Best settings for PS1/PS2 games?
 

I've been researching quite a bit with regards to what the best settings are for playing PS1/PS2 games on a backwards compatible PS3 (or stricly PS1 games for all PS3s) and have found mixed results from what I have read and my own experiences.

Some say to turn off smoothing, some say turn on smoothing, some say to strictly play in 480p/i mode, some say 1080i is the best, some say don't stretch the image via the "full" upscale option, some say the TV manufacturer matters etc. Basically very confusing.

I myself have 3 PS3s (60gb NTSC, 60gb PAL, 320gb Slim) and primarily use my Pioneer plasma HDTV on 1080i (although I have also tested on a 50" 600hz Panasonic plasma HDTV and a 42" Samsung LCD HDTV), full screen for most games with smoothing on. All my games look pretty good but I can't help but feel with all of these different opinions on the matter and myself conducting different experiments with different TVs, different PS3s and different settings, there must be a criteria reached within the settings to get the best results possible that is universally agreed upon because right now it isn't.

So does anyone who has a) good technical knowledge about the PS3 and how it operates and b) has put this into practice with results, know what the optimal settings are for playing PS1/PS2 games on a PS3?

Thanks.

Something like this is strictly on a users preference and therefore the many different suggestions you have gotten, best you just test every combination of settings and see which one you like. Sorry if my suggestion was useless or was not what you were looking for.

I'd say it depends strictly on the TV used. Some TVs have great upscaling (possibly better than the PS3), others don't. As for smoothing it should indeed be a matter of preference

Both settings are doing reaaally a little to nothing. I believe athat all HDTVs after mid-2009 have really better scaller than the one found on PS3 so I always turn it off, believe it or not the results are better. The smoother tends to make text unreadable on PSOne games since they are all running at 320x240i@60Hz and it gives a weird blooming effect on games with white and black objects (I'm sure it's not my TV's fault, I can see that on 5 different TVs).
I can make a visual example how those effects/settings look in practice if you want...

Thanks for all your replies guys and I agree that the different results will suit different users with different TVs.

That would be fantastic dude thanks a lot! I read something from a few years back on IGN that did some comparison and as you said there isn't that much difference. It's a shame really, they haven't even included a disc-speed up option for PS1 games like they did for the PS2 along with other things they should've done with the PS3's power.

Thanks again.

My TV was manufactured in March 2010 and my PS3 upscales better :P

@Persian McLovin and @pereb27

Thanx!

So as promised, here's what PS3 does when it emulates PS2:(results vary a bit between full BC and software BC consoles, but the differences are mostly in shading and lighting effects)

I'll use Kingdom Hearts 2 for this example.

First PS3 renders a video frame at 512x448 pixels. (I know, ew, but PS2 does the same so it's just meh)
Here's a direct snapshot of a frame that PS3 renders (actual pixels):
http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/5164/directfeed.jpg

After that it streches the frame to 640x480 using a "nearest neighbor" algorythm in scalling (the same thing PS2 does), which is bad but at this slight streching amount the changes aren't really obvious but once you put on the setting of your PS3 to scale it to 1080p you expect to use a better algorythm since the resolution boost is really big, but PS3 uses instead again the "nearest neighbor" algorythm which makes reaaally obvious the jaggies to a point that it's annoying.(mostly on screens over 24-32 inches) Note that it doesn't strech it out to 16:9 aspect ratio but it streches it to 14:9 and it uses pillarboxing bars on the left and right sides which makes you wonder if the game is horizontaly streched or not, which is not a bad thing but the oversized now pixels tell you exactly what has been done in this process.
So here's how the render looks without the Smoother in 1080p mode:
http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/1...stneighbor.jpg

I don't understand why Sony insisted on using this nasty "Nearest Neighbor"
algorythm for scalling instead of the most commoun nowdays -and superior- Bicubic or Billinear scallers. The result is atleast 5 times better and it costs the same or even less resources for the scalling process which makes it really a shame they didn't use them.
Here's how it would look simply streched with one of the algorythms I suggested:
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/5500/billinear.jpg

