Which play re:(station1)?

ive only gotten as far as the intro in xenogears because theres a star trek computer noise in the intro cutscene that makes me laugh really hard every time because its super out of place and i turn the game off

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When the captain of the Eldridge is enacting the final self destruct trigger, right before the score’s choir building up in the background underlines how emotional and catastrophic that moment is supposed to be (with a locket of his wife and daughter pictured - looking like Elhaym - in the foreground).

It’s never jarred me that much but yup I’ve always been like “well…that’s overly familiar”

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Well, someone on the dev team could be a trek fan.

or, that effect could be commonly available in a sound effects bank. Much like other sound effects I’ve heard multiple times. A certain alarm sound comes to mind, which I had associated with Goldeneye.

Watching again, it’s still wild how much Zenogais’ intro didn’t only signal something more sci-fi mecha, but a story hella darker than most FF and jrpg fare…tended to be. We know some of FF7’s similarities weren’t just coincidence, since this outline was proposed first.

Book of Revelations quoting is mild yet stately enough to start with, ominous. And a threat of humanity’s ark being dismantled from within, and before scenes like the captain’s resolve, you have the dangling phone, dropping to the floor in a dark hall of snaking wires, the “You Shall Be as Gods” flooding their displays, escape ships being shot down by the mother ship’s own weaponry.

Even now it stirs me back to a really alienating but impressive sense of “I won’t know what that was about for at least a few dozen hours”

This trailer did not have me ready.

That mix and especially second half of the song is also nowhere in game materials, probably just some quick edit but now I want to find out.

Definitely doing the UNDUB 2.0, curious about what would be “better” cleaned up translation and the English VA is…too ruff

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I remember being a little frustrated at exactly how long the game takes, to connect back to the intro cinematic. Its a really great intro and I wanted to some answers!

Some of the best Vagrant glamour shots.

what yall emulating PSX on?

My deetz:

Windows 10 Nvidia GTX 970
Latest stable Retroarch, settings:
PSX Beetle Hardware Core
Video Driver -> Vulcan
Core Options:
MSAA 8x
Internal GPU resolution 4-8x
Internal color depth 32 bpp
Adaptive Smoothing
Texture filtering - nearest or SABR
PGXP settings all on, only a couple small places in VS did it cause wacky geometry
Dithering pattern 1x
Crop Overscan

Didn’t need to touch anything else, at least anything with a visible difference. Would have to be at home to check the shader specifics or main system config I ended up with.

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Connectix Virtual Game Station on Mac OS 9

ok not really but i have been thinking about it for 20 minutes

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I may have taken some emu benefits to shape things further than native psx was capable of, but VS inherently still ranks among the most beautiful. At the very least before HD era.

hmm, getting there

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Halfway through VS I knew I wanted to either do a longplay, or something of a movie type edit. The better qualities out there aren’t really like the presentation I have in mind. At this point I know I’ll stick around these settings, might go 10% more crt grit. But before starting I wanted to get some feedback on what seems more favorable, particularly between texture filtering

nearest (first of each image, obviously close to the original blockier texture)
OR
SABR (smoothed blend for fluid, sometimes maybe watery but also painterly shots)

(probably easiest to look at larger view, moving left to right through - any simple way to frame images side by side?)

The text tends to look just a hair cleaner with nearest, but SABR does give it a slight extra fuzz (with minor minor defects).

Also did some quick vids for comparison in motion, around 4:20 :bloodbong: on has brighter wider scenes.

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I like the blocky textures

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I see the appeal of both here. I’m usually a purist but I can’t argue with how good that first pic looks with SABR, especially the neckline and other details on her clothing.

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To expand on this: I think the heavier blend can certainly look good/interesting, for certain hand picked shots (the aforementioned painterly look). But most of the time, the textures just look wrong to me, all blended and rounded off.

However, I grew up in this game’s time. So, those bocky textures have a visual identity for me, with certain detail and aesthetic. Its like how the PC version of MGS1 doesn’t look right, with the texture smoothing. Someone much younger, probably loves the smoothing.

I do appreciate certain enhancements like PGPX, which increases the rendering precision on 3D models (so that they look more “filled out”) and also fixes things so that straight lines render straight, instead of jagged. And I’m also a fan of tasteful bloom, AA, etc. But PS1 game texture detail, is in those blocks. You gotta tread lightly, with that.

seconding the blockier look. those are freaking beautiful.

agree that the blocky textures are good

'ppreciate the input peeps, going Nearest with a dash more scan fuzz. It’s ultimately more true to form and wouldn’t misrep the original tech. Helps w/keeping me from over experimenting on future games as well.

I’m very much expecting “that’s a big no-no”, but would you ever find this :point_down: (granted, after removing the watery glitch debris) a presentable upscale?

Looks noticeably cleaner. And it seems like the framerate is smoothed out.