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Chrono Cross AI Upscaled running Beetle PSX

Einherjer

Einherjer

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Oct 27, 2017
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For the longest time there was no way to load custom textures in a psx emulator, reddit user Tiriosaurus released a version of Beetle PSX which allowes swapping of textures of higher resolution in the emulator for Chrono Cross. It looks surprisingly good all things considered.




Edit: Tiriosaurus uploaded the 5gb wip pack, if anyone want's to try it there is a link to the pack and the modified Beetle PSX core in his reddit profile: https://www.reddit.com/user/Tiriosaurus
 
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Mantrox

Mantrox

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Oct 27, 2017
2,907
If the PS5 could somehow apply an AI treatment to ps1\2 games like this, and have a speed up\down option, oooffff.
 
ScOULaris

ScOULaris

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Oct 25, 2017
9,574
AI upscaling methods are really the future for bringing retro games onto modern displays and devices. It makes such a huge difference.
 
Akela

Akela

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Oct 28, 2017
1,849
This + the PGXP plugin that adds perspective correct textures and removes the jittery polygons would look incredible.
 
Dice

Dice

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Oct 25, 2017
22,213
Canada
Small aside, I'm super blue you can't view that title screen w/o the title/credits. But ....goddamn...the rest. Need.
 
Meows

Meows

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Oct 28, 2017
6,399
This is incredible, the most beautiful looking game of the PS1 looks even more beautiful.

uEpqQps.gif
 

Deleted member 8752

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That's the closest to "good" I've seen on a modern screen. I still think a proper CRT with RGB looks more consistent and enjoyable, but you do see more character model detail at this resolution than you would at 240p, and the backrounds - while smeared quite a bit by the AI, probably are better than just a straight upscale.

It still looks wrong though. The polygonal assets stick out like a sore thumb against the backdrops - an issue you don't see on an original-hardware setup.

If I were to play the game on a modern screen, however, this is probably how I'd do it.
 
Son of Liberty

Son of Liberty

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Verified
Nov 5, 2017
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Hearing that music instantly throws me back twenty years ago, so wonderful.
I would play a re-release of this game that's similar to FFVIII Remastered.
 
TheIdiot

TheIdiot

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Oct 27, 2017
2,729
This is one of my favorite RPGs ever. I think I may dust off the PS3 and play it after Last of Us 2. This and FF9 defined my summer break before high school LOL. Good times.
 
adz2ka

adz2ka

Member
Nov 1, 2017
1,034
F'sake.

That opening montage that plays if you leave the title screen running gets to me. Every. Single. Time
Such a shame there's no legitimate way of playing this in the UK that doesn't involve spending hundreds on a physical copy.
 

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Einherjer said:
For the longest time there was no way to load custom textures in a psx emulator, reddit user Tiriosaurus released a version of Beetle PSX which allowes swapping of textures of higher resolution in the emulator for Chrono Cross. It looks surprisingly good all things considered.

Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'm not really an RPG fan, but I can appreciate that art style. Very nice.
 
Dant21

Dant21

Member
Apr 24, 2018
842
Peltz said:
That's the closest to "good" I've seen on a modern screen. I still think a proper CRT with RGB looks more consistent and enjoyable, but you do see more character model detail at this resolution than you would at 240p, and the backrounds - while smeared quite a bit by the AI, probably are better than just a straight upscale.

It still looks wrong though. The polygonal assets stick out like a sore thumb against the backdrops - an issue you don't see on an original-hardware setup.

If I were to play the game on a modern screen, however, this is probably how I'd do it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Have to agree with you here. This is an incredible result, but Chrono Cross is almost unique in how much different it looks on modern displays compared to CRTs.
 
Meows

Meows

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Oct 28, 2017
6,399
Perfect time to remind everyone that Masashi Hamauzu is kickstarting a piano collections for Chrono Cross with the approval of Mitsuda.

 
jacks81x

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Oct 25, 2017
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One of my favorite game soundtracks of all time. I really hope this gets a Remaster/Remake treatment someday.
 
texhnolyze

texhnolyze

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Oct 25, 2017
23,153
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I swear that if SE decided to port this to modern platforms, it WILL look worse than this.

