Bad Capture Quality on Slim Pal console's /w Composite/S-video

[Thexterax]

Hey there Mechapwn team!

First of all, big shoutouts to actually making this!

Me and some members of the Rayman Speedrun Community found some weird stuff out which probably relates to MechaPwn: If you use a Slim Pal console /w composite or S-video, it will capture in very bad quality: Picture On the TV it displays perfectly. It's just the capture that is bad like this.

2 others have confirmed the same issue with their 90k PAL consoles.

I have a 77k pal and 75k pal which also resulted in the same issue. Now if I use RGB/Component, the issue is gone it displays perfectly on the capture I also own a 90K Japanese console. On this console, composite & s-video also display fine on capture.

A little Quality overview: NTSC-J Console (tested with 90k): Capture Card Composite/Svideo: Good Capture Card RGB/Component: Good CRT TV Composite: Good CRT TV RGB: Good

PAL Console (tested with 75k, 77k, 90k): Capture Card Composite/Svideo: Very Bad (check linked picture from before) Capture Card RGB: Good CRT TV Composite: Good CRT TV RGB: Good

Any idea why this might be happening?

[AKuHAK]

@Thexterax why do you think, that this is related to mechapwn? You didnt provide any information about what options you choose during installation. Could you confirm that this issue isnt present on retail disk? You mentioned that TV is showing everything just fine, mechapwn wasnt made for capture devices, but for playstion2 with tv, so this issue will be closed. However, probably, I can describe what happened and how you can "fix" this. The game is working as expected, you should contact capture device support team, cause it looks that this game use some sort of non-standart PAL video mode.

Or you can just use mechapwn and install USA region. All slims (except 70k) alllows cross-model installation, so you can install, for example, DTL-H90001 on any SCPH-90k model.

[Thexterax]

All of the console's tested were using NTSC mode. so 90k's DTL-H90001 and similar american modes for the other one. I forgot to specify that.

I was just wondering why only composite & svideo would be bad on Pal consoles.

But I guess an unsupported pal video format is probably the best explanation.

For the longest time, we've been searching for a cheap way to capture american ps2 games and this was looking amazing. It still is, but with a pal console, composite is just no option. I doubt any capture card will be able to display it correctly.

Oh, and yes. with mechapwn just set to the pal mode (default) on pal consoles, it just captures fine.

Thanks for taking your time to reply.

[AKuHAK]

Hmm you would like to say that SCPH-90004 mechapwned to DTL-H90001 and SCPH-90001 mechapwned to DTL-H90001 are acting differently? Were tests made with the same game ID (Serial)? I tried to find the game but redump.org has almost 50 titles labeled Rayman for ps2 and ps1. Can you point to redump.org?

This does not make sense. SCPH-90001 and SCPH-90004 are completely identical, so if the game acts differently that means that something differs in these consoles while it shouldn't.

[Thexterax]

I tested the following:

1) SCPH-90000 (JAPAN) to DTL-H90001 2) SCPH-90004 (PAL) to DTL-H90001 3) SCPH-75004 (PAL) to DTL-H75001 4) SCPH-77004 (PAL) to DTL-H77001 all tests were done with original Rayman NTSC-U/C discs.

In case of number 2,3 & 4, composite resulted in that awful quality I linked you the picture for. Composite worked fine on the Japanese console.

That's why I thought it was an issue with MechaPwn. I'm sorry if it's unrelated.

The correct Redump should be Rayman SLUS-00005 http://redump.org/disc/8326/

[ramapcsx2]

In case that's not clear yet, the bad quality is a misconfiguration of the video encoder chip to the video standard requested. It is maybe tangentially related to MechaPwn at best.

Composite Video / S-Video require the correct color burst frequency for the video standard (PAL or NTSC), and as far as I know, this is selectable on these PS2 consoles. In that case though, the selection might be done by some region bytes, which might be bad on a hacked console.

[AKuHAK]

@Thexterax can you provide ps2ident dumps from those consoles? _specs.txt and nvram only

[Thexterax]

I'm assuming you meant the _NVM.bin ? I don't see "nvram".

Below is specs & NVM for 77K pal & 90k Japanese. 90K pal will follow later. I've lended out my 75k pal to someone so can't do that one atm. ps2ident_dumps_77KPAL_90KJAP.zip

@AkuHAK

[AKuHAK]

So, lets assume:

• users choose always US mode without ForceUnlock
• PS1 game Rayman SLUS-00005 http://redump.org/disc/8326/ is acting differently when running from originally PAL vs NTSC consoles

Still have a few questions:

• Did all users run the same version? I mean did they run the original disk, or master patched written CD media? If it is written disk, I hope that they use proper writing tools. This is extremely special cause this game has audio tracks, so CD quality may affect gameplay.
• I realized that provided dumps have different Screen settings: in one case, it is set to 4:3, in second - Full. Could you please test if changing this setting affects gameplay?

As it is PSONE mode it can be that NVRAM has more region-specific settings than we found. PSONE mode wasn't tested heavily, so it is possible. Please provide more dumps. if it is really additional region settings in NVRAM I will need a tester for it.

[AKuHAK]

I found a workaround: those who had problems should use this app for launching psone game.

[Thexterax]

PAL90k.zip Here's the file I promised.

[Thexterax]

Can confirm that using that app is fixing the issue. Could you somehow make that part of MechaPwn ? If you restart PS2, you'll have to launch it again ...

To reply to your previous questions. Everyone was using original Rayman NTSC Disc. Changing 4:3 Didn't have any effect.

[AKuHAK]

@Thexterax thanks for sharing. I am working on MechaPWN improvement, but cant promise anything at the moment.

[AKuHAK]

Please try this Release Candidate - it should allow all regions to work.

[Thexterax]

1 person tested it so far on scph-90004 and still needed to use the ps1vmodeneg in order to launch with good quality

[AKuHAK]

thanks. I will look deeper at it.

[AKuHAK]

@Thexterax I added a possible fix for this issue, could you check if the problem still persists? If you are using FMCB, install FMCB 1.9 cross-region. Please try this Release Candidate 2 - it should fix your problem.

[Thexterax]

That version is not compiled yet right? I can only see source files @AKuHAK

[AKuHAK]

That version is not compiled yet right? I can only see source files @AKuHAK

yes it was removed due to major bug, elated exactly with this particular problem.

[AKuHAK]

That version is not compiled yet right? I can only see source files @AKuHAK

RC2 was removed due to a major bug. If you are using FMCB, install FMCB cross-region. Please try this Release Candidate 3 - it should fix your problem.

[AKuHAK]

@Thexterax once you confirm that 3.0 rc3 resolve your issue, mechapwn 3.0 will be officially released.

[Thexterax]

@AKuHAK I just tried it out myself and I was indeed able to get the issue fixed! No need for PS1VmodeNeg anymore! Though I'm asking someone else as well just to confirm it also works for them.

[Thexterax]

have confirmation that it worked for other people too. Sick! Thanks for the efforts!