PS1 "hi-res" plugin?

[ventuz]

Are there any chance of making Hi-Res plugin for Playstation Emulator? Or is it even possible? It would be quite interesting to make large pixelated games more sharper graphic such as Azure Dreams.

 

[Agozer]

No, there isn't one. I remember somebody asking something like this on another board and receiving a rather well laid out explanation on why something like that is not feasible or possible on the PSX. Can't remember what that was, though.

 

[Cyberman]

It's because of the way the playstation uses GPU memory and the fact it uses software for handling 3d. Essentially the GPU on a playstation is fancy 2d drawing engine. Because of this approach it's extremely difficult to determine WHAT is a texture and then identifying it in some reasonable manner. Because of the way the N64 works this is doable on that architecture, the PS1 is dubious (and laborious) at best. You need to do far more than just make GPU plugin is the reality.

Cyb

 

[squall_leonhart]

It is possible, anything is technically possible.
However its not worthwhile due to the lack of Z Depth. So high quality textures wouldn't look any better then the defaults.

The fact is, most PS games do actually have decent quality textures, however its the ps1's crappity graphics chip that makes them look like ass.

 

[Gonetz]

I remember somebody asking something like this on another board and receiving a rather well laid out explanation on why something like that is not feasible or possible on the PSX.

I'd like to see this explanation. Explanations I see in this thread do not explain me anything.

 

[squall_leonhart]

Feasible.. maybe.
Worthwhile, no.

The PSX Lacks Z and Sub pixel accuracy, which results in the warping and shaking seen in PSX Games in emulators.

It is possible to hack around this, but only within the game itself, allowing the emulator Z Accuracy won't do a thing because the pixels just don't contain the subdata required to position the textures correctly.

 

[microdev]

I'd like to see this explanation. Explanations I see in this thread do not explain me anything.

I think, they are refering to this thread.

There you can also find a link to a (not really elaborated) explanation of Pete.

 

[squall_leonhart]

i was referring to this actually

To clarify:

The polygons distort (extremely noticeable in FF8/9, for example) due to the lack of a Z-buffer. Essentially they're creating the illusion of 3D with only two dimensions, which works pretty well...by late 90's standards. It tends to look fairly primitive today, look at MGS for a visual example.

The polygons skip around due to lack of subpixel accuracy. When you're using a Playstation, you see it on your TV as 320x240. Each polygon moves one pixel. When you're playing on your PC at 1280x960, it moves three times as far, and nowhere in between. Thus, it looks like it's skipping around. As Kazuya Mishima mentioned, the relative sharpness of a monitor versus a TV is also a factor.

These are inherent flaws or quirks or whatever you want to call them of the Playstation architecture itself. You can get rid of the problem by using a software graphics plugin and/or playing at the lowest possible resolution.

 

[Gonetz]

squall, this explains "warping and shaking" issues, but it is absolutely irrelevant to the topic.

Pete explained the situation somehow: “(PSX gpu) just get small, separated drawing primitives (many not connected triangles or quads), and the textures are also a mess (many ever-changing texture atlases, and to make it worse: 90% of that textures are palettized ones). So I say that it is practically impossible to replace that textures in psx emulation.”
If PSX does not use separate texture tiles, it is just impossible to dump them. All other issues mentioned by Pete are solvable, imo. N64 also uses texture atlases and often palettized ones, but they are split to tiles, which we can dump and then replace on fly.

 

[squall_leonhart]

the point im making, is that you can replace them with higher quality all you like, it won't make it look much better