Duckstation Emulation Downsampling Tested - Affro's Curiosities

Today, I have a quick look at how the downsampling works with certain games using Duckstation for PS1 games!
PlayStation games can have a mixture of 2D & 3D graphics & when you try to upscale them, the 3D graphics tend to fare well, whereas the 2D graphics often get blurry & look messy! Can downsampling fix this problem?
The results might surprise you!
Main Channel - / @theaffroshowgameplay
Chapters -
0:00 - Start
0:09 - Duckstation Recap & Checking Out Downsampling
1:09 - Fear Effect 2
3:02 - Resident Evil 2
4:38 - Colin McRae Rally 2
5:47 - Tekken 3
6:27 - Manic Game Girl
6:54 - Brave Sega 2
8:01 - Outro & Conclusion
#affroscuriosities #playstation #duckstation

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

Many of you were asking me about downsampling in Duckstation! Here is the video for you if you had questions about it!

[@Superhermit]

I thought I would prefer downsampling, but actually the sharper look is often more appealing to me

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

I prefer the software mode myself but it is there for those who want to try it :)

[@BrunoTorrente]

This duckstation enhancement system is incredible. This shows that it is indeed possible to obtain better results, without distorting the original material. I imagine when similar improvements reach other platforms, such as the sixth and seventh generations

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

We will have to see but it is good to see more opinions for those wanting a different or more accurate look to their graphics :)

[@social6077]

Keep making these videos, you are doing a great job

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

Thank you for the kind words :)

[@kirilychplay8071]

I prefer to increase the resolution to 720p. This allows you to get more detailed 3D characters, without making them stand out too much from the 2D background.

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

I actually go one step further and use 480p (2x scale) & I feel this does even better while still retaining the PS1 look :)

[@kirilychplay8071]

​@@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial If it looks good, then great. I don't remember my exact settings. Wrote approximately. I remember that for PS2 emulation I set x2 upscale (I checked only for "Shadow of the Colossus" and "Disaster Report"). The main thing is not to get carried away with 4k :) The characters in the game should look harmonious against the background. But many people don’t understand this, and they think that the more detail the 3D objects have, the better it is. But they forget that they are dealing with PS1.

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

@@kirilychplay8071 As I tell everyone on this channel, my personal settings on all these emulators is software mode as it closely hits what a real system would look like (albeit with RGB SCART or Component for PS2) I always show 4K because I want viewers to see what can be done even if I don't personally recommend this :) But, it is good to see what people like when they use emulation & everyone is different with different tastes :) That's the beauty of emulation and the retro scene in general :D

[@MrSnaztastic]

I wonder how downsampling would combine with bilinear filtering? I've never understood why people love nearest neighbor scaling so much, these games never looked so awfully pixellated on original hardware / CRT screens. Downsampling + texture filtering would probably get a pretty authentic image without overblurring or oversharpening things.

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

This is because you likely used Composite on a CRT which blurred the image :) RGB SCART which I use on real hardware is very sharp even on a CRT :) I prefer this but I know many love the composite quality used on a CRT :)

[@rockapartie]

It looks just as blurry as bilinear without downsampling. Textures are images with a fixed resolution, downsampling does not magically increase it. You get a cleaner overall image with downsampling, namely less jaggies (because it basically works as a very expensive type of anti-aliasing) and flickering (at the cost of some blur on distant textures), but never a higher texture resolution. Why nearest neighbor? Because my eyes can adapt to pixels easily, but I can never get used to the absolutely insane blur that you get with PS1 textures + bilinear (or any other type of filtering). And like ACO, I used an RGB cable back in the day (you could get them at every electronics and toy store here in Europe) and you could indeed count the pixels, even on a CRT. 😉

[@Real_The_Goof]

This would be great paired with being viewed through a CRT TV.

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

Possibly, sadly I don't own one but there is a case for It using this :)

[@NickEnchev]

I also opt for the original PS1 graphics. I always fiddle with settings, upsample, downsample, left and right sample, eventually I always want good old fat ps1 pixels.

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

I'm the same, I normally use software mode to keep the original PS1 graphics but keep enhancements like disk speed up and read speed up and overclocking to improve frame rate performance :)

[@viola0livido]

Great man! ❤

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

Hope you enjoyed :)

[@pedrogriyo]

Magnificent work again Afro. I usually use Swanstation downsampling in Retroarch along with a RetroCrisis shader. I honestly think it's the closest thing to what I remember when I played on the original PlayStation

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

Thank you & I had a feeling based off my testing that people usually use a filter combined with the downsampling but, at least you can see it in all its glory :) I prefer the software mode but, this video was fun to make :)

[@MegaZeta]

Thanks. I've been checking out emulators for Breath of Fire IV, since the PC version's graphics don't play nice here and there with recent machines, and this is helpful.

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

There's always a way to play these games thanks to emulation :)

[@overwatch761]

Duckstation is amazing. It corrects all of the things I disliked back in the 90s about the PSX 3D ie constant warping, jerkiness, shimmering and shakiness. These games now have a N64/Dreamcast emulated look that is perfect.

