60hz PAL. Inferior to 50hz PAL.

Tell me what is so great about PAL games having a 60hz option? All you get is larger pixels, washed out color (perhaps due to the pixels) and worst of all, a skewed image.

I don't know about you but I like the wheels on my F355 to be round, not egg shaped. I like my Phoenix mirror to be round, not oval. People should not look like twigs. And PS2 jaggies?.. I know, lets make them much worse by playing in 60hz.

You get all these problems for what?.. A almost unnoticeable increase in refresh rate. Wow.

There is a reason why the UK and Australia chose PAL over NTSC. That is because its the better format.

Maybe your television has difficulty displaying PAL/525 properly? The colour shouldn't change anyway, since the colour format and subcarrier are the same anyway.

And the increase in refresh, though not as great as some will have you believe, certainly does make things a lot smoother. Soul Calibur feels much more fluid in 60Hz mode. Also you get less noticable flicker, especially in bright colours.

Anyway, there WAS a reason that the UK chose PAL (or, more to the point, why PAL was devised at 50Hz), it was because at the time the television standard was being devised, the mains electricity supply in the UK had a frequency of 50 Hz, and it made for simpler electronics to have the field rate at 50.

I can't recall the image distortion of MSR all that well, but I do clearly remember the backgrounds looking poor in 60hz due to the lower resolution.

As for the color, yes the color is still PAL, but in the space between pixcels there is no color. Therefore when playing in a lower resolution the color will get washed out. At least that is my explaination for it. When the pixels get larger the color gets lesser.

BTW the UK may have chosen according to power, but in Australia (where I live) we did chose according to the better standard.

I can't think of any reason why PAL-60 should be distorted or discoloured.

Concerning Soul Calibur: AFAIK 50Hz DC displays are still 640x480 resolution, stretched, rather than 640x576 (PAL resolution: DVD uses a generous 720 horizontal resolution) so there is no advantage I can see of using 50Hz over 60Hz. The better smoothness of SC may be down to animation not being well adjusted, e.g. dropping 1/6th of the frames, rather than generating a new set. I've not noticed SC not being smooth, but I've almost always played 60Hz.

PAL is clearly the better system for TV/film - noone can distinguish between framerates higher than about 25fps, but people can distinguish between 576 and 480 visible lines.

It's not so clear with CG, but I strongly suspect that the same is true. Whereas a frame of film is exposed for 1/24th of a second, so everything that changes in this time is blurred in, a frame of CG is a single instant, a sample. A fast moving object is shown at a different place in each frame, rather than a blur in each. As such, conclusions drawn for film may not hold for CG.

Personally, I am not at all confident that I could differentiate between 50 samples per second and 60, at least not side-by-side, although I'm confident that I could recognise PAL's higher resolution.

PS2's 4mb of VRAM makes finding room for PAL resolutions a bit of a challenge, so 60Hz is really the only way to go there.

To fully exploit PAL would require a console designed with that in mind. Note sig although if you, Nathan, know of any Aussie companies who could join in, feel free to suggest them.

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PAL is clearly the better system for TV/film - noone can distinguish between framerates higher than about 25fps

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"I am following my fish"

Doesnt this mean that not only is NTSC inferior because of its lower line resolution but also you effectively only get a 30hz update on it so in theory PAL should be both smoother/faster and higher resolution. Can someone explain why this isnt the actual case?

Anyway, I don't own SC so I can't comment on that game, but I do own F355, Shenmue and on PS2 Burnout.

All of the above games suffer in 60hz. All are distorted in 60hz, just take a look at the oval shaped 'circle' on the title screen of Shenmue for proof. And the drop in resolution is quite noticeable in each title (the white lines on the side of the track in F355 are quite jagged in 60hz). And just watch the jaggies increase in 60hz when playing Burnout.

IMO these games are much better played in 50hz PAL.

If you have persuaded yourself that PAL games are superior, then thats fine, but most here would agree that you are kidding yourself.

However, the best technical solution isn't always the the winner. Ideally, I'd really like "proper" PAL conversions, but realistically, I really want a full screen 60hz option on my PAL games.

Dunedin397

people keep saying... why complain about 50fps over 60fps, you can't tell the difference, their both smooth. fact is, the uk console runs slower than the jap/us console because a console outputting a 60hz would not display on a regular 50hz PAL tv, since not all are compatible with PAL at 60hz. it's cheaper to slow the console than to worry about the techy details surrounding the issue.

most games are developed with a 60hz refresh in mind. too many developers choose not to optimise (or make half hearted attempts at optimizing) their games for 50hz, so the drop in speed (which is about 17% on a UK console from a US/Jap console) is noticeable in their 50hz PAL conversion. They may try to claw some of that speed back by droping the frame rate, giving speed at the expense of smoothness, but I think most don't even bother.

In games like GT3, it translates into a more sluggish feel, and lower sense of speed. GT3 has been optimized well, but the differences are still there, particularly if you compare the faster cars. In games like Madden, it translates to players feeling a little more sluggish and less responsive.

I remember the days of the SNES, where the difference in speed between SF2 on a UK console versus that on a US console was astounding. Infact, I remember my UK PS1 owning mate being shocked at how much faster Tekken felt on my Jap PS1.

Thankfully when it comes to borders, things are no longer so bad. Regardless of the argument over technical details between PAL and NTSC, games are designed to run at 4:3 on an NTSC TV. We've all seen the common practice of borders on PAL games because PAL has more lines than NTSC. Accepted then that the images on the PAL screen are gonna be slightly sharper since the pixels are close together, but the aspect ratio of the game image is not 4:3 because of the borders, and so the image looks squashed and you get things like oval wheels on a car. As I say, this is a thing of the past in most cases, although some PS2 games still exhibit this trait, most only have small borders these days, which in reality still means PAL games are skewed, but not by so much.

Therefore, since borders are at a minimum because the PAL image is streched to fit the screen, there is little to really separate a 50hz PAL title from a 60hz PAL or NTCS title it terms of image quality. But theres the speed issue. Which is vitally important. Lets hope more titles follow Burnouts PS2 lead, giving us the option DC owners have had for ages, 50 or 60hz Pal games. The difference may seem minor, but we all know its huge.

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Tell me what is so great about PAL games having a 60hz option? All you get is larger pixels, washed out color (perhaps due to the pixels) and worst of all, a skewed image.

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Fashion is something so ugly it has to be changed ever fifteen minutes.

C

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Tell me what is so great about PAL games having a 60hz option? All you get is larger pixels, washed out color (perhaps due to the pixels) and worst of all, a skewed image.

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I haven't noticed any skewed images while playing 60hz dreamcast games. It strikes me that in fact the game is most likely running at the aspect ratio the designer intended when programing for the 525 verticle lines the the NTSC colour format generally uses. As zerolight pointed out the image would generally be skewed when it is badly optimised for PAL 625 by streaching the image or placing borders top and bottom.

Fashion is something so ugly it has to be changed ever fifteen minutes.

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SAGA
To be this old takes ages

I play all DC games at 60Hz, including the ones you mentioned and notice none of the problems that you are talking about.

As for there being no difference.

Ok, you go away and play the 50Hz PAL version of Sega Rally 2. Now plug it into a monitor and play it at 60Hz.

Now try telling me theres no difference.

Although i agree to some extent that if a game is done properly at fullscreen PAL 50Hz (ie House Of The Dead 2) then there is not much difference between the 60Hz version. However, i would still select 60Hz if i could.

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