So you decide that it's indeed annoying that kind of cheap scalling and you need to do something to get rid of those artifacts. Since PS3 is not rendering PS2 games to any other resolution than PS2's native there is only one option, a software solution. The solution Sony came up with is the Smoother; but, what does this "Smoother" do exactly? Well, you have to dig up inside the self files to understand what it does, and once you do find what it does you'll understand why PS2 emulation on PS3 is really a bad idea.
It takes the already scalled to 1080p render and simply applies a 1,95 pixel Blur to the whole screen... I mean seriously? Why would you do that? Couldn't they just use the Billinear/Bicubic Scalling which would kill the need for a scaller and a smoother at all in the XMB? Games would look perfect without the need to enable a smoother or a scaller and the process would be more light.
Well so here's how a screen looks like when you enable the smoother:
http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/4...orsmoother.jpg


I just wish PS3 was able to run PS2 at a higher resolution. This is how games could look if it would run them at real 1080P (14:9 always though)
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/2284/real1080.jpg

So to sum up here we go with the crash test:

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/3955/crashtest.jpg

-The upper left photo represents exactly how PS3 just scalles to 1080p using the bad Nearest Neigbor algorythm. (Many Jaggies)
-The upper right photo represents how PS3 scalles and the applies the Bluring effect to the whole image. (Things look out of focus, and I noticed that it makes small text unreadable or hard to read mostly in small TVs)
-The lower left photo represents exactly the same frame how it would have looked if the render was simply scalled to 1080p using the Billinear algorythm instead of any nearest neighbor and stupid smoother stuff. (Everything looks crisp and not out of focus or blurry, jaggies are smoothened)
-The lower right photo is how it looks in native 1080p resolution and fit to pixel per pixel. Notice the one that is billinear how near to this ones is opposed to the rest upper two.

I hope you enjoyed my post!

I must disagree with your post VIRGIN KLM.
You appear to be right about the upscaling algorhythm, the picture on my PS3 during PS2 emulation looks quite a lot like your "nearest neighbor" picture.
However, I am 2000% sure that the smoothing option does NOT add any blur to the image! Trust me I would notice if it added any blur. The smoothing feature looks more like 16x anti-aliasing than anything else to me. While upscaling without smoothing on my PS3 looks like your "nearest neighbor" picture, upscaling + smoothing looks a lot better than your "bilinear" picture.
I also feel the picture is also MUCH MUCH better on the PS3 with upscaling and smoothing on than on my PS2 via component.

Also... you need money to buy items? Really? Damn... didn't know that. Must be why the police is after me.

if you change the format from its normal thing it looks like sheit all choppy and crappy there must be a way to upgrade graphics instead of downgrade them i mean come on really why can't it be possible for a freakin ps3 to play ps1 ps2 any other single game with it's so modern day tech what's so complicated therre both computer machines the ps2 is far better then the ps3 for gaming of what ever it does for gameplay
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How do i get my ps3 to play ps1, ps2 game's to look like that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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there should be a permanent thread sticky on this subject

Believe me, I pulled out those processes directly from the lines inside the ps2_gxemu.self and vsh.self, what they represent is a nearest neigbhbor calculation to 14:9 at 1080p and a wholescreen Blur effect with a 1.9 pixel thresshold. (I think what I say it's mentioned also in the some archieves from PS3 that leaked) PS3 cannot interfere in the pre-render state of your visual result. Your TV might actually be more good than what you believe, it may process the result aswell like adding a noise reduction filter etc but try to capture the result with a video recorder and you'll understand what I mean.
Notice that the results are different between GS+EE consoles and partial software emulation consoles, it calculated differently the brightest and the darkest places of the screen, also the lighting effects are done with a different way and alot of other stuff that in practice are visually different.
Also on PSOne it does exactly the same but imagine that PSOne is not 512x448 but 320x240i@60Hz so imagine how bad the result is...
Try to play a game on PS2 with GSMode selector and 480p or 720p options on. You'll never come back to PS3! I was really impressed!