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

I actually love the PS1 graphics despite the shortcomings but, it is great we now have a way to correct it if it does bother you :)

[@nikolay-tsys]

Thanks man!

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

Hope this helped or you had fun watching!

[@tristanheron4144]

Nice, you made it. You didn't show any footage of the Final Fantasy games, which I think it makes a big difference for. I normally also apply a simple scanline filter to blend it all together, which also helps with the FMVs.

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

I'm not a Final Fantasy fan so I wanted to use games I knew would potentially benefit from my past experiences :) Always next time :D I was debating to use that filter but, I made it as is so I could see which filters people use when using downsampling!

[@ianswift3521]

without scanlines, all these older games designed for CRT look wrong on LCD and LED screens

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

I disagree :) It might not look the same or have the classic retro look but retro games can look fantastic on modern displays :)

[@rockapartie]

@@ianswift3521 3D-only games look absolutely gorgeous with a higher internal resolution on an LCD. The only thing that looks wrong in some games is True Color Rendering, because they heavily rely on dithering to hide pop-in and smooth out color gradients. (the latter isn't as much of a problem with true color, but the former is, e.g. in Silent Hill during the night - use scaled dithering in Duckstation instead). Interlacing on a CRT can smooth out the jaggies a bit, but as soon as you use a higher internal resolution, that's not an issue anymore, besides, there's nothing they could have done to the graphics of a 3D game that would have made it look better on a CRT than an LCD. It's simply wonderful seeing these old games without the atrocious flickering of the original hardware. (Tomb Raider 2 was so bad, I never finished it back in the day.) PS2 games on PCSX2 are gorgeous. I didn't buy many games for that system back in the day, because the image quality wasn't great (in fact, a major downgrade compared to the Dreamcast) and the flickering and blur made my eyes hurt. But seeing the games now with no flickering, no jaggies, much less blur and best of all: A steady frame rate - that's awesome. I'm blown away by how great the games look, it's like a remaster. And yes, I did try original hardware as well, but got a massive headache after half an hour of Valkyrie Profile 2. ☹

[@retrovideogamejunkie]

Now I know why i didn't like those ps1 final fantasy remasters of late ....they added polygons to the characters models (now I don't know) but the background looked awful ...

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

Yes, increased 3D model graphics but not the same level of work done for the 2D assets shows especially in HD or above resolutions!

[@gorofujita5767]

This is all very nice, but whatever the case, I feel this is still not a complete solution, as the 2D backgrounds still look very pixelated (something that the "natural anti-aliasing" of CRTs helped mask). Ideally, what we would have would be some sort of more advanced form of upscaling targetting the 2D assets only, and maybe perhaps downsample them a little after that

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

You'd have to rebuild or somehow port the 2D backgrounds or graphics in higher quality 2D assets but this is not easy...

[@DioBrando-qr6ye]

AI upscaling of the FMVs/jpegs

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

Again, not easy to do & then put into a PS1 title, you'd have to do a lot of work :)

[@matcarfer]

This, but in a real CRT! One can dream!

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

Im sure using adapters this could be possible but, for me I'll stick with my 4K TV xD

[@Massobliteration]

You can try the infamous HDMI2AV for a cheap look on how it can look. Its not as bad as people make it to be, you need to put the game in 16:9 aspect ratio so the adapter works correctly. The biggest issue is the input lag, which is 1 frame more.

[@SvenS2]

Those 3D models look awesome! It looks like a mod and not a graphics boost 😮

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

Beauty of emulation, 4K resolution & perspective correction :)

[@MinosDaedalus]

So much details on characters lost to the low pixel count of the originals. Duckstation is a great emulator! Really love playing PSX games on it.

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

Yes, playing at 4K certainly shows details hidden in 240p which is interesting to see :)

[@NeovanGoth]

What the music running in the background during the first three games? It's from a game soundtrack, right? But I can't remember which one. 😆

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

It's from a game called Motorhead on the PC & PS1 :)

[@NeovanGoth]

@@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial Ooooh, thank you so much!

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

@@NeovanGoth Anytime, glad you enjoyed the background music :)

[@videogamesruinedmylife3769]

I would love to see a remaster of the first two fear effect games

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

Especially with proper 3D or 2D pre-rendered backgrounds!

[@chane2k1]

Instead of down-sampling I use 2x IR, 32x SSAA, Bilinear Sharp and turn Scaled Dithering off. This is the blend of old and new that I like. Down-sampling only just caused a bit too much blur for my taste.

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

The beauty of emulation is we can use filters or try different combinations to get the look we feel most happy about :)

[@Hpalhazred]

Wow it look more natural than hardware upscaling where everything is too crispy.

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

Don't forget this was at 4K, you can go as low as 240p and change the look to however you see fit :)

[@SvenS2]

Can you please make a vid dedicated to the Playstation Final Fantasy games?

