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[Panajev2001a]

I think the main enhancement for PlayStation 2 games running on PlayStation 3 should be FSAA ( PlayStation 3 should have more fill-rate and more VRAM, enough to be able to support such a feature for PlayStation 2 backward compatibility ) a game like FFX-2 where edge aliasing and texture aliasing ( shimmering ) are the main visual flaw in an otherwise very pretty game would be helped a lot by FSAA.

FSAA, compared to MSAA, uses a different texture sample for each of the pixel samples it takes to do AA, doing AA at the edge and at the texture level.

I think many PlayStation 2 games would receive a very nice face-lift just because of better FSAA being applied to the point of having almost been upgraded .

What other games do you look forward to see with good FSAA being applied on them while running on PlayStation 3 ( assuming FSAA is offered as an enhancement ).

Contrary to the Texture Filtering enhancement PlayStation 2 offers to PSOne games running in PSOne backward-compatibility mode, FSAA would not really break anything as long as you can push the same frame-rate as the original did while adding the extra AA ( there are games like BG II which already use FSAA though ).

 

[neptunes]

*gasp* Panajev playing FFX-2?!?!

what do you think of it so far?

and do you visit insider anymore?

 

[Suikoguy]

Well, if anybody would know if it would work, it would be you.

Hopefully sony has the brains to make it happen!

 

[Panajev2001a]

Well, I am using a Gameshark cheat ( max EXP and mx LVL ), and the reason for it is my distaste for the ATB system and the fact that I want to get, in one try ( I do not want to play it twice only to get the full ending, I play games first for the story and then I replay them to enjoy deeper aspects of them ) the story.

Yes, I am following the completion guides over at Gamefaqs.com: it was not easy to beat Shinra at Brak-sphere, but I kinda liked the challenge and the mini-game.

The story is well written, the pace picks up a lot in the second chapter, but I really like how fresh the game feels.

I did not believe when SolidSnakeX said that the producer had fun making the game because of the freedom they received in terms of gameplay, features, etc...

I liked FFX a lot and revisiting place and people from FFX is very nice ( especially Wakka, Lulu, Maechen, etc... ).

The game offers funny moment, light-hearted sections, serious sections... if you stop playing the game in the first episode you are going to miss something: it teaches you not to judge the proverbial book by its cover.

The "ATB + wait" system is nicer than the pure ATB mode inherited from the older FF games as you can take your time deciding who to attack and what item to use and on who to use it, etc...

I still need to learn how to use the Garment Grids properly, but I like the presence of the dress-spheres job system they implemented and I like the platforming elements even though they can get a bit tedious due to the camera system ( with the big machine inside Bevelle, the one with many arms and cages ).

I am glad I went back to FFX-2 and kept playing.

 

[GigaDrive]

Panajev good to see you posting again -

I completely agree. most PS2 games would benifit greatly from FSAA. I am curious to know what it would be like to apply PS3 FSAA to PS2 games that already have good AA applied to them, such as the U.S. Tekken Tag.

 

[LittleTokyo]

Glad to see someone is enjoying an excellent game. Speaking of FSAA, Square Enix's latest could definately use it. Front Mission 4 is a jaggy mess, but a well presented jaggy mess.

 

[Fafalada]

Contrary to the Texture Filtering enhancement PlayStation 2 offers to PSOne games running in PSOne backward-compatibility mode, FSAA would not really break anything as long as you can push the same frame-rate as the original did while adding the extra AA

Unfortunately adding any type of FSAA that alters size of render buffers(ie. supersampling or multisampling) causes all sorts of complications for emulation of hw with unified VRam(sharing same memory for texture/render buffers). You'd need a pretty thick layer of abstraction to make it work, and even so there could be some kinks left with games that do more exotic fiddling of buffer contents.
It's not impossible, but it's at least as likely to break things on occasion as filtering does in PSOne games.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Unfortunately adding any type of FSAA that alters size of render buffers(ie. supersampling or multisampling) causes all sorts of complications for emulation of hw with unified VRam(sharing same memory for texture/render buffers). You'd need a pretty thick layer of abstraction to make it work, and even so there could be some kinks left with games that do more exotic fiddling of buffer contents.
It's not impossible, but it's at least as likely to break things on occasion as filtering does in PSOne games.

