(The third paragraph is pretty much a rant so feel free to skip it)
Hi,
I am 29 years old and have been gaming pretty much my whole life. I am ashamed to say I've only recently become aware of the fact that PAL games have been mostly inferior their NTSC versions in the past.
I have been aware for a long time that PAL runs at 50hz and NTSC at 60hz. I just assumed the games ran at the same speed but slightly less smoothly. I didn't realise that a) the vast majority of games ran approximately 17% slower and b) they were vertically squashed.
I am amazed this is not more well known and that nothing was done about it for so long (considering most of the world used PAL or SECAM). If for instance there was an equivalent with music (CD's or Audio tapes) and the same proportion of customers were receiving inferior quality goods compared to the radio (for this comparison this would be arcade machines) or USA and Japan there would have been public outcry! Yet nobody gave a crap when it came to video games (and sadly when I told my best friend, he didn't either and told me maybe I am the only person that does). I am genuinely very upset to find this out. I have spent a huge amount of time and money on video games. Now I have discovered I have been playing lazily converted second rate versions and quite frankly I feel robbed. It just seems a bit of a slap in the face considering the price of video games and the fact it was never made well known.
I have heard certain games were optimised and wish to find out which ones. Allegedly Codemasters put more care into their PAL releases. This makes sense since Toca Touring Cars and Toca 2 (PS1) were both released in Europe before the US and Japan. So in the case of optimised PAL titles such as these I would keep them to play via my PS3. However whether I decide to keep my PS2 and XBOX depends on the amount of titles that either have a 60hz option or were optimised for PAL. I intend to buy a US PS2 and XBOX so I can either just restart my collection or buy the titles that were poorly converted (though I think the former will be more likely and more practical but potentially more expensive).
So if anyone knows of a list of optimised PAL releases or a forum more suited to this question I would appreciate it. As for older systems I am so grateful to the hard working emulator community.
Hi,
I am 29 years old and have been gaming pretty much my whole life. I am ashamed to say I've only recently become aware of the fact that PAL games have been mostly inferior their NTSC versions in the past.
I have been aware for a long time that PAL runs at 50hz and NTSC at 60hz. I just assumed the games ran at the same speed but slightly less smoothly. I didn't realise that a) the vast majority of games ran approximately 17% slower and b) they were vertically squashed.
I am amazed this is not more well known and that nothing was done about it for so long (considering most of the world used PAL or SECAM). If for instance there was an equivalent with music (CD's or Audio tapes) and the same proportion of customers were receiving inferior quality goods compared to the radio (for this comparison this would be arcade machines) or USA and Japan there would have been public outcry! Yet nobody gave a crap when it came to video games (and sadly when I told my best friend, he didn't either and told me maybe I am the only person that does). I am genuinely very upset to find this out. I have spent a huge amount of time and money on video games. Now I have discovered I have been playing lazily converted second rate versions and quite frankly I feel robbed. It just seems a bit of a slap in the face considering the price of video games and the fact it was never made well known.
I have heard certain games were optimised and wish to find out which ones. Allegedly Codemasters put more care into their PAL releases. This makes sense since Toca Touring Cars and Toca 2 (PS1) were both released in Europe before the US and Japan. So in the case of optimised PAL titles such as these I would keep them to play via my PS3. However whether I decide to keep my PS2 and XBOX depends on the amount of titles that either have a 60hz option or were optimised for PAL. I intend to buy a US PS2 and XBOX so I can either just restart my collection or buy the titles that were poorly converted (though I think the former will be more likely and more practical but potentially more expensive).
So if anyone knows of a list of optimised PAL releases or a forum more suited to this question I would appreciate it. As for older systems I am so grateful to the hard working emulator community.