My PS3 arrived today-- PS2 games look horrible?

Haggar

Haggar

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Hey gang,

My MGS4 bundle arrived from Amazon today. Everything seems cool, but when I popped in a PS2 game it looks absolutely horrible. I don't know how to describe it, other than blurry/effed up. PS3 games look fine.

I have a 32" 720HDTV and I'm connected through HDMI. The PS3 wants to connect at 1080 so I tried that as well as 720. 720 looks a little better, but not much. Plus, I don't want to have to switch the resolution every time I want to play a PS2 game. I also tried the "smoothing" or "blending" option (whatever it's called) and it didn't really help.

Am I doing something wrong, or are PS2 games really this horrible looking on a PS3?
 
Do you have the black bars on the left and right?? I think the 'stretch' option makes it look shittier than 4:3 with the bars
 
I don't think it's your PS3 that's causing most of the bad quality, rather it's your HDTV. I noticed that most of my last gen games look like crap on my plasma television but look great on my old standard definition television. I think this is due to PS2 games being a non-HD source.
 
It depends on what you're playing. Resident Evil 4 looks pretty bad on my 52 LCD, but then again it never looked good on PS2 to begin with.

God of War II looks pretty good, just a bit soft (I use the smoothing option).

A lot of PS1 games look very pixelated and dated. I dunno if you were expecting your PS3 to do an amazing job of upscaling or what, but most of the titles won't look too great in HD.
 
The PS2 was never made to be HD save for a few games like GT4. If your HDTV has a really good scalar this can make a difference. My Mitsubishi 52 inch looks dramatically different than a Vizio 32 inch that I had. The difference was seriously night and day, if you don't believe it try demoing it at best buy or some other store and you'll see. Assuming you have a decent HDTV, you can turn on smoothing and upscaling in the PS3 options and see if that helps. But all in all, remember its PS2, it'll never look the same as it did when you played it on an SDTV; PS2 games simply were not made to be played on HDTVs.
 
Definitely agree with those that say the PS3 is not the problem here. This is just a fact of life trying to play old games on a modern TV. I'm in the same boat as you in that my PS3 is now also my PS2, so I have no option of playing those games on my "old games tv" unless I switch over the PS3 entirely.
 
It varies on the games. Some look like garbage, and some look alright. I play old systems on a old tv instead of a hdtv. PS3/360 even my Wii is hooked up to my hdtv,but everything else, and before is going to be on my old tv.
 
It really depends on the TV. I find that on an LCD/Plasma, standard def games look like pure ass. On my Sony 50" LCD rear projection, games looked better than on my Sony 32" Wega CRT. This was tested using a real PS2 and not a PS2 game in a PS3.
 
Thanks for the input. The PS2 game I was playing was Fire Pro Wrestling Returns, which probably isn't high end graphics to begin with. I also got the Metal Gear Solid 1-3 box set but I haven't opened it up to try them yet.

Last time I had a PS2 (years ago) I had a SDTV. I guess I just have to adjust to it. I guess I won't bother picking up those PS2 games I had missed.

But thanks for everyone's input. Other than that, the PS3 is pretty cool.
 
PS2 has SD output the max it can do is 480i. You won't get anything from it on your HDTV. If you want it to look good try playing on a SD TV (like an analog) because the scanlines on SDTV will actually make the game look less crappy. I got a ps2 and when i play it on my SDTV it looks ok but when i put it on HDTV it looks like crap lol.
 
Ok, so I opened up the MGS Essentials Collection to try them out. MGS1 looks pretty bad (which I completely expected based on it's age- but it was amusing because I remember how amazing I thought the graphics where when it originally came out). They I tried MGS3 and it looks pretty darn good for a PS2 game.

For example, during the title screens the Kojima logo looks really sharp, while the logos when Fire Pro Wrestling loads are a jaggy mess. So I guess it's basically hit and miss on how the games look.
 
I put in Fire Pro just now and it is very much playable and jaggies aren't noticeable all that much (logos had none at all). It is upscaled on mine to 1080p with smoothing on. I have an Aquos 42" LCD older model from 2007 and a 20gb system so maybe the PS2 hardware inside it helps. I am also using a HDMI 1.3 cable, don't know if that would make a difference or not. I tried it at both full screen and normal (with black bars) and liked it stretched out a little better.
 
You could play it on a emulator for the PC. I'm not sure why but games seem to look better running on it. You can actually use the disk itself. If you search youtube you can find example of games running using a emulator. Of coarse it might not be completely legal so can't give any details. Personally I don't really care as long as you are using games you bought.

Here is a example of one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK5iA611mQw
 
[quote name='Haggar']Thanks for the input. The PS2 game I was playing was Fire Pro Wrestling Returns, which probably isn't high end graphics to begin with. I also got the Metal Gear Solid 1-3 box set but I haven't opened it up to try them yet.[/QUOTE]

FPR looks like crap for me as well, I just play it on my PS2.

By the way, Persona 3 and 4 look fantastic on PS3. Absolutely perfect.
 
Graphics will degrade if both your TV and PS3 do the upscaling. Try to find out the native resolution of your TV and have PS3 upscale PS2 games to that resolution.
 
I tried Transformers (w/ minicons) and it looked really good w/ the smoothing on, and the upscaling set to full screen. Also, I tried out God of war 2 again same settings and it looked good
 
I would first try turning down your tv's resolution down to like 480 or whatever is native for ps2 games. Also take off widescreen mode.
 
Since the PS3 doesn't require it you should stick with SD and not have to worry. Don't let anyone tell you SD isn't better.
 
[quote name='DPsx7']Since the PS3 doesn't require it you should stick with SD and not have to worry. Don't let anyone tell you SD isn't better.[/QUOTE]

Shhhhhhhh!!!! ALL PS3 owners are supposed to be the Rockefellers and have an HDtv in EVERY room(even the crapper) and never blaspheme the PS3's good(and expensive) name by suggesting that it could be played on an SDtv.

For the record, I'm STILL playing(and now web surfing too) on an SDtv and aside from some teeny tiny text in some games, I have NO problems with playing the games on my older tv.
 
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