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Man the PS1 texture warping in retrospect was rough.
- Thread starter ItWasMeantToBe19
- Start date
Not only do I find this dope and introduced a kind of moving world, the way it enhanced every game that even slightly had codes from the horror genre makes it great and not as bad as I would consider.
Try playing Vagrant Story with the texture correction. It looks like a blocky mess. Play it on original hardware and it is a gorgeous, living world despite being a necropolis
Try playing Vagrant Story with the texture correction. It looks like a blocky mess. Play it on original hardware and it is a gorgeous, living world despite being a necropolis
Ahh, Ape Escape was such a good game, I ought to go back to it someitme and see it through to the end. (Not sure about the PS2 sequels though?)
Doesn't bother me in the least. I think a related phenom is I'm playing Shadow Tower right now and its polygonal walls constantly shimmer wtih black speckly outlines (glimpses into the outer void, I'd assume) showing they're made up of squares. I dunno though, I'm not bothered. It's not like I'm playing a 20-year-old, first-gen 3D From Software game for well-executed visuals, y'know?
Related, I'm a stickler on framerate for modern games and while 60+ is still best, I'm more tolerant of lower fps in most 32-bit stuff, within reason. Maybe the lower res makes it less jarring to me.
The notion that some in this thread are sharing about texture warping imparting a sense of "life" is really interesting, something I'd never considered.
Doesn't bother me in the least. I think a related phenom is I'm playing Shadow Tower right now and its polygonal walls constantly shimmer wtih black speckly outlines (glimpses into the outer void, I'd assume) showing they're made up of squares. I dunno though, I'm not bothered. It's not like I'm playing a 20-year-old, first-gen 3D From Software game for well-executed visuals, y'know?
Related, I'm a stickler on framerate for modern games and while 60+ is still best, I'm more tolerant of lower fps in most 32-bit stuff, within reason. Maybe the lower res makes it less jarring to me.
The notion that some in this thread are sharing about texture warping imparting a sense of "life" is really interesting, something I'd never considered.
This was PSX's hardware Achilles' heel and the major reason why 3D graphics on it never clicked on me. Games like Super Mario 64, OOT, Banjo-Kazooie, etc., would never be made on the PSX hardware with the same graphical fidelity. In order to hide PSX's hardware limitations, devs constantly relied on pre-rendered backgrounds and limited ranged spaces. Games like Tomb Raider, Medal of Honor, Driver and Syphon Filter aged horribly in this aspect, even back in the day they were rough.
Every console of the early to mid '90s had to make major compromises in order to manage to produce 3d graphics. The Playstation released at just the right time to get a very good balance between power and performance on the one hand, and price on the other. Unfortunately for a Sony hater like me, nobody else managed it nearly as well -- the N64 released later and certainly has much better graphics than Playstation but also has a few compromises with its texture resolutions and framerates; the Saturn theoretically matches or beat the PS1, but between its much higher price and horribly difficult programming usually falls behind Sony; the 3DO at its best can match early PS1 graphics, but released too early to hold up to its better-looking games; the Jaguar could have been good if its hardware wasn't a buggy mess but it is, and it'd be much less powerful regardless due to its earlier release date (though I think its being bad at textures has helped its games age better for sure! Flat shading doesn't get as dated as mid '90s textures.); the PC-FX has fantastic video playback, better than any of the above apparently, but can't do 3d at all and failed miserably as a result; and the other systems are minor.
So yes, PS1 3d absolutely can be hard to go back to, as the polygons warp all over the place and those horribly pixelated textures and jagged, aliased edges hurt my eyes, but every system of the era had major compromises of some kind of another; hardware was not advanced enough yet to do the flaw-free, high framerate 3d you see in the 6th-generation consoles, and that is part of what makes 5th-gen 3d so interesting... what did people need to do on each format to make 3d games? What were the compromises, and what subjectively do I think works better or worse, between the approaches? And such.
That said, in terms of graphics, certainly the 3DO does not match up to the PS1 -- 3DO graphics at their best match early PS1 graphics, which is well off from the system's peak. But the later, best-looking 3DO games manage to look decent for the time -- Star Fighter, Blade Force, and such. The 3DO is also not great at FMV playback, with relatively low-quality video compared to later consoles, or the CD-i before it -- compare 3DO vs. CD-i Dragon's Lair, it's not even close. There are things to like about the 3DO to be sure though, visually, Star Fighter looks great...
