The PlayStation 3's PS2 Upscaler seems quite poor...

[RyanPaulShaffer]

So, I'm playing Final Fantasy XII on my MGS4 Edition 80GB PS3 model. I check the PS3/PS2 compatibility site, and it says there are no known issues with Final Fantasy XII. I have the latest PS3 firmware update. I set the PS1/PS2 Upscaler setting to Full Screen, the PS1/PS2 Smoothing On, and I turn on Widescreen Support (16:9) in the Final Fantasy XII settings. And...

...the game looks horrible! Like, nauseatingly so. There is a massive amount of texture swimming, huge levels of pixelation/jaggies, etc. I mean, I would by no means expect upscaling to look great, but this looked HORRIBLE. Unplayable horrible.

I decide to mess with the settings some more. Changing the Upscaling to Normal squishes the image down to a 4:3 ratio, even if I turn on Widescreen Support (16:9) in the FFXII Config settings. In fact, if I have it set to Widescreen Support in FFXII, it squishes the image horizontally (everything looks a bit more smooshed and there are still black bars on the side), whereas the game looks best in 4:3 setting (but still with the black bars on the side, and the FMVs play in a small window which takes up only 50% of my screen). Turning the Smoothing on and off seems to have no noticeable effect. I tried turning off and on the "Flicker Filter" setting in FFXII, but that didn't seem to have any noticeable effect either.

Am I missing some secret setting somewhere that is making it look horrible, or does the PS3 just have very poor PS2 upscaling support?

Please note that, like I mentioned before, I do not expect a standard image upscaled to HD to look amazing. But this looked really, REALLY bad. I am also baffled by the fact that enabling the Widescreen Support (16:9) in the game actually squishes the image. Didn't the PS2 have some special button sequence you had to push on boot in order to enable 480p? Or does that get enabled by default by playing it on a PS3?

 

[TKE899]

I have had very good results with my ps3 upscaler. What sort of connection are you running?

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: TKE899
I have had very good results with my ps3 upscaler. What sort of connection are you running?

HDMI, 1080p

 

[purbeast0]

something is not right w/your settings i would assume.

i've played god of war 2, ratchet and clank, and jak and daxter on my PS2. granted, it's a 60gb and not sure if it would make any difference, but they all look OK. gow2 is the only one that has a true 16:9 mode in the game.

i have my ps3 set to 720p and my tv is in 16:9 mode. i THINK (but not 100% certain) when i put on a 4:3 ps2 game that it stretches cause my tv is set to 16:9 mode and that i had to put my tv in 4:3 mode. however if i put gow2 in and change the settings on the game to 16:9 everything looks fine. again, not 100% sure about that cause it's been a while but i think I recall that.

and with that, ps2 games just don't look good anymore. they don't look terrible like you are explaining, but my memories of jak and daxter have been tainted after seeing how bad it looks now a days lol.

 

[biggestmuff]

RyanPaulShaffer, how large is your television?

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: biggestmuff
RyanPaulShaffer, how large is your television?

42", but that doesn't matter. It's upscaling to 1080p, regardless of TV size. A slightly larger TV isn't going to cause the large amount of texture swimming, jaggies, etc. that I am experiencing. My TV upscales DVDs and PSOne games just fine.

It's something with the PS3/PS2 settings and/or Final Fantasy XII settings.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: purbeast0
something is not right w/your settings i would assume.

i've played god of war 2, ratchet and clank, and jak and daxter on my PS2. granted, it's a 60gb and not sure if it would make any difference, but they all look OK. gow2 is the only one that has a true 16:9 mode in the game.

i have my ps3 set to 720p and my tv is in 16:9 mode. i THINK (but not 100% certain) when i put on a 4:3 ps2 game that it stretches cause my tv is set to 16:9 mode and that i had to put my tv in 4:3 mode. however if i put gow2 in and change the settings on the game to 16:9 everything looks fine. again, not 100% sure about that cause it's been a while but i think I recall that.

and with that, ps2 games just don't look good anymore. they don't look terrible like you are explaining, but my memories of jak and daxter have been tainted after seeing how bad it looks now a days lol.

When I set Final Fantasy XII to Widescreen (16:9) mode, it actually squishes the 4:3 image. It still has black bars on the sides.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I've played Xenosaga II, Ar Tonelico, Ratchet & Clank Commando and others on my 60 GB PS3 and all look very good on my Samsung 50" 1080p DLP.

