PlayStation 4’s PS2 PAL Emulation Runs at an Upscaled 50Hz

Sony’s decision to charge for PlayStation 2 emulation on the PlayStation 4 has ruffled a few feathers and divided opinion. Some users believe the asking price is reasonable given the addition of trophies, 1080P render and other functionality while critics of the move suggest Sony is offering poor value. Whatever the case, it seems Sony is intent on the paid route for emulation and isn’t going to support any kind of trade-in scheme where retail copies are exchanged for digital versions. Additionally, UK customers on average have to pay around $3 more than American customers under the current currency conversion.

Not only that, an investigation into performance by Digital Foundry provided first-hand evidence of the PAL games running at the original native 50Hz refresh rate. Clearly this isn’t ideal with the modern 60Hz standard so games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas are upscaled to 60Hz from the original 50Hz PAL source. This causes stutter and poor frame timings. During the video, a fairly shocking statement is made and recommends users:

“…to experience the game as it was meant to be played you really need to grab the US version…”

Digital Foundry also went onto say:

“We’ve been looking at more PlayStation 2 titles running under emulation on PlayStation 4, and it now seems clear that all the UK code we’ve tested is running at 50Hz with a crude frame-blending ‘upscale’ to the 60Hz output. We made an error in the original analysis below – GTA San Andreas under emulation does have some frame-pacing issues, but much of the judder we encountered is actually a result of the frame-blending, registering to our eyes (and our analysis tools) as unique frames when in fact they are simply the interpolated results of two images – we did think that it may be an artefact of the emulator working with PS2’s original motion blur effect, but this is definitely not the case. Credit goes to commenter Malek86 for noting that his copy of Twisted Metal Black is definitely European code, albeit outputting at 60Hz – a situation we have also confirmed with Dark Cloud. This was originally a 60fps game in NTSC territories, running at 50fps on the PS4 emulator, then frame-blended back up to 60fps. As you may imagine, this is not ideal.”

In 2015, it’s absurd to see the 50Hz masters being used for European regions, especially given the asking price. Hopefully, this can be resolved so everyone gets the same experience, but I highly doubt anything will change in the near future.

Image courtesy of Emu-Paradise.org.