As for the Jaguar, I got a Jag last year and disagree on that one, its mostly flat-shaded polygons have aged quite well! Sure, the framerates in 3d games are often atrocious so if that's what you mean I agree, but those super-pixelated PS1 polygons, something I've always disliked the look of, are not an issue on Jaguar most of the time because most 3d Jag games don't use textures. I don't know, I like the look of games like Iron Soldier and I-War. Club Drive is quite charming as well. And the Jag, when programmed well, can handle better framerates in 2d games than the 3DO -- compare Jag Rayman to 3DO Gex. (Yes, I know Jag Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure runs badly because of how horribly buggy the Jag hardware is, presumably, but the system can do better...)
As for the CD-i, I got one of those last year too and what it does well it does VERY well -- when it comes to video playback, I don't think there is any doubt that the CD-i, with its digital video cart addon, is the best by far of all consoles released before 1994, and it matches or beats most of the consoles of '94 as well; only the PC-FX definitely matches it, though the PS1 got there eventually and the Saturn can with the digital video cart. For those "images with music or voice description" discs, video-heavy games, and the like, the system shows off how much better it is than a Sega CD or Turbo CD. Certainly, when it comes to animating a platformer game or such it struggles since the hardware was not designed to do that well, but hating on the CD-i seriously undersells how impressive its video playback was for the time. The video in CD-i games holds up far, far better than video in its contemporary systems like the SCD.
So yes, PS1 3d absolutely can be hard to go back to, as the polygons warp all over the place and those horribly pixelated textures and jagged, aliased edges hurt my eyes, but every system of the era had major compromises of some kind of another; hardware was not advanced enough yet to do the flaw-free, high framerate 3d you see in the 6th-generation consoles, and that is part of what makes 5th-gen 3d so interesting... what did people need to do on each format to make 3d games? What were the compromises, and what subjectively do I think works better or worse, between the approaches? And such.
Purely looking at texture warping, the 3DO isn't as bad as the PS1 because, like the Saturn, it uses quads instead of triangles, and quads have much less noticeable warping than triangles.
That said, in terms of graphics, certainly the 3DO does not match up to the PS1 -- 3DO graphics at their best match early PS1 graphics, which is well off from the system's peak. But the later, best-looking 3DO games manage to look decent for the time -- Star Fighter, Blade Force, and such. The 3DO is also not great at FMV playback, with relatively low-quality video compared to later consoles, or the CD-i before it -- compare 3DO vs. CD-i Dragon's Lair, it's not even close. There are things to like about the 3DO to be sure though, visually, Star Fighter looks great...
As for the Jaguar, I got a Jag last year and disagree on that one, its mostly flat-shaded polygons have aged quite well! Sure, the framerates in 3d games are often atrocious so if that's what you mean I agree, but those super-pixelated PS1 polygons, something I've always disliked the look of, are not an issue on Jaguar most of the time because most 3d Jag games don't use textures. I don't know, I like the look of games like Iron Soldier and I-War. Club Drive is quite charming as well. And the Jag, when programmed well, can handle better framerates in 2d games than the 3DO -- compare Jag Rayman to 3DO Gex. (Yes, I know Jag Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure runs badly because of how horribly buggy the Jag hardware is, presumably, but the system can do better...)
As for the CD-i, I got one of those last year too and what it does well it does VERY well -- when it comes to video playback, I don't think there is any doubt that the CD-i, with its digital video cart addon, is the best by far of all consoles released before 1994, and it matches or beats most of the consoles of '94 as well; only the PC-FX definitely matches it, though the PS1 got there eventually and the Saturn can with the digital video cart. For those "images with music or voice description" discs, video-heavy games, and the like, the system shows off how much better it is than a Sega CD or Turbo CD. Certainly, when it comes to animating a platformer game or such it struggles since the hardware was not designed to do that well, but hating on the CD-i seriously undersells how impressive its video playback was for the time. The video in CD-i games holds up far, far better than video in its contemporary systems like the SCD.
Man it was gross, I was glad to be out of that generation tbh. The fog plagued the n64 and the choppy/jumpy/warpy Playstation shit was a nightmare to look at.
Jesus Christ.
I was one of those annoying people that was like "Look.... outside of like Goldeneye, Mario 64 and Tobal 2, lets just go the fuck back to 2D until next gen".
Jesus Christ.
I was one of those annoying people that was like "Look.... outside of like Goldeneye, Mario 64 and Tobal 2, lets just go the fuck back to 2D until next gen".
Again, though, I was looking at consoles as a whole not specific features.
The issue with Jag and 3DO is that most games run at abysmal frame-rates - often single digits. The flat shaded Jag stuff is not bad looking, I agree, but when it runs at 5 fps, does it matter? No. It's not playable.
