19th April 2011, 12:06 AM
Huh, that's interesting, so on newer TVs interlacing doesn't appear correctly? I've heard about lightguns not working on them, about Master System 3D glasses requiring an older TV to work, etc., but I don't think I'd heard that one... I guess it makes sense, but it is annoying that older games have all of these issues, because of the shortcomings of modern TV design. (My TV's a mid '00s CRT, displays older games fine but it isn't very big).
But yeah, while it is possible to do transparencies on the Saturn, it's quite difficult (it doesn't have hardware transparency so it would have to be done in software I believe), so most of the time interpolation was used, for very clumsy "transparency" effects. I mean, it looks okay from a distance, but you can tell that it's just alternating normal and white pixels, it's not as good as real transparency. Compare the shield effect in Saturn Wipeout to PSX Wipeout, the weapon effects in general look pretty bad on Saturn, but that one does stand out. Of course though Saturn Wipeout's still better because of the control improvements, and the game looks okay. It just doesn't look as good. But anyway, it's good that you figured out what the problem was. Too bad about the ebay disc though, that is one downside about ordering things online... you never know for SURE what the condition's going to be. Of course though, even in stores you can't always see scratches on CD, I look but sometimes I miss them and end up with scratched games that need resurfacing or, in a few cases, don't work.
But yeah, while it is possible to do transparencies on the Saturn, it's quite difficult (it doesn't have hardware transparency so it would have to be done in software I believe), so most of the time interpolation was used, for very clumsy "transparency" effects. I mean, it looks okay from a distance, but you can tell that it's just alternating normal and white pixels, it's not as good as real transparency. Compare the shield effect in Saturn Wipeout to PSX Wipeout, the weapon effects in general look pretty bad on Saturn, but that one does stand out. Of course though Saturn Wipeout's still better because of the control improvements, and the game looks okay. It just doesn't look as good. But anyway, it's good that you figured out what the problem was. Too bad about the ebay disc though, that is one downside about ordering things online... you never know for SURE what the condition's going to be. Of course though, even in stores you can't always see scratches on CD, I look but sometimes I miss them and end up with scratched games that need resurfacing or, in a few cases, don't work.