All right, so currently my PS3 is connected to my TV via the HDMI and those cruddy composite cables -- the yellow, white, and red. Why both? Because my TV has channels dedicated to both. When I run a PS2 game on the HDMI channel, yeah, it looks bad. So what do I do? Go to my Display Settings and swap the PS3 back onto the 480i channel -- the channel most PS2 games were probably meant to be seen in. I think that's the problem -- PS2 games didn't plan on getting their resolutions increased so drastically. Anyway... so I swap it back to 480i and re-load the PS2 game and guess what? The text is gorgeous and the graphics look fine. I think. They don't look perfect, but it's a lot better than the HDMI shows.
You guys can go ahead and test this if your TV is prepared for the journey of multiple wires. Or computer monitor, which I know a lot of you swear by (and rightly so, it seems)! Let us know if this works for you. In all seriousness, though, it doesn't bother me that much. If I can still enjoy the gameplay, I don't mind having a jaggy sword, or funny-looking handrails. Perhaps Sony will strive to fix this in the future, but for now, keep your PS2 hooked up if it gets too unbearable.
[update: As I continue to screw around with different games, if you crack out any 2D-centric titles (Atelier Iris 2 in my case), the graphics actually look better with HDMI. The backgrounds have a few splotchy points, but the sprites are much, much sharper.]
1. I've had no problem with PS1 games running on PS2 over S-video but then I happily used S-video with my PS1. There was even a dedicated port for it in the original units.
Of course years old PS2 games weren't concerned with HDMI and HD displays. That isn't the point. The point is that Sony had ample time to design around this when developing the PS3. Sony had to be aware of this quite a long time before the launch but it seems they simply didn't regard it as having any importance.
It gives one cause to wonder how late in the process they gave up on running PS1/Ps2 games under emulation and decided they had no choice but to add the cost of the integrated PS2 processor cluster. Was this done in such a rush they couldn't fuly test and integrate how the output would appear, then apply the needed corrections? It should be well within the RSX's abilities to make PS2 games targeting 480i look perfect at upscaled HD modes. This has been demonstrated with similar GPUs on PCs.
Posted at 6:16PM on Dec 30th 2006 by epobirs