The thing is - all of these machines have some games that look and play great. I would never say an entire machine has 'aged horribly' - I'm just considering the number of titles that hold up. There's a *LOT* on PS1 that remain beautiful to this day - but they're mostly 2D games or distant 3D games running at 60fps.
The Jag handles 2D MUCH better than 3DO, I agree, but it has very few 2D games in general and only some of them run well. Also, in the case of Rayman, it's missing a ton of parallax scrolling that is present on PS1, Saturn and PC.
I only mention CD-i in that there are very few playable games on the system and most attempts at non-FMV games run very VERY slowly.
Back in the day it never really bothered me that much. I think - possibly thanks to a lack of forums like this one - we were much less prone to nit-pick back then. Yes games had flaws, you can pull part the original Tomb Raider for all kinds of technical issues, but most people I knew who played the game were wowed by it more than any other reaction.
Today we have folks looking at the locked 30fps of Forza Horizon in 4K saying stuff like "literally unplayable" and it makes me laugh.
Today we have folks looking at the locked 30fps of Forza Horizon in 4K saying stuff like "literally unplayable" and it makes me laugh.
I know for me there were moments where I had a strong lamenting for the quick demise of the 16 bit gen given how few decent 3D offerings there were. I knew the technology just wasn't there yet.
The 2D Playstation games filled the void well enough as did those that did not rely heavily on 3D backgrounds.
Maybe it's just my small phone screen, but I don't see it here. RE2 is actually pretty stable.I love this shit. Sure, some of it is nostalgia but I loved the effect. RE spiders were enhanced by it.
Front mission 3 on the other hand...
Oh, I see. The lack of sub pixel precision was a different problem.
I still prefer PS1 to the N64 despite growing up with the latter, not the former.
I still prefer PS1 to the N64 despite growing up with the latter, not the former.
Honestly 3D was such a revelation at the time I didn't really notice it. By the tail end of the generation when I had a gaming PC I could definitely tell though.
That said over RGB or component on a CRT I love the way PS1 games look. I find the dithered quivering waterbed mess quite charming.
That said over RGB or component on a CRT I love the way PS1 games look. I find the dithered quivering waterbed mess quite charming.
Image background and small fast moving polygons make lack of subpixel precision and perspective correct texturing harder to see.
Front Mission 3 had clear grid of polygons filling the screen and when camera moved limitations were quite noticeable.
Happily camera was not in constant slow movement and game was amazing.
I'm not quite sure that's it. If there were texture warping similar to that of fm3, the striped textures on the spider would have portions facing in different directions, similar to the checkerboard visual posted earlier.
The big difference between a fm3 and re2 is the latter has a moving camera, which you mentioned.
But even so, character faces in re2 aren't warped left and right like they are in ffviii.
It's seriously fine. Usually I like to substantiate my opinions more but this one I can't muster any more thoughts lol.
Yep.
When I saw Sony launching the Playstation Classic, I was really surprised. Who wants to do that with a big TV?
In a way I'm inclined to agree. The fifth generation was fucking wild (especially if you include the Jaguar and the 3DO) and something we'll never see again. Sure, that fact also had tons of drawbacks and maybe that's just the nostalgia talking, but I kind of miss especially what you mentioned, there being wildly different options instead of midrange PC #1 or midrange PC #2.
Also, maybe it's just the Stockholm syndrome talking, but I'm currently replaying some of the classics from that era and honestly, it works much better than I thought it would. For example, I was surprised to find that Banjo-Kazooie runs at a mostly stable 30fps (and also really isn't the sprawling collectathon later Rare games were) and Rayman 2's biggest problem is the lack of a framerate cap, because it wildly fluctuates, but stays above 30fps for the most time.
Not just in retrospect, I found it really ugly at the time as well when I knew nothing about how graphics worked. I'll take the blurriness and the fog from N64 games over PS1 graphics any day. PS 1 only really looked with pre-rendered backgrounds. In general, that gen was the ugliest ever.
I love all the weird graphical quirks of the PS1. The pixelated textures, the texture warping, the dithering, etc. I think it holds up better than the N64's super blurry textures that then had a smeary blur filter on top of that. I love the N64, but I really wish Nintendo hadn't made those blur filters more or less mandatory (Quake is, I think, the only game that let you disable one of the blur filters and it looks better with it off).
Small polygons make lack of correction very hard to see especially scene has low field of view.
Size of polygons on spider is few pixels, so the area in which error is visible is quite small.
Checkerboard example is pretty close to worst possible case, tilted polygons shared edge is near constant z, making polygon averages for perspective be quite different. (And large FoW.)
