3.10 OE-A PSX Emulation problem

[Ranifan]

I have an eboot of Gran Turismo 1 (PAL). It works perfectly apart from the speed, which is about 20% too fast. This problem applies to all the games I have tried. Any suggestions?

Cheers

[katsika]

if you take a look here (http://forums.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?t=47493) many users report that pal games run faster than normal.So i guess it must be a popstation issue

[Ranifan]

Thanks Katsika. Anyone know of a tool to slow it down?

[gameroftheuk]

Thanks Katsika. Anyone know of a tool to slow it down?

Try to underclock your PSP to let's say 222 MHZ

[Ranifan]

Good idea, GOTUK, but it doesn't work. I think the PSP runs at 222 mhz anyway.

[StoneCut]

PSX games run at 333 MHz.

[skydragon786]

There is no difference between trying NTSC or PAL (Only difference is the region thing) - See the FFVII battle swirl that doesn't work on NTSC? Well, just encoded the PAL one to see if it works, and still doesn't. Also, tried several other games, and the same bugs are there as in the NTSC versions.

The only difference between the versions as of 3.10 OE-A is the fact that some, if not most, PAL games seem to play quicker (Like 20-25%), so obviously, racing games are cool to play for us europeans, with all the extra speed :)

[az_bont]

If you find you PAL games playing 20% faster, then you are likely experiencing them the way they were originally intended, and as they would have been in the American and Japanese NTSC releases.

Games on consoles are usually synced to the display's refresh rate, so by reducing that refresh rate from 60Hz to 50Hz, the game itself slows down. Games can be optimized so that the speed can remain the same in all territories, but this requires some extra work, so a lot of developers (especially in the past) didn't bother.

If your PAL game plays faster on Popstation, then it is likely evidence that your PAL game was converted in the manner described above, and so Popstation is playing it at the same speed it was in NTSC releases, and would have been if the developers had cared enough about the PAL area markets :(.

[Redeemed]

pal games are always a bit slower than ntsc ones, so what u just said its not true, and its a technical issues of games that run @ 50hz instead of 60hz (ntsc). another issues, beside the slowdown due to a lower refresh rate (althought the picture its more defined than ntsc ones, since there are less lines displayed and into a letterbox type of output) is the black borders. if u want to test what im talking about, grab tekken3 pal and ntsc, as an example. the pal version will makes u puke. so the speed its an issue of the popstation emulator wich outputs the image to a bigger res than psx one, without a frame limiter. this happens also if u try to play ps2 games using a vgaadaptor while outputting them @ vga or xwvga resolutions with refresh rates higher than 50hz.

[StoneCut]

pal games are always a bit slower than ntsc ones, so what u just said its not true, and its a technical issues of games that run @ 50hz instead of 60hz (ntsc). another issues, beside the slowdown due to a lower refresh rate (althought the picture its more defined than ntsc ones, since there are less lines displayed and into a letterbox type of output) is the black borders. if u want to test what im talking about, grab tekken3 pal and ntsc, as an example. the pal version will makes u puke. so the speed its an issue of the popstation emulator wich outputs the image to a bigger res than psx one, without a frame limiter. this happens also if u try to play ps2 games using a vgaadaptor while outputting them @ vga or xwvga resolutions with refresh rates higher than 50hz.

The difference in refresh rate is only an issue if the original game was not programmed to take that into account. Most did. The myth that PAL games run slower is only true for some very badly converted and coded games.

It makes no difference if I calculate and display an image 25 or 30 times a second. A PAL and NTSC Ridge Racer give the same records on the proper console for that region.

I think the actual problem is that currently PAL games are forced to run at NTSC speeds (aka 60 Hz instead of 50 Hz). Maybe a future update will fix that.

[Ranifan]

That was precisely what I was thinking Stonecut. So there is no way of slowing it down then, I take it (at least for now).

[skydragon786]

Yeah, but does that explain the differences in, say, FFVII? I encode the NTSC version of FFVII CD1, play it, and the game plays as normal at normal speed. Then, encode the PAL version of FFVII CD1, play it, and you'll notice the whole game playing "faster", i.e. the music is faster, the battles are faster, the whole game moves faster (Imagine playing the opening intro bit, but playing it around 20-25% faster). There is a clear difference, it's definitely not that the PAL game was slower, and now I'm playing it as if I was playing the NTSC version, since I just played both one after the other..

Don't know what the problem could be.. could be the "PAL game forced to play at 60hz", could be something else, dunno..

[StoneCut]

PAL 50 Hz = "25 pictures per second"
NTSC 60 Hz = "30 pictures per second"

Speedup by playing PAL (50Hz) game at NTSC speeds (60Hz): 20 per cent. (If my math hasn't completely mistaken me).

Sounds about right ??