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DF: PlayStation Plus PS1/PS2/PSP Classic Games Emulators Tested - And They're Not Good Enough

93xfan

Banned
FFS! Now my morning coffee has been sprayed over my keyboard. There's my days activities taken care of.

Hopefully Sony can sort this out. Their back catalougue of Playstation 1/2/PSP deserve it. Such a big part of my "gaming" life.
Sorry to hear about your keyboard. Also, yes, their catalogue of older games was amazing!! Loved my PS1 games and own over 100 thof those through BC

Jumping Flash 2!
Tomb Raider 1-4
Meta,Gear Solid
Tomba
TwistEd Metal
Jet Moto
Final Fantasy
Resident Evil
Pandemonium
etc.

I still own my PS3 and swore off Sony for a while. If the issue is fixed, they may have brought me back depending on how well supported this is.
 

Agent X

Member
  1. And just like the original PS Now, PS3 games and PC access are still streaming only. The entire set of premium bonus features are terrible.

I have to disagree with you there, about the features being terrible. The PS Now streaming (in its current form) generally works well, on PS4 and also on PC. The PC client sure could use a refresh, though, and it would be nice to see them start spreading this to a wider range of devices.

The PS1/PSP classics are a very welcome addition. Despite the technical shortcomings, there's a lot more "good" than "bad" going on here, with convenient save states, game rewinding, trophies, and even the long-awaited return of cross-buy carryover for those who previously purchased the digital downloads on PS3/PSP/PS Vita.

They are running at their original speeds though! PAL versions always ran at 50fps.

Gotta love the way people are minimizing the value of multi-language support too. Like, seriously, if you're a global business addressing an international audience kinda matters!

That's a good point about the PAL releases often containing multi-language support. At the same time, there are also valid complaints about the 50 Hz baggage that goes with it.

There are a couple of possible solutions that I feel most people will find satisfactory:
  1. Offer both PAL and NTSC versions of the game in a single package. The Digital Foundry video already proposed this, and pointed out that Nintendo does this with some games on their service.
  2. Modify the PS1 game code and create a new, definitive "best of both worlds" version that combines the NTSC timing with the PAL language options.
The second option would be preferable, but requires additional work. Both options might also have some licensing issues.

If you cared about retro games you'd be using actual Retro hardware and software, that's actual preservation. If you actually cared about the software from a nostalgia perspective you'd want the experience replicated accurately down to the original discs and their boxes.

I do have and use the retro actual hardware and software. I'd bet a lot of other people here do, too.

I've also purchased several PS1 games as digital downloads for PS3/PSP/PS Vita. For a large number of those games, I don't own on the original disc, and therefore can't play them on the original hardware. I'd like to be able to conveniently play those games on a modern console, with all of the awesome enhancements that the PS4 and PS5 bring to the table.
 

nush

Gold Member
No, that's what happens when you delve into it.
There are dozens of games from the OG Xbox that I want added to BC with enhancements.
R-C.c98cc2fe4a94bb5ac2bdf52bfafe1716


*Substitute connectivity with "Higher OG Xbox compatibility"
 
S

SpongebobSquaredance

Unconfirmed Member
They are running at their original speeds though! PAL versions always ran at 50fps.

Gotta love the way people are minimizing the value of multi-language support too. Like, seriously, if you're a global business addressing an international audience kinda matters!
You could just as easily argue the converse, that people who played some of these games back in the day in a PAL environment are facing a weirdly sped-up and brightened version of the game they remembered.

I'm from Europe and let me tell you something... NO ONE LIKED THIS.
Most of us were so happy when games started to be at normal speeds around the PS2 era.
 

sachos

Member
Yikes at people deflecting valid criticism just to defend their favourite brand.
On topic: This is such a disappointment... 1440p for PS1? 1080p for PSP? and even lower for PS2? I can do 4K on DuckStation, PPSSPP and PCSX2 with my GTX 960... the PS5 is more than capable enough of upscaling to 4K. The lack of perspective correction and dithering removing for PS1 games is also awful, without those two features PS1 games simply don't look that good when upscaled.
PAL versions are a disappointment, the CRT filter for PS1 is meh at best, we need something like CRT Royale for RetroArch.
The inclusion of the CRT filter and those weird scaling options on the PSP emulator shows to me that they don't know what they are doing really.

Basically the to do list/my wishlist right now is: Option to download NTSC version of games, Upscale to 4K at least on PS5, Option to enable perspective correction and option to disable dithering to improve upscaled presentation, Option to render at native resolucion with improved CRT Royale like filter for those wanting a more classic experience.
 

