Thread 11932604

PS1 dithering: part of the charm of the console's graphics (like the warping textures and unstable polygons) or just an eye-sore used to cheat their way into having "more color"?

I play on original hardware so I'm used to it and have come to like it. The PS2 renders it slightly incorrectly which ruins certain effects and makes some games that heavily use the dithering, like Silent Hill, very ugly as a result.
On emulator you can simply increase the color depth of the system so that the dithering is both eliminated and you actually get the colors the dithering is trying to trick you into seeing, but this sometimes results in bad color banding.

Thoughts?

It looked much better on a CRT.

The dithering could be disabled by the devs, so yeah it's totally part of the intended look and a lot of games just wouldn't be the same without it, especially something like Silent Hill.

Note also that the dithering only looks right at native res. Duckstation has a setting for higher res dithering but it looks like shit. Retroarch can also add a faux dithering filter but that's not the same one as it affects everything while the real PSX dithering only affects polygonal objects, not menus or 2D backgrounds / huds etc

>>11932604 (OP)
I always thought consoles went to focusing on 3d too soon. Pretty much all 3d PS1 games look like dogshit no matter what, but some of them are good enough to play regardless. Dithering or not it's going to be ugly so who cares?

This game feels empty and undetailed without the dithering

>>11932604 (OP)
>PS1 dithering: part of the charm of the console's graphics
No, it is not. The only time I saw it was when playing a Ps1 disc on a Ps3. It was never part of the experience on original hardware (which means console + CRT).

Fade to Black is another case where the dithering adds a lot

>>11932650
No its not part of the intended look. Not having color banding is why dithering is enabled, not the dithering itself, which looks like ass. 24bit color makes dither unnecessary.

Looks like shit, same as the wobbling textures.
>b-b-but muh charm
I swear, in 30 years retards who grew up with current year games will nostalgiafag about how charming UE5's blurry TAA and pixelated hair looked.

>>11932656
PS1 3d looks pretty good. Some PS1 games have aged really well, in fact some PS1 games look better than many modern games.

Dithering is especially fitting with horror games

>>11932674
>Some PS1 games have aged really well
Sure, the 2D ones

>>11932667
The dithering is literally how the fog effect is accomplished, which is why some PS2's render it so incorrectly it actually fails at doing its main job of covering up pop-in.

anon you couldn't even see the dithering on a crt over composite, you're basically looking at an emulation artifact

Dithering helps with creating detail in games with simplistic art direction

>>11932667
>>11932684
sub-70 IQ posts

because the dithering blends together on a CRT (as intended) it suddenly means the dithering isn't an intentional design choice by the devs???

>>11932674
Not arguing but can you give examples?

>>11932679
Never heard of this. Is it any good?

Mega Man Legends, a game with dithering disabled

>>11932691
>posts screenshot of emulator output with razor sharp dithering
>"is this the ps1 aesthetic?"
no, no it's not, fuck off

It's 100% intentional, games like FF7 show that the dithering effect could be increased, lessened, or totally turned off for different parts of the screen.

The 3D models are all heavily dithered due to their vertex shaded nature.
The Text box background is slightly dithered to give the gradient you choose a more pleasing look.
The text itself and the prerendered backgrounds have no dithering at all; I assume because they already rendered the backgrounds carefully just for the Playstation's color limits and resolution, not requiring any help from the dithering.

>>11932707
NTA but it's an adventure game/walking sim with great art direction and atmosphere so if it's your kind of thing then try it. There are two games actually, both are good

>>11932720
Ma'am, these are photos of original hardware being upscaled for my TV. There's no emulation, there's just no clarity loss between the video output of the hardware and my television.

>>11932723
The dithering can only affects polygons, the text box is either a model, or it's done manually within the texture

>>11932691
sub-69 IQ post
OP acted as if the visible dithering itself was part of the Experience TM.

>>11932697
Crash bandicoot 3 is one of the best looking games of all time.

>>11932751
nta but I didn't agree with you either until now. Crash 3 still looks amazing to this day.

>>11932720
Actually you're right, a raw screenshot in Mednafen with zero enhancements isn't the real PSX look. Only what (You)r TV ouputs is the Real PS1 Look, regardless of how it looks on other people's TVs

>>11932734
>the text box is either a model
probably is just a few vertex shaded polygons given how easily you can change the RGB values and how the gradient scales evenly with the text box size.

a lot of "2D" elements on the PS1 are actually two polygons in a flat rectangle with textures/shading across them.

>>11932734
>the text box is either a model, or it's done manually within the texture

The text box is the border graphics as textures and the background is drawn as untextured colored textures. I forgot if the PSX can do vertex color and interpolate the rest of the triangle, or if it's a colorless triangle with gouraud shading handling everything.
Either way, the text box is clearly dithered as well, it's just harder to see because it's a smoother gradient.

>The dithering can only affects polygons
It affects all polygons that have either gouraud or flat shading enabled.

So to get rid of dithering you either disable all dithering globally, or you enable it and do not use any shading whatsoever.

PSX can use 24bit framebuffer though, so dithering helps there because all polygons can only do 15bit color. 24bit textures can only be drawn by block copy commands, so limited to backgrounds or 2d art. Heart of Darkness was iirc the only game to run entirely in 24bit.

>>11932604 (OP)
>or just an eye-sore
The eye-sore disappears when you use a CRT, like you were supposed to. Curious!

>>11932663
>It was never part of the experience on original hardware
It literally was. The PSX applied dither patterns to fake a higher color pallet.

>>11932684
You don't need composite even. The CRT mask does the job well enough even over RGB. I'm using a shader here to prove my point but anyways. It only becomes noticeable with certain types of monitors, mostly PVMemes and other TVs with high TVL, and even in those cases, they're not bothersome enough. Just use a shader if you're going to emulate and call it a day rather than mess with complicated parameters.

>>11932806
>Calls it PSX
>Not enough reading comprehension to understand OP meant seeing the little dithered pixels
Typical retard.

>>11932682
neat

>>11932604 (OP)
This is a shot from an emulator, it didn't look this way when displayed on a CRT which was the going tech of the day. The tonal transitions looked totally smooth when played on a normal TV.

>>11932656
Agreed

>>11933010
You can stop trying to convince yourself it's an emulator now.

Like dithering? Wait until you hear about the saturn

>>11933070
It's obviously from an emulator. That's the issue. The dithering looks smooth when displayed on a TV which was the style of the time for the most part.

>>11933109
You keep acting like nobody notices you're saying
>it's an emulator because no CRT...

Are you okay?

>>11933186
Well it's obviously not a video image capture and was taken as a screen shot so... it's an emulator.

>>11932604 (OP)
I agree I like the dithering and was disappointed when MGS1 didn't have it on the recent collection

>>11933507
It's picture of my TV screen, schizo.

Are you next going to tell me that this is also emulation because on a CRT the N64 wouldn't be so blurry and smudged?