Position screen

[Badcrew]

Hi, I have a PAL PS2 and PAL TV and by default the screen positioning is too much to the left and too high up, leaving my with a thick black border at the bottom and right side of the screen. I know that some games allow you to position the screen but not all do, so is there any actual proper fix for this? Plus the fact that this has no effect on the PS2's menus, Free MCBoot and such. An option in the PS2's configuration itself is what I'm looking for perhaps (but I can't see anything in System Configuration)?

[dlanor]

Hi, I have a PAL PS2 and PAL TV and by default the screen positioning is too much to the left and too high up, leaving my with a thick black border at the bottom and right side of the screen. I know that some games allow you to position the screen but not all do, so is there any actual proper fix for this? Plus the fact that this has no effect on the PS2's menus, Free MCBoot and such. An option in the PS2's configuration itself is what I'm looking for perhaps (but I can't see anything in System Configuration)?

The PS2 does not have any global screen adjustment feature, so it is up to each program to handle such things on its own, which many programs neglect.

For commercial games there are some ways to patch the ISO files so as to get the screen positioning you want, but though there are some common methods that apply for many games, you always have to search for the patch locations individually. For more info on these matters search for terms such as X-Fix/XFix and Y-Fix/YFix.

Personally I never had any problems with vertical positioning (my PAL TVs can handle both PAL and NTSC signal timing well), so the only problem for me is the time-shift caused by using RGB signals instead of the composite video signal for which the sync timing of all PS2 consoles is optimized. Since that composite signal is delayed by around 1 microsecond compared to the RGB signals, those RGB signals arrive at the TV set around 1 microsecond too early for good centering (relative to the sync signals), so that the left edge of the displayed data is outside the visible screen, with a corresponding black border at the right edge.

The standard XFix methods mentioned above can usually take care of that simply by changing the normal XFix constant either from 0x027C to 0x02C4 (for NTSC) or from 0x0290 to 0x02D4 (for PAL). However, like I said above, this must be done by patching the ISO files before burning a backup or installing to HDLoader/USBAdvance. The precise values needed for perfect centering may vary a bit for different TV sets, so feel free to experiment.

Fortunately the best homebrew applications (like SMS and uLaunchELF) have their own internal support for screen positioning, so there you just 'set it and forget it'.

Best regards: dlanor

[Blades_Nee]

Thanks dlanor, I wondered what caused this on my older tv I used to start with. But it seemed that after I got my big screen, it basically fixed itself.

I wonder still though, "Would the screen centering have had something, if anything at all, to do with the 19" regular switch to the 42" widescreen?"

[dlanor]

Thanks dlanor, I wondered what caused this on my older tv I used to start with. But it seemed that after I got my big screen, it basically fixed itself.

I wonder still though, "Would the screen centering have had something, if anything at all, to do with the 19" regular switch to the 42" widescreen?"

When you display a standard picture as produced by normal PS2 software (except a few) using screen proportions of 4:3 on a wider screen with 16:9 proportions, you automatically get wide borders on either side of the 4:3 picture. So the slight extra left-shift that comes from using RGB signals is no longer noticeable.

The results may vary though, depending on how the TV set 'selects' the signal 'timeslot' to be used for the 4:3 picture. So on some sets part of the left edge may still be slightly masked when using RGB.

Even on a 4:3 TV set it would be possible to adjust the picture for perfect positioning, except that modern TV sets normally do not offer such a control (except in service mode). A really old TV set might actually be better for that, because they had to have a manual horizontal adjust control, as factory settings could not be relied on for that in those days. If nothing else, analog component aging would cause a need for readjustment. But in this digital age the manual adjustment controls that were mandatory on older sets have almost completely disappeared.

Best regards: dlanor

[Blades_Nee]

I never changed any settings, it just seemed to be better centered when I got the new tv.

Thanks dlanor.