Found some Dragon Ball Z game with a small save size, too, at 44KB.
https://puu.sh/HYGzr.png
I have like 7 memory cards, and this one hailed from a Japanese copy of Crazy Taxi I bought like a year and a half ago.
What’s even more impressive is that Burnout Dominator has a larger save than Revenge does, at 112KB.
If you know, you know.
If you don’t, I don’t fux with you with an X.
Man, DS game cases are so solid and well-built, which is impressive considering it was only the second console for which Nintendo sold their games in something other than a cardboard box. It makes the cheap-feeling, thin plastic they used in the Wii cases seem even worse in comparison.
Nintendo cases are such hit-and-miss. Like DS and GameCube cases feel really nice, but Wii and Switch cases feel flimsy as hell.
Resurrected a GameCube from the dead, bitches!!!
The disc drive in this one didn’t work when I got it. It just so happened that I had a disc drive for one of these lying around.
Finally got to play Shadow the Hedgehog for a few minutes. You know it’s bad when the fucking target platform for a game tanks to the 20fps range within the first 20 seconds of gameplay.
You know, I was wondering why CECHA01 PS3s are worth so damn much on eBay. Then I finally got to let the PS3 flex its arms a little bit with a PS2 game.
These screenshots on their own mean very little, but I got them like this for a very deliberate reason: I wanted to test a 480i game being output by the PS3 at 480p, but I also wanted to test how the PS3 handles games that scale a 512 pixel horizontal output to 640 pixels.
As it turns out, it’s actually quite nice - better than how my main capture card handles it straight from the PS2. And certainly WAY better than how my secondary capture card handles it straight from the PS2. The deinterlacing is good but I wouldn’t say it’s unequivocally better than Yadif2x. That being said, it’s still nice and is generally quite effective. It would totally suffice if you wanted an easy way to output PS2 games at 480p, 720p or 1080p.
I think I’m gonna do a more in-depth write-up on this later in the week, because there’s a lot I wanna test - 480p games that render at 640x448/480, Gran Turismo 4 at 1080i, 480p games that render at 512x44x, 240p games, etc.
Oh my fucking god. I’ve played some PS2 games that run bad, but lordy…
Shadow the Hedgehog actually takes the cake. It doesn’t run good on GameCube, mind you - but I think I could count more instances when it was running at 20fps or less than it was running at 60fps on PS2. Sonic Team did not have a good time with the PlayStation 2 - and it shows.
Keep in mind that this game somehow sold enough copies on the PS2 to get a Greatest Hits release.
But then Sonic '06 also sold enough copies to get a Platinum Family Hits release on the Xbox 360 so you tell me what’s worse…
Shadow the Hedgehog runs worse on PS2 than Sonic 06 does on the Xbox 360. Considerably worse.
Honestly I’d enjoy the game more if it didn’t run like total shit.
I was finally able to get the new laser assembly thrown into my 360, and it almost ended terribly! For whatever reason, the screw Microsoft used to hold the laser assembly to the little piece that “attaches” it to the worm gear is way too short, and on my first real go it popped right out and almost made it eat the Forza Motorsport 3 disc I had in it (which I literally just bought, mind you). Ended up finding another screw elsewhere in the drive that had the same thread pitch and was just a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittle bit longer and it seems to be doing fine, however I absolutely do not trust it.
I can’t decide if I want to superglue the laser assembly and worm gear piece together (along with the screw), or just make the jump and get a 360S even though I’ve invested like 15 bucks into just this laser fix. Also, as dumb as it sounds, I would also miss the whir of the fans in the background as well as the hard drive thunking around. Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut then I also wouldn’t have a console with the laser assembly held together by hopes and dreams.
Well, I caved and bought a modded GameCube disc drive offa eBay.
Why, you may ask? Just so I can force 480i games to run at 480p.
Just look at how sharp this is - and this game runs at 512x480!!!
I just wished that it was this simple for the PS2, but unfortunately, the PS2 is a lot more janky in that regard.
A couple more screenshots of 480p-forced SpongeBob Movie game on GameCube.
https://puu.sh/Idizd.png
https://puu.sh/IdiBV.png
https://puu.sh/IdiG3.png
Fun fact: Google-Eyes and Smelly Knick Knacks runs better on GameCube than it does on PlayStation 2! Why? Not sure, to be completely honest, but I’d chalk it up to most of the lighting being of a considerably lower quality on the GameCube version coupled with some lower quality shaders really aiding it in the performance side of things. I don’t think I measured a real frame rate drop in that level on GameCube, while there’s some pretty easily duplicatable frame rate drops on the PS2 version.
Does anyone wanna hear me ramble about Gran Turismo 2? No? Well it’s too late, because I’m in the mood.
https://puu.sh/IlK8h.png
https://puu.sh/IlXL7.png
What are these three images of? Me looking at how scaling works - and doesn’t - concerning PS1 games on the PS2 and the PS3. First image is the PS2 being ran through my normal capture card, second image is through my secondary capture card which doesn’t really filter its scaling and the third image is through that capture card, but on a PS3 with the scaling filter on the console turned on.
Gran Turismo 2 uses two different display resolutions: a 320x240 gameplay render mode, which is in progressive scan and will force a PS2 to display that at 720x240p; and a 512x480 menu rendering mode, which is interlaced and will display at 720x480i. The former is standard fare for the PS1, nothing to write home about. The latter is pretty unusual, though; while 480i rendering modes weren’t all that uncommon on the PS1, 512x480 was not that common. So what you end up with is having to fight against resolution switching and poor scaling, if applicable.
Relevant images:
https://puu.sh/IlSjG.png
Top one is the PS2 playing the game through my secondary capture card, bottom is the PS3 playing it with smoothing enabled… and deinterlaced for this particular instance.
Welcome to the Wonderful World of the PlayStation, folks!
On a related note, looks like I’m gonna be trying to buy a CECHE01 PlayStation 3 very soon. Why? I really don’t need it as I have a CECHA01 that just needs a bit of attention.
The answer - to me, anyways, is because weird hardware revisions intrigue the shit outta me. Literally WHAT possessed Sony to think to themselves that just sticking the Graphics Synthesizer into the PS3 to aid with PS2 emulation was an endeavor worth pursuing? More importantly, literally WHY did they decide that this approach was even remotely sufficient for handling PS2 games?
Whether or not I’ll get the answers I want will depend on the games I try.
When you thought you were gonna get ripped off on a 1019 GameCube memory card but it’s legit and you realize you didn’t pay that much for an official memory card 
https://puu.sh/IsRnd.png
I’m not really sure how much use the smoothing option serves on the PS3 concerning PS2 titles.
Top image doesn’t have smoothing enabled and the bottom image does. It looks slightly cleaner on edges of models, but it’s not a big difference at all. If the text looks slightly off in one or the other, chalk that up to the way the PS3 handles deinterlacing.
Same dealio here, top is no smoothing and bottom is smoothing enabled. Not a big difference, but look at the red and white track border off in the distance. That looks a little less aliased with smoothing enabled, but otherwise, it’s not a big deal. It really seems to have more of an effect in PS1 games (and PS2 games that render at half-resolution, probably).