PAL or NTSC

[cyber]

I usually prefer PAL version of the game because it is easier to achieve 50 fps rather than 60 fps.
Even if , say, PAL titles are a little more work for the emulator and you achieve 45 fps for PAL , and 50 fps for NTSC, the PAL would still be perceived as running faster because 45/50 = 90%, and 50/60 = 83.33% of actual speed.

I saw another thread like this which said PAL games actually feel slower than the real game speed of 60 fps NTSC, because they run at 50 frames.

I don't agree , since I have PAL games and most let me choose between 50zh or 60hz version , and on PS2 I play 60 hz, versus emulator where I play the 50hz (50 pfs) version, and I don't notice ANY speed loss whatsoever, so the game doesn't feel any slower.
With all that said , the NTSC games seem to be a little better emulated , and when it comes to picky games like GT4, only in NTSC they are fully playable.

In conclusion , if you have trouble achieving 60 fps , then PAL is your friend. If you don't have this problem, than go with NTSC.

[Umino]

However, sometimes they screw up other things on the conversion.

I just avoid EU altogether and go for US or JP games.

hehe - i would if i could but because i'm living in germany its hard to get US/JP originals - i hate it - many german versions are not just crappy conversions - most games containing violence are cut and crippled 'till it hurts to match some stoopid youth protection policy - thanks to that i can't play "mortal combat: shaolin monks" without the screen going black every time i trigger a fatality - WHO THE HELL DECIDED THAT ?

by the way - DOES the playstation even give a damn about different resolutions ? for example the PAL version of resident evil: code veronica - PCSX says it runs at a native resolution of 640x480 - other games run at 512x512 or 640x512 - thats neither a real PAL nor a real NTSC resolution - but the games are always filling the whole screen - so i think it doesnt matter to the playstation itself - it just somehow stretches the output to fit the screen - like in resident evil 4 where you can select if you have a 16:9 or 4:3 screen - in 4:3 mode it just adds black bars to keep the correct ratio while the internal resolution stays the same

seeing that i think the only thing really matters is the framerate - or am i missing something ?

[Air]

seeing that i think the only thing really matters is the framerate - or am i missing something ?

Fairly accurate assessment. The Graphic Synthesizer (GS) on the PS2 has effectively two resolutions involved in generating output -- an internal framebuffer resolution and the external TV signal resolution. The exact inter-workings of these resolutions is somewhat complicated but, for the most part, the internal framebuffer is set to one size and is then stretched to fit the external output.

This is not unlike GSdx's own internal resolution option, which is subsequently stretched to fit your window/screen.

So like games with dual 50/60hz options will change the external output signals to the TV to enable 60hz PAL mode, but will retain the same internal framebuffer.

edit: Note that widescreen support on the PS2 is another interesting matter, because the PS2's GS simply doesn't have enough memory for a true 1080i image. So instead games typically use something like 640x940i (which is 640x480 progressive), and then upscale it to 1920 at the output circuit stage.

[Dadaluma83]

One question I always wondered is why does Sony or the third party developers have 50 fps for PAL and 60 for NTSC? Why not just have all versions be the same and all at 60?

I know PAL games are usually hacks of NTSC versions and I know censorship makes things different buying games in various countries but why not just have the same version for the whole world? Just different languages of course.

[Air]

... because TV sets in Europe use a PAL signal, and traditionally that is limited to 50fps. PAL is in fact a more advanced form of data encoding compared to NTSC which allows for much more accurate hue correction, and it has a higher resolution display also. Neither of these really matter in the modern HDTV age, tho.

Starting in the early 90's most new PAL televisions could support 60fps, however. So nowdays most Euro ports of games offer up the 50/60 selector.

[Koji]

Neither sony nor any third parties had any real say in the matter... unless they didn't want their games to work on european televisions.

When standards were set in the US, Europe, and asia for television broadcast... 30 frames per second was set as the standard for North America (well 29.97) with 480 lines of video. Europe however went with 25 frames per second, but with 525 (I think, going off of an old memory) lines of resolution. Basically, European televisions had fewer frames per second and thus a slightly less smooth video, but they had more lines of resolution and thus better picture clarity. TV's were given twice their signal refresh to cut down on ghosting... Hence 60fps NTSC, 50 FPS pal. If you tried to run a NTSC signal on a PAL TV... the best you could hope for was completely screwed up color. More often it gave bad skipping scan lines that made viewing completely impossible, and likewise vise-versa.


Fast forward 50 years (give or take some years). Now we have game systems. The vast majority of video games are developed wither in North America, or Japan. Both countries use the NTSC standard (60fps). Most of the time developers don't put much thought or effort into planning what happens to their games after being released in their own country.

Now say Ubisoft wants to release these US or Japanese games in Europe... The games aren't designed to run at fewer fps... You can either spend a ton of time rewriting the video code to support the higher resolutions and lower frame rates of a european television... Or you can do the much cheaper alternative, which is half assing it. Slowing the game down by 1/6th and simply stretching the image to fit the screen.


-sighs- I may have ranted... Doing a bunch of things at once isn't conductive of a coherent post...

Short version: A long time ago, North American companies and european countries settled on different television standards. Europe lacks good game developers so lazy porters toss hacked up code on to their consoles to make a cheap buck. If you tried to play 60fps north american or japanese games on a european TV, you'd get something completely unwatchable.

(edit) Long rambling post was beaten by much more concise and informative post.

[dotHack]

This is not unlike GSdx's own internal resolution option, which is subsequently stretched to fit your window/screen.

This I never understood completely... say if I have a 1280x800 res screen, what's the best configuration for "internal res"?? is it 1280x800 or some other? because I think that's the resolution of the textures... is it not? and textures usually tend to be squares or something like that, like 512x512 or so...

[Franpa]

Unless the game developers drop frames every second to keep it in sync with 50hz, they will need to change the timing for everything. The new timing approach is where most bugs from porting are introduced iirc. A lot of ports in the N64 and earlier era also didn't accomadate the greater vertical resolution of PAL so you had a letterbox display.

This is just a guess. Also, 60hz is better (PAL 60) as more displays support that refresh rate

[N1njaSol1d]

The OP is obviously a pirate and wants to know which version to download. But the answer to your question is use the game that you legally own for whichever version of your bios you have dumped on your pc.

[Umino]

Note that widescreen support on the PS2 is another interesting matter, because the PS2's GS simply doesn't have enough memory for a true 1080i image. So instead games typically use something like 640x940i (which is 640x480 progressive), and then upscale it to 1920 at the output circuit stage.

of course the PS2 doesnt use any HD resolution for their "widescreen enabled" games - but it seems to be possible because there is some "HD enabler" disc sold by Xploder wich claims to be able to "boost" games resolution to either a 480p, 720p or even a 1080 resolutions - i saw that one as i was working at a nearby Game Stop - it came with a component cable to wire the PS2 to a HD television

damn - thats one thing sony REALLY could have done to the PS2 - make a menu in BIOS that lets you select your output resolution and aspect ratio and have games rely on THAT for their output instead of having every game boil up their own soup with some games using interlaced crap and some games going progressive or doing only 16:9 / 4:3 or doing only 50/60 hz

it would not even have needed support for HD resolutions - but a simple option to set a games aspect ratio and enable progressive output on EVERY game would have done a REALLY good job

i mean there IS an option in the bios that lets you select 16:9 or 4:3 but what on earth is that option good for once you leave bios an boot a game ?

nothing what-so-ever

even microsoft and nintendo realized the usefullness of such a game-independent graphics option and built it into their latest consoles while the PS3 still only relies on the output options the specific game offers if i am not mistaken