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EU PSN classics: which games are 60hz or 50hz optimised? And what should be avoided?

B

Benzychenz

Member
Hey GAF, I'm wanting to play through a large amount of the PS1 library for the first time, as I've never had a chance to play the majority of it.

But, living in Australia I'm aware that a lot of the titles on PSN are going to be 50hz slowed down versions.

I'll be playing on Vita, and due to the annoying nature of changing accounts, I'd rather buy as few titles as possible with my NA PSN account, so I'd like to know which ones are actually good versions on EU PSN.

I've also heard that some NTSC import titles like Alundra are slowed down to 50hz on PS3, but run fine on Vita apparently?

So let's compile a list!

NTSC:
Spyro 1-3
Resident Evil 2-3
Tomba
Alundra
Klonoa

PAL optimised:
Crash Bandicoot 1-3
Crash Team Racing
Wipeout(?)
Medievil(?)
Tomb Raider 1-5(?)
Rayman 1-2(?)

PAL unoptimised:
Final Fantasy 7-9
Vagrant Story
Metal Gear Solid
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Suikoden 1-2
Resident Evil

???:
Jumping Flash
Tomba 2
Grandia
Oddworld
 
B

boredandlazy

Member
Crash Bandicoot games are PAL optimised without slowdown as far as I know. And the Spyro games on AU PSN are actually the USA NTSC versions.
 
M

manipulate

Member
Just an aside - I recommend you play those games on Vita if you have the chance. Stretching out PS1 games on a modern television produces a hideous image.
 
K

Kaybe

Unconfirmed Member
Crash Bandicoot 1-3 - These are PAL versions, but they run about as fast as the NTSC versions and they got no PAL borders
Crash Team Racing - I don't know about this one though, it has bigger borders than Crash 1-3 and I haven't seen anything regarding the speed
Spyro 1-3 - NTSC versions
Tomba 1-2 - Should be NTSC versions according to the PS Store and people on the internet (Tomba 2 on the US Store is the Japanese version, US version in Europe for some reason)
Final Fantasy 7-9 - Unoptimized PAL versions, avoid
Vagrant Story - Unoptimized PAL version, avoid
Metal Gear Solid - Unoptimized PAL version, avoid
Castlevania Symphony of the Night - Unoptimized PAL version, buy Dracula X Chronicles instead, you get SotN with the Rondo of Blood remake and the original
Suikoden 1-2 - Unoptimized PAL versions, but the PAL version of 2 has apparently less bugs and I believe a better translation than the NTSC version
Resident Evil 1-3 - The first one is the unoptimized PAL version but 2 and 3 are NTSC versions
Klonoa - Should be the NTSC version according to the PS Store
Click to expand...
No idea about the rest of them.
 
B

Benzychenz

Member
Maybe I should just buy a second Vita and keep an NA account on it and it can be my PS1 player @__@

Sony really needs to fix this shit.
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

Member
Apparently playing any PSOne game bought from EU PSN on an EU account will force the game to run at 50 Hz, even if it is 60 Hz.
As such try to play that game on a US account on your PS3 so that issue doesn't arise.
I bring this up as some have mentioned that Klonoa 1 on EU PSN (which is supposed to be 60 Hz) doesn't run at 60 Hz when people played it, at least on their main EU account.
 
B

Benzychenz

Member
Tizoc said:
Apparently playing any PSOne game bought from EU PSN on an EU account will force the game to run at 50 Hz, even if it is 60 Hz.
As such try to play that game on a US account on your PS3 so that issue doesn't arise.
I bring this up as some have mentioned that Klonoa 1 on EU PSN (which is supposed to be 60 Hz) doesn't run at 60 Hz when people played it, at least on their main EU account.
Click to expand...

Yeah I mentioned this in the OP, afaik the issue doesn't exist on Vita.
 
P

pock3tmonster

Banned
Tizoc said:
Apparently playing any PSOne game bought from EU PSN on an EU account will force the game to run at 50 Hz, even if it is 60 Hz.
As such try to play that game on a US account on your PS3 so that issue doesn't arise.
I bring this up as some have mentioned that Klonoa 1 on EU PSN (which is supposed to be 60 Hz) doesn't run at 60 Hz when people played it, at least on their main EU account.
Click to expand...

Wow, that's stupid. I have bought quite a few PSOne classics and received just as many from my PS+ sub. Since there's no trophies, I might buy them strictly from the U.S. store in the future and just keep a separate memory card for U.S. purchases.
 