Kagey K

Banned
Imagine people wanting thier favorite games just as good or better now on modern high powered machines.

Now reality kicks in and they want people to pay more for a worse experience than they initially had 20 years ago

In what world does that make sense?

Yet people are here defending this?

Jesus.
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
Gotta love the way people are minimizing the value of multi-language support too. Like, seriously, if you're a global business addressing an international audience kinda matters!

If you cared about retro games you'd be using actual Retro hardware and software, that's actual preservation. If you actually cared about the software from a nostalgia perspective you'd want the experience replicated accurately down to the original discs and their boxes.
Its not like these are ancient relics either! Getting hold of a working PS1 or PS2 is not hard, and neither is getting the software for it. You are not being denied anything.
“If you cared about Latin classics, you’d be reading them on parchment rolls, that’s actual preservation.”
”If you cared about Star Wars, you’d only watch the original film reels of the versions before George Lucas started altering them with CG. If you really cared about these movies you’d want the experience replicated accurately down to the original film and its boxes.”

Have I made clear enough what a dumb deflection what you wrote is?

About the multi-language support, tell me: how important is having multiple European languages in a ISO file meant for an Asian market?
Also, it could be argued that since these games are so old that they’d be interesting only to a small audience, we may easily infer that the aforementioned small audience would want to experience them in their best version, which is pretty much invariably the English one. We may also think that these people would be old enough to know enough English to be able to play these games without the need for a localized version. In the past, localized versions of games have been literally forced on me, because some games, like Metal Gear Solid, didn’t offer a multi-language option and they were Italian only. As cutely hilarious as some local dubs were back then, I doubt anyone would want to go back to those today.


(fair counterpoint: if you cared about these games from a “nostalgia perspective”, you’d want to play them in the language you played them originally. And English is in all the multi-language versions anyway, so it’s not like you can’t play in English. “You are not being denied anything”… except the best-playing version of some games, and accurate emulation, which is part of preservation as much as the games themselves)
 

Shmunter

Member
Imagine people wanting thier favorite games just as good or better now on modern high powered machines.

Now reality kicks in and they want people to pay more for a worse experience than they initially had 20 years ago

In what world does that make sense?

Yet people are here defending this?

Jesus.
I actually don’t even know why people want this stuff. I only view pixel games as acceptable retro experiences due to the unique style.

3D stuff is mere nostalgic curiosity. And as they say - refrain from visiting your childhood heroes for risk of being disappointed.

These games are too close to what we have today but with little redeeming quality due to tech limitations of the era. Playing some of these at 30fps with those gfx? Not for me, but not to disparage those that enjoy this - as little of you as there may be.

Not to take away from Sony shiftiness. If you go out to do something, do it right.
 

Kagey K

Banned
I actually don’t even know why people want this stuff. I only view pixel games as acceptable retro experiences due to the unique style.

3D stuff is mere nostalgic curiosity. And as they say - refrain from visiting your childhood heroes for risk of being disappointed.

These games are too close to what we have today but with little redeeming quality due to tech limitations of the era. Playing some of these at 30fps with those gfx? Not for me, but not to disparage those that enjoy this - as little of you as there may be.

Not to take away from Sony shiftiness. If you go out to do something, do it right.
It is what it is.

People have tbier favorites and they want to go back.

You can already see it on the internet, people begging for Bloodborne and others saying it's so old so just forget it and move on.

It all depends what you are into, but you don't make a higher tier subscription, with that as a feature unless you are going to cater to those fans right.
 

12Dannu123

Member
Sony simply sucks at software engineering for anything that's not games. The fact that a Xbox Series S runs PS1 better than their own console while charging monthly for an inferior experience is ridiculous.

If this is the best they can do, we're going to be waiting a long long time for good quality PS3 support for future consoles.
 
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Pallas

Member
PS1 emulation is by far the least interesting thing of the new PS+ and yet it's the most talked about feature from a certain ratbase 🙄

They know it wouldn't look good if they start comparing the PS4/PS5 games so they stick to complaining about PS1 shit instead. They all worried 🤭
Maybe least interesting thing to you, I grew up on PS1-PS2 games. I’m also nostalgic as fuck, I know im not the only one. There’s a ton of love for retro games, especially retro JRPG’s.

I personally don’t give a fuck about comparing ps4/ps5 games with the competition.
 

