Gamecube deflicker off

So, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I've done some googling but nothing comes up. The Gamecube uses deflicker in most games, in order to reduce flicker (duh) on standard definition TVs. This is fine if you're using an SDTV, but if you're playing Gamecube games on an HD display, it looks like shit. Compare SSBM with deflicker off to almost any other Gamecube game, and you'll see how much it ruins the image. You basically get half the video quality. I imagine this isn't that noticeable on most HDTVs, since you're usually looking through a crappy scaler to begin with. But lately I've been using my CRT computer monitor to play Gamecube games in their native resolution, and the difference is very noticeable.

So I've been thinking about how people have developed code to force 480p in games that didn't originally support 480p, and I got to thinking: would it be possible to make a program that would force deflicker off on Gamecube games? I've googled it a bit, and haven't been able to find anything. If it hasn't been done yet, would it be technically possible?

I found this thread on the Beyond3D forums: http://forum.beyond3d.com/archive/index.php/t-40785.html

One of the posts describes the calls the GC/Wii makes to enable deflicker - GXNtsc480IntDf() for interlaced displays and GXNtsc480ProgSoft() for progressive scan. So, I should think, all you would need to do to disable deflicker would be to prevent games from making that specific call. So... has it been done? Could it be done?

 

Interesting thought... SSBM has it's own setting in the menus, right (been a while since I've played it, I seem to remember that being the case)?

Could a game/iso perhaps be simply patched to force this setting (or lack thereof)?

I would also be very interested in removing this feature. I remember how awesome XBMC (on Xbox1) looked when I turned the deflicker down, or even off completely.

 

Yes, SSBM has an option for it in the menu. As far as I know, it's the only game that has such an option. In fact, I believe it's one of the only, if not the only Gamecube game that supports deflicker off - at least it's the only one I've played, and I have over 30 of the most common GC games.

That could work, although personally I would prefer if there were a way to apply the setting to retail discs. It would probably be easier to do it on the Wii. The force 480p thing works on retail games, right? I should think it would be possible to use a similar method for force deflicker off. But I'm no programmer.

 

My question is: where would this programming/code be held? New BIOS?

(I think Pikmin 2 might have had the deflicker option as well, I'll boot it up when I get home... if I can find it.) (EDIT: Actually read all the way through your link and someone mentioned this and a couple other games)

 

Go to gc-forever.com
Emu-kidid has a program that can do just about everything.

It can even force games that don't support widescreen to render in true 16:9!!
I'm sure putting the deflicker setting in there would be trivial.

Post this in the "Swiss" section and see what he has to say.

 

[FONT=Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]

Hmm, my Wii hacking memory is a little fuzzy, but I don't think the Wii would be any benefit especially if "deflicker" is something the devs coded into the games software, or whether it's part of the GameCube hardware or OS. When the Wii runs a GameCube game it essentially runs it in its own special GC mode and shuts off all Wii functions. It's likely that it's an option devs ether choose or choose not to do, like anti aliasing etc and is independent for each software, like Nintendo happened to choose to add an option for it in SSBM, that's my guess anyway.[/FONT]

 

"[18:53] <Extrems> It is part of Swiss' progressive patch."

And there you have it.

 

Wish I could get Swiss to boot...

 

Awesome! Now I have to figure out how to get it to work...

 

I asked this(deflicker on/off) on a lot of forums and nobody understood me(even on this forum)
on the xbox there is flickerfuc*er, it's cool that a prog is available for GC, now we need one for the PS2, but nobody is interested
I'm on this mission for almost a decade

edit: the DC is using it too, and same none program exist to force deflicker off

 

The DC uses deflicker over composite and RGB, but not over VGA. Over VGA the image is perfectly clear.

A lot of PS2 games use deflicker, but not all. There's a fair number of games that don't use it, especially early PS2 games. I've always found early PS2 games to be more interesting than most of the later ones.

 

for ps2 there is GSM which can force progressive modes. deflickering might be possible too but i am not sure about the approach. most early PS2 titles give half resolution when forced to progressive

 

off course deflickering works only in interlaced modes
yeah i like sharp images that's why i would like to find a method for forcing deflicker off on ps2 games, when i play them in 480i, via rgb on crt's
earlier games on the ps2 era didn't have deflickering because it was not available in the sdk, only later when everybody started "omg the ps2 flickers so badly"
i tried looking what is happennig when you choose it on/off in games that let's you do this(tekken 4,5 final fantasy 12 etc..)
maybe someday someone more skilled in hacking can figure out what registers you must set for disabling the deflicker
but everybody is interested only in activating 480p for games

 

Well, after a couple of hours of fiddling, I finally got Swiss to load - and it indeed does disable deflicker (pardon the alliteration). It looks much better than it did before - still not as good as my Dreamcast, but very good. It was not as difficult as I would have thought, but it took a while. I think it was worth it.