What's wrong with Playstation?

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pinoy

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 8, 2010
Messages
447
Why is it that a lot of games for the first-gen Playstation look horrible? Specifically, the vertices of polygons jitter making it appear the object is changing shape. This is easily seen when the camera is moving or the characters or objects are moving. What confuses me further is not all games act this way. I'm wondering if it's inherent to the hardware.
 
it's called 20 year old graphics, upscaling and lack of blurriness caused by composite/rf cables and older alalog systems, postage stamp sized video..and the fact that your TV generally speaking has a very good Video processor thus exposing all of the flaws in the video

FYI, resolution ranged from 256+224 to 640+480
 
The processors back then didn't have the floating point precision that modern 3D video cards have. This means that verticies shift position quite jaggedly. All of the processing (textures, 3D, gameplay) was all done on the 32-bit processor. There was also no advanced texture filtering, so textures often twisted and shifted at angles, I personally loved the horrible look of the PS1's graphics. Some of my fondest memories involve treading through Armored Core and MGS: VR missions.
 
How about using some 20 year old hardware to play that 20 year old system on and see if you remember how amazing it actually was when it first hit the market....

Of course at this point in the game it looks horrible, we've been spoiled...
 
Emulators (and for some games hi-res texture packs) do wonders for PS1 games (and n64, GC, Wii, etc ).
 
PlayStation's early 3d graphics haven't aged as well as the best 2d games from the 90's.
At the time, to have a home console that could do 3d was impressive. Ridge Racer was the first time I really felt like I was playing an arcade quality racer at home. The graphics were Good. Tekken was a huge advancement beyond 2d capcom fighters. Wipeout was a phenomena. I replayed that on PSN. But yeah, the graphics have aged horribly on those games. Hard to believe it's almost been 20 years since PS1's launch.
 
Some game fared better than others. Vagrant Story I thought got a good balance there with the cut scenes, but no doubt they were really struggling to get things smooth... The other games that look smoother are likely less complicated with less depth of field, so they can manage to have finer scale up-close.
 
Why does my Gameboy Color not look like my 3DS? This is so silly. :p It's 20 years old, and was one of the first consoles that were three dimensional. What do you expect?
 
pinoy said:
Why is it that a lot of games for the first-gen Playstation look horrible? Specifically, the vertices of polygons jitter making it appear the object is changing shape. This is easily seen when the camera is moving or the characters or objects are moving. What confuses me further is not all games act this way. I'm wondering if it's inherent to the hardware.
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Hmmm. When did the PS1 come out, again? Oh yeah...two fucking decades ago.

Might have something to do with it. :rolleyes:

While we're at it, can somebody explain why my Lamborghini Miura doesn't do 230MPH?
 
Stiletto said:
Hmmm. When did the PS1 come out, again? Oh yeah...two fucking decades ago.

Might have something to do with it. :rolleyes:

While we're at it, can somebody explain why my Lamborghini Miura doesn't do 230MPH?
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Hey! No fair! I've been asking people why my old timey bicycle can't do 50 MPH for years and now you're trying to cut in line? Forget you, man!
 
Compared to the 16 bit generation and the 3D of that time, the PS1 & Saturn (Saturn was more of a 2D beast than 3D, admittedly) were amazing and very awesome graphics at the time. Back then, people were calling them lifelike and 'they look so real!'....

Doom used to have some amazing graphics, too. Compare it to the previous generation not the ones that came after....
 
Anyone play Final Fantasy VII recently. I remember going back to play it on PS1 and being shocked how much Cloud and the gang looked like polygon throw up.
 
If you play these games on a PS emulator (like ePSXe) with anti-aliasing and texture filtering, they look MUCH better.

At least Sony used triangular polygons, unlike the Saturn's quadrilateral ones, which have basically ruined any chances of having a similar style of emulation for Saturn games.
 
Kinsaras said:
Anyone play Final Fantasy VII recently. I remember going back to play it on PS1 and being shocked how much Cloud and the gang looked like polygon throw up.
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right, IMO most games on SNES look far better than most games on PS1, but the "new thing" of 3D I guess won enough people over. At some point, like with 2D, we'll get to this "golden era of 3d" and then we'll start to see another shift into something new. I'm excited about that. Not sure if it is this gen (PS4/XBONE) or next.
 
zaxour said:
If you play these games on a PS emulator (like ePSXe) with anti-aliasing and texture filtering, they look MUCH better.