Spiders in the gif are aligned with walls and wall, making stripes having smaller visible error. (Polygons with shared edge have pretty similar perspective)
I never really noticed the jitters on my PS1, I mostly played JRPGs, fighters, FIFA and racers. JRPGs were often 2D or used a lot of 2D, and I was probably too focused on the action during the other games. There were entire genres I couldn't play on the PS1 due to motion sickness, mostly FPS and 3D platformers, I imagine the jittery graphics didn't help.
Weirdly, I could play Goldeneye and Perfect Dark for hours on end despite the sub-20 frame rate (or single digits in multiplayer), but the Zelda games gave me headaches.
While I find the games of the era hard to revisit, I have fond memories of my PS1 for the god-tier JRPG, racing, fighting, RTS and sports game support (also third person games like RE, MGS, Syphon Filter, Parasite Eve, Dino Crisis), and I loved my N64 for the multiplayer joy of GoldenEye, Perfect Dark and Smash Bros. Such good times.
Weirdly, I could play Goldeneye and Perfect Dark for hours on end despite the sub-20 frame rate (or single digits in multiplayer), but the Zelda games gave me headaches.
While I find the games of the era hard to revisit, I have fond memories of my PS1 for the god-tier JRPG, racing, fighting, RTS and sports game support (also third person games like RE, MGS, Syphon Filter, Parasite Eve, Dino Crisis), and I loved my N64 for the multiplayer joy of GoldenEye, Perfect Dark and Smash Bros. Such good times.
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It is mostly the spiders themselves. If you look at them in a bigger screen the effect can be seen. RE2 was mostly clean on PS1 compared to other games.
The "fog issue" for N64 is exaggerated IMO.
There are indeed notable N64 games with a too short draw distance which cover it with a thick fog wall which is too close to the character (looking at you Turok) but in many cases the draw distance was acceptable and the fog was used to smooth out the transition of new objects/polygons/details coming visible whereas on other consoles of the time you would get them suddenly jump in sight out of nowhere.
Obviously the best case scenario (if the weather wasn't indeed a thick fog like could happen in racing games) was that the engine could draw a relatively detailed scene near you while having enough geometry budget to draw a less detailed environment far back in the background with the fog effect pulled afar to simulate a "realistic" mist at a distance.
I think for example at Super Mario 64 or Ocarina of Time.
Framerate was the true Achilles heel for N64 IMO along with its IQ being so dependent on CRT TV.
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It was fine for that time, technically. But ps1 games and N64 games all looked ugly as fuck. I was digusted by it. In fact, 360 and Ps3 was the first gen that 3D graphics became acceptable to me in terms of resembling esthetic goals of the artists. Still plagued by jaggies and shit textures though.
I've actually just today finished Ape Escape for the first time on my CRT. The jittery polys/warped textures aren't something I'd wish to see make a return, but they're a distinct part of the PS1 "look", so they're kinda charming if you played a lot of those games back in the day.
If you wanna see some terrible fog, check out Ape Escape. Shockingly short draw-distance in that game, especially in light of how well Spyro handled that issue a year earlier.
If you wanna see some terrible fog, check out Ape Escape. Shockingly short draw-distance in that game, especially in light of how well Spyro handled that issue a year earlier.
It was always bad, but not as bad as the texture seams showing, so many games don't look solid. Lots of games managed to handle it better or minimise it though, or work with it, it was always impressive to me when devs worked within the limits of PS1 or N64 and made something amazing looking.
TR1 on PS1 actually is quite stable 30, DF retro took a look at it a while back. The Saturn version dropped though.
Nice.
Really shows that affine texture mapping needs highly tessellated objects to work decently.
I don't mind it. I recently played A Short Hike which was absolutely charming and had a great PS1 look to it. Got me quite nostalgic for the mid-90s games. Shame the PS1 Classic was so shit.
I preferred it to the N64 blurry textures. If I ever wanted to be nauseated by a video I'd load up Jabu Jabu's Stomach in OoT.
It never bothered me at the time and it doesn't really bother me now. I love the way PS1 games look.
Generally I prefer it to a lot of the blurry mess you got from many N64 games at the time. It never really bothered me very much, but then again, the fact that many N64 games ran like hot garbage didn't really bother me much at the time either.
I'm glad I experienced and enjoyed that generation as a kid because time was not kind to it.
I'm glad I experienced and enjoyed that generation as a kid because time was not kind to it.
This all reminds me of when John Romero revealed he wanted to have the screen constantly shimmer just a little bit in the original Quake as objects weren't that clear with the low resolution and artifacting, but Adrian Carmack said it made him sick:
It's unbelievably obvious in the original Tenchu, but all this video does is make me want another Tenchu.