Need PAL GameCube to force 576p?

[andykara2003]

Hi all, I have action replay and an SD memory card adapter with compatible 2gb SanDisk SD card, using retail game disks on my US NTSC Gamecube with Swiss. It works amazingly for running 480i-only games like Super monkey ball and Timesplitters 2 in 480p.

My problem is that I can’t seem to force games to display 576p - they all display at 480p when I try. At the moment, I’m using a USA GameCube with PAL games - do I need to use my PAL cube + PAL games for 576p?

[Extrems]

No.

[andykara2003]

Great, thanks Extrems that simplifies things. I wonder why forcing 576p is eluding me. As far as I can tell, I followed your instructions here to a tee:

https://github.com/Extrems/Swiss#requirements

I made sure the SD card is compatible and is formatted in FAT16. I've got swiss_r###-compressed.dol in the root and the latest version of action replay.

Not sure why, but I always get the "config file failed to save" error - but I don't think this should affect 576p forcing. I can't help thinking that I'm missing something somewhere..

[Extrems]

Make sure the configuration device is valid. It has no bearing on this though.

Those aren't my instructions, and that's an old personal repository.

[andykara2003]

Ahh I didn't know, thanks. Sorry, can I ask what you mean by configuration device?

[Extrems]

You can find it under the global settings.

[andykara2003]

Cheers. I just checked and the configuration device is right - SD card in slot 2.

The AVE compatibility defaults to GCvideo - is that right if I'm outputting via VGA modded D-terminal cable?

[Extrems]

You can set it to CMPV-DOL if you want to. It'll unlock 540p and 1080i.

[andykara2003]

Thanks for the continued help. I’ve tried with CMPV-DOL, but still 480p when Swiss is set to 576p

Just to be sure I’m just not noticing the jump in resolution, I’m counting the pixels from the same point on an object & it’s always the same as 480p. I have the game (Metroid prime 1) in PAL & NTSC so I can compare directly.

God knows what I’m doing wrong.

[andykara2003]

Just to add - could it be because I’m getting the error message “Config failed to save”?

Even though this happens every time, when I boot the game it still says “video mode:”576p”

[Extrems]

As I previously said, it has no bearing on this, and the video mode message confirms that.

[andykara2003]

Yes, sorry I forgot - bit of an obtuse moment there. I figured that as there’s so many possibilities of what I could be doing wrong, it might be easier if I put a 2 minute YouTube video up to see the process I’m going through to boot the game; it’s uploading now & I’ll post it here as soon as it’s finished..

[andykara2003]

Here's the video - hopefully it shows me forgetting a setting or doing something wrong:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lHVedEYduo

[Extrems]

There's nothing wrong, other than you trying to pixel count on a CRT.

[Papy.G]

It should save, try erasing SWISS.ini off your SD card.
But that is not the problem, just press B at launch in game, and choose 50Hz mode, otherwise, it will keep to default mode, that is probably 60 HZ since it's the way it boots the Freeloader and SWISS.

Maybe your CRT forgets to shrink when in 625Lines (576/50Hz), and the additionnal lines are just drawn off-screen. I remember that when using my Brother's NTSC SNES, we had the opposite behavior, it was letterboxed on some TVs that didn't know they had to stretch VScan when in 575 lines (480/60Hz). So Maybe a V.adjust may adress that?

[andykara2003]

There's nothing wrong, other than you trying to pixel count on a CRT.

.
Apologies for the delay - family life is fairly hectic at the mo. I get your point; I do tend to be a bit ocd about this stuff. I really appreciate the comment, though, as it confirms that I did have the setup right, and having tested the PAL 576p and NTSC 480p against each other, I've seen that the 576p does indeed look a touch less pixellated in certain areas of the game, although the difference is pretty subtle & I had to look carefully to see the difference.

I think part of the problem was that because of a couple of comments I read I was expecting a significant jump in quality. As you kindly informed me, the games that are worth trying in 576p are the ones with an internal resolution of over 480p, which makes sense. Out of all the games I play, the only one with a higher internal resolution is Metroid prime. This threw me as well as I saw comments from people saying that games on my list like twilight princess, mario sunshine and others benefit from 576p, but that's not true going by the PAL compatability list.

Also, none of the games that do have an internal resolution over 480p have 576 lines. Metroid prime is one of the few games to have the highest vertical resolution in the list, making it 640x528 pixels in 576p mode. That means that you're only gaining 48 more pixels vertically over 480p, which explains why I was having trouble seeing the difference. Not that I'm doing down having the option, in fact it's amazing to have all the options swiss gives & I'll give MP some playtime in 576p (528p?) in case it becomes more obvious.

Thanks again for the help and your work on this project - playing super monkey ball and timesplitters 2 in 480p is a revelation. SMB is one of my favourite games and it always bothered me that it didn't have a 480p option.

It should save, try erasing SWISS.ini off your SD card.

Thanks - I found what I was doing wrong - I was saving the config to the SD card rather than the memory card.

But that is not the problem, just press B at launch in game, and choose 50Hz mode, otherwise, it will keep to default mode, that is probably 60 HZ since it's the way it boots the Freeloader and SWISS.

Cheers - I'd assumed that swiss would automatically changed to 50Hz (in fact my Extron unit confirmed 50Hz before the game selection prompt), so it hadn't occurred to me to set it up in game as well.

Maybe your CRT forgets to shrink when in 625Lines (576/50Hz), and the additionnal lines are just drawn off-screen. I remember that when using my Brother's NTSC SNES, we had the opposite behavior, it was letterboxed on some TVs that didn't know they had to stretch VScan when in 575 lines (480/60Hz). So Maybe a V.adjust may adress that?

Good thinking, although I'd already checked for this & the monitor displays 576i/p at the right height. I appreciate all your help!

[Extrems]

The embedded framebuffer maxes out at 640x528. That's why you don't see any higher. Some homebrew (Game Boy Interface Standard Edition) gets around that with tiled rendering. The Xbox 360 has a similar limitation and solution.

I'd assumed that swiss would automatically changed to 50Hz

It does automatically clear/set the 60Hz flag.

[andykara2003]

.
The embedded framebuffer maxes out at 640x528.

That's explains the 528 line resolution cap, thanks!

It does automatically clear/set the 60Hz flag.

OK, good to know