ps1 lcd screen ebay quotation

It"s hard to say if I would reccomend it, yes if you get a brand new one but I tried to go cheaper and got something that was a tad bit...broken. it still works, it just has strange marks on the screen possibly from damage done before receiving it. I dont think it"s terrible or anything as again it does still work and the volume and brightness buttons work very well, it"s just the marks on the screen that bother me.

These were followed by the SCPH-700x and SCPH-750x series, released in April 1998—they are externally identical to the SCPH-500x machines, but have internal changes made to reduce manufacturing costs (for example, the system RAM went from 4 chips to 1, and the CD controller went from 3 chips to 1) and these were the last models to support parallel port for Gameshark devices and Xploder Pro. In addition, a slight change of the start-up screen was made; the diamond remains unchanged but the font used for Sony Computer and Entertainment is now consistent, making the words appear smaller than the diamond overall, and the trademark symbol (™) is now placed after "Computer Entertainment" instead of after the diamond, as it was on the earlier models. New to the SCPH-700x series was the introduction of the "Sound Scope" – light show music visualizations. These were accessible by pressing the Select button while playing any normal audio CD in the system"s CD player. While watching these visualizations, players could also add various effects like color cycling or motion blur and can save/load their memory card. These were seen on the SCPH-700x, 750x, 900x, and PS one models.

The reason for the two different case colors was a hardware change that Sony had made fairly early in the PlayStation production cycle - the original machines were built using Rev. A (early Japan market units) or Rev. B (later Japan units, US and Europe) hardware, both using the same GPU with VRAM to store the video data. Later models used Rev. C silicon and SGRAM - although the two chipsets had very similar performance, and Rev. C was explicitly designed with compatibility in mind, they were not identical - the Rev. C version was significantly faster at doing alpha blending, and hence the PS "semitransparent" writing mode - it was also rather slow at certain screen memory block moves (basically, ones involving narrow vertical strips of the display) on top of this there were some minor hardware bugs in the older silicon that had been addressed by including workarounds for them in the libraries - the later library versions checked the GPU type at startup time and disabled the patches if they were not needed. Because this made the two machine types quite significantly different from each other, the developer had to test the title on both machines before submitting. The blue debugs (DTL-H100x, DTL-H110x) had the old silicon and the green ones (DTL-H120x) had the new silicon.

Sony also released a version with a 5-inch LCD screen and an adaptor (though it did not have a battery: it is powered by plugging the adaptor in a main socket, or in a car). It was called the Combo pack. However, it includes a headphone jack (for headphones or other audio connection) and an AV mini jack for connecting camcorders or other devices.

Clearing out some old video game stuff. Free shipping in the USA. Prefer Paypal, but MO is cool too... You can look me up on eBay under TEKWRX

Xbox 360: SOLD

Sony PSone w/LCD Screen & MOD Chip: $100
Mint condition PSone system with Sony LCD screen and MOS chip that will let you play imports and/or CD-R "backups". Also includes Sony dual shock controller, AC plug, A/V cables, mad katz mem. card, and car power plug.

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Sega Saturn White Japanese System: $100
Great condition Sega Saturn. Includes Sega White controler, Sega Black controller, A/V Cable, S-video cable, Game Shark, and power cord (not pictured). This is a Japanese system so it will only play Japanese games. However, the Game Shark will let you boot games of other regions. When I had a US system I used the Game Shark to boot and play Japanese games with no problems. I don"t have any US games at the moment to test with this console, but I"m 99% sure they will work. If you play on buying this to install a MOD chip, don"t bother. This particular console is one of the revisions nobody has gotten a chip to work with.

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EZ-Flash V Flash card for Nintendo DS: SOLD
This flash card comes with a 1GB micro SD card and will allow you to run homebrew and ROM "backups" on any DS system (Lite or Phat). It will only run .nds code, so no GBA games since it is a slot-1 device. EZ-Flash is one of the top flash card right now with a skinnable OS and frequent updates.

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The console highlighted in this tutorial is the Nintendo Entertainment System. I chose it because it has tons of awesome games and it is easy to make handheld. The total cost of this project - for me at least - was $200. Now don"t freak out - your price will be much lower. It was so high for me because I broke the first screen and NES. That set me back about 70$. :P You won"t make the same mistakes, because you are going to learn from mine.

I urge you to read the following steps on picking and ordering a console, screen, and batteries. They contain very useful information and will help you greatly. It may seem like a lot to read, but please look at it all.

