So I recently got a PS2 and want i'm playing it on a modern gaming monitor but the picture quality is complete shit. I have a pretty cheap ps2 to hdmi converter, so I don't know if that's the problem.
So I recently got a ps2 and want i'm playing it on a modern gaming monitor but the picture quality is complete shit.
this is a question about hardware maintenance, you need to go ask on >>>/hm/
that was hot
Good one anon lok
Get yourself a Retrotink 5x or build a GBS8200 upscaler.
The cheapass hdmi converters are garbage.
found one on Amazon for 200. Can I get something cheaper with decent quality?
>found one on amazon for 200. Can I get something cheaper with decent quality?
Can't you just solder a hdmi port?
no I can't
I mean at that price why not just get a TV that accepts component?
modern tvs are horrible with older video game consoles still, PS2 especially since most games output in a interlaced format
I never said modern
good luck finding a crt with component at a decent price lmao
some actually, some samsung tvs still have component
$200 will get you a PVM, not at a decent price but it'll look great
what modern TV supports component in 2023?
I built a modded gbs-control.
Shit looks fantastic on my lcd flat monitor.
I use rgb-to-vga mods on my consoles though bear in mind.
Was like 20$ for the gbs board + 2$ for the arduino
>cheap PS2 to hdmi converter
Here is your problem.
can you recommend one from amazon?
>amazon
ishygddt
Go rob a granny and take her CRT.
>buy an old console
>NOOOOOO IT LOOKS LIKE SHITTERINO
Just emulate it with enhanced graphics settings if it's such a problem.
PS2 isn't old zoomer
It's nearly a quarter of a century old.
How old are you?
>I have a pretty cheap PS2 to hdmi converter, so I don't know if that's the problem.
That is the problem, yeah. You're going to want a retrotink or an upscaler of similar value.
https://www.retrotink.com/product-page/retrotink-2x-pro
Or just get a CRT for free from some craigslist boomer.
PS2 was the last console I owned and I think I squeezed more value out of the PS2 than any other piece of technology I ever owned. Immense game library and the only DVD player I ever owned.
best game for smoking pot with friends of all time is Tiger Woods Golf 2005
>best game for smoking pot with friends of all time is Tiger Woods Golf 2005
The PS2 even had a little compartment you could hide your weed in. My parents never found it.
>THC to IDE converter board
holy shit i did that too
kys fricking stoners
A good upscaler like a Retrotink is very nice, but if you want the absolute best quality you need to use something like a Retrogem. It takes the digital graphics directly from the console and outputs to HDMI. It's expensive and a lot of work to install though, and unlike an upscaler will only work with one console.
Just use emulation consolegay
You have 2 problems:
1. The PS2 is a very old console, it outputs very low resolution video since it cannot do any better, it's not going to look great on a modern monitor since it needs to be upscaled
2. The upscaler you have (in that HDMI converter) is garbage quality and it produces low quality output (likely very blurry).
There is nothing you can do about #1 except abandon the actual PS2 and play the games on an emulator which can at least run them at high resolution, which will be a huge improvement even with the low res textures and low poly original models. If you use emulation, you can forget about problem #2 as well. If you still want to use a real PS2, then you can address #2 by buying a higher quality upscaler. The improvement you'll get is that the image is going to be sharper and not as smudged, but it's still going to be low resolution anyway so you can expect plenty of jaggies and / or a pixelated look to it. You'll want to make sure you have what you need to connect the PS2 to the upscaler with some sort of RGB or component connection, or at the very least S-Video, to get a good image. Using composite for instance is going to nuke the image quality even with a good upscaler.
Note that good upscalers can be very expensive, probably more expensive than the PS2 itself.
ps2 is a tricky one to get high quality video out of, because unlike its competition (even the dreamcast), it didn't run every game at 640x480p, it could run some games like that, but most games ran at something else, like a common one was 512x448i
few games officially supported progressive mode, but i have heard you can force progressive in many games using homebrew, so that's a must
some games you can't do that though, because the game was actually natively rendering an interlaced picture
to get the best picture out of a ps2, you'd probably want to get one of those internal hdmi video modchips (retro g.e.m.)
