# [PS2] Are USA games generally better than EUR ones?



## Deleted User (Jan 26, 2020)

Thinking mainly because of the performance (60 Hz).

I'm making a list of PS2 games to download which the majority will be USA copies while a few EUR. And some other few JPN (exclusives).


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## Stealphie (Jan 26, 2020)

Boesy said:


> Thinking mainly because of the performance (60 Hz).
> 
> I'm making a list of PS2 games to download which the majority will be USA copies while a few EUR. And some other few JPN (exclusives).


Yes, because most (if not all) PAL games use 50hz, aka 50 FPS, and NTSC-USA games use 60hz, aka 60FPS.


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## Deleted User (Jan 26, 2020)

Stealphie said:


> Yes, because most (if not all) PAL games use 50hz, aka 50 FPS, and NTSC-USA games use 60hz, aka 60FPS.


Figured as much. Thanks.

There's a few EUR exclusives, but no big deal. Will grab those.


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## tglaria (Jan 26, 2020)

Stealphie said:


> Yes, because most (if not all) PAL games use 50hz, aka 50 FPS, and NTSC-USA games use 60hz, aka 60FPS.


Could you elaborate?

What's the meaning of this on PS2?
I know on NES, the clock of the cpu was running at a different frequency causing the game to run faster/slower, but for PS2?


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## spotanjo3 (Jan 26, 2020)

Boesy said:


> Thinking mainly because of the performance (60 Hz).
> 
> I'm making a list of PS2 games to download which the majority will be USA copies while a few EUR. And some other few JPN (exclusives).



I cannot care. I am fine with 50 Hz.. If you never knew 60 Hz speed compared to 50 Hz then you will never know and you cannot tell.

I saw the difference and I understand that but I am stick with 50 Hz because of my tradition experience and I am very comfortable with it. It doesn't effect my judge about 60 Hz because I never knew 60 Hz was a little bit after than 50 Hz. I played and I cannot tell the speed of 50 Hz until I saw the comparison. I am staying with 50 Hz even I am still playing 50 Hz PAL games on emulators today. I love it.


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## zfreeman (Jan 26, 2020)

*List of changes from the U.S. version of Ico*

Shadow of the Colossus Regional Differences


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## kassemmel (Jan 26, 2020)

PAL has higher resolution output, NTSC higher framerate:

PAL 576i. A few games, most known is ICO, output 288p.
NTSC output to 480i / 240p.


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## Wuigi (Jan 26, 2020)

Some developers also had the brilliant idea to cut 480p support while changing games to 50 Hz like Valkyrie Profile 2, really a shame.
At least I have now a usage for the imo useless retrotink for everything beyond N64 I bought a while ago.


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## Deleted User (Jan 26, 2020)

azoreseuropa said:


> I cannot care. I am fine with 50 Hz.. If you never knew 60 Hz speed compared to 50 Hz then you will never know and you cannot tell.
> 
> I saw the difference and I understand that but I am stick with 50 Hz because of my tradition experience and I am very comfortable with it. It doesn't effect my judge about 60 Hz because I never knew 60 Hz was a little bit after than 50 Hz. I played and I cannot tell the speed of 50 Hz until I saw the comparison. I am staying with 50 Hz even I am still playing 50 Hz PAL games on emulators today. I love it.


I see your point, but a few years ago I was playing a PAL copy of Tekken 3 on my PS3 and I thought there was something wrong with it, turns out the PAL version was really slow.

Ever since I realized I was playing inferior versions, I gave up on most PAL games (except if it's exclusive to PAL region).

It's a pity, the EUR SNES is identical to the JPN SNES and I love that, but playing the games at a slower framerate just isn't for me. Although, some are optimized.. but the damage was done.


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## spotanjo3 (Jan 26, 2020)

Boesy said:


> I see your point, but a few years ago I was playing a PAL copy of Tekken 3 on my PS3 and I thought there was something wrong with it, turns out the PAL version was really slow.
> 
> Ever since I realized I was playing inferior versions, I gave up on most PAL games (except if it's exclusive to PAL region).
> 
> It's a pity, the EUR SNES is identical to the JPN SNES and I love that, but playing the games at a slower framerate just isn't for me. Although, some are optimized.. but the damage was done.



I understand. It doesn't effect me at all. I keep my PAL games and I adore them. 50hz doesn't make a difference to me.


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## FAST6191 (Jan 27, 2020)

tglaria said:


> Could you elaborate?
> 
> What's the meaning of this on PS2?
> I know on NES, the clock of the cpu was running at a different frequency causing the game to run faster/slower, but for PS2?


It was not a slower or faster clock for the NES (some things kind of existed like that for some other systems but we will skip that one for now) but that for a lot of the 8 and 16 bit eras (prior was a whole other mess) a lot of developers opted for the easy route of put big black borders and slow things down when converting from Japanese and NTSC systems (which had TVs run in 60Hz) to PAL ones (which used 50Hz, though most of their TVs would have supported 60Hz in the end) rather than expand graphics for the higher resolution of PAL and convert their code to run at the same speed/timings.
Many PAL located devs would also opt to do dev in 60Hz timings/res and convert badly as well, though there are a few notable examples of PAL code and proper conversions, the former actually presenting several problems for NTSC users/collectors.