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

Sadly I'm not a Final Fantasy or even an RPG fan so this is unlikely :)

[@ianswift3521]

:( why can't there be some sort of anisotropic filtering on those backgrounds in fear effect 2

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

It would have no effect on the 2D backgrounds, you'd need to redo them completely in higher quality :)

[@ivnrokr]

It would be great to try this on a 480p monitor

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

It might give interesting results :)

[@julianmunoz7836]

Game at 00:35 secs?

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

That's Gowclazer for the PS1, it was featured in my video called Duckstation Emulation Vs Real PS1 Hardware (2024 Edition) which is on this channel :)

[@J0rdan912]

Downsampling turns PS1 games into N64 games. What kind of dark magic is this?

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

I guess it just gets the graphics back to 240p/288p and of course is handy for mixed 2D/3D graphics :)

[@J0rdan912]

@@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial Just kidding) But yeah, hardware rendering + downsampling algorithms looks very much like N64 anti-aliased game, excluding their unique 3-point filtering.

[@rafaleek100]

Try emulating games like Resident Evil on crt monitor results are amazing.

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

Probably but I don't own a CRT :) At least it is good to hear it works if you like that setup :)

[@RiasatSalminSami]

Nah, for Fear effect, I think I prefer the crystal clear 4k image. That character model is too good for a ps1 game to blur it out. The model looks so good wth

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

It will be personal preference but I agree the image quality of the character model was pretty good!

[@RiasatSalminSami]

@@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial ikr, it holds up even for modern standards.

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

Great and well designed art can always stand the test of time :)

[@AVPerth]

Interesting but hardly ideal. Downsampling sort of compromises the point of upscaling to begin with and it doesn't make the 2D assets and backgrounds look any better, just everything else slightly softer. The 2D assets are the problem. I get that this solution is attempting to render the game closer to how it appeared on a CRT, where the pixels would blur and blend into one another. Developers could get away with the illusion of a highly compressed low resolution 2D animated background or FMV cutscene with a 3D character or element placed on top. However, the best solution is going to be recreating or upscaling those 2D backgrounds to match the quality of how the 3D elements are rendered in a 4K via Vulkan. That's how a proper remaster would be done. And with all the tools available now, particularly those using AI-enhanced upscaling, it's likely that somebody will either create a HD texture pack for the game or they might create some new rendering pipeline for specific games that can upscale those problematic 2D assets in a unique way.

[@AffrosCuriositiesOfficial]

Ultimately much the same as any enhancement, they can only do so much are not a absolute fix :) There's been a couple of games that have gotten the treatment to enhance their 2D assets or backgrounds & the results are fantastic in some cases!

[@Flackon]

Not for acccuracy

[@AVPerth]

@@Flackon Well, you could always have a toggle option back to original graphics. But for these games to be rendered as intended, they need to be displayed via CRT. Probably also limited to the original 256×224 to 640x480 pixels, depending on the game. Emulation allows you to see these games in a much clearer and higher resolution than they were ever intended, so accuracy is sort of already out the window. I mean, just enabling PGXP is already not accurate. And CRT shaders, as great as some of them are, aren't completely true to an actual analog TV. So, if total accuracy is not the sole objective of emulation, and the issue with these games is the low quality of the 2D textures and assets in comparison to the 3D elements, then the solution has to be to upscale the 2D. AI upscaling tools are getting much better at interpolating low resolution images and videos into 2x or 4x HD. Done sensitively and with knowledge and respect for the source, I believe it can be done to a quality on par with what was intended or "how you remember it looking". Just take a look at SM64 Render96 or Mario Kart 64 HD, for which many textures were rediscovered or entirely recreated in higher quality. That's the goal. The Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition from 2022 also faced issues similar to some of these PS1 titles, where all the backgrounds in the original game were low-res 2D looping videos. The upscaled assets in the remaster didn't quite achieve the required clarity but tools and techniques have improved since then. Plus, there are further advances on the horizon. Within the next few years, upscaling low-res 2D assets could be an on-the-fly process incorporated into the rendering pipeline. These kind of options don't really stop anyone from playing the game as accurately as they desire. In fact, when done right, they can be a massive improvement.

[@Massobliteration]

Not ideal. How would a AI upscaling upscale sprites on RPG games like Lunar, Final Fantasy 1 - 6, Breath of Fire 3, etc?

[@AVPerth]

@@Massobliteration It's an option, not a magic solution. It's not ideal right now, sure, but over the next 5 years? You get a decent model representative of the art style of the sprites and it's going to interpolate it up to 2x, 4x or 8x fairly well. I mean, someone could even create bespoke upscaling models based on specific high resolution assets on a game-by-game basis. That would greatly improve specific results. But I'm not saying it'll be AI upscaling to the rescue. Preferably it'll be a focused project, done sensitively and with knowledge and respect for the source. Sprites could be entirely redrawn in HD by artists, as the sprites in MK64 HD were re-modelled and re-rendered. Done right, that's the best solution. So you could create a custom texture pack for a game focusing on those specific sprites. That gets loaded in and applied when called for, with the AI upscaling being applied to all other textures not included in the texture pack. That's how it could work.