 uses in house chips, the fact is that if they deviated too much (and devs kept complaining it already did) from how computer graphics work and are programmed on other platforms… well… Sony would create a Saturn (and almost did).
PS3 specially I keep it in very low regard. Whatever game that I wanna play for PS3, I try to get for XBOX because I know it will at least have less framedrop, or PC port would be the best.
So I have the console mostly for exclusives.
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