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PSOne / PSOne games on PS2 dithering question

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First post, by Mau1wurf1977

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Always wondered about this, so maybe someone here knows more about this topic.

I read a few times that the PSOne internally used many bits of color. But before outputting onto the screens a reduced color palette was used and the image therefore has this dithering look.

Is there truth to this?

Can this be avoided if you play a PSOne game on a PS2?

Reply 1 of 13, by keropi

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nope, they look the same (15-16bit color depth IIRC) but on the PS2 you have the option to "smooth" graphics, it adds something like a bilinear blur (can't describe it better 🤣) , but it is nothing special...

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Reply 2 of 13, by Mau1wurf1977

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Yea there are 2 "enhancements". Filtered textures and faster loading times.

What a shame regarding the dithering 🙁

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Reply 4 of 13, by keropi

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emulators do break those limits, especially ePSXe with it's nice plugins by P. Bernett , BUT even after all those years those hardware plugins do behave strange in some "weird" games... the most accurate solution by far is the software renderers but they tend to be less spectacular in 3D...

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Reply 5 of 13, by leileilol

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We need more software renderers anyway. N64 has yet to see one (only EXTREMELY GLITCHY/BUGGY renderers exist) and the NDS only just recently got one and is faster than its opengl renderer (no$gba).

As for the dithering, as i'm a purist I couldn't live without it (along with its bad affine texture mapping). Besides, it wouldn't be "PSX compatibility" if they enhanced it. There's so many things you can regress by doing that and that would have lead to much hell in PS2 testing.

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Reply 6 of 13, by Mau1wurf1977

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I haven't had much success with PS (1 or 2) emulators yet...

Any recommendations for one that's easy to use? Software render sounds fine.

I wonder what the reason for the dithering / converting to less colors was...

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Reply 7 of 13, by keropi

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@Mau1wurf1977 : give pSX a shot... there are not many options, it has a software renderer and it's main goal is the original feeling AFAIK... it is a good emu

http://psxemulator.gazaxian.com/

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Reply 8 of 13, by Mau1wurf1977

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Thanks!

Reason I'm interested in the PSOne is because I bought the Abe games on steam and although I have a PSOne clone USB gamepad (looks the same) and configured the buttons I get totally confused because the names the game has given to the buttons doesn't match my pad. It's quite frustrating 🙁

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Reply 10 of 13, by keropi

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I think Mau1wurf1977 meant we downgrade from 24bit to 16-ish one... I bet it was cost related.... less memory, bandwidth , simpler components... something like that... still ~16bit color back then was awesome...

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Reply 11 of 13, by Mau1wurf1977

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leileilol wrote:

To approximate a higher color depth obviously

But that's the thing!

The PSOne renders everything at 24bit! It's only when it outputs the information onto the screen that it reduces the color depth.

And that's something I don't quite understand...

Reply 12 of 13, by Lofty

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Mau1wurf1977 wrote:
But that's the thing! […]
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leileilol wrote:

To approximate a higher color depth obviously

But that's the thing!

The PSOne renders everything at 24bit! It's only when it outputs the information onto the screen that it reduces the color depth.

And that's something I don't quite understand...

I don't know if that's true - I can't find any information to confirm or refute it - but if it is, then it might just have been to reduce the cost of the DAC. When any kind of blending takes place (lighting, partial transparency, etc) it's good if it's done with high precision even if the final result is then displayed at a lower colour depth.

Reply 13 of 13, by Mau1wurf1977

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Quite possible that it was cost related. I have found a few references on the internet and the fact that through emulation you can "unlock" the full color pallet also supports this...

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