Best Visuals for Policenauts

Talk about Kojima's hard sci-fi masterpiece.
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Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by Rio_Brando »

Going back to the first time of when I played Policenauts, I remember everything lookin sharp-ish,clear, and readable. Now it could be just old memories tricking me, but on my 2nd playthrough of Policenauts, it looks, worse? I can still understand the words and read everything. It just seems like it doesnt look as good as it used to. I've been using ePSXe with Peop's Soft Driver 1.18. Anyone have any idea to "maximize" Policenauts to a better look?

http://i.imgur.com/ZdHUuf2.png

http://i.imgur.com/fIBKbIn.png
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by SnatcherMkII »

I haven't tested it, but I heard Mednafen PSX is the best Playstation emulator to play 2D PSX games thanks to its native resolution and its high degree of accuracy and compatibility.

If you want to use it, I suggest using RetroArch with an Mednafen PSX libretro core, since RetroArch uses shaders to make the video looking like a CRT TV for example.

Here's the download: http://www.libretro.com/index.php/downloads/
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by Rio_Brando »

Thanks man, it took sometime figuring out how retroarch works, but after i managed to figure out everything and loaded up Policenauts with a dithering shader the game looked great. One thing so far is that I don't see any mouse support, but i can deal with using a controller.
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by Artemio »

Try linedoubling, no filters and scanlines at 25%
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by AwesomeBrand »

for shits n giggles visual comparisons between different emulators would be nice. That or I could NOT be lazy and download medafan
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by Rio_Brando »

This is just going to boil down to me experimenting for a couple hours trying to get this to look the greatest it can. I'll probably post some shots if i actually get anything good.
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by Artemio »

Here's how it looks like when played on a real playstation via RGB21, using an upscaler and scanlines, displayed on a 1080p LCD TV set:

ImagePolicenauts

The upscaler just does line doubling with scanlines, to 480p of course. That's why I recommend these settings.
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by Rio_Brando »

After playing around in ePSXe more, this is what i've achieved, rendering it at 640x480p.
http://i.imgur.com/6u0vDan.png

http://i.imgur.com/oYPxJL3.png

http://i.imgur.com/hPPV41d.png
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by Marc »

Nice avatar, fellow Marylander. :)
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by Rio_Brando »

Marc wrote:Nice avatar, fellow Marylander. :)
thanks man, i'm sure some people understand as to why i have it as my avatar ;^)
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by best name ever »

Rio_Brando wrote:Thanks man, it took sometime figuring out how retroarch works, but after i managed to figure out everything and loaded up Policenauts with a dithering shader the game looked great. One thing so far is that I don't see any mouse support, but i can deal with using a controller.
Mednafen does have mouse support for the PSX. The Retroarch core of it should still have it available, though I don't know if they've changed the way its enabled.
Try pressing "Ctrl+Shift F1" and see if you can cycle through types of controller inputs, like in vanilla Mednafen.

EDIT:
Artemio wrote:Here's how it looks like when played on a real playstation via RGB21, using an upscaler and scanlines, displayed on a 1080p LCD TV set:
ImagePolicenauts
That looks really nice! Thanks for sharing that Artemio :)
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by AwesomeBrand »

Artemio wrote:Here's how it looks like when played on a real playstation via RGB21, using an upscaler and scanlines, displayed on a 1080p LCD TV set:

ImagePolicenauts

The upscaler just does line doubling with scanlines, to 480p of course. That's why I recommend these settings.
...
...
...
And I thought scanlines were useless things that just made the screen darker.
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by Artemio »

AwesomeBrand wrote:And I thought scanlines were useless things that just made the screen darker.
Scanlines are part of the video signal, in a way. These games are (were) all displayed in 240p mode (or 288p in PAL), hence only half of the video signal was used vertically. Horizontally, an analog equivalent of pixel doubling happens.

When a CRT was big enough, say bigger than 21 inches, the scanlines are quite noticeable. Of course this depends on your sitting distance.

If you consider the display the system was using, then you consider that scanlines are an integral part of the look and image of the game. If you consider the image ends at the digital level, in the framebuffer of the console if one exists, then you don't consider scanlines to be a part of the look. I consider the second opinion incorrect as you might assume, since the game system was only capable of giving its output as an analog signal that was displayed only in this manner.
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by best name ever »

AwesomeBrand wrote: And I thought scanlines were useless things that just made the screen darker.
Definitly not.
The scanlines on old CRT's were, for the most part, taken into consideration when making the graphics for older console games.
Think of it like grain on older movies.

EDIT: Looks like Artemio beat me to the punch. He explains it better then me.
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by Rio_Brando »

best name ever wrote:
Rio_Brando wrote:Thanks man, it took sometime figuring out how retroarch works, but after i managed to figure out everything and loaded up Policenauts with a dithering shader the game looked great. One thing so far is that I don't see any mouse support, but i can deal with using a controller.
Mednafen does have mouse support for the PSX. The Retroarch core of it should still have it available, though I don't know if they've changed the way its enabled.
Try pressing "Ctrl+Shift F1" and see if you can cycle through types of controller inputs, like in vanilla Mednafen.

I tried alot of things to get the mouse to work, even did it through the settings and it seemed like nothing wanted to work. I had to navigate the little bit with my keyboard around the game.
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by TechNoir »

Rio_Brando wrote:More Screenshots here, this time from Retroarch.
http://i.imgur.com/kzYKamj.png

http://i.imgur.com/efTomyZ.png

http://i.imgur.com/Bf7zSgo.png
I think it's too blurry, stick with the ePSXe.
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by best name ever »

TechNoir wrote: I think it's too blurry, stick with the ePSXe.
Yeah it looks smudged up, not exactly what I prefer either.
Though it's also stretched to wide screen, voiding its originial aspect ratio (full screen 4:3).
Stretching it to widescreen makes everything look off.
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by Rio_Brando »

Here's some more shots done in 4:3, I'm still messing around with the settings seeing what they bring.

http://i.imgur.com/ecVKXmb.png

http://i.imgur.com/5fQ1mMb.png

http://i.imgur.com/QhFdRGE.png
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by TheThrillness »

Artemio wrote:Here's how it looks like when played on a real playstation via RGB21, using an upscaler and scanlines, displayed on a 1080p LCD TV set:

ImagePolicenauts

The upscaler just does line doubling with scanlines, to 480p of course. That's why I recommend these settings.
Is that from the XRGB 3? I wonder what the XRGB Mini upscaling to 720p/1080p would look like. I guess it would pretty much just look like what the PSN store game would look like if you enable PS upscaling. I guess if anybody wants I can take 1080p upscaled PS3 screenshots and post them to compare against emulators or something.
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by Artemio »

TheThrillness wrote: Is that from the XRGB 3? I wonder what the XRGB Mini upscaling to 720p/1080p would look like. I guess it would pretty much just look like what the PSN store game would look like if you enable PS upscaling. I guess if anybody wants I can take 1080p upscaled PS3 screenshots and post them to compare against emulators or something.
Yes, that was an XRGB-3 outputting 480p via VGA and my TV upscaling it to 1080p, since that set did very linear scaling when dealing with VGA signals.

The mini looks just the same in 720p, but via HDMI. Via 1080p it has a bug with scanline display though. It looks way better than a PS3, I've compared them personally. Unfortunatelly the PS3's output is very poor in this regard.
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by TechNoir »

If only those devices weren't so big and expensive.
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Re: Best Visuals for Policenauts

Post by Artemio »

They are not big at all. The xrgb mini is the size of two dvd cases stacked.

As far as price goes, I figure it is the price of three or four current gen games that unlock the full potential of my old console library.
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