At least Sony used triangular polygons, unlike the Saturn's quadrilateral ones, which have basically ruined any chances of having a similar style of emulation for Saturn games.
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Not sure what you mean exactly by the post. But the lack of Saturn emulation (outside of the PC) is because of the numerous different processors that need to be emulated and timed to run together. I believe that emulating a Saturn at full speed requires at least a fast Core 2 Duo... Or are you speaking of something else? :cool:
 
Youn said:
console people maybe, but the rest of us on PC were like "meh"
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Yup. Though I have some very fond memories of SEGA Saturn. Panzer Dragoon was amazing. An year later Quake was released, and it was glorious.

PS1 games were pretty lame imho. PS2 and PS3 didn't improve on that.
 
pinoy said:
Why is it that a lot of games for the first-gen Playstation look horrible? Specifically, the vertices of polygons jitter making it appear the object is changing shape. This is easily seen when the camera is moving or the characters or objects are moving. What confuses me further is not all games act this way. I'm wondering if it's inherent to the hardware.
Click to expand...

It doesn't have a z-buffer. So the precise position of polygons is something it has difficulty keeping track of. There are different methods games can use, some better than others.
 
dgz said:
PS1 games were pretty lame imho. PS2 and PS3 didn't improve on that.
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eb6.jpg
 
So, you love jRPGs and MGS type of bs, I get it.
 
Yeah PS1 games were pretty bland. Hated the shit out of them, actually. They had nothing remotely like Mario/Zelda/Banjo Kazooie/etc.

And N64 games seem to have aged much better. I always noticed the ass-tastic polygon warping on the PS1, another huge turnoff for me, even at that young an age.
 
TheFlosser said:
Yeah PS1 games were pretty bland. Hated the shit out of them, actually. They had nothing remotely like Mario/Zelda/Banjo Kazooie/etc.

And N64 games seem to have aged much better. I always noticed the ass-tastic polygon warping on the PS1, another huge turnoff for me, even at that young an age.
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Well, the PS1 did have 3 Final Fantasy games, Crash, Tomb Raider, Spyro and Resident Evil. And don't forget the RPGs that kept coming out for it.

The N64 had a lot of iconic games, but not really any in depth RPGs.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
Not sure what you mean exactly by the post. But the lack of Saturn emulation (outside of the PC) is because of the numerous different processors that need to be emulated and timed to run together. I believe that emulating a Saturn at full speed requires at least a fast Core 2 Duo... Or are you speaking of something else? :cool:
Click to expand...

Because the Saturn used quadrilateral polygons instead of triangles, it doesn't render we'll on standard graphics cards. My favorite Saturn emulator, SSF, does all the graphics rendering via software, which means you don't get to apply post processing. EPSXe allows you to apply anti aliasing and texture filters, making PS1 games look very tolerable.
 
ballistic90 said:
Well, the PS1 did have 3 Final Fantasy games, Crash, Tomb Raider, Spyro and Resident Evil. And don't forget the RPGs that kept coming out for it.

The N64 had a lot of iconic games, but not really any in depth RPGs.
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Tomb Raider was great if you were horny and <15 years old. Crash Bandicoot I always thought was the PS equivelant to a Mario game or something. I actually bought it on PSN and tried it out, wow. You are in a lane and jump over shit. That is the most horrible game I have ever played. I never felt so cheated out of 3 bucks or whatever it cost.

Spyro was gay. Resident evil wasn't my thing. PS just appealed to a way different, and dumb, crowd.

The end.
 
Ps1 kicked n64s ass. So many hidden gems keep making me going back to the ps1 even to this day.
 
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TheFlosser said:
Yeah PS1 games were pretty bland. Hated the shit out of them, actually. They had nothing remotely like Mario/Zelda/Banjo Kazooie/etc.

And N64 games seem to have aged much better. I always noticed the ass-tastic polygon warping on the PS1, another huge turnoff for me, even at that young an age.
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I guess you really like platforming games. That's fine and you are entitled to your opinions. As am I and I hate mario platformers, not a single Mario platformer made to date that I have cared to play. Only Mario games I like are Kart, Super Mario RPG, and party. None of which are platformers. Zelda, Fire emblem, and Metroid (some of them) are the only ones that continue to be great for me. For non first party Nintendo all I remember is Golden eye and Conker, perfect dark was just ok to me.