For the games that either support or can be forced into progressive scan VGA is also an option. I imagine a decent quality VGA to HDMI/DP adapter would be cheaper than a component one
sure, ps2 technically has VGA output as well, though keep in mind it's sync-on-green so few vga monitors will directly accept it
it's not like vga on the dreamcast, idk how many games on the ps2 can even be forced over vga (i don't believe any game officially supported it), but it can't be great since i've never heard anybody using that as an option
like i said before many games run at 448i, even if you could force 448p, that's still not something you can expect vga monitors to sync to
really? that's pretty weird
it's not like 720p isn't enough for ps2 though, unless you really want those shaders or integer upscaling
>it's not like 720p isn't enough for ps2 though, unless you really want those shaders or integer upscaling
Depends on what you play; 3 games officially support 1080i and more can be forced into it
>3 games officially support 1080i and more can be forced into it
in those cases the ps2 is the one doing the upscaling
the only thing i'm aware of that can actually display a 1080i image on a ps2 is gta4's photo mode (you don't really need that either, because you can save the pictures to a usb drive as well), just the still pictures, the gameplay is just upscaled from regular resolution
1080i on ps2 is not great, even 480p on the ps2 is not good because of a reduced color depth. if you want a console for 480p/720p get a original xbox.
i wouldnt ever get the retrogem, has a fricking paywall for 1080p output
stop upscaling
Get a CRT for it or buy a fancy adapter like the retrotink.
this is why emulation exists anon. ps2 is old very old. it came out when the average millennial was 11 years old. 480p tv's reigned supreme with 1080p on the horizon for mainstream adoption. 9/11 didn't even happen yet and bill clinton was still president. you're not going to get great performance of graphics with it.
if you want the best possible experience you need to run emulation. you only go for the physical console for the millennial experience to experience how millennials had their childhood of playing 240 - 480p resolution gaming.
>if you want the best possible experience you need to run emulation
for the 1% of PS2 games that it supports well that's a great option. And yes, I know that PCSX2 has made leaps and bounds of progress in recent time but it's nowhere near perfect. It works great for a lot of popular games. Other titles have glitches, and others are completely unplayable. For most older consoles, emulation is a universal upgrade. The PS2 isn't one of them.
its more than 1%. way more anon. 90% is solid.
I have a hard time believing that figure given the volume of PS2 games
ps2 emulation doesn't always work great, but if image quality is a major concern then it is the only option, like any 3D console, you can just do things which vastly outpace what the original console could do, because there's so much more information in the scene than can be actually displayed at once on the original system
you can get adapters to use original controllers as well
it's also pretty easy to dump your memory cards and use your original saves on an emulator
I love the boost in graphics but it's a double edged sword. It works with certain things but not others. That tree for example looks way better natively. Yes the upscaled one is sharper but that's not all that matters. In the original, my train of thought is
>it's a tree
>it's in a game
In the upscale I think
>it's very obviously an old video game
>it's a tree
yea, i do understand that, in many cases i prefer to use something in between, or even just native but with anti-aliasing, that's how i prefer to emulate psx games, native res but with AA
i completely understand that the softness of the image help hide the lack of polygons, like the park bench, tree, and building all look more like an out-of-focus photo than a video game model from 1999, to put it bluntly, like the sharpness allows you to see every polygon, which makes things look flatter
while more dense objects like the character i think you can agree is a straight upgrade
it depends on the game
some games show their age more, while some just look stunning
while sure it looks more like a video game, like the cathedral you can can actually see where the background parts turn into a 2D texture, or how the textures on characters are so low res compared to the model that they don't blend in as well
but-- you can see a lot more stuff, so i'd say it's just a different perspective rather than purely better or worse
don't forget 60fps patches as well
>native res but with AA
specifically i mean the supersampling method, that is, rendering at a multiple of the native res, then scaling it back down
this allows things like 2D elements to blend in normally but eliminates jaggies, giving you a kind of idealised-but-faithful picture
Did anyone ever try PS2 Linux?