Zathalus

Member
PS1 emulation is by far the least interesting thing of the new PS+ and yet it's the most talked about feature from a certain ratbase 🙄

They know it wouldn't look good if they start comparing the PS4/PS5 games so they stick to complaining about PS1 shit instead. They all worried 🤭
I love my PS5 and I honestly expected better. I was hoping for a ton of good emulated games to revisit and play the ones I missed. Instead we get this half assed attempt.
 

assurdum

Banned
Is it good enough for non nerd guy who doesn't care about performance?
Listen you no need to be a nerd to notice such performance issue, 50HZ stutter as hell and I don't tolerated it even on ps3 where games notoriously had shitty fps and barely care about it.
 
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Sony didn't put in the effort because they know most people don't give a shit about actually playing through ps1 games. It's a ripoff anyway. 13 pounds a month for a small selection of classic games? I really don't see alot of people going for that. It's the ps5 games on the extra tier that's going to be the main draw and Sony know it. The premium tier only exists for sony to squeeze money out of their loyal fanboys.
 
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Fredrik

Member
I think things will be improved over the time and there are some signs that they are listening (for example they are adding frame interpolation in 50Hz games) but in general expecting the level of options and performance that can be found on PC is not realistic.
The idea here is to have these games playable with a few bells and whistles.
It's emulated stuff, they won't rework manually every game to get the best possible results.
People who are looking for things like perfect frame rate, should probably stick to PC.
It doesn’t have to be perfect but it’s not that difficult to do it better than what we get here.

Simple solution:
Let people choose if they want to download the NTSC version, for 60/30 fps and correct proportions, or the PAL version for more languages.

Trying to do one version that fits all here won’t work, tons of people don’t need more languages, you even have english talking PAL countries, I definitely have no use for spanish or french or whatever in Sweden either.
 
It doesn’t have to be perfect but it’s not that difficult to do it better than what we get here.

Simple solution:
Let people choose if they want to download the NTSC version, for 60/30 fps and correct proportions, or the PAL version for more languages.

Trying to do one version that fits all here won’t work, tons of people don’t need more languages, you even have english talking PAL countries, I definitely have no use for spanish or french or whatever in Sweden either.

It would easy for sony to do this and they most likely will. Dont know why people are losing their shit. Relax. If you want to be outraged all the time over nothing, go to resetera.
 

Neff

Member
I'll stick with Series X for PSone games thanks.

No respect for their legacy.

In fairness, they are finally doing something rather than nothing, it's just that the something they're offering is pretty much a shitshow so far.

It's a real shame, because Sony used to be the industry best when it came to keeping legacy titles alive through BC. Now they're pretty much the worst.

Why not just include the choice to download NTSC versions? They can keep the PAL versions for those who absolutely need other languages.

Saves time and money. Every version of a game which goes up on PSN has to be licensed, tested and rated. They're just cutting down on the effort required because they're tightwads.

I'm from Europe and let me tell you something... NO ONE LIKED THIS.
Most of us were so happy when games started to be at normal speeds around the PS2 era.

This. God bless Nintendo and Sega for allowing me to buy the latest games from my high street once more as opposed to forking over a small fortune each time to shady importers.
 
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assurdum

Banned
Sony didn't put in the effort because they know most people don't give a shit about actually playing through ps1 games. It's a ripoff anyway. 13 pounds a month for a small selection of classic games? I really don't see alot of people going for that. It's the ps5 games on the extra tier that's going to be the main draw and Sony know it. The premium tier only exists for sony to squeeze money out of their loyal fanboys.
Yes but they clearly said BC is part of the attractive of the new subscription service. Put such minimal effort is very dangerous for the service image. Hope they look to the fans feedback caring more and updating it regularly in the next future.
 
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They are running at their original speeds though! PAL versions always ran at 50fps.

Gotta love the way people are minimizing the value of multi-language support too. Like, seriously, if you're a global business addressing an international audience kinda matters!

Also 80% of the $120 a year subscription is paying for a 400+ PS4/PS5 titles, and online functionality.

The REAL value of this element is $20 a YEAR. And that is bolstered by the old PSNow content, timed demo's and stuff.




Sorry but this argument is disingenuous in the extreme. As noted above its a part of the offering, not the totality.

If you cared about retro games you'd be using actual Retro hardware and software, that's actual preservation. If you actually cared about the software from a nostalgia perspective you'd want the experience replicated accurately down to the original discs and their boxes.
Its not like these are ancient relics either! Getting hold of a working PS1 or PS2 is not hard, and neither is getting the software for it. You are not being denied anything.

See, this is the thing that irks me the most about all this is the sense that its all part of a childish numbers game where its all about how many titles there are and how high the frame-rate is. It feels more about bragging rights than anything else.