Thank you for the dose of reality check .

Fafalada, I was thinking about the emulation issue.

See, IMHO backward-compatibility will be tricky.

Either you waste 4 MB of e-DRAM + a parallel rendering core worth of silicon ( implementing the full EE+GS instead of a shrunk EE ) or you emulate the GS using the Visualizer/PlayStation 3's GPU.

The first way would have a very hard time adding new features to enhance backward-compatibility: rendering would be done on the EE+GS chip and then the front-buffer would be copied quickly to the console's CRTC and visualized.

The second way could complicate the life of the GPU designers.

IMHO, some compromises were made when they designed the GS to help the backward-compatibility process.

Is it an accident that the GS wants vertices in Fixed Point format ( before converting them back to FP to do Triangle set-up as the Triangle set-up engine is FP based IIRC ) ?

I guess that with the APUs on the Visualizer you would not have a problem doing Fixed Point and Floating Point work, so you could use the APUs to do Triangle set-up, etc...

My concern is basically, how much additional work would the engineers have to do on the Pixel Engines included in the Visualizer to support both PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 oriented features ? How much would the Visualizer be held back by such requirements ?

I do not think that people will want to use 12:4 format for vertices forever .

Emulating the GS on the Visualizer ( which would be, as we said, partly Software based and partly hardware based ) would open up though the possibility of enhancements to the graphics which are even harder for me to see if we just went the EE+GS way for backward-compatibility.

What do you think ?

 

[Gattsu25]

The game offers funny moment, light-hearted sections, serious sections... if you stop playing the game in the first episode you are going to miss something: it teaches you not to judge the proverbial book by its cover.

While not judging a book by it's cover is a golden proverb, judging a game by it's absolutely embarrissing first few hours SHOULD be done...especially when any gameplay offered in those hours is fun only for a few minutes until you realise that switching to certain jobs and hitting X repeatedly are all you need to survive

 

[belgurdo]

Except for the fact the game starts getting serious about like halfway through chapter 1 (not "hours") and you can apply that kind of strategy to any FF title (although using one class the whole game sure as hell won't make things easier, much like doing one thing in any FF title won't help you in the long run.)

 

[neptunes]

The only ps0ne game that the ps2 updated (in terms of graphics) was um jammer lammy.

 

[Lord Error]

The only ps0ne game that the ps2 updated (in terms of graphics) was um jammer lammy.

Maybe, if that was the only game that you have tried

There are many games that look better due to texture filtering, and the few that I played recently (like MGS and RType Delta) certainly benefit from it.

 

[Gattsu25]

Maybe our definitions of serious are different but I gave up on the game somewhere in chapter 2 IIRC. Now, it's been a while, but the ONLY signs of the game growing up was a scene on the deck of their ship that was quickly ended by the games return to quirky 'humour' involving YRP doing some stupid dance or something.

The pervasive feeling of forced and unlikable 'personality' is what I couldn't stand about the game...whether it was Brother's unfaultering lust for his cousin made worse by his akward motions or annoying VA, the group that opposes YRP (whatever they are called) with the infantile jokes they bring along, or the personality of any of the lead characters.

The only redeeming qualities about the game that I can remember was a initially fun battle system (that was cheapened once I started using the Warrior/Warrior/Thief combo), a dream sequence Yuna had, the personalities and visit to Wakka and Lulu, and the default song played on their airship (though it ultimately wasn't memorable enough for me to even remember what genre of music it was)

 

[neptunes]

yeah, you're right. The only ps0ne games that I play are rpg's and MGS.

P.S. the ps2 made ff7 look worse.

Don't ask me I don't know why, though I sure there's a technical explanation for this.