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"Horrible Borders"

I regret to say this, but it’s true…

CAPCOM are becoming very boring, well, in this country anyway.
Just look at those huge borders one either side of the TV screen. It’s such a pain. It makes me wish I had a 52” Television – Ha! I WISH!
I mean just look at it! Devil May Cry, Onimusha: Warlords, Resident Evil Code: Veronica Complete, and even CAPCOM vs. SNK 2. That’s almost every CAPCOM game released on the PlayStation 2 so far, except for the Street Fighter game, which all include borders. I wouldn’t even be surprised if Street Fighter consists of borders too.
Anyway, my point here is that CAPCOM should get rid of all those border rubbish. It’s obviously due it the fact that TVs in this country hardly support 60Hz displays. Well, whoever made that up is talking nonsense. All TV screens here are combatable, and all of them have even a higher spec than that of Japan and the US. The only TVs in the UK that can’t push out that type of resolution are TV combis, which are Televisions and Videos, combined. But at least they play NTSC video.

So…if other games such as, Jak & Daxter can be displayed in full screen using 60FPS, than why can’t CAPCOM make their games do the same?

I don’t mean to disgrace CAPCOM. They are my favourite games development company, and have always been, but thanks to their borders, I am losing valuable time on their games.
Funny I said that – VALUABLE time playing GAMES? (Laughs)

Na it looks just like 50Hz on a widescreen all it's doing is chopping the top and bottom off as a widescreen has a 16:9 ration and your console game is in a 4:3 ration with borders

WòókieeMøn§†€® wrote:
> Having a widescreen TV with a Zoom option means that I personally am not too
> concerned about borders, as I can get rid of them anyway.

That zoom featuere sounds fantastic, but does it not affect the graphics in terms of jagged edges?

Having a widescreen TV with a Zoom option means that I personally am not too concerned about borders, as I can get rid of them anyway.

What is annoying is that, as has been stated, the majority of Dreamcast games appear to have the option, so why not PS2? Both machines clearly support 60Hz, so developer laziness can be the only valid reason.

I'll roll out my favourite counterpoint during conversations like this.

It's all about the dollars (or yen, quids, drachma or whathaveyou). The Japanese and US devcos all write their games for 60HZ NTSC. It's much easier and quicker (and therefore cheaper - cost of development after all is merely cost of staff) for them to whack some borders on it to convert it to PAL than to do a proper borderless 60Hz PAL option.

And realistically, how much do you think sales of a game (especially CAPCOM, which tend to be massmarket bestsellers) are going to be affected by the presence of lack of borders? My guess is that it would be negligible compared to the number of units sold. As I mentioned, the massmarket is where the money is, and that will tend to be the kind of buyer who won't care (and probably not even notice in a lot of cases) about borders.

So, looking at it as a trade-off, the devco weighs up how much it will cost (not only money, but in time too - development schedules are notoriously tight) against the perceived financial benefits in the market.

My belief is that the only time it makes financial sense for the devco to sort out the borders is for a game that will sell in large numbers to the so called hardcore gamers, who are the ones who's decision to purchase will be affected.

Borders annoy me too, and I'm sure that 99.9% of devcos out there would, given a choice, prefer to release a game with a lovely shiny 60Hz full-screen PAL mode than one without, but there'll rarely be enough time or cash. Shame.

===SONICRAV---> wrote:
> (Oh, but I forgot... Sony have given the tools to publishers, who are
> not using these tools..hmmmmmm)


They obviously HAVE given them the necesary info to do 60Hz etc. Everything is documented in the tech manuals that developers get, and many games make use of it. DoA2, Jak & Daxter, Burnout, Sky Odyssey are just 4 that I can think of off the top of my head.

The machine is capable, the ability is there. Sony promised support and they have provided it. If developers can't be bothered to use it, that's solely down to them.

Capcom are - and always have been - particularly lazy with their PAL conversions, even on PS1.

I think Sony should consider adapting their license agreement to make a 60Hz option mandatory for all future games released on PS2.

Desert strike had very bad boarders. In fact all the strike games did.

Have you seen the boarders on Pilotwings64??
There's more boarder than game, so in comparison, games today have tiny boarders( but still unwanted).

WHAT??!?!?

I found the DC's 60 Hz option is brilliant... games run as theyt should- fast, smooth, and full screen (I can't remember a 60Hz game not full screen!).

I can't think of a blurry game ever... ith might just be the way your TV uses NTSC images.

60Hz... something Sony PROMISED but has yet to deliver (Oh, but I forgot... Sony have given the tools to publishers, who are not using these tools..hmmmmmm)

Sonic

WHAT??!?!?

I found the DC's 60 Hz option is brilliant... games run as theyt should- fast, smooth, and full screen (I can't remember a 60Hz game not full screen!).

I can't think of a blurry game ever... ith might just be the way your TV uses NTSC images.

60Hz... something Sony PROMISED but has yet to deliver (Oh, but I forgot... Sony have given the tools to publishers, who are not using these tools..hmmmmmm)

Sonic

uk_vamp wrote:
they should release the consoles here in NTSC as it doesn't matter about PAL anymore really.

Good point there uk_vamp.