Hardware Which PSP Should I Get?

[GBA rocks]

Granted i've never emulated anything black and white, nor used the GB emu's but in general day to day use i think saying DON'T GET A 2000 BECAUSE OF GHOSTING is scaremongering until there's some sort of decent comparison made OTHER than that single Disgaea shot. Everyone who's owned a PSP is aware of the ghosting vs interlacing vs saturation issue but it's, in my experience, not something that really matters much.

I do most my PSPing these days on my 1000 and i can't think of anything i've played recently that's been bad (NP Vagrant Story)

To be fair, I never tried a 2000, I only READ about ghosting on it.

Ghosting on a 2000, while still being present (as testified here and everywhere else), COULD be less than on a 1000.

1000: ghosting 10
Street: ghosting 1

The 2000 could be anywhere in between, like 5.

 

[xist]

Tekken 3 (ripped from a ps1 disc)

I think i bought Tekken 3 way back when so if i can can find my PSX games i'll rip it and convert so i can compare directly for myself some time over the weekend. I don't have the internet to upload anything but pictures though...

 

[Foxi4]

The 2000 (Early Models) always were and always will be the most optimal choice for a newbie owner and a hardcore modder alike - it's cIPL-capable unlike the PSP-3000, Go or E-1000 and it has a screen superior to that of the PSP-1000 - it's an unbrickable machine. Its only downside is the lack of a built-in microphone which can be easily rectified with a cheap headset if you really plan on using Skype on the device.

 

[GBA rocks]

I think i bought Tekken 3 way back when so if i can can find my PSX games i'll rip it and convert so i can compare directly for myself some time over the weekend. I don't have the internet to upload anything but pictures though...

Ok, if you manage to try it and test that same demo sequence, focus on the Xiaoyu part (0:28-0:33 in the video I linked), that part has so much ghosting on my 1000 that one could think it's made on purpose for emphasis.

 

[xist]

Somewhat shockingly i have no idea where Tekken 3 is. I'm positive i owned it, and have some of my other PSX games (although i can't find Pandemonium either...). Which means i sold it and promptly forgot about doing so or it's gone into hiding.

Are there any other games, preferably PSP games since that's the system we're looking at, which demonstrate your issue.

 

[GBA rocks]

Tell me a common game (or a couple) you have readily available to test so I can test it on my 1000 and tell you precisely where to look at to notice the ghosting (if there is evident ghosting in said game).

 

[xist]

Chains of Olympus, Crisis Core, Final Fantasy Tactics War of the Lions (which is a good choice because it's turn based and easier to reproduce across consoles)....i've got a load of PSX games just not that many fighters or driving games. I'm playing Vagrant Story on a 1000 at the moment and haven't noticed anything...

 

[iNFiNiTY]

The 3DS doesn't have backwards compatibility with the GBA, and while the Vita can run PSP homebrew, it's somewhat limited, and you need to be online and buy a certain game before the exploit comes out (because Sony pulls the hacked game in 24 hours now), people who get a Vita often have to wait 3+ weeks before they can even start.

It does have GBA support though.. they just are not actually using it yet.

 

[GBA rocks]

Chains of Olympus, Crisis Core, Final Fantasy Tactics War of the Lions (which is a good choice because it's turn based and easier to reproduce across consoles)....i've got a load of PSX games just not that many fighters or driving games. I'm playing Vagrant Story on a 1000 at the moment and haven't noticed anything...

Ok, start a New Game in Vagrant Story, in the very first room after a few steps you can see 2 barrels in the foreground, surrounded by a fence, the black bars of the fence create extremely noticeable dark ghosting trails while you move accross them on the 1000, whereas the same effect cannot be seen on the Street. It would be interesting to try it on a 2000 too.

 

[GBA rocks]

In Chain of Olympus, start a new game on Easy, run around and focus on the skirt and boots of Kratos, you will notice reddish/greenish trails or halo around them while you move.

 

[GBA rocks]

In Crisis Core, the opening credits FMV is a ghosting festival (look at Zack and at the flying letters), and after the first fight the scared people running away from the Behemoth leave behind the familiar greenish trail.

In FFT:War of the Lions I wasn't able to single out noticeable/reproducible episodes of ghosting in the first moments of the game, while still being able to tell "in general" that there was a slower pixel refresh when comparing the 1000 side by side to the Street. I guess the same could be said for chess or checkers PSP games. Of course slow paced games are not perfect candidates to highlight ghosting.

