Improving PlayStation 2 Picture Quality on HDTVs

Recently I decided to pull my trusty old PlayStation 2 out of the cupboard to re-play some of my favourite games from the early-to-mid 2000's. Whilst I was initially very pleased that the machine still worked after 6-7 years of inactivity, I was surprised how poor the picture quality was on-screen and started wondering whether or not all these years of HD gaming on the PC and 360 had altered my memory of how good graphics really were back then (rose-tinted glasses syndrome!).

Happily, after a bit of research and tinkering, I managed to improve the picture quality quite dramatically. So here I present some handy-dandy tips on improving your PlayStation 2 experience on an HDTV!


Getting the Right Connector
As probably everyone in the entire world knows, the standard Sony cheapskate pack-in composite video cable is complete rubbish. It was bad back in the day and it's even worse now! If you use the composite cable on an HDTV you can expect a blurry, smeary image that just looks nasty. Yuck!

The best image quality back then (here in Britain, anyway) was to use a good quality SCART cable. I say good quality because you had to watch out; some SCART cables really only carried the composite signal rather than splitting out the R/G/B and audio signals. I tried my good quality cable and it was certainly much better than composite, however I wasn't completely happy as some of my games displayed at funny offsets with no way to adjust the screen in game or on the TV set itself.

Enter the Component Cable! I didn't know until very recently that they made these for the PS2 and I only discovered it by chance when looking for a device to record game footage. Let me tell you they are an absolute must if you plan on connecting your PS2 to an HDTV! Bright and vibrant colours, an image that appears correctly placed and rock solid and one that plays nicely with the scaling features of your TV! I got mine from Amazon UK (sponsored link below) for less than £5. Well worth the money!

COMPONENT AV CABLE LEAD for PLAYSTATION 2 PS2

Adjust your TV's Sharpness
Most TV's have a sharpness setting. This is basically an edge-enhancement filter (full explanation on Wikipedia here) which is all well and good in some circumstances but not so much for older games-consoles.

Standard advice on the web suggests that you should crank the sharpness down to zero - I did this on my Samsung and it made a lot of difference, significantly reducing the appearance of jagged edges (within reason, obviously!) and making for a much smoother picture. I'd suggest experimenting with different settings, however, as not all TVs are the same and you might actually prefer a slightly harsher image.

Turn off Edge Enhancement
As well as a sharpness setting, my TV also has an "Edge Enhancement" function. You might want to check your TV and turn this off.

Play in 480p
Some PS2 games, believe it or not, actually support resolutions of 480p (and rumor has it, GT4 even supports 1080i!). Annoyingly enough for us PAL gamers, far more NTSC/US releases support 480p and it seems the function was actually removed from PAL games for "reasons" on purpose. Still, the ever handy Wikipedia has a list of games that support 480p. I've only tried Soul Calibur 2 so far and the difference in resolution was noticeable compared with the regular non-progressive mode.

(Note: Some games that support 480p apparently require you to press X and Triangle when the game boots to activate it).

PAL Gamers - Try 50Hz mode!
Back in the olden days PAL gamers generally suffered from dodgy conversions. Games had huge black borders, ran slower and we felt unloved. With the advent of HDTV, however, we finally have something to be happy about - PAL games may run slower than their NTSC counterparts, but their resolution is higher! This makes a real difference when running on a big modern TV.

As for speed, even with un-optomized games, to be honest I doubt you'd notice the speed difference and appreciate the visual gain. Most modern TV's take care of the black bars with up-scaling techniques and if you get a PAL optimized release like God of War you'll actually have a better experience than even a 480p release!

And finally...
Rose-tinted glasses aside, do remember that the PS2 is well over a decade old now so the graphics won't be nearly as good as today's machines - quirks, low-res textures, funny looking people etc. That said, following the tweaks above I was able to make my PS2 collection look as good as I remembered it from back in the 2000's on a modern HDTV.

Happy Gaming!