The Samsung has a good upscaler too, so the quality is almost as good using component (not composite) cables with my PS2 slim.

 

[FuryofFive]

i also get the same problem, where ps2 games look horrible. HDMI on a 1080p box. 46" tv.

 

[Krazy4Real]

I run PS2 games on a 60" dlp. HDMI at 1080p. I leave the smoothing turned off and run it at full screen. Games look pretty reasonable to me. I have a 60 gb ps3.

 

[Industrial]

Mine looks great, and honestly I forgot my settings as I haven't touched it. I do remember messing around with it early on, and played some PS2 games and I thought it was horrible and had some of the same problems you described. I remembered messing with the widescreen, not sure if it was the PS3 only, my TV only, or both, but it came out worse. You might be double widescreening or double upscaling. Try disabling some of your TV features, and let the PS3 handle it . The output through the HDMI should be fine.

The jaggies will be much more pronounced on a HD set, so maybe set your TV to 720 and see if the jaggie smooth out enough for you that it's acceptable.

sorry can't help you specifically, but yeah, I was initially disappointed but messed around with it enough to finally get the image that was very good. Much better then the PS2 output.

 

[erwos]

It's gonna depend on the game. But I personally felt that the PS3 did a fantastic job of upscaling my PS2 games. Maybe it's something with the PS3 80gb? *shrugs*

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Does anyone have Final Fantasy XII and a PS2-compatible PS3 that can test out the strangeness that I get when setting FFXII to Widescreen (16:9) in the game? When I set the game to Widescreen (16:9) using the in-game settings, it actually smushes the image horizontally, while leaving the black bars on the sides like 4:3. This is with the PS3 setting at Normal. Full Screen makes the game look terrible.

I guess I can try messing with more settings tonight...

 

[R Nilla]

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer
Does anyone have Final Fantasy XII and a PS2-compatible PS3 that can test out the strangeness that I get when setting FFXII to Widescreen (16:9) in the game? When I set the game to Widescreen (16:9) using the in-game settings, it actually smushes the image horizontally, while leaving the black bars on the sides like 4:3. This is with the PS3 setting at Normal. Full Screen makes the game look terrible.

I guess I can try messing with more settings tonight...

My PS3 doesn't have PS2 BC, but with the Normal setting I think you're just seeing what you would see if you were using a PS2--the game is creating a 16:9 image within the 4:3 space. AFAIK this is how the "widescreen" mode works in a lot of games from that generation. Thus in order to make it fit the screen it has to be stretched out and likely will look terrible.

According to this list, FFXII does not support 480p--perhaps that's the problem.

Other people on the internet have reportedly enjoyed FFXII in widescreen on their PS3s, so maybe I'm missing something or maybe they are easily amused.

 

[hans030390]

1) Upscaling looks bad on 16:10 TVs (not saying this is your case)
2) Screen smoothing reduces detail
3) FFXII looks like crap on an HDTV. I hooked my PS2 up with component cables and set it to widescreen. With or without the flicker filter, the game was HORRIBLY pixelated/jagged.

 

[mmntech]

Originally posted by: hans030390
1) Upscaling looks bad on 16:10 TVs (not saying this is your case)
2) Screen smoothing reduces detail
3) FFXII looks like crap on an HDTV. I hooked my PS2 up with component cables and set it to widescreen. With or without the flicker filter, the game was HORRIBLY pixelated/jagged.

Most 16:10 TVs and monitors are 1440x900 IIRC. The reason upscaled video looks like crap on them is because they can't accept a 1080i or 1080p signal. So in that case, the video is upscaled and output to 720p, then upscaled again to 1440x900 by the monitor. It's a bit like taking a photocopy of a photocopy.

I think a lot of it depends on the game. Certain titles, such as Okami, look amazing when upscaled. GOW not so much. It depends a lot on the art style and how the game was programmed. If the game has a 480p mode, use that instead. It overrides the PS3's built in upscaler and generally produces a better image as no deinterlacing is involved.