Meanwhile I played some Marvel vs Capcom (PS1 ripped)...awesome on the Street, good but with ghosting on the 1000 (e.g. Gambit's waving trench coat animation).

 

[xist]

My Go isn't charged and i haven't dumped Crisis Core so a couple of shots from that (1000 vs 2000)

First image of each pair is 2000

Spoiler

vs

vs

Is that a fair example? Will take a crack at Vagrant Story next...

OK Vagrant Story won't screencap what i see so i'm not sure if it's ghosting i think i'm seeing. I don't see any evidence of ghosting on those barrels on either 1000 or 2000 but i do think i see some motion blur (if i'm right that's when things get darker as you move) on the 2000 (but not the 1000)

All i can show for VS is (and it's difficult to tell but i'm running left and right)

Spoiler

However the 2000 (the pics above) are noticeably crisper than the 1000.

 

[GBA rocks]

It's not really something you can capture on pictures, or at least not easily.

And definitely not on screenshots, just like a dead pixel on the screen won't show up in screenshots. It's an hardware issue.

We can call it "involuntary motion blur" (not to be confused with motion blur by design, created on purpose by developers) but it's still ghosting and it's not supposed to be there.

 

[Rydian]

The blurring is actually a result of the physically high response time on the LCD in regards to contrast levels, and so it won't show up in digital screenshots, you'd need images of the actual screen. So I did a video.



Video file: http://www.mediafire.com/?vya3jy52dm57lwq

I chose Super Mario Land 2: The Six Golden Coins for this test on some RIN version as I had it handy and am familiar with it and it has relatively fast movement. I spent a few seconds moving back and forth in an area with blocks so that the difference between the lighter and darker blocks can be seen, as well as a few other tasks. The non-intertwined frames in my converted recording show the difference between how various colors are changed in the still frames and general movement. There's an obvious struggle with dark-to-mid colors (low contrast), while high contrast changes are much more vivid and less blurry.

Assuming that the first frame is #0 like Virtualdub marks it...

#93

You can see here that the boxes I have already hit with the darker colors blur far more during movement then the left boxes that have a lighter base and thus higher contrast.

#94

One recorded frame later, the darker boxes show up clearer, because the pixels have had more time to respond to the change. No change in the light boxes since they already finished their transition in the previous frame.

#290

Faster movement here, you can see that the light boxes and Mario himself are blurred a bit, but it's nothing compared to the dark boxes.

#425

Mario and the background tree seem fine, but the border/edge of the terrain is made of pixels with low contrast to each other (dark grey fill with a black outline for the border), which noticeably blurs into itself and not into the surrounding lighter terrain (you can still make out the "spikes" of grass on the inside of the mound of earth).

#554

After going down a pipe, there's trails on the edges, which had a bunch of a dark color together in the line of movement. Notice there's no trail on the lip of the pipe, as it's not a dark mass.

#728

Going back up the pipe, even in a frame that has an afterimage due to the out-of-sync recording speed of the camera, you can see the trails are physically still left on the PSP's screen.

#797

I hit one question block out of a line, turning it into a dark block. Notice that it's blurred way more heavily than the question blocks.

#887

All dark? All blurred, the 2000's screen commands it!

It does have GBA support though.. they just are not actually using it yet.

It's emulation, which is the same way that the Wii plays N64, SNES, and NES games. This is different from the ability to play the actual game carts/discs you already own.

 

[xist]

I'm just being thick here but two things....

Firstly, if the ghosting can't be seen in screencaps why can i see it in those frames above? Yep i'm simple...
And secondly, holy crap you need to be picky...i mean i can see it in the above video but in the course of actually PLAYING a game rather than looking for ghosting i wouldn't notice it.

Personally speaking I'm unhappy with the colour saturation levels on the 3000 and Go (and then there's the interlacing artefacts which i actually can see without hunting) compared to the 2000 (the 1000 is a little dimmer and less crisp). Admittedly i have a 1000 with the better screen (initial runs in Japan had either Sharp or Samsung LCD's with one performing better) which probably makes my 1000 slightly unrepresentative of the majority but it's generally fine aside from being slightly dim. The size of the Go's screen is also functionally worse if you've used another PSP.

If i was recommending a PSP to someone who was picky i don't see how there's any solution...Ghosting/motion blur, interlacing, saturation, screen size...then there's the actual hardware...controls, IR, speaker etc... when it comes down to it the best compromise has to be the fully flashable 2000's. It offers the best set of pro's and con's in my opinion.

