Some PS2 games just look better in #PCSX2

#ps2games #playstation2 #emulation #emulator

[PabloB]

I used to play PS2 games at the highest resolution possible, but I realised that higher resolution allows to see not only more details but also more imperfections. The thing is PS2 games were made with low quality assets created with equally low 640x480 resolution in mind, not 4K. As a results it's much easier to notice low poly models at higher resolutions, LOD transition (especially in racing games). Upscaled textures also don't look nearly as sharp when streetched to much higher resolution. On top of that PCSX2 has some issues when running PS2 games at higher resolutions. Sometimes postprocessing (bloom/fog) filter isnt aligned correctly, or there are some strange lines/edges (artifacts) like in God of war 1 and 2 in certain locations.

Now I'm playing PS2 games on PC at 480i/p with nearest neighbour upscaling + integer. The image is extremely pixelated on my 1440p PC monitor or 4K TV and no wonder why most people hate that look but I'm using CRT emulation to address this problem. With the CRT shaders I use there is no pixelation and the CRT mask also gives this illusion of higher resolution and even AA. In the end I get very sharp and clean image (no pixelation) that look much better compared to my SDR CRT (there's huge improvement in sharpness, for example I can easily read the map in GTA SA) and even CRT monitor (the image is equally sharp, but without big scanliness everything looks much cleaner). I also prefer the look of this image to the native 1440p, as I find this 480i/p to be more detailed to my mind. The CRT mask is only an illusion of higher resolution, but it works extremely well. I have never seen PS2 games looking this good.

And BTW. in GOW2 it's better to use 480i instead of 480p. The thing is, this game runs natively at 512x448, but when you turn on progressive scan this image is upscaled to 640x480. The image looks much softer because of that and it will look even softer when you try to upscale it to higher resolutions (integer scaling). There are very few games on the PS2 that really runs at 480p (tekken 4/5, burnout 2/3, black, outrun 2, GT4) and for everything else is better to use 480i, because the image will not be upscaled to 480p.

[FrozenInPain]

Except that pscx2 is horribly optimized