PS1 had final fantasy which is still immensely enjoyable even despite of the graphics that didn't age well, legend of the dragoon, mgs, chrono cross, Tony Hawk Pro skater 2, GT, legacy of kain, Twisted metal, Ape escape (Probably on of my favorite platformers and I don't really care for platformers), Tenchu, and a bazillion RPGS that were soo good. I also think PS1 outsold N64 like 3 to 1 and PS2 out sold gamecube 7 to 1. Also IMHO PS1 had a more wide variety of games than N64 because there was more 3rd part support from the massive amount of sales it had, same with PS2.
 
///AMG said:
I guess you really like platforming games. That's fine and you are entitled to your opinions. As am I and I hate mario platformers, not a single Mario platformer made to date that I have cared to play. Only Mario games I like are Kart, Super Mario RPG, and party. None of which are platformers. Zelda, Fire emblem, and Metroid (some of them) are the only ones that continue to be great for me. For non first party Nintendo all I remember is Golden eye and Conker, perfect dark was just ok to me.

PS1 had final fantasy which is still immensely enjoyable even despite of the graphics that didn't age well, legend of the dragoon, mgs, chrono cross, Tony Hawk Pro skater 2, GT, legacy of kain, Twisted metal, Ape escape (Probably on of my favorite platformers and I don't really care for platformers), Tenchu, and a bazillion RPGS that were soo good. I also think PS1 outsold N64 like 3 to 1 and PS2 out sold gamecube 7 to 1. Also IMHO PS1 had a more wide variety of games than N64 because there was more 3rd part support from the massive amount of sales it had, same with PS2.
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I will admit Ape Escape captivated my interest when I saw the commercials back in the day. I'm sure it sucks ass though. Those games I listed are adventure games, ripe with puzzles and teeming with other super awesome challenges of skill and wit that served to well occupy my tender little brain at the time. PlayStation had none of that. Those games were beyond derp. And final fantasy? Please. If I wanted to be spoonfed that garbage I would just watch a soap opera anime or something. Cuz that's what it is.
 
TheFlosser said:
I will admit Ape Escape captivated my interest when I saw the commercials back in the day. I'm sure it sucks ass though. Those games I listed are adventure games, ripe with puzzles and teeming with other super awesome challenges of skill and wit that served to well occupy my tender little brain at the time. PlayStation had none of that. Those games were beyond derp. And final fantasy? Please. If I wanted to be spoonfed that garbage I would just watch a soap opera anime or something. Cuz that's what it is.
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You sound like you have some issues man. There were great titles on the PS1, you can't argue against that.
 
after reading this thread, I almost caved in and bought harvest moon (ps1 ver) on PSN. damn. I am getting extremely nostalgic now.
 
TheFlosser said:
I will admit Ape Escape captivated my interest when I saw the commercials back in the day. I'm sure it sucks ass though. Those games I listed are adventure games, ripe with puzzles and teeming with other super awesome challenges of skill and wit that served to well occupy my tender little brain at the time. PlayStation had none of that. Those games were beyond derp. And final fantasy? Please. If I wanted to be spoonfed that garbage I would just watch a soap opera anime or something. Cuz that's what it is.
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Ok well that your opinion lots of people in the world would disagree. You have never played Ape escape and you deem it shitty? I have played Mario 64 and it got boring real quick same with all marios. Banjo Kazooie was just ok. A quick search on metacritic will tell you that quantitatively PS1 has 29 games with a 90+ rating, N64 has 16. Not that meta critic is the absolute best indicator of how great games were but its something, there were also more games with a 90+ score than there are 80+ scores on N64. PS1 also had a libarary that was more than 8 times the amount of games that the N64 library had. So either by quantity or quality PS1 had more than N64. Its just hard to argue. Though I am sure you will. I had both the N64 and PS1 although late in their life span, N64 was played with friends but I almost never played it by myself. PS1 was played with friends and I spent more than 10x the time I spent with N64 on single player.

If you take a look Nintendo seemed to top out on SNES and has gotten worse every single generation since. There are less and less great games on nintedo consoles every generation, while Playstation and Xbox have gotten better and better. The console that aged the best I would argue to be SNES.
 
In the Playstation's defense, the system's graphics really improved later on. IE: Battle Arena Toshinden 1's graphics compared to Tekken 3.
 
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