[HELP] GSmode Selector

[gerimax333]

Hey guys! 3 days ago, i got a PS2 slim. So i hooked it up all happy to my HDTV with the usual composite cables. Oh man, the blurriness, black bars (yes my PS2 and TV are set to 16:9). So i learned that you need Component cables to play nicely on the HDTV. So i also found this app called GSmode Selector (let's you select in what mode you boot the game (480p, 720p etc...). So i wanted to ask, IF i buy and hook up the Component cables, and launch GSmode Selector and select 720p, will my games (The games i really play are Metal Gear Solid 2 & 3, Gran Turismo 3) have still black bars, (if i launch in 1280x720 mode) or in 1080i mode? Because those black bars really annoy me. I would really need someone to answer me that. Thanks alot.

[gerimax333]

Please guys i need a response ASAP

[DemonicStrife]

Firstly, the games have to be compatible with those different modes, as I don't think I've ever seen ANY games run in 720p via GSMS. Secondly, the games will always have black bars and such excluding FMVs with certain games. 1080i in particular won't fill the entire screen; the actual game screen will be surrounded by a black border within your TV screen.

[gerimax333]

Firstly, the games have to be compatible with those different modes, as I don't think I've ever seen ANY games run in 720p via GSMS. Secondly, the games will always have black bars and such excluding FMVs with certain games. 1080i in particular won't fill the entire screen; the actual game screen will be surrounded by a black border within your TV screen.

So i will always have black bars? Damn, that's sad

[dlanor]

So i will always have black bars? Damn, that's sad

The precise 'black bar' effects will vary greatly both with the games used, the video modes enforced, and with the scaling options of your TV set.

My own HDTV set has many different options, such as 16:9, 14:9, 4:3, 4:3 Fullscreen, Zoom1, Zoom2, Zoom3 (different combos of vertical and horizontal zooming).
And some of those options combine very well with some video modes enforceable by GSM.

To make best use of these features you need to understand that GSM is only able to rescale the image by integer factors, calculated separately for the X and Y axis. But for most cases you would need to use a fractional scale factor, which is simply not possible for this method, as it relies on the scaling method of the GS hardware, which supports only integers.

For example:
One of my favorite tactical RPG games is "Disgaea: Hour of Darkness", which natively uses a low resolution of 320x224 pixels. This is normally rendered to cover a normal NTSC screen by scaling to 640x480 (simple pixel/line duplication) as displayed without GSM. This kind of game is ideal for use in 720p here, as my HDTV set has an 'overscan' area of 32 invisible scanlines, leaving 688 lines visible, while the game's screen height of 224 pixels rescales to 672 pixels using the integer factor 3. This minimizes the top and bottom black borders to only 8 scanlines each, which is almost negligible.

The horizontal scaling is another matter of course, since blowing the picture up to full width would also ruin the proportions, as the game was designed for 4:3 rather than 16:9. But for a game with a low rez like this it is quite simple to arrange for a suitable width scaling, simply by adjusting the 'claimed' physical width of the GSM mode definition. And by combining this with various settings of the HDTV set it is usually possible to achieve a good result.

But for games using the full screen height of either PAL or NTSC, these being 512 and 448 pixels respectively, it is not possible to achieve good integral scaling to 720p (or any close subset thereof, such as my 688 visible lines).

For such games 1080i will usually work better, and it also has better compatibility with many games simply because it uses interlace, just like the native PAL and NTSC modes use.
But again, the possibilities are limited both by the requirement for integer scale factors, and the common use of overscan margins in the TV sets. And since the latter vary for different sets, settings that look good on one HDTV set may look bad on another...

Finally you need to be aware that older PS2 units will not have access to all the HDTV video modes.
These were added to successive bios versions in the order 480p, 1080i, 720p, 576p.

The last two are ONLY available on slim models, and 576p is not available on the older ones even of these.
That last mode, incidentally, is the progressive mode that is closest to standard PAL resolution (== 576i).

Btw:
You posted this in the wrong section, as this is an area dedicated to uLE (== uLaunchELF).
While I have been involved both in the uLE and in the GSM project, the same is not true of the main GSM maintainer doctorxyz.
For the future I suggest that you post GSM-related questions in the main GSM thread, outside of this uLE subforum.


Edit:
I almost forgot to mention that even if you do not get the results you'd like from GSM, and even if you decide against using it at all, a good component cable set for your PS2 is the best accessory you can ever buy for such a console. It will improve the picture quality greatly, for all games and homebrews, regardless of what video modes you use. So even the good old (or bad old... ) standard NTSC and PAL video modes will show great improvements in picture clarity and colour richness. (Truly good colours are simply impossible to achieve with any composite cable.)

Best regards: dlanor

[gerimax333]

Thanks alot for the long, long response Well, i tried playing MGS3 today with the black bars, getting used to it. Also, there is a program called "Xploder HDTV Player", and some video ive seen, showed a guy play GoW on a 16:9 TV on 1080i (it was fullscreen, no black borders). So i guess using that program helps? Also, when i launch GSloader, the picture is not centered, its offset to the left, so i wonder how can i center it? Another question, if i try to use 720p on a unsupported game, will it crash, or what? Thank you.

[dlanor]

Thanks alot for the long, long response Well, i tried playing MGS3 today with the black bars, getting used to it. Also, there is a program called "Xploder HDTV Player", and some video ive seen, showed a guy play GoW on a 16:9 TV on 1080i (it was fullscreen, no black borders). So i guess using that program helps?

It is a program that does some of the same things GSM can do, but differently. So results may well be better with one of them than with the other, though it may vary which gives the improvement. If you have access to it you should definitely try it.

Also, when i launch GSloader,

Sorry, but I am not familiar with any program by that name. If that really is what you used, then your guess is as good as mine as to how it may work.

The program I have worked on is named "GSModeselector" and the proper abbreviation of its name is "GSM".
In order to be able to reply at all, I have to assume that this is what you meant.

the picture is not centered, its offset to the left, so i wonder how can i center it?

The GSM versions that I worked on (most recently v0.23x) all have various controls to 'tweak' the video settings before activating an enforced video mode. In v0.23x this is done by using the left joystick to adjust the offsets for both X and Y axis, followed by DPad_Down (alone) to activate the tweaked settings. This should allow proper centering of the screen both horizontally and vertically. But some GSM versions (notably v0.36) have no offset controls at all.

Another question, if i try to use 720p on a unsupported game, will it crash, or what? Thank you.

That varies with the game engine. Some do crash for unsupported video modes while others don't.

One unfortunate fact is that some games rely on interlacing to perform different game engine work in odd VS even video frame interrupts, sensing the odd/even state in one of the GS hardware flags. This means that for a progressive mode the work is never completed, as that flag does not alternate when no interlacing is done... Some such games will still work in 1080i, though they lock up completely in any of the progressive modes (due to incomplete interrupt work). This is one of the things doctorxyz has been working on trying to improve, so as to simulate an odd/even alternation even when the hardware is not interlacing.

Best regards: dlanor