 

[ubercaffeinated]

Originally posted by: hans030390
1) Upscaling looks bad on 16:10 TVs (not saying this is your case)
2) Screen smoothing reduces detail
3) FFXII looks like crap on an HDTV. I hooked my PS2 up with component cables and set it to widescreen. With or without the flicker filter, the game was HORRIBLY pixelated/jagged.

i could never make ffxii look good on my ps3/40" sammy 1080p hdtv. persona 3 fes on the otherhand is pretty acceptable.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: R Nilla

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer
Does anyone have Final Fantasy XII and a PS2-compatible PS3 that can test out the strangeness that I get when setting FFXII to Widescreen (16:9) in the game? When I set the game to Widescreen (16:9) using the in-game settings, it actually smushes the image horizontally, while leaving the black bars on the sides like 4:3. This is with the PS3 setting at Normal. Full Screen makes the game look terrible.

I guess I can try messing with more settings tonight...

My PS3 doesn't have PS2 BC, but with the Normal setting I think you're just seeing what you would see if you were using a PS2--the game is creating a 16:9 image within the 4:3 space. AFAIK this is how the "widescreen" mode works in a lot of games from that generation. Thus in order to make it fit the screen it has to be stretched out and likely will look terrible.

According to this list, FFXII does not support 480p--perhaps that's the problem.

Other people on the internet have reportedly enjoyed FFXII in widescreen on their PS3s, so maybe I'm missing something or maybe they are easily amused.

I think that is the case. I did some more messing around last night, and it does appear that when you set FFXII into "Widescreen" mode, it only smushes a "widescreen" type of image into a 4:3 space. It probably just assumes that the TV will scale the image to a 16:9 ratio.

I think I finally found a decent setting. I set the PS/PS2 Upscaler to Full Screen, then I told my TV to set the ratio based on the signal. It seems to be properly scaling the image now, and even though it doesn't look great, it looks better than it used to.

 

[MrPickins]

I just fired up FFXII on my 60GB PS3 (so it may be a bit different).

The way I found it to look the best was by setting the upscaler to Full Screen and setting the aspect ratio in the FFXII config to 16:9. It looks pretty good for a PS2 game.

FWIW, I noticed no difference in video quality going from "normal" to "full screen"

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: MrPickins
I just fired up FFXII on my 60GB PS3 (so it may be a bit different).

The way I found it to look the best was by setting the upscaler to Full Screen and setting the aspect ratio in the FFXII config to 16:9. It looks pretty good for a PS2 game.

FWIW, I noticed no difference in video quality going from "normal" to "full screen"

Yes, that is what I noticed as well. However, when I had the PS/PS2 Upscaler set to Normal, and my TV set to scan the signal for the aspect ratio, it was displaying a 4:3 aspect ratio. Setting the PS/PS2 Upscaler to Full Screen made my TV pick up that it was a 16:9 signal and displayed it correctly. FFXII was set to 16:9 Widescreen through all of my tests.

Weird, I know, but that is what my tests concluded!

 

[rocadelpunk]

might want to go into the ps3 settings and make sure that only 480p and 1080p optiosn are checked.

I have a westy 37in 'monitor'

It's 1080p but some games would revert to a lower resolution for some reason. When I gave it the only option to do 1080p then the games actually went to 1080p

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: rocadelpunk
might want to go into the ps3 settings and make sure that only 480p and 1080p optiosn are checked.

I have a westy 37in 'monitor'

It's 1080p but some games would revert to a lower resolution for some reason. When I gave it the only option to do 1080p then the games actually went to 1080p

Where is that setting? I went through all of the PS3 settings the other day, and I didn't see anything like you described. Of course, it is entirely possible that I missed it.

 

[tk149]

I've only tried one PS2 game on my PS3, God of War. In the game itself, there was a setting for hi-res and low-res - I think it might have said progressive scan. Everytime I started the game, I had to go into the menu and change the setting or the game looked terrible.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Where is that setting? I went through all of the PS3 settings the other day, and I didn't see anything like you described. Of course, it is entirely possible that I missed it.

It's under display, not system settings(I always go to the wrong place at first when looking for it).

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

Where is that setting? I went through all of the PS3 settings the other day, and I didn't see anything like you described. Of course, it is entirely possible that I missed it.

It's under display, not system settings(I always go to the wrong place at first when looking for it).

Thanks...I will check it out when I get home.

So, should I uncheck all of the options except for 1080p? Will that help matters? Or will it cause problems with some games?