Hard to tell what the problem is without knowing anything of importance about your graphics configuration.

 

It is highly likely the cause is that you're using too high of a resolution.

The Final Fantasy games, for example, are 320 x 224 (this applies to many PlayStation games, not just Final Fantasy, by the way, such as many of the RPGs). Using too high of a resolution leads to more noticeable pixelation on the 2D stuff (backgrounds, menu screens, text, and FMVs, among others). In this case, using much over 640 x 480 will do it, and even there it's noticeable without filtering and blurring. While 640 x 480 may seem low, it's already over a 200% increase itself, so at something like 1080p, not only is it many times greater, but if it's widescreen, you're also making it disproportionate (fattening).

You can try filtering, but all it'll do it blur it. These games just don't have HD level assets and art, so running them in HD resolutions exposes it. The same happens if you try hooking an older generation console up to a HDTV.

The only fix I've found in all but eliminating the problem is by using a CRT at 640 x 480, and using aggressive screen smoothing and the right combination of filtering. I have a thread for it. It makes the 2D stuff look right, while still having the 3D stuff look nice (not HD, but still nice). CRTs are becoming the past, and are for many of us, so sadly, we're left with little alternative. You can still run it in a window on a LCD though, but 640 x 448/480 isn't ideal on most screens, or you could just run fullscreen if interpolation doesn't bother you.

You can also petition Square-Enix for an HD remake. Even if it was just an HD re-release and not a remake, it'd be many times better than the ones they're making these days.

 

It makes the 2D stuff look right, while still having the 3D stuff look nice (not HD, but still nice).

I thought HD only referred to res..? Either you're in SD or HD

Res past original hardware isn't enhancing at all (I know y'know that, just saying for everyone in denial, especially fakers on youtube)

Now that I think about it, why is Dolphin praised for this ? All the classic emulation does higher res than the hardware

 

In essence, yes HD does refer specifically just to resolution. However, in 3D games there are always 2 different resolutions to be aware of: internal and display.

Display resolution is simply the resolution of say, your desktop. Simply raising the display resolution to your display's native resolution (1920x1080 for example) when a game's native resolution is much lower simply results in pixel doubling, tripling, quadrupling, etc. which makes pixelation very apparent in older games when displayed on a higher resolution display.

Internal resolution is what your graphics adapter "sees" before sending it to your display. This can be set higher or lower than your desired display resolution, but for most PC games, it is set equal to the display resolution. For 3D data, raising the internal resolution will increase line accuracy and decrease jaggies. Knowing this, you can specify a low display resolution and a high internal resolution to achieve a sort of basic full screen antialiasing effect. The downside is that this only really affects 3D objects. Flat 2D "sprites" (often used in the foreground and background of PS1 games) will not be affected. They are, however, affected by texture filtering and texture enhancement settings.

Dolphin gets its praise precisely thanks to allowing the user to specify their desired internal resolution in addition to their desired display resolution. Since both the GameCube and Wii are more modern systems, there is significantly less reliance on 2D sprites to maintain good gameplay performance. In doing so, Dolphin does indeed offer an HD experience. That's not to say PS1 emulators don't. They too can offer an HD experience. It's just that the texture quality is so abysmally low and sprites are used so often that it makes the games look far less than "true" HD.

 

I thought HD only referred to res..? Either you're in SD or HD

It does, and what you quoted was just me saying that my approach keeps the 2D looking right, while still enhancing the 3D (but still being 640 x 480 and not the same level of enhancement HD would bring the 3D).

 

Thanks for the answers.

I kinda guessed it was due to resolutions.

I fixed it a bit atleast with Garnets comments in mind.

I had it set to Windowed and 640x480 and Fullscreen set to my res (1680x1050).

I changed it to launch in 640 in fullscreen right off the bat, instead of using ALT+Enter to go fullscreen.

This made the character look a bit more pixly round the edges, BUT he melts in better with the background.

The text is still, in my opinion a bit too pixly, but no setting whatsoever seem to fix it.
And if I recall correctly, this/these games HAD a pretty pixly text to begin with back in the days.

Unfortunately I don't have access to any CRT screens, both TV and Monitor are LCD.

Here's my settings with a GeForce GTX 550 Ti card.