 

[Rydian]

I'm just being thick here but two things....

Firstly, if the ghosting can't be seen in screencaps why can i see it in those frames above? Yep i'm simple...

Same reason taking a screenshot of a Word document on the computer won't show errors your printer is making when you're printing it. The screenshot is done in the system itself, while the issue is in the screen physically, which is where the image goes right after the step it's screenshotted at.

And secondly, holy crap you need to be picky...i mean i can see it in the above video but in the course of actually PLAYING a game rather than looking for ghosting i wouldn't notice it.

In black and white gameboy games and things like that, it's quite noticeable. In other things, most people wouldn't notice (which is why the 3K's interlacing was more widespread news, since it actually showed up even in the XMB/VSH). I played through at least like three PSP games without it being an issue.

Personally speaking I'm unhappy with the colour saturation levels on the 3000 and Go (and then there's the interlacing artefacts which i actually can see without hunting) compared to the 2000 (the 1000 is a little dimmer and less crisp). Admittedly i have a 1000 with the better screen (initial runs in Japan had either Sharp or Samsung LCD's with one performing better) which probably makes my 1000 slightly unrepresentative of the majority but it's generally fine aside from being slightly dim. The size of the Go's screen is also functionally worse if you've used another PSP.

Ehhh, I don't think it's that bad, though I've never messed with a hacked Go myself. I might one of these days just to get away from the ghosting, as Gameboy games are a favorite of mine to emulate.

If i was recommending a PSP to someone who was picky i don't see how there's any solution...Ghosting/motion blur, interlacing, saturation, screen size...then there's the actual hardware...controls, IR, speaker etc... when it comes down to it the best compromise has to be the fully flashable 2000's. It offers the best set of pro's and con's in my opinion.

Yeah the 2000s with cIPL are recommended just because they have the design that's better than the 1000, and still have full brick protection, which is invaluable.

If I had the other models I'd take shots and videos and put up exact explanations of the screen differences, but all I've got is a fully-hackable 2000, and if multiple people were taking the shots then camera differences would play a part and skew the results, etc.

 

[GBA rocks]

If it wasn't for the vertical shift the screen of the Street would be the best all around display.

No ghosting AND no interlacing AND no smaller diagonal.

If held at the right angle, it is.

Castlevania SotN, Marvel vs Capcom and other 2D PsOne games look amazing on the Street's screen. If held at the right angle.

 

[Rydian]

Personally I'd prefer the Go's screen to ghosting, interlacing, and a bad viewing angle.

 

[Yepi69]

Which PSP Should I Get?​

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Which PSPs are best for hacking?​

Which type of memory cards can I use?​

Do any of the PSPs have special features?​

Why does everybody say the Street is a P.O.S.?​

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Hopefully these charts will answer your questions.​

​

To sum things up, here's my personal assessment of the choices.

• 1000
  The oldest model, still works fine, but is somewhat limited and heavy.
  
• 2000 (Older)
  These are usually the most favored models for tinkerers as you can recover from bricking and explore more hacking options.
  
• 2000 (Later)
  A pretty standard choice for hacking and playing games, common to see around.
  
• 3000
  Almost the same as the later 2000 model, a common choice as well, pretty much all you find it stores now.
  
• Go (N1000)
  Smaller hands work with this model better than bigger ones, but some people like the small size, and the 16GB of built-in space is good.
  
• Street (E1000)
  Cheap piece of crap, avoid. Not only is it gimped even compared to the old 1000 model, but it's not built up to the same standards as the other models.

That's a pretty nice chart ya have there, I have a PSP-2000 I got when it was released, it is however, broken in ''some'' aspects, like:

1. - The UMD switch button is broken (don't know if that can be repaired)
2. - I lost the battery.
3. - I lost the charger.
4. - The PSP battery cover was broken and I lost it
5. - The PSP is bricked because it was updating and the battery cover fell alone with the battery in the middle of the update (It was working fine after turning on, days after it turns on and stays on a black screen with the green led on, I think a Pandora battery and a Magic Memory Stick should do the job fine)
6. - The PSP AC input (the piece that you put the charger) blew up because of humidity.

I wonder if that can ever be repaired :/

Either than that I would love to have my PSP fixed for portable emulation.

 

[Rydian]

If it's an older-model PSP then yeah you should be able to unbrick it with a pandora and such.