Anyway, what's with the high contrast? It made the shadows too strong and dark in some scenes.
 

lemmykoopah

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Oct 29, 2017
740
Holy fuck this is incredible. It looks like a real official 2020 remaster. Is there something like this for Xenogears?
 
Garlador

Garlador

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Oct 30, 2017
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Beautiful music, beautiful graphics, great gameplay, epic story...

It's definitely a classic JRPG masterpiece and I dream of a proper remaster.
 
"D."

"D."

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Oct 30, 2017
2,486
Its ridiculous how beautiful and vibrant this game was (is)

A TERRIBLE shame it doesn't get the love it probably deserves in the RPG community
 
Sanctuary

Sanctuary

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Oct 27, 2017
14,203
Some of that looks good, but too much of it has the annoying smear factor going on that XBR filters do that makes everything look melted.
 
waugh

waugh

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texhnolyze said:
I swear that if SE decided to port this to modern platforms, it WILL look worse than this.

Anyway, what's with the high contrast? It made the shadows too strong and dark in some scenes.
Click to expand...
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Of course it would. Square Enix has proven that they don't give a single shit for their legacy platform unless it's FF7. I'm still kind of shocked they bothered to remaster FFIX and FFVIII. Square Enix is probably one of the most frustrating companies out there. They're better than Konami at least but that's not saying much.
 
jett

jett

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Oct 25, 2017
44,653
I've seen better upscaled backgrounds elsewhere. Those don't look very good.
 
Nano-Nandy

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Mar 26, 2019
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Leo-Tyrant said:
What are you talking about, Chrono Cross reviewed well back in the day, and is (mostly) well remembered.
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As a big Chrono Cross fan since day one, nah! :p
It always lives in the shadows of Trigger and is constantly frowned upon because of the characters and story...across online communities. Small vocal minority, maybe... but a loud one at that. XD

Same with FFVIII, I consider this two as the best PSOne RPGs (and in my case, ever); but they rarely get praised... vocally.
 
Leo-Tyrant

Leo-Tyrant

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Jan 14, 2019
5,081
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jett said:
I've seen better upscaled backgrounds elsewhere. Those don't look very good.
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I agree.

I believe a critical aspect that some projects may be overlooking is that an actual artist needs to be involved.

Yes the AI can do a good baseline job (sometimes, in other occasions it will just smear everything and look even worse than a standar XBR filter), but you need someone (or even a team) to manually correct imperfections or even to "normalize" the overall image-composition (make everything look coherent).

Of course this is far more time consuming and expensive, but is one of the reasons I dont automatically praise all of these "magically AI upscaled" projects:

Sometime the upscale works, sometimes it doesn't.

Right now I preffer to play CC on an actual PS1 connected to a CRT, or running via Retroarch with the royale shader and some of the perspective corrections Beetle Hardware options enabled. Both approaches look FAR more consistent (3D on top of 2D) and aesthetically pleasing to me.
 
"D."

"D."

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Oct 30, 2017
2,486
Leo-Tyrant said:
What are you talking about, Chrono Cross reviewed well back in the day, and is (mostly) well remembered.
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A lot of people didn't like it since it wasn't a "direct sequel" to Trigger and wasn't tied closely enough to it and that it didn't go more into the Radical Dreamers storyline. Also, they didn't like all the mostly "useless" characters you could recruit
 
0x03

0x03

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Oct 25, 2017
109
Whoa, this is kind of huge. If I recall correctly, textures on the PSX are sampled directly from VRAM, which makes loading upscaled versions much trickier than other systems. There's even an outstanding bounty to implement this functionality in Retroarch. I haven't looked at the source yet, but I hope the approach is generalized enough to work with other games.

Agreed that the quality of the upscaled assets could be better, but others have taken a stab at it with impressive results. I recently replayed FF9 PC with Moguri Mod installed and it looks fantastic with the upscaled backgrounds. Can't wait for the day when I can have a similar experience with Chrono Cross.
 
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