N

Narroo

Member
manipulate said:
Just an aside - I recommend you play those games on Vita if you have the chance. Stretching out PS1 games on a modern television produces a hideous image.
Click to expand...

Not exactly...Kinda...it's more like most modern LCDs/Flat screens in combination with the PS3 do nasty things to the images, especially if you're on HDMI. If you can get a good upscalar, or some other solution, PS1 games look really nice.
 
B

Benzychenz

Member
Kaybe said:
No idea about the rest of them.
Click to expand...

Thank you for this.

So Square Enix and Konami stuff is all unoptimised I suppose.

Anyone know about the other titles I listed? Tomb Raider and Rayman I would imagine would be optimised seeing they're by Euro devs.
 
J

Jucksalbe

Banned
Tizoc said:
Apparently playing any PSOne game bought from EU PSN on an EU account will force the game to run at 50 Hz, even if it is 60 Hz.
As such try to play that game on a US account on your PS3 so that issue doesn't arise.
I bring this up as some have mentioned that Klonoa 1 on EU PSN (which is supposed to be 60 Hz) doesn't run at 60 Hz when people played it, at least on their main EU account.
Click to expand...

No. This doesn't have anything to do with your account's region. Klonoa and several of MonkeyPaw's games had an issue where their US and Japanese versions from the EU store played in 50Hz. This was fixed for some of them (I think for both Tombas and Alundras and probably Klonoa as well). Most of the "less important" ones remain unfixed to this day (like GaiaSeed or the Arc the Lad games). They are also still lying about this on the store descriptions.
This is only an issue on PS3, they all run fine on both the PSP and VIta.
 
Andyliini

Andyliini

Member
I've read that even though Tomba! is the US version, it seems to run too fast when bought from EU Store. I just played the game and noticed that at least the jingle that plays when you lose a life is cut from the end, because the new game starts before it should.

Granted, I have only played the PAL version before on disc. That seemed to work correctly.
 
J

Jimnymebob

Member
Alundra is fine on the PS3, Klonoa isn't, although it's not really noticeable outside of the FMV's and the music/voices being deeper and slightly slower.
Tomba seems fine on PS3, Tomba 2 seemed quite laggy but I'm not sure if the game was like that originally.
 
F

finley83

Banned
RE1 isnt optimised, but is still superior to the USA version which has the horrific new music (Google RE DC basement music for a great example!)

RE2 and 3 are the NTSC versions in full 60hz.
 
O

oni-link

Member
Excellent thread idea, well done OP

I'm wondering about Grandia, I hear it's bad, also I head Alundra was good :/

manipulate said:
Just an aside - I recommend you play those games on Vita if you have the chance. Stretching out PS1 games on a modern television produces a hideous image.
Click to expand...

My TV has an option to switch the picture to 4:3, and that gets rid of the stretching, though granted it's annoying to have to keep switching back and forth
 
G

Galdelico

Member
oni-link said:
My TV has an option to switch the picture to 4:3, and that gets rid of the stretching, though granted it's annoying to have to keep switching back and forth
Click to expand...
Doesn't the PS3 have the option (somewhere in the Settings menu) to fix the screen ratio of these PSone Classics to 4:3?
 
P

PedroPanache

Member
Jazzy Geoff said:
If you're in the UK and you buy the games from the US store you're OK, right?
Click to expand...

You're fine. I've had my US account since the early PS3 days; bought a ton of content, mainly PSOne games and never had a problem. The only real issue I have is with the Vita and not being able to switch accounts easily. I have to stick to my US account and that presents problems i.e. buying Final Fantasy X Collection and finding a digital code for X-2 that will only work on a European account. Other than that, it's been OK. With the PS3 and PS4, it's almost essential to have a US account on your console.
 
O

Oemenia

Banned
Some of those games you listed are like that by choice such as Rayman and Wipeout since they were made by European developers.
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

Member
Jazzy Geoff said:
If you're in the UK and you buy the games from the US store you're OK, right?
Click to expand...

Of course you are: 99.9% of content on PSN are region free, PSOne and PC Engine games included. Any of those 2 you buy from any PSN region will run on any of your PS3 accounts without a hitch.
 
