Backwards Compatibility Monday (03-19-01)

i hope they can as well, hey ryu or anyone that has MGS, i am going to buy it cause of what i have read, does it really look better witht he texture smoothing??, if so how much better rate from 1 thrue 10, 1 as cant even notice, and 10 as in very noticable, i really wana buy this game, and even if the texture smoothing isna ll that, im remembering how awesome that game was, im gonna get it this weekend.

Thanks for the link Ryu,
Sounds like a good game.
Ace

Well, with Sony\'s recent settlement and agreement with Connectix maybe we\'ll see faster and better upgrades to the PSX backwards compatibility.  Here\'s hoping for an optional "high resolution" mode.

[Evi]

There are way less glitches in MGS when you have the texture smoothing on. More objects stay smooth and together (not separated and continuosly moving). I love this game, and it\'s probably one of the best games I\'ve ever played. I laughed, I cried, I threw the controller at the screen, I was shocked, I was dumbfounded. This game kicks some major a**, which is why I\'m so looking forward to MGS2 - Sons of Liberty at the end of this year. On a scale of 1 - 10 on enhanced texturing, I\'d give it an 8 or 9. You\'d have to play without the texturing first to really notice the improvements. You should buy this game just on the fact it\'s one of the best games on PlayStation. Konami worked on this game since the first release of the PlayStation. It\'s worth every penny...

~Peace Out~

i hope they can as well, hey ryu or anyone that has MGS, i am going to buy it cause of what i have read, does it really look better witht he texture smoothing??, if so how much better rate from 1 thrue 10, 1 as cant even notice, and 10 as in very noticable, i really wana buy this game, and even if the texture smoothing isna ll that, im remembering how awesome that game was, im gonna get it this weekend.

Everyone should own this game no matter what (people who hate it withstanding of course) but for 20 bucks, how can anyone resist?  Anyways, on a scale of 1 to 10, i\'d give it a 7.  It\'s fairly noticeable, not as stunning of a transformation as say Vagrant Story, but it\'s noticable and much improved nonetheless.

thanks guy, i really wanted ot know, even if it didnt make much of a difference i would still get it, i was remembering when you have to sneak thrue in the begining, and i thougt.. my god that was so cool, i need it.

Playstation 2 Enhancements:

Turning on the texture smoothing and increased read speed is, unfortunately, pointless. The game itself already has pretty speedy load times in the first place and the 3D textures in the game are scarce to be sure since most of it is done in 2D. Using the features is pretty pointless with this title, but that doesn\'t hold true for all the others.

I just wondering because when i played this game, there is this part where I turned into a wolf and start running really, really fast pace and there are too many special effects and monster show on screen.  The game slow down like from 30 fps to 10fps or sumthing like that.  So if the ps2 loading time could fix it to at a stable 30fps.

thanks.

I just wondering because when i played this game, there is this part where I turned into a wolf and start running really, really fast pace and there are too many special effects and monster show on screen. The game slow down like from 30 fps to 10fps or sumthing like that. So if the ps2 loading time could fix it to at a stable 30fps.

thanks.

Unfortunately, no.  The increased disc speeds only improve load times, not slow down.  If there was slow down in any game on the PSX, then there will be slow down on the PS2.  Generally, slowdown happens when ram becomes limited.  Resources are allocated appropriately for all of the games for a limited amount of things to happen on screen, if it ets too cluttered, ram becomes short and the slow down begins.  There is no more ram allocated for the backwards compatibility on the ps2 as there was for the PSX.

This looks like it turned into a texture smoothing thread.

 I hope this doesn\'t get overlooked but Ryu, you absolutely HAVE to do Square\'s brilliant Einhander for a fuure backwards compatibility monday. This is one of the best damn 2 d shooters for the Playstation period. The graphics, the gameplay everything.

 I mean some of the attacks you\'ll be dodging in this game along with the bosses that you\'ll be faced with are absolutely mindblowing. The game will have you sitting in awe and wondering how the hell you just went through the insane barage of fighters the game sends at you.

And the bosses, oh the bosses, thay are absolutely classic.

You gotta do it man!

Show these people the beauty of Einhander.

[Evi]

There was massive slowdowns on Twisted Metal 2 for PlayStation when the screen got cluttered with missiles and vehicles, but not on the PS2. It ran smoother than ever. There was still slowdowns, but not as much...

Well, it all depends on the situation.  Duplicating the exact same scene more then once in a videogame that causes massive slowdown because of the action happening is pretty tough, especially in a game as random and as free flowing as twisted metal 2.  In any case, slowdown is slowdown and for it to happen in any game is not uncommon.  The PS2 was meant to play your PSX games, not make them play and look as good as ps2 games.

As for Einhander, I\'m taking all suggestion into consideration.  Einhander in particular is more of a bargain bin niche title then anything else.  However, it is pretty common on shelves nowadays, but I want to touch on the games that anyone and everyone can get into first.  Ape Escape, for example, which will be next weeks topic is a title that rarely got the credit it deserved, but was a game that could cater to any gamer.  Platformers are so incredibally mainstream that it\'s hard not to like this game.  Besides, who doesn\'t love monkeys?  Einhander may make it to the column eventually, but I don\'t think it will happen anytime soon.  I\'ll announce the next title when I finish writing the column on Monday, but thanks for the suggestion anyways, it won\'t be left out.

seeing as how i this is a backward compatability thread i decided to post this here, maybe someone has had this happen to them as well, i had another glitch, but this time its with THPS2, i found that i couldnt use the ps2 controller with it, it turn out that if i jump i wont stop jumping, i dont know why, but it like uncontrollable jumping, so i unpluged my ps2 control and pluged in my ps1 control no problems after that, tried it again with the ps2 control, and the same thing, has anyone else had this prob???

Jiggs where you from in Colorado?
Fort Collins here

Okay, SILENT HILL has major issues on my PS2.  I don\'t know what the heck is wrong.  Well, if I play it with smoothing it adds snow in the trees of the town that I guess for some reason didn\'t process on the PSX.  If I play it with speed the voices go way fast, another understandable problem.

But what I don\'t get is that if I have any of the features on at all or both of them turned off the fogging does not work well.  For some reason I guess it starts fogging further away then it did for PSX and you can see all of the major pop-in.  It is so frickin annoying.  I figured that it was just the speed loading so I turned everything COMPLETELY OFF!!!  Still had the problem.  I go and play it on my PSX and it\'s fine.  Just the way it\'s supposed to be.  Anyone else have this problem?


And on another note,  I can only play using the smoothing because if you put the speed loading on for some reason the cinemas in the game run skippy.  Perfectly smooth with it off though.

Overall I love backwards compatibility.  Especially since a week ago my younger brother just broke my PSX.  He basically tripped and ended falling on the ground and my mom ran over my PSX and his knee (he\'s fine by the way).  Kinda sux but atleast I still have my PSX.  Only if it wasn\'t for that dang Silent Hill not working right...

Unfortunately, no. The increased disc speeds only improve load times, not slow down. If there was slow down in any game on the PSX, then there will be slow down on the PS2. Generally, slowdown happens when ram becomes limited. Resources are allocated appropriately for all of the games for a limited amount of things to happen on screen, if it ets too cluttered, ram becomes short and the slow down begins. There is no more ram allocated for the backwards compatibility on the ps2 as there was for the PSX.

the ps2 have 4 mb of vram.  So does that help?  I heard psx have like 1 mb of vram...but sony only gives two option for ps2 for psx enhancement, speed and texture...so...it sucks.