By the time we get to the PS1 and PS2 this resolution issue and timings issue are not as pressing a concept. The timing one becoming less of one as compiled code rather than assembly being the main programming method of the day and it then being far easier to change timings. Resolution as 3d images mean you change the viewport and UI. You do also get the modes issue; the PS1, and especially PS2, supported various video out modes (never mind things like multi monitor -- https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2009/12/MultiMonitorLAN-1.jpg ) and that can make things fun here, especially as PAL might either have versions with better support for some or otherwise be good games but lack support for one or more modes (gran turismo 4 lacking 1080i in PAL territories despite many other titles having nice mode outputs). Oh and widescreen was also a thing that came in/rose to prominence during the PS2 era but I don't know what goes there between regions -- widescreen support in general wherever you went was a bit spotty.

Throughout it all you also had PAL maybe not being as censored as NTSC English offerings, and occasionally getting some bugfixes, optimisations or whole other translations (most of the big devs and publishers had European arms that maybe had different censorship approaches, or could get things directly from Japan to give to their own translators rather than just reusing or minor tweak US efforts in the case of games for the UK). I will also note that while European offerings often missed out on the really fun video outputs (no component cables for the gamecube, none for the original xbox either but you could hack it to support such things) they also often had SCART support which did far nicer than composite or, worse still, antenna. Today if you want the absolute best video out you probably have a soldering iron do something fun with the internals or an expensive modulator of some form but at the time a proper SCART setup was nothing to sneeze at. Actually that might be a lie if you want the absolute best you might find whatever device has backwards compatibility and supports some measure of upresolution and use that, or use an emulator (official or otherwise), or use one of the games if it got a port to a later device (above when talking bugfixes and speed improvements then for the N64 I might have mentioned Perfect Dark but why anybody would play the N64 original when the xbox 360 and xbone ports/remakes exist I don't know).

To that end what you do in any given system presents a problem. Most people doing "I want best versions" quite justifiably write off the 8 and 16 bit era PAL territory saving those occasions where censorship, dedicated versions, or actual super versions arise. Do note also that there are whole fields of ROM hacking dedicated to fixing bugs, removing censorship, bypassing slowdowns and more besides http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/ .
For the PS1 and PS2 this was less of an issue for the simple player -- Europe tending to get things late or not at all again and more of one if you were exploring interesting video modes. That said I would be far less quick to write it off as a general concept -- if you are in Europe you could do a convincing collection locally and be very happy without needing to play importer, and vice versa. If you are an emulator player then should be fine as well either way.
What you might end up doing as the super high end "I want the best of the best" will vary on a game by game basis, and will probably mess with cheaper video conversion devices and footage capture for decades to come, even more so when hackers start to do more with these systems.


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## Lumstar (Jan 27, 2020)

I favor the scientific method. Games that play slower are objectively measurable. The laziest conversions even slow down the music playback!

Although the developer's intent may be unknown. A few games were made in Japan, yet only released in PAL regions. (meaning no "legitimate" 60hz edition to compare)


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## ThoD (Jan 27, 2020)

Lumstar said:


> I favor the scientific method. Games that play slower are objectively measurable. The laziest conversions even slow down the music playback!
> 
> Although the developer's intent may be unknown. A few games were made in Japan, yet only released in PAL regions. (meaning no "legitimate" 60hz edition to compare)


Except for the fact that Japan uses NTSC like the US, so Japanese games did run at 60Hz on PS2... that's one of the two main reasons speedrunners use Japanese versions even in games with little text if there's no US version, higher framerate on older consoles means more control over character since inputs were tied to frames.

Also, for the record, SOME games could work with both 50Hz and 60Hz but were region-locked still (eg: Hitman 2), which only ads a ton of complications in the comparison honestly...

Anyways, in my opinion as long as the game is responsive, has a stable framerate and image quality isn't terrible, I'm fine with it since old games will never be perfect anyways, so big whoop if there's a tiny bit of difference between versions


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## Lumstar (Jan 27, 2020)

ThoD said:


> Except for the fact that Japan uses NTSC like the US, so Japanese games did run at 60Hz on PS2... that's one of the two main reasons speedrunners use Japanese versions even in games with little text if there's no US version, higher framerate on older consoles means more control over character since inputs were tied to frames.
> 
> Also, for the record, SOME games could work with both 50Hz and 60Hz but were region-locked still (eg: Hitman 2), which only ads a ton of complications in the comparison honestly...
> 
> Anyways, in my opinion as long as the game is responsive, has a stable framerate and image quality isn't terrible, I'm fine with it since old games will never be perfect anyways, so big whoop if there's a tiny bit of difference between versions



Pardon the misunderstanding. I was talking about games developed in Japan, that don't have any known NTSC version.
It's debatable whether the programmers actually targeted 50hz or 60hz.


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## url8 (Jan 30, 2020)

Generally yes, as the refresh rate makes all the difference! This is part of the reason PC is superior, PCs can be optimized all kinds of refresh rates, including high ones like 165 Hz! If you have a PC and game on it, don't worry if games are natively made for it! For emulators though, you should try to avoid European games unless they have exclusive content and or exclusive to Europe!


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## ThoD (Jan 30, 2020)

url8 said:


> Generally yes, as the refresh rate makes all the difference! This is part of the reason PC is superior, PCs can be optimized all kinds of refresh rates, including high ones like 165 Hz! If you have a PC and game on it, don't worry if games are natively made for it! For emulators though, you should try to avoid European games unless they have exclusive content and or exclusive to Europe!


PAL games run at higher resolutions, meaning they look better on larger screens like a PC's, whereas a mere difference of 10 frames won't affect your gameplay almost at all unless you are speedrunning (in which case you go for Japanese version anyways). You can adjust native resolution in emulators, but that's still basically an upscale, not actual resolution improvement, plus it eats up a lot more system resources than upscaling afterwards.


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