I've seen videos and pictures of Psx games adjusted to 16:9, but without a very noticeable "stretched" effect. I was wondering I could that be possible, and how to achieve it in emulators such as Fpse.

I've found this thread on Reddit, but I'm not sure I've understood the explanation in it

 

[_v3]

Only some games have 16:9 support, others don't.
If you choose 16:9 widescreen on the emulator, make sure to set it ingame (usually in the options > video/display menu) as well.
If a game doesn't support 16:9 and you enable 16:9 on the emulator it will stretch the image (like FF7 in the reddit post that you linked).

There isn't a widescreen hack for ps1, atleast not for epsxe, because most ps1 games weren't designed to run in a 16:9 environment. This was an issue with PS2 games as well (mostly 3rd party titles) because widescreen TVs were rare back in the day.

 

[cloudfe]

If a game doesn't support 16:9 and you enable 16:9 on the emulator it will stretch the image (like FF7 in the reddit post that you linked).

It is true that the images posted show a slightly stretching in the image, but not by much and, most important of all, the 3d characters are not stretched at all, giving a pretty nice result for a 4:3-16:9 conversion. I was wondering how could that be possible, since the emulator simply couldn't just "stretch" the image as it was.

EDIT: another example: how is this possible?

 

[FAST6191]

I can not speak for the PS1 but on similar systems (the gamecube has some) and the PC you would want to look up a term called viewport rendering.

2d game systems* tend to construct images from tiles but 3d ones just set the cut off point for the rendering and leave it at that; all the models and animations are still there in memory. It is not always just a matter of modding the viewport/field of view, sometimes you have overlays on the 2d section, other times game logic is tied to the camera position which you have just expanded, even going so far as having things rendered or not depending upon the camera position. Sometimes it can be done in hardware (the gamecube stuff did also appear on the Wii as well as emulators) but it tends to be more of an emulator thing.

You can also come the other way and letterbox something -- pull the camera back, stick black bars either side and then crop it on the display. If you are already suffering the PS1 blurry visuals that is not a great idea though.

*bonus for the PS1 is you tend not to have much of a 2d system and instead most 2d work went through the 3d systems.

 

[cloudfe]

After reading your post, and after having looked up "viewport rendering", I understand a bit more of the subject, thank you
I was wondering: would it be possible to create modified ROMs to better adjust 4:3 games to 16:9? I was reading about this in this thread (where you intervened), but I'm not sure I've grasped the point.

 

[FAST6191]

That depends upon what you want to modify.

Occasionally for the handheld emulators with different (lower) resolution screens to the console being emulated we have been seen to change the text position and font style so it works with scaling, cropping and whatever else is done. Variations on that theme are common enough.

To do it for a normal 2d game... trying to do it like you would for the 3d stuff... no. I had contemplated something like an emulator that freeze frames, manually shifts the camera so the game takes care of the rest and then the emulator stitches it all together, obviously things like random battles, cutscenes and more would break the effect at times but at others it would work I guess. I would sooner remake a game than try to hack it into a 2d game from the SNES or something like the SNES (basically everything that is not doing 2d off the back of a 3d engine).

For 3d then yeah the bigger part of such hacks is getting the game to work properly -- I was not kidding when I said the enemies might only be rendered and that leads to them popping in, the floor might only be in what the game "normally" sees and that is in addition to the animation and game event trigger stuff.

See something like


That is not bad actually but see where the fade only applies to the original 4:3 stuff? That is just the tip of the iceberg.

Another might be


Though I should note that much of this has been worked upon.

 

[cloudfe]

This is fascinating, and I do find the Sonic work remarkable even with its flaws. Is the Sonic example a result of a tweaked emulator or a tweaked rom?

 

[_v3]

This is fascinating, and I do find the Sonic work remarkable even with its flaws. Is the Sonic example a result of a tweaked emulator or a tweaked rom?

According to theisozone SWISS is a homebrew appliaction for gamecube/wii that allows multiple features to be applied on the go to certain games (like Action Replay cheats), one of which is 16:9 support for all games.
I'm not an expert, so my info might not be 100% correct.

 

[cloudfe]

I've tried various games with the widescreen hack (via Fpse) but not each one goes in 16:9. For example, BoF4 (2d sprite for characters and 3d for everything else) just refuses to leave the 4:3 ratio, and I don't understand why. I get that not every game can benefit from the hack, but with not even stretched?