Not only will you need a good upscaler, it will need to be one that implements a good motion-adaptive de-interlacer, as most PS2 games do not support progressive scan output modes. At the same time, it will need to be able to handle 15 kHz '240p' signals for some games, and for PS1 games in general (if you want to run those).
The anon that suggested the RetroTink 5x is on the right track. I have an XRGB Mini, which is excellent, but they are becoming harder and more expensive to get hold of.
Also, the cable matters. For the PS2, you'll either want a component cable or an RGB SCART cable. The only SCART cables worth buying are made by retro-access in the US, and retro-gaming-cables in the UK.
N.B. None of this involves interacting with Amazon at any juncture. Look up Fudoh's scaler reviews and consult the system11 community if you need further advice.
>The anon that suggested the RetroTink 5x is on the right track.
I recommended the 2x, tho.
My mistake, anon. Unfortunately, it is bad advice. The RetroTink 2x - as its name implies - is intended as a basic, affordable line doubler for 15 kHz signals - colloquially referred to as 240p. The product's documentation is very clear as to this point. Moreover, it does not perform motion-adaptive de-interlacing and, therefore, the results will be atrocious for the overwhelming majority of PS2 games. OP should absolutely not consider it unless exclusively interesting in playing PS1 games.
Note that the 5x makes a point of boasting about having "the first custom developed FPGA-based Motion Adaptive Deinterlacing algorithm specifically for games to make 480i titles shine without adding lag or flicker."
Of course, it is more expensive than the 2x but such it is to be expected. Casuals will be happier with emulation anyway.
Fair enough. I use one for my 4th and 5th gen consoles, and it's great, so I assumed it would be fine for any console that uses analog input. I was wrong.
No worries, anon. As you say, it's a fine solution for 4th and 5th gen and reasonably priced too, as these things go. My only criticism of it would be the lack of scanline emulation but the scaling is definitely on point.
I suggested the 5x, tho.
Thread already told you the solutions. I can only vouch for the GBS. Building one yourself is fun, but mine broke fast, so I got the orange prebuild one. It's fine.
play metal gear solid.
No, just look for crt tv (preferably trinitron),
Interestingly 3 years ago I helped clear out someones house (they were moving) and they had this one of the latest trinitron tvs that they were throwing away, at the time I did not realize it's value and took it to a local dump
Bruh, PS2 emulation is more reliable than PS2 itself nowadays. Just use PSC2X and render than shit at 16x Upscale natively.
the PS2 just has poor quality outputs.
unless you do something drastic like an internal HDMI mod, it's not going to be good, even with the latest goy gadgets mentioned by others.
>the PS2 just has poor quality outputs.
this is true
i love my ps2, i bought it when it was new and i used it regularly for many years, sometimes still to this day, it was the last current home console i bought
but the picture was always soft, even when it was new, softer than the xbox, gamecube, and even dreamcast, which is an older system. it has a strange graphics system
Ps2 is a nice nostalgia device but objectively it is garbage and should not be used anymore, emulation makes ps2 games 100000 times better.
You need to buy a Retrotink, now you know why the chink converters are cheap. Quality is expensive.
i recommend downloading pcsx2 and playing on PC instead
You need to get a good Trinitron off Facebook marketplace. Problem solved.
Why bother? Everything worth playing on ps2 has been ported to modern systems anyway.
only good converter is retrotink 4k
but it costs $700
so better stick to emulator
stfu shill
stfu dumb Black person
I told you, if you're poor, stick to emulation
nothing comes close to retrotink 4k but at the same time, anything worse it simply not acceptable
4k is for normies like you that want to play retro games on a fricking 60 inch flatscreen.
its YOU that should stick to emulation if you want to do that.