G

Galdelico

Member
oni-link said:
If It does I had no idea, but I would turn that on in a second, can anyone confirm this?
Click to expand...
It's the first option under Settings (Game Settings): it allows you to enable textures smoothing and to select different aspect ratios (it's called Upscaler). I keep it at Normal, and it displays my PSone Classics in 4:3 on my full HD monitor.
 
B

Benzychenz

Member
Alright I updated my list in the OP and sorted the games out.
If anything's wrong please let me know!

Oemenia said:
Some of those games you listed are like that by choice such as Rayman and Wipeout since they were made by European developers.
Click to expand...

These along with Tomb Raider and Medievil I've tentatively put as PAL optimised, because yeah, I'd assume Euro devs would do that by default.
 
P

Peltz

Member
I'm not in UK but from what I understand, can you make a North American PSN account to play everything in 60z?

Edit. Nevermind.

Anyway, I really wish the PS3 could output these games at 240p via component. It's such a shame that they render at the wrong resolution even when hooked up to a standard def CRT.
 
M

matrix-cat

Member
So if I buy Metal Gear Solid using my extra US account, download it, then try to play it on my PS3 with my normal Australian account it'll play at 50Hz? But if I play it on my US account I'll get 60Hz? That's crazy.
 
B

Bjoern the Smexy

Member
I would never avoid the German version of FF9, because it's the best translation in all of Final Fantasy.

Though I was dissapointed that Castlevania SOTN was running sooooo sloooooow.

matrix-cat said:
So if I buy Metal Gear Solid using my extra US account, download it, then try to play it on my PS3 with my normal Australian account it'll play at 50Hz? But if I play it on my US account I'll get 60Hz? That's crazy.
Click to expand...

All games bought on US PSN should be 60Hz no matter what.
It depends where you buy them, not what console or which account you run them on/with.
 
ResidentDante

ResidentDante

Member
Don't avoid Resident Evil Director's Cut on the EU store, granted it runs slower than the NTSC version, BUT it has all the benefits of the director's cut (aka you can play it like the orginal game and the new dir. cut mode) AND it has the orginal and superior music score. The US version of Dir. Cut has a terrible and laughable new music score. IMO the EU version weighs up as the superior version.
 
A

andshrew

Member
ResidentDante said:
Don't avoid Resident Evil Director's Cut on the EU store, granted it runs slower than the NTSC version, BUT it has all the benefits of the director's cut (aka you can play it like the orginal game and the new dir. cut mode) AND it has the orginal and superior music score. The US version of Dir. Cut has a terrible and laughable new music score. IMO the EU version weighs up as the superior version.
Click to expand...

I don't know... THAT music in the basement of the US version is something to behold.

I may be remembering incorrectly, but I think Metal Gear Solid is technically PAL optimised however the increased resolution results in some slow down which isn't present in the NTSC version.
 
D

Dragon1893

Member
The fact that sony isn't selling the 60hz versions on the EU PSN is fucking disgusting, like having to endure this shit when the games were originally released wasn't bad enough.
Switching accounts on Vita sucks, but it's what I do to play PSone games on it.
Fuck 50hz and fuck sony for trying to sell us this crap.
 
O

oni-link

Member
Dragon1893 said:
The fact that sony isn't selling the 60hz versions on the EU PSN is fucking disgusting, like having to endure this shit when the games were originally released wasn't bad enough.
Switching accounts on Vita sucks, but it's what I do to play PSone games on it.
Fuck 50hz and fuck sony for trying to sell us this crap.
Click to expand...

Other than laziness maybe its because they expect people are buying them out of nostalgia and so want them to play the same way they did back in the 90s

Either way that is no excuse, at least give us the option, or let the purchase of a game give us the choice of which version we want to download
 
D

Dragon1893

Member
oni-link said:
Other than laziness maybe its because they expect people are buying them out of nostalgia and so want them to play the same way they did back in the 90s

Either way that is no excuse, at least give us the option, or let the purchase of a game give us the choice of which version we want to download
Click to expand...

Nostalgia? Come on dude.
If anything, this should've been an opportunity to finally allow europeans to play these games as they were intended to be played.
 
C

cjw

Neo Member
oni-link said:
Other than laziness maybe its because they expect people are buying them out of nostalgia and so want them to play the same way they did back in the 90s

Either way that is no excuse, at least give us the option, or let the purchase of a game give us the choice of which version we want to download
Click to expand...

Digital Foundry made a good point in saying it could be due to the PAL version having local languages. Still annoying nevertheless.
 
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