Spoiler

Plugin: Pete's OpenGL2 Driver 2.9
Author: Pete Bernert
Card vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
GFX card: GeForce GTX 550 Ti/PCIe/SSE2

Resolution/Color:
- 640x480 Fullscreen - NO desktop changing
- Internal X resolution: 2
- Internal Y resolution: 3
- Keep psx aspect ratio:
- No render-to-texture: È
¦

- Filtering: 6
- Hi-Res textures: 2
- TexWin pixel shader: on
- VRam size: 0 MBytes

Framerate:
- FPS limitation: on
- Frame skipping: off
- FPS limit: Auto

Compatibility:
- Offscreen drawing: 1
- Framebuffer effects: 3
- Framebuffer uploads: 1

Misc:
- Scanlines: off
- Mdec filter: on
- Screen filtering: on
- Shader effects: 0/1
- Flicker-fix border size: 1
- GF4/XP crash fix: off
- Game fixes: off [00000000]

If anyone spots something that can up my graphics/text please do tell.

Cheers

 

Just use one of the many AA shaders, or Smart shaders.

#EDIT: I wanted to post a link but it seems the posts have been... deleted from Pete's board.

 

The text is still, in my opinion a bit too pixly, but no setting whatsoever seem to fix it.
And if I recall correctly, this/these games HAD a pretty pixly text to begin with back in the days.

Back on those times, the interlaced CRT televisions, and the connections we often used, hid this.

I did a lot of testing with different combinations for Final fantasy IX, and this was the best I found.

http://forums.ngemu.com/showthread.php?t=105158

It keeps the 2D nearly perfect and gives you nice 3D, but it's not as nice of 3D as HD-like resolutions will give, and it needs a CRT, so it's, unfortunately not a magical fix that works for everyone.

If anyone spots something that can up my graphics/text please do tell.

Change your filtering to a level of 2. If you enable shaders and use the "screen smoothing" shader and set it to a level of 4, that will help as well. Your GPU will handle this because my old GeForce 8800 GT and even GeForce 6800 GS did those sorts of settings. I'm not sure if this would be what you'd want with an LCD set like that though (these chances will blend and smooth the whole screen and the background and 3D aliasing is greatly lessened and looks more natural, but with interpolation in the picture, I'm not sure how it's look), so you'll have to try it and see if it gives you results that you like.

The rest looks fine.

 

http://forums.ngemu.com/showthread.php?t=105158

Aah thanks alot dude!

I set my settings to the exact same and it looks delicious.
The colors got a bit washed out but the textboxes and the text looks MUCH better and the character melts lovely in to the background.

 

I'm personally playing FFVII, VIII and IX at 1600x900 with Very High/Ultra internal res, Texture filtering set to 6: Extended + Smoothed Sprites, 2x SaL high resolution textures and a HDR shader (+ fullscreen filter) on top of that and it looks very good. Granted the 2D backgrounds have some glitches sometimes and look a bit blurry but I don't think it's so bad, the HDR shader also compensates for that. Text doesn't look blurred for me. I have some screenies on my steam profile for VIII, you can check them here for instance (scroll a little bit down), here's a screenshot of how it typically looks outside battle. I'm used to it so it's a matter of taste, if you want good 2D quality you'll have to go windowed, but it's not *impossible* to play these games fullscreen with the same native resolution you have. There's a tradeoff either way.

 

To me, there's a bit wrong with that (and I don't say this to offend you; if it works for you then that's what matters, but I'm just giving my opinion as feedback on it). To me, I can see the White and Black lines around stuff from the 2xSai (try stretched instead since that's where that comes from). The background is incredible pixelated, and I think I can see the tiling a bit too. The text is a bit pixelated, but this actually looks pretty okay (not the best it could, but considering the resolution/aspect ratio, that's not bad). The distortion itself from the wrong aspect ratio is pretty off-putting though.

Personally, if I was in your position, I'd at least try changing 2xSai to stretched. This should both eliminate the lines around stuff, and rid you of the tiling. I'd also crop it to 4:3 (to 1200 x 900). I think you'd have huge improvements with those two changes alone. I'd probably try experimenting with the filtering level (I'm not sure if changing the 2xSai option will remove the tiling or if you'd also need to do this), but I'm not sure which would look best at such a resolution. I normally don't like 6, but maybe it would be the better of the options at that resolution.

To me, it's not worth trading off nearly everything else for a higher resolution though. The enhancements the hardware plug-ins bring to the 3D is enough alone for me. I think a large reason people use these resolution isn't out of pure desire, but because they almost have to; because LCDs are poor at anything else.

It's a shame we can't have it all in this case. These games with their 2D redone for HD and widescreen would make the modern Final Fantasy titles run home crying more than they already do.

 

Thanks, I will experiment with 2xSai switched to stretched to see if it helps with the lines, that's what bothers me the most too (widescreen stretch I'm too used to, I never even noticed it really - if I switched to 4:3 now I'd be saying it looks too narrow ).

 

It's a known side effect of 2xSai in these games with the 2D backdrops, so I'm almost positive that'll fix it. If you have any tiling (hard to be sure but I think I saw some), I think it should also fix that too.