You could technically make an NES "portable" just by powering the console and a screen off of batteries. But that doesn"t look good, and it"s not really handheld. The above things are the bare essentials. But for a decently good portable, you will also need:

If you can"t find an NES from any of the above sources, then you have to resort to eBay. Try to look for one with a case that"s in bad shape. We will be taking the board out, so the condition of the case is not relevant. Also, try to find a seller that is in your country, so shipping will be low. Obviously, make sure the description says that the NES works, and check the member"s feedback to make sure they are a reliable seller.

Most people use a PSone Screen. They are cheap compared to other screens, they are a nice size at 5.4", and they accept composite input without modification. If you are getting a PS1 screen, MAKE SURE you get the round-shaped one. Do not get the square ones; they are of horrible quality. If you are getting a PS1 screen, make sure your batteries are at least 7.5v. They can be above that, but you must perform an extra step if they are above 9v. That step will be discussed later.

Many other screens can be used. If you do not decide to get a PS1 screen, make sure the one you do get can accept composite input, and get one that runs under 12v, or picking out batteries will be very difficult. Many pocket TV screens can be used, like the Casio pocket screens.

Hipgear/Intec Screenpad: 1.8", good quality. Runs on 5-12v. Here are pinouts and other info. Has audio amp. Find them at garage sales or possible eBay.

WARNING: If you do not have a charge protection circuit, Li-ion batteries will EXPLODE. These batteries are dangerous if not used properly. They may not be shorted, overcharged, or undercharged. If you are buying Li-ion batteries from eBay, you MUST buy a Universal Battery pack. These battery packs have their own built-in charge protection circuits and often have charge indicator LEDs. If you do not know much about Li-ion batteries and their various protection circuits, then you MUST use NiCD.

There is one more important factor: mAh. mAh stands for Milli amp-hours. The mAh of a battery is how many mA that battery can provide for an hour. If a console and screen that together consume 1,000mA is being powered by a 1,000mAh battery, then that portable would run for 1 hour. Find batteries that have a high mAh. Batteries with 3,500 will run an NES portable for about 3 hours.

To find battery life, add the mA consumption of the console to the mA consumption of the screen. Divide that number into the mAh of your batteries. This may all sound confusing now, but the more you work with the batteries, the more it makes sense.

If your batteries are more then 8.5v, then you MUST go and do step 17 before hooking your screen to your batteries. You will fry your screen if you don"t!

The lockout chip in the NES was included to prevent pirated games from running in the console. It is also the reason that you get the blinking screen. If the console"s lockout chip and the cartridge"s lockout chip don"t communicate, then the game won"t play. Half the time, it"s not because of dirty contacts. The games would run fine if it weren"t for the lockout chips. Disabling it means a much higher success rate.

You can finally test your NES! Solder the output pin on your regulator (+5v out) to the 5v in on the NES, and attach ground. Use a couple of alligator clips to hook it up to a TV. Plug in a cartridge (Make sure it"s facing the right way!), add the battery, and try it out! If it doesn"t work, don"t worry. Try switching the alligator clips for video and ground. If it still doesn"t work, check all your connections. Make sure there are no shorts anywhere. It is highly unlikely you fried your NES. Once you get it working, set it aside and get out the screen you ordered.

READ THIS PLEASE!! The PS1 screen takes a max of 9v, and that"s still pushing it a little. If your batteries are more than 9v, DO NOT hook up the screen. You will fry it! Please complete the next step and then come back to this one.

Flip the screen over and take off the back cover. You can test the screen now if you wish. BE CAREFUL NOT TO TOUCH THE TRANSFORMER AT THE TOP! It"s the little white rectangle with copper wire wrapped around it. A very high voltage comes out of it, so be careful not to touch anything in that top section. You"ll be fine when the screen isn"t plugged in, though.

The PS1 screen can handle from 6.89v to 8.5v. Preferably, it should get 7.5v, but as long as you have a decent 7805, you"ll get the voltage you need. As always, test the output voltage before hooking it up!

To build the regulator, just solder the 220ohm resistor to the ground (middle) pin of the regulator. That will be your ground, which you must connect to the screen"s ground, too.

Solder the 470ohm resistor to the ground pin of the regulator BEFORE the other resistor. Solder the other end to the output pin, and that is your 8v out, which you will connect to the blue wire of the screen in the next step.

Solder the negative lead of your batteries to the ground spot on the regulator. In a couple steps, you will solder the 8v out connection to your screen. For now, just leave the V+ input and 8v out wires disconnected.

