Question about PS2 "widescreen" modes (GoW, FFXII)

[covnam]

I finally took the time to play my PS2 on my new HDTV (hooked up with component cables in 16:9 mode on my TV) since I got it and I decided to start playing God of War. It has both Progressive and Widescreen modes. Progressive works without any problem.

However, widescreen didn't really do much... I just lost some of the top and bottom of the image during the opening cinematic and gameplay.

Final Fantasy XII was pretty much the same, but on the characters it was much more noticable during gameplay as I gained some image on the sides of the screen at the loss of the top and bottom of the image.

Are these "widescreen" modes just enlarging the normal 4:3 screen so that it's not stretched to 16:9 rather than actually displaying the game in a widescreen format?

Also, no matter what mode, the screen cuts off on both sides with small black bars (half an inch to an inch or so if I recall). Anyone else have this on there TVs as well? Is that the overscan portion of the screen? This isn't a letterbox like a 4:3 picture would produce, it's much smaller.

Thanks in advance.

[Swordfish_II]

I only have an s-video connection for my PS2, but from what I notice all the games that are widescreen get put in an anamorphic mode so you actually do get to see more to the left and right.

And those black areas are for overscan.

[DeadlyMessiah]

Did you set the PS2 into 16:9 mode as well in the settings menu? Unfortunately I cannot help too much since I only had AV cables for my PS2, but I had no problems with GoW or FFXII at all when I just made them 16:9 in game.

[covnam]

Originally Posted by DeadlyMessiah

Did you set the PS2 into 16:9 mode as well in the settings menu? Unfortunately I cannot help too much since I only had AV cables for my PS2, but I had no problems with GoW or FFXII at all when I just made them 16:9 in game.

Yeah, that doesn't seem to make a difference. I think that setting is just for DVD playback.

[Ty]

Originally Posted by DeadlyMessiah

Did you set the PS2 into 16:9 mode as well in the settings menu? Unfortunately I cannot help too much since I only had AV cables for my PS2, but I had no problems with GoW or FFXII at all when I just made them 16:9 in game.

Setting that option in the system menu has no effect on aspect control for the games themselves. It's a bit misleading.

[Ty]

Originally Posted by covnam

Also, no matter what mode, the screen cuts off on both sides with small black bars (half an inch to an inch or so if I recall). Anyone else have this on there TVs as well? Is that the overscan portion of the screen? This isn't a letterbox like a 4:3 picture would produce, it's much smaller.

Thanks in advance.

By cuts off you mean there is about 1/2" of black space on screen wasted? If so this is the normal amount of picture underscan for the PS2. It's setup that way to counter the typical amount of overscan that was present on CRT sets, but with modern HD sets which (if any good) don't have any overscan it leaves a bit of unused screen space. Nothing is wrong with the system.

Personally I found it preferable to continue using the 4:3 mode in FFXII. Switching to the 16:9 mode only stretches the same amount of horizontal resolution out even further since the signal is not anamorphic. The graphics are painful to look at in widescreen, but in 4:3 mode it's not so bad. I'd rather keep the clarity than go for big, but I have all the tv I can fit into the room I'm in so picture size isn't a concern for me.

[FigNewton]

Originally Posted by _Ty_

By cuts off you mean there is about 1/2" of black space on screen wasted? If so this is the normal amount of picture underscan for the PS2. It's setup that way to counter the typical amount of overscan that was present on CRT sets, but with modern HD sets which (if any good) don't have any overscan it leaves a bit of unused screen space. Nothing is wrong with the system.

Personally I found it preferable to continue using the 4:3 mode in FFXII. Switching to the 16:9 mode only stretches the same amount of horizontal resolution out even further since the signal is not anamorphic. The graphics are painful to look at in widescreen, but in 4:3 mode it's not so bad. I'd rather keep the clarity than go for big, but I have all the tv I can fit into the room I'm in so picture size isn't a concern for me.

Ty, the widescreen setting in the system menu DOES make a difference. If you set both the system setting to widescreen, and the game menu to widescreen, the 3d graphics are generated in widescreen anamorphic and they look fine. The menu graphics still look a stretched in widescreen, and there's no getting around that.

[DeadlyMessiah]

Originally Posted by _Ty_

Personally I found it preferable to continue using the 4:3 mode in FFXII. Switching to the 16:9 mode only stretches the same amount of horizontal resolution out even further since the signal is not anamorphic. The graphics are painful to look at in widescreen, but in 4:3 mode it's not so bad. I'd rather keep the clarity than go for big, but I have all the tv I can fit into the room I'm in so picture size isn't a concern for me.

You must be doing something wrong then, for the graphics look even better in widescreen. Hell, this game is one of the most beautiful games out there.

[ic14]

I think it depends on the game. Some just crop the picture and make a pretend 16:9 picture, others do show more picture at the left and right.

Off the top of my head, i only have one PS2 game i play in widescreen, and thats Canis Canem Edit (Bully). Thats proper WS for sure - if i leave the TV in 4:3 mode and switch between the settings in game it does have more on the left and right of the picture, with nothing missing from the top.

I have to manually switch the TV over to 16:9 though - it doesnt seem to detect it properly if its left in its default "Auto" mode, and just does its default stretching of the picture.

[Ty]

If anything looks stretched then the aspect isn't right. I can't say I see what you guys are talking about. Whether the system menu is set to 4:3 or 16:9 doesn't affect the in game picture at all to my eyes. My particular tv forces 4:3 for 480i/p input signals and must be forced into a stretch mode so perhaps it's a problem fairly unique to me.