Hacking Castlevania Dracula X Chronicles resolution?

Truner

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Has anyone ever (besides Dark_AleX making a full screen patch) tried hacking the "Original Game" resolutions in this game? Symphony of the Night looks awful, since it's not playing at its native resolution, if one can make it run full screen, would it also be possible to run it at its proper resolution (256x208)?
 

ceifadorx

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you have option to play full screen (with black border to keep the aspect ratio). and you can chose what pictures is on the black border.
 

Truner

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you have option to play full screen (with black border to keep the aspect ratio). and you can chose what pictures is on the black border.
In both cases, the aspect ratio is completely off. Dark_AleX made a patch that made the game stretch out to the full resolution of the PSP (that's not a good thing btw, but he did it, so it's possible to change the resolution). My question is if it's possible to force the game to run at its native resolution, how hard it would be to do it and plssomeonecleverdoit/can it be forked off from the existing cwcheat that makes the game full screen (it doesn't work on my end so idk)
 

ceifadorx

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dude ps1 games they are not in widescreen, when you put full screen always gonna strech. if you want, you can zoom the psone classic version (if fit fullscreen but you gonna miss some imagens and this is not ideal)
but the psone has a option that you can play in the original 320x240 resolution, but the resolution is too small for me.
 

Truner

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dude ps1 games they are not in widescreen, when you put full screen always gonna strech. if you want, you can zoom the psone classic version (if fit fullscreen but you gonna miss some imagens and this is not ideal)
but the psone has a option that you can play in the original 320x240 resolution, but the resolution is too small for me.
You are not understanding my question nor what I'm trying to say at all.
 
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Jehux

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Yeah this is really a issue, especially since I bought this legally, and I really wanna play the extra games, they are the only official english subbed games. Can someone contact Dark_Alex to make the correct aspect ratio hack, or can someone do it themselves?? this really needs to be fixed.
 

seseiSeki

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If I got this right, you want to play SotN in the original resolution without this annoying bilinear filtering?
If that's the case, just change it in the Dracula X Chronicles settings. If I missed the point, I'm sorry, but your first post is pretty confusing...
 
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Truner

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If I got this right, you want to play SotN in the original resolution without this (fu***ng) bilinear filtering?
If that's the case, just change it in the Dracula X Chronicles settings. If I missed the point, I'm sorry, but your first post is pretty confusing...
No, it really isn't. Those settings are universal and do not take into account what the native resolution of each of those games is. The filtering is the least of the problems. By not playing at native resolutions, you get uneven pixels. As it's obvious that the resolution can be changed (I just don't know how), I thought maybe someone could look into it and see if it's possible to fix the issue. This little visual aid of the desired fix's potential look should help:
cze3l9rn.png
 

metroid maniac

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It's possible that the resolution has been changed on the asset level, like the Saturn port.
If that's the case then you'd first need to replace all the assets with those from the PS1 original, which isn't going to be easy.
 

Truner

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It's possible that the resolution has been changed on the asset level, like the Saturn port.
If that's the case then you'd first need to replace all the assets with those from the PS1 original, which isn't going to be easy.
I'm fairly sure the problem lies in the resolutions the PSP ports use. None of the options allow for native resolution and none of them look good. A good start would be to see if the game looks any better on its native resolution. Since there's already at least one resolution hack for this game out, it's obvious that the resolution CAN be changed. I lack the knowledge to actually do it, hence the thread's creation and its cry for help.
 

metroid maniac

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I'm fairly sure the problem lies in the resolutions the PSP ports use. None of the options allow for native resolution and none of them look good. A good start would be to see if the game looks any better on its native resolution. Since there's already at least one resolution hack for this game out, it's obvious that the resolution CAN be changed. I lack the knowledge to actually do it, hence the thread's creation and its cry for help.

No, you misunderstand.
If the PSP version is the like the Saturn version, then the sprites and backgrounds themselves have been stretched to fit a 320x208 framebuffer. Not as a postprocessing effect. In such a case the game would be running at "native resolution", it would just be running with butchered assets.
 

Truner

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No, you misunderstand.
If the PSP version is the like the Saturn version, then the sprites and backgrounds themselves have been stretched to fit a 320x208 framebuffer. Not as a postprocessing effect. In such a case the game would be running at "native resolution", it would just be running with butchered assets.
I understand what you are trying to say, but that is a speculation only. That said, I highly doubt it'd be the case, as otherwise, the PSP version seems to be an exact copy of the PS1 version (I'm guessing emulation, not porting, actually). We won't know until someone tries to make it run at what the PS1 version's native resolution was and see if it looks good. That said, even the the assets were altered, if they are uniformly done (which they should be), changing the resolution should still give positive results.
 

metroid maniac

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I understand what you are trying to say, but that is a speculation only. That said, I highly doubt it'd be the case, as otherwise, the PSP version seems to be an exact copy of the PS1 version (I'm guessing emulation, not porting, actually). We won't know until someone tries to make it run at what the PS1 version's native resolution was and see if it looks good. That said, even the the assets were altered, if they are uniformly done (which they should be), changing the resolution should still give positive results.

Doesn't the PSP version include some bonus areas and characters from the Saturn version of the game? Seems pretty likely to me.
 

Truner

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Doesn't the PSP version include some bonus areas and characters from the Saturn version of the game? Seems pretty likely to me.
It doesn't include the bonus areas IIRC. The Maria character included is also completely different from the Saturn one.
Also, the problem is also present in Rondo of Blood.
 
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Truner

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I tried mucking around with the patch mentioned in the first post to see if I could alter the resolution in any way, but I can't exactly wrap my head around how it works and it's been 4 years since that. I doubt anyone is interested in this. Maybe it's time to close this thread?
 

seseiSeki

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I'm still interested in this. I recently got a Vita and thought about finishing SotN, but on the Vita screen, the bilinear filtering and the wrong resolution is way more noticeable than on the PSP screen.
Also: Yes it's been four years and I still didn't finish SotN...

Edit: I just played around with the full screen code and... at least found a way to get the horizontal resolution to 256. Alucard looks weird, because I have the invisible cape equipped. Also note, that I only tried this code with PPSSPP and a Korean version of Dracula X Chronicles. Aaaand it only works, with the screen size set to full, since the original code was only meant to stretch the game.
Code:
_L 0x1011AE54 0x00000110
icDcAxD.png

That means, if someone finds the addresses responsible for the vertical resolution, it would definitely be possible to play SotN in it's original resolution. I just don't know how to search for these addresses. I tried doing something similar once and long story short: I didn't find the addresses I was looking for.
 
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