Confused about 16:9 widescreen on the PS2!

Okay, so the PS2 has a 16:9 screen setting in it's options menu, so if you've got a widescreen TV, you just choose this setting and set your TV to 16:9 right? Well, I'm not sure, since:
A) There's still huge, thick black bars on screen. Overscan maybe?
B) Not all PS2 games support 16:9, so what happens if you try to play one of these games with the console and TV set to 16:9? The game gets stretched?

Google hasen't been very helpful in trying to work out the answer, so I though you guys might be able to clear it up!

 

Support for 16:9 is game-dependant (Like 480P). Unfortunately, it seems like a failure on Sony's end to provide a centralized option for the screen resolution and aspect ratio configurations that was mandatory for all games to follow (Imagine all later PS2 games supporting 480P or 720P).

So far, it seems like it depends on your TV: My friend's TV stretches the image. Mine can letterbox the screen, I think.

 

the 16:9 setting in the bios doesn't mean much unfortunately. most games which offer widescreen mode, has a setting in their options menu. afaik only burnout series and the last silent hill game decides its widescreen setting depending on bios selection.

if the game doesn't offer widescreen, it is best to play it in 4:3 mode (the huge, thick black bars on the right and left)

your tv can stretch the image (wrong aspect ratio, everything is fatter on screen) or cut the top and bottom parts of the screen (decreased view) to show full screen image on your screen. i always prefer the real 4:3 mode and black bars.

also some games can be forced to 16:9 mode via hacks. google "ps2 widescreen hack" and you will find out.

P.S. hi sp193, hope everything is going fine.

 

480p or 16:9 are the remote exceptions on PS2. It's best to assume they just aren't present at all.

Interestingly however PS2 had official 480p support in PAL games, unlike Gamecube and Xbox.

 

Hmmm, so what would be the best setup for my PS2 and TV? Should I set my console and TV to 4:3 and for the occasional 16:9 game, set the ratio in-game and change my TV to 16:9? Or would it be OK to leave the console set to 16:9 and set my TV to 4:3 for most PS2 games?

 

set your PS2 bios to 16:9 (there are very rare cases you want 4:3 there, for example last silent hill game just crops the picture on bios 16:9 mode), and your TV to 4:3

if the game has widescreen option, enable it and set your tv to 16:9 for that game.

do not forget to set your tv to 4:3 back, when you are playing a game which doesn't support widescreen


this way you will enjoy the games as they are meant to be.

 

Ah, I was afraid that if I set the console to 16:9 and played a 4:3 game with my TV set to 4:3, the game would be super squashed or something

 

That's the horrible truth about the widescreen option alright.

Agreed! A stretched screen is no fun at all. D:

Hi. Yes, it's been a long time.

Unfortunately, I've got no time to work on GSM now... since I'm still working on completing my SMAP setup. It's nearly complete though.

 

You even found a bug within PS2SDK SIF RPC, no ? I am itching to see what effect that fix has on Open PS2 Loader ...

 

Be careful about this. Doing this on an HDTV for too long risks damaging the sides of the screen.

 

thanks for the warning. even though i use a LED TV not plasma, there might still be burn-in. luckily i only game about 2-3 hours.

 

You use a LCD backlit with LEDs which still do burn in as I've discovered. Plasmas just do it more easily and more readily than LCD.

 

agreed, i have witnessed one myself with a channel logo. also i am too lazy to type "LCD TV backlit with LEDs" instead of "LED TV". i know it is a marketing trick.

 

LCD screens do not suffer from burn-in problems like CRT and plasma screens do.

 

lol Average people are dumb, hence why Samsung keeps pushing that "LED TV" marketing bullshit ...

Still, a real OLED TV costs like twice as much as a LCD or Plasma and DO HAVE the problem with burn-in of static images as bad as Plasma. :\

edit:

Actually, they do. An constant flow of current keeping the LCD element at a fixed state causes damage to the liquid element. Can result on things like stuck pixels or worse stuff.

 

they do unfortunately, to a lesser degree though. as i said in my previous post, i witnessed one in a LCD screen with channel logo.

 

Slightly off topic but I have a question. I've been trying to play PS2 games in widescreen on my 60gb PS3. Every widescreen game suffers from underscan (small black bars on all sides - top, bottom, left, right) and I have no option on my HDTV that fixes it. Is there some way I'm unaware of to fix it?

Also reprep, you discovered the method to use widescreen hacks on actual console hardware correct? Your tutorial lists Codebreaker 9.3. Would Codebreaker 6 work as well?

 

that underscan is normal and i do not know an effective way to compansate for that. i have it on my ps2. maybe it might be larger at ps3s, i don't know.

yup, i am the same reprep. the method was first found for pcsx2.

i do not have experience with backwards compatible ps3. afaik it is very hard to use codebreaker with it. the reason i used codebreaker 9.3 was it was possible to shoot opl from it by a modified elf. you can also use ps2rd which is open source. no idea about ps3 compatibility though.

there are also widescreen hex edits which you alter the iso. if you have a cobra usb, hex editing the isos and playing from ps3 hard drive might be feasible.

 

Just tried it. Codebreaker 6 doesn't load games on PS3, so there goes that method.

I tried it on my PS2 and I think it worked. Anything 2D appears stretched, but that doesn't bother me as much as the awful picture quality (even with component), prominent jaggies, and strange screen position and underscan. At least when I use my PS3 via HDMI, PS2 games look halfway decent. I can't imagine playing through a 50+ hour JRPG with the picture looking this bad.

I guess I'll wait until I get a PC good enough to emulate PS2 to try the the widescreen hacks. Either that or a Widescreen CRT.

 

i use original ps3 component cable for my ps2 and picture quality is good. of course, there are jaggies. widescreen hack will decrease the picture quality as the horizontal zoom value is increased, but that must be tiny. most people say ps3 shows worse picture than ps2 for ps2 games, but i didn't have a chance to try.

also you can try HDTV Xploder or GSM for PS2 and choose 480p for compatible games. some games really benefit from this.