DScaler -- Old Game Method

| Old Game Method

This method improves the display of video games from old consoles on your computer. Instead of deinterlacing like most DScaler methods, it smoothes vertically. That gets rid of the blockiness you’d otherwise see. It works nicely with just about any game on a PlayStation, Super Nintendo, or Genesis. Presumably, it will work well with a Nintendo 64, Saturn, Atari, NES, Master System, and so on. Just don’t try it with your Vectrex.

More exactly, this method assumes that you’re looking at a progressive half vertical resolution image. So any video source which fits that description should work well. The Old Game method is similar to Odd Scanlines Only and Even Scanlines Only, but improves the picture in a couple ways. First, it works well with material running at any FPS (frames per second) rate, instead of just 25 or 30 FPS. Second, it optionally uses averaging between frames to reduce noise and color crosstalk. The averaging works well alone or along with a noise filter.

Later consoles such as the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, GameCube, or XBox use interlaced output, and will look lousy with this deinterlacing method. (Well, some of them allow progressive output, too, but not in a way the supported input cards can understand.) To play them on your computer, use the more standard deinterlacing methods — or better yet, find a VGA adaptor. The Super Nintendo, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Saturn can also use an interlaced mode. The PlayStation uses interlaced mode for its startup logo, for example. But almost all games switch back into progressive half vertical resolution mode for the main play of the game. Automatic sensing of the interlace mode is something I’d like to add in the future.

Who Should Use It?

Anybody who plays old video games on their computer via video input should use this deinterlacing method. (Well, at least until something better comes along.)

There’s a bug in some older Matrox overlay drivers which allows the Scaler Bob method to work nearly as well as Old Game for progressive half vertical resolution video. It doesn’t use averaging to reduce noise, but it should run a little faster. On the other hand, Old Game is fast enough to run just fine on any computer supported by DScaler, so that doesn’t really get you much.

The Settings

There are two options to set for this method, Composite Mode and Motion Threshold. Composite Mode forces the method to always average between frames. Motion Threshold is the amount of motion (in arbitrary units) which will convince the method not to average between frames.

The way you should set these options depends on the way you’ve connected your console.

Composite or F-Connector

With a composite connection, the biggest problem by far will be color crosstalk. To get rid of it, check Composite Mode. That way, the crosstalk will be averaged out. This makes the picture look much, much nicer.

With Composite Mode checked, the Motion Threshold slider won’t do anything at all.

Surprisingly, the Temporal Comb filter doesn’t help at all for crosstalk in most old video games. That’s for an obscure technical reason involving the phase of the color carrier signal and the number of scan lines per frame.

S-video

With an S-video connection, you shouldn’t see much color crosstalk. So you can afford to set the slider to prevent averaging when the scene is moving. Turn off Composite Mode and put the Motion Threshold at about 300. Increase it a bit if you have a noisy picture (and turn on a noise filter), or decrease it if you see blurring with fast motion.