Is it me or are sprites on Dreamcast........

Blurry

Yeah I'm playing though an RCA connection on an HDTV BUT 3d games though my Dreamcast look just as good or better than PS2 games going through Component. 2d Fighters just look REALLY mostly the SNK games
(then again the 2 SFIIIs I have won't boot proper)

Have we been living a lie? Is the Dreamcast not the 2d Dream machine we all once thought it was?

 

Dont 2D games look like crap on most HDTVs?

I dont know about you but I have a 30" CRT FlatScreen and even with RCA my DC looks so great I cant beleive it. Maybe your cables arnt that great? First party?

But I would lean more towards the fact that HDTVs dont handle 2D as well as a CRT. Espcially LCDs and Flats.

 

Hmm, 2D through S-Video on my flat screen CRT looks fantastic. Even through VGA on my TFT some of them look even better while others look blocky due to the resolution not due to the monitor being TFT. I'd say it's your TV's problem. I've read that using composhite on HD TVs doesn't work well for 2D.

Yakumo

 

doesn't quite explain why CVS 2 looks better on XBOX going through RCA.

I tired on another non HD too and it was the same Garou is the worst offender.

 

It all depends upon what resolution the game is running in. Most SNK games on the DC run in a lower resolution than Capcom titles due to their original resolution being based on the Neo Geo. CVS on the XBOX probably runs at a different resolution than the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast is identical to the arcade since that was a Naomi system as I'm sure you know is basically a Dreamcast. Try Guilty Gear. That should still look good.

Yakumo

 

xbox and GC, as well as most new consoles cant output lower than 640x480.

 

there are some details from the MVS/AES Garou that seem lost on the DC Version. For example I didn't know Rock's eyes were red until I played the rom.

anywho I did try guilty gear and it does look great but I think that's probably becuase of the higher resolution.

I should give KOF 98 another spin and report back on it.

 

There is no such thing as a sprite on Dreamcast, 2D game "sprites" are now only software abstractions which are blitted to the frame buffer as any 3D object are. Since the Neo Geo roughly outputted 320x240, it is scaled on Dreamcast to 640x240 for interlaced monitors (TVs) and 640x480 for progressive monitors (monitors). The detail should be exactly the same since in-game interpolation isn't necessary.

I should also add that it's not smart to complain about image quality when you're viewing SD video on a HD set. Your TV without doubt *is* interpolating the video, probably with bilinear filtering for speed.

 

So Garou looks blurry why then?

 

Because of your TV. Run it on a proper monitor using RGB or VGA

 

Because your TV takes the 640x240p video and scales it to 960x720p (4:3) or 1280x720p (if your TV is set to 16:9) or if you have a 1080p TV, then it probably scales everything to that.

When you view interlaced video like 3D games, it deinterlaces the video to a 480 line/30fps picture then scales it. That's half the blur of scaling 240 lines but half the frames per second. If you view 480p games (many DC games have this option), it will have both benefits--less blur AND full frames.

 

It's the HD TV, but on mine some stuff like SNES looks ok with S video, but still nowhere as nice as with a CRT. VGA on the dreamcast is suppose to look good on HDTV's isnt it?

 

Yes, it will look nice but it will look even nicer on an analog 480p TV/monitor.

 

For anything less than Xbox, it's best to use a regular SD analog CRT with RGB or S-Video. HDTV sets suck pretty bad on anything that won't do 480p or higher. So just buy a nice old CRT to go with your shiney HDTV. I have a LCD for my Xbox and Xbox 360 and a RGB monitor for the rest. Better than having interlacing issues and other weird issues. Plus I can use my Lightguns again this way. I just have to finish making my SCART to HD15 and RCA audio adapter. Then I just plug in a RGB SCART cable, and it comes out 2 RCA jacks for Audio and a HD15 (VGA) connector which has a HD15 to BNC cable which goes to the BNC RGB connections on the monitor.

For DreamCast I've heard things like RGB isn't compatible with every game. Still either way to get the best of both worlds you need a HDTV and a quality regular CRT.

 

480p ("VGA") isn't available in all games, RGB is of course since that's all the DC deals with. If you have a multi-sync TV, you can use a RGB->component transcoder and use only one connection to the TV for both 480i and 480p games, that's the best way to go IMO.

 

I've considered that as well. But those things are expensive. Plus finding the cable to do that for the dreamcast.

 

That's good to have that cleared up. Now I just need to buy an RGB SCART cable for Dreamcast.

 

The reason most of those games look blurry is b/c they are. They're displayed in 480i, not 240p. Even running these games on a crisp RGB 15khz monitor, they will still look like utter shit. These games include (but are not limited to)
Gigawing, Mars Matrix, most of the Capcom fighters, Yu Suzuki's Gameworks games (I think), and almost every other 2D game on the DC. Despite what DC fans tell you, it is about the worst system out their for 2D arcade ports. It's only better than the Xbox & GC in the fact that it can be true to the originals... it just usually isn't.

This thread talks about which SNK games (and a few Capcom games) support 240p (their original resolution).
http://www.gamengai.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1798

Off the top of my head, there are at least 2 games on the DC which support both 240p and VGA via a shitty interlaced picture. They are TSS and SFIII: W Impact (that thread I linked should give better info).

More reading:
A fantastic article written by Recap, perhaps the loudest voice in keeping games at their original frequencies and resolutions:
http://postback.geedorah.com/extra/a_matter_of_visual_precision.htm

A thread at gamengai dedicated to bashing and praising PS2 ports (the only recent machine other than the DC that can actually output 240p):
http://www.gamengai.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1184

A bit obscure, but another gamengai thread that explains why playing games in emulation with proper hardware is 1000x better than playing 'ports' (actually emulated ports) on the GC, Xbox, and often DC/PS2:
http://www.gamengai.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=553

Actually the US port of Gunbird indeed does not support RGB. I'm not sure how they broke it, but they did.

Not exactly accurate. Some games (the ones that support 240p above) are indeed displayed at 256x240 (or 256x224 w/ 8 black lines on top and bottom). These games would not be playable in 640x240...everything would be twice as tall as it should be. Maybe you're referring to 480i? If so, I think the way you described it is a bit confusing.

Best way to go: true RGB
Getting an RGB monitor in the US: Fucking hard

Gonna have to jump in and smack you and point to a Sony Wega. Trust me...you'll thank me when you did (and will probably burn all your S-Video cables after you switch). You have no reason not to. You can get a 25" or 28" Wega off of YJ for about 12,000 yen shipped! You are eating your cornflakes with shit in them!!!

Most should run at lower resolutions, but as stated above, many of them run interlaced...it effectively doubles the resolution and blurs the picture. Why? Well, it does look better on an HDTV. The game hardware is traditionally way better at upscaling than the TV (if you can believe that). Play a game that supports both 480i and 240p (the recent Sega Ages 2500 games for example) and see how bad your HDTV really is at upscaling. Now, this doesn't tackle the issue of the user needing to be stabbed in the dick for thinking it's okay to play old games on a 31khz monitor.

 

So what are we all going to do when all those lovely RGB monitors die? Can't they make a HD-TV that can support lower resolutions? Is it just not possible?

yakumo

 

It is just like quality games. Not enough people care, hence, most games put out today suck ass.

I think by that time you'll see a bigger/better (hopefully) push on emulation. A proper emulator will at least be able to simulate low-res via fake scanlines. It's not the same, but it's better than nothing (and it's definitely better than an interlaced picture).