Above all else it shows some seriously wooly thinking. I mean, here's the reality: Sony already have invested in BC product, all the stuff that's been on PSNow for the last 8 years for example. Do you really expect them to bin all that work? Do you expect them to miraculously have a hundred newly emulated titles ready for day #1?

Do you not think there are good reasons why the number of OG Xbox titles on Gamepass are so few compared to the number of 360 titles? Bear in mind PS1 titles are from a generation even further removed... The further back you go, the greater the likelihood that there are complications both technically and commercially.

Sorry it feels so fake and empty-headed to whinge about this stuff.
Authentic ps1 is real shit
ykayqyN.jpg
 

Fredrik

Member
It would easy for sony to do this and they most likely will. Dont know why people are losing their shit. Relax. If you want to be outraged all the time over nothing, go to resetera.
Relaxing won’t fix anything, being noisy and DF doing a critical deep dive days before the western launch could possibly work though. Hopefully Sony is listening.
Authentic ps1 is real shit
ykayqyN.jpg
Lol seeing it upside down brings back so many memories! It was a long time since I started mine but last time it still worked 💪
 

Filben

Member
- Incorrect frame pacing amplified to the max in some PAL game cut-scenes.
- Inside the game, PAL versions run at 25 FPS (Ape Escape shown). 17% slower than their NTSC counter parts. 60 FPS games run at 50 FPS on Pal.
GTFO

stopped reading after that because that's all what I need to know.
 

Agent X

Member
It doesn’t have to be perfect but it’s not that difficult to do it better than what we get here.

Simple solution:
Let people choose if they want to download the NTSC version, for 60/30 fps and correct proportions, or the PAL version for more languages.

Trying to do one version that fits all here won’t work, tons of people don’t need more languages, you even have english talking PAL countries, I definitely have no use for spanish or french or whatever in Sweden either.

I believe that they could do "one version that fits all", which is something I suggested in post #152 above. They would have to offer a modified version of the game, which would essentially combine the 60 Hz timing of the NTSC version with the multiple language options found in the PAL version. This would clearly require some development effort, and there might be some new licensing issues that would have to be dealt with. If they can manage to accomplish this, they would then have a single "definitive" version that they could use for any future releases of the game.

If that can't be done, then the "simple solution" that you described (which John also suggested in the Digital Foundry video) would suffice, although that might also encounter licensing hurdles. There's also an issue with how the saved game data would be handled if the user decides to switch between different versions of the game.
 

VinnyMac

Member
Wah you guys seriously fuxking cry about anything. Some of these games are 30 plus years old you wanna play it at its true nature? Grab a boob tube and the og hardware Sony ms or Nintendo don't owe you anything.
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Sony ms or Nintendo don't owe you anything
I'd say that the moment a company charges you for something, they owe you.

But yeah I agree. If you want to play the classics you are better off grabbing and old console and a CRT. Stop giving those clowns money for such low effort shits, and that goes for both Sony and Nintendo.
 
They fucked up the PS one mini and continue with their garbage efforts.

What do you guys expect? They don't give a fuck about old Playstation games.
Tp0rxP2.gif

"Why would anybody play this?"
 
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TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
The whole point of the premium tier is the PSX/PS2/PSP classics.
Sony needs to do better
Better emulation and more games
The games don't seem to even have texture filtering 🙄
 

Killer8

Member
PS1 emulation is by far the least interesting thing of the new PS+ and yet it's the most talked about feature from a certain ratbase 🙄

They know it wouldn't look good if they start comparing the PS4/PS5 games so they stick to complaining about PS1 shit instead. They all worried 🤭

The emulation is the main appeal of the most expensive Premium tier that Sony want you to spend $120 a year on. Of course it's going to come under scrutiny - not just by fanboys, but by everyday people who generally don't like wasting their money on a dogshit service.
 

GhostOfTsu

Banned
The emulation is the main appeal of the most expensive Premium tier that Sony want you to spend $120 a year on. Of course it's going to come under scrutiny - not just by fanboys, but by everyday people who generally don't like wasting their money on a dogshit service.
It's actually $20 more. Just save the 20 bucks and subscribe to Extra only. Not worth all this stress you guys are going through right now 😢
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
It's actually $20 more. Just save the 20 bucks and subscribe to Extra only. Not worth all this stress you guys are going through right now 😢
Spoken like a true corporate shill.

Instead of being like most gamers on game boards and website analyzers saying the feature is lacking and needs improvement, your suggestion is just skip the feature and play a different tier.

Well, I guess that's one way to ignore a feature with issues because it looks bad on the branded box.
 

GhostOfTsu

Banned
Spoken like a true corporate shill.

Instead of being like most gamers on game boards and website analyzers saying the feature is lacking and needs improvement, your suggestion is just skip the feature and play a different tier.

Well, I guess that's one way to ignore a feature with issues because it looks bad on the branded box.
What games are you playing on your Playstation?
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Thread is full of much "concern" and "copium"
Not much actual discussion sadly.

What constitutes as actual discussion ?

Half the people are saying Sony should have done better, the other half are saying "who cares about PS1 games".

anyway.



 

ManaByte

Member
What constitutes as actual discussion ?

Half the people are saying Sony should have done better, the other half are saying "who cares about PS1 games".

anyway.





And if you have a Vita, and own PS1 classics digitally, you can still download and play superior versions than what they're offering on PS+

I charged up my Vita the other night and I had more digital PSP games than I remembered. I just have the Resident Evil trilogy and the PSX FF games from the PS1.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
I suggest actually reading my post...
I covered both in it.

Excuse Me Reaction GIF by One Chicago



There's many posts in this topic with users suggesting how this can be improved, along with the folks showing their dismay and some folks being ok with it.

What else are you expecting on a discussion forum. Every thread is concern and copium by that metric.
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
“If you cared about Latin classics, you’d be reading them on parchment rolls, that’s actual preservation.”
”If you cared about Star Wars, you’d only watch the original film reels of the versions before George Lucas started altering them with CG. If you really cared about these movies you’d want the experience replicated accurately down to the original film and its boxes.”

I was pointing out the dishonesty of conflating actual preservation and nostalgia than the adolescent desire to simply have a longer list of games on your pile of shame.

I also think citing Star Wars is a pretty bad idea given how "Greedo shot first" was a big fucking deal to actual fans, and certainly more important than the adding-in of shitty CG detail to the background of scenes in order to conform to then "modern" visual standards!


Have I made clear enough what a dumb deflection what you wrote is?

Nah, you simply established a combative tone that I'm going to reciprocate.

About the multi-language support, tell me: how important is having multiple European languages in a ISO file meant for an Asian market?

The Asian market is relatively new, and games of that generation were rarely if ever localized. Not everyone in Asia speaks Japanese you dimwit!

Also, it could be argued that since these games are so old that they’d be interesting only to a small audience,

That's not an argument, that's a demonstrable fact.

we may easily infer that the aforementioned small audience would want to experience them in their best version, which is pretty much invariably the English one.

No its not. Regional variation is about more than display frequency. Its an idiotically reductive stance.

We may also think that these people would be old enough to know enough English to be able to play these games without the need for a localized version. In the past, localized versions of games have been literally forced on me, because some games, like Metal Gear Solid, didn’t offer a multi-language option and they were Italian only. As cutely hilarious as some local dubs were back then, I doubt anyone would want to go back to those today.

As per usual, its not all about you. Being able to understand what's going on matters a lot more to the general audience than frame-rate. Good luck on figuring out Meryl's codec frequency without the ability to understand that its written on the back of the box!

Also, localization in those days was a considerable headache. Just adjusting text for the wildly variable symbol counts of different written languages often involved tediously editing and reformatting to fit within the confines of a SD frame. It also ate memory and disk space which again was problematic within the strict 650mb limit of a CD.

Adding and subtracting different languages is non-trivial, and requires actual work on the binary - quite an issue when not only the source code and assets may be long lost, but the tools used to create builds are similarly obsolete. Emulation is not remastering.

fair counterpoint: if you cared about these games from a “nostalgia perspective”, you’d want to play them in the language you played them originally. And English is in all the multi-language versions anyway, so it’s not like you can’t play in English. “You are not being denied anything”… except the best-playing version of some games, and accurate emulation, which is part of preservation as much as the games themselves)

Again your assumption is that the binary contains all languages, when that's not likely. Furthermore it assumes that the actual content and function of different regional builds are the same, which again is fallacious.

Its worth noting that so-called "PAL Slowdown" demonstrates the need for region specific re-coding. We're talking about simple single-threaded programs that often used frame-counting for timing purposes, the facility to calculate time-delta the way that modern programs do was simply not on the table. And that's for real-time display, pre-encoded stuff like video files is obviously tied to its authoring standard.

20 plus years on its likely not easy to determine the degree of care and effort that was put into the localization. Results are going to vary on a per-case basis, and frankly as these titles are more or less offered as novelties to the primary market, there's little incentive to try and figure out which sku is the best option for any given market or individual user within it.

Years of grey-market emulation have effectively reduced the value of these works to negligibility. The calculation of opportunity cost versus return on investment ensures that these things HAVE to be turned out quickly and cheaply.
 
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