Flip the screen to the back and find the small pads near the bottom-left that say EXT_V, EXT_R, EXT_L, HP_L, HPS, and HP_R. EXT_V is where you solder the video wire, EXT_R is right audio, and EXT_L is left audio. For the NES, you can short the L and R on the screen, because the NES is mono.

If you tried to test it at this point, you would notice that there is no sound. You need to short together HP_L, HPS, and HP_R. Otherwise, the screen thinks headphones are plugged in. If you want headphones on your portable, do not short those three pads and use the headphone jack that was included with the screen.

Take the connector you saved and find the two wires all the way to the left. Those are your power wires. The blue one is positive. Chop off the rest of the wires and solder a red wire to the blue one and a black one to the white one. To test the screen, simply attach the red wire to the positive end of your power supply and the black one to the negative side of your batteries. The screen"s light should turn on. If not, see the last paragraph. You may have switched your connections and blown a fuse.

If you had to build the regulator for the screen, don"t attach power just yet. Solder the 8v out wire from the regulator to the red wire of your screen. Solder the black wire to the ground spot of your batteries, which should also be connected to the ground on the regulator. Touch the positive wire from your batteries to the V+ in on your regulator, and the screen should light up. If not, check the last paragraph in this step.

Once you are sure the screen works fine, solder the audio and video wires to the appropriate spots on your NES board. The audio wire just gets soldered straight to the pad on the NES board, but the video wire has to be attached to the amplifier we built. Solder it to the video out wire on the amp. See the picture if you need help.

Are the console"s ground and the screen"s ground tied together? They must be, or nothing will work. The screen and the console must share a common ground.

Once you are sure of these things, go ahead and put in a cartridge (Make sure it is facing the right way! If you used the connector I did, the label should be facing up, and so should all the NES"s electronics.) and attach the power wires of your batteries. The screen should turn on, and so should the NES. You should get a nice picture on the screen. If everything is not working, check the troubleshooting list below.

If the screen does light up, but you get no picture, then try using a different video input. If it works then, try building a new video amp for the NES. If the screen does not work after trying a different input, check the next paragraph.

There is a fuse on the PS1 screen. If you reverse the power to the screen, then this fuse will blow, and the screen will appear to be dead. Not to worry - if you jump this fuse, the screen should work again. On the front of your screen, down by the connectors, there is a small rectangular object that has the word PS1 printed next to it. Put your soldering iron on one end of it and kind of "pull" it away from its pads with the soldering iron, so that the fuse is removed and there are just two small solder pads. Add a blob of solder right there, so that the two solder pads are bridged. Viola! The screen should now be working. If not, it is most likely dead. Sorry. :(

LED modding the screen is when you replace the original backlight with LEDs. Why would you want to do this? The unmodified PSone screen draws about 950mA. If you LED mod it, it only draws 450mA! That"s a huge difference! In some cases, this can add add hours of playtime to your portable.

On my portable, the current draw is about 1150mA with an LED modded screen. I get 3 hours of play with my 3500mAh battery. If I didn"t mod my screen, the entire portable would draw 1650mA. Dividing that into the battery"s mAh, you get 2.1 hours. By modding my screen, I gained a whole hour of playing time!

"What"s the catch?", you ask. Well, it"s a small one. The corners are bright spots, but that"s it. It"s hardly noticable when you are playing. If you use 8 LEDs you can simulate the original backlight in terms of brightness. If you only use 3, like I did, the screen isn"t quite as bright as the original backlight, but it still looks very acceptable. I think the best option is to use 6 LEDs, because it is about 95% of the original brightness, and it isn"t as much work as 8.

Turn the screen back over and find the plug in the upper-left corner with the white and pink wires coming out of it. This is the CCFL (light tube) connector. Unplug it to free the screen.

You now have the screen in three pieces. The metal surround, the light box - which we will work on in a moment here - and the LCD. Find a soft cloth and wrap the LCD in it, and put that in a very safe place. You don"t want anybody touching it. Make sure you handle the LCD only by the sides. If you want to do the antiglare mod, head to step 22 before putting the screen back together later.

Open up the light box. It has a sticker on the bottom, so it"s hinged. Carefully remove the piece of glass and the two pieces of plastic. Make sure you keep them in the right orientation, meaning, don"t flip them upside down! It will make the screen dimmer, and if you flip the glass, than you"ll have a bunch of white dots on the screen"s picture when you"re done. (I learned this the hard way.) When picking up the glass and plastic, only touch the edges. Set the glass and plastic in a soft cloth just like the screen and put them somewhere safe. Now take out the glossy piece of paper and put it with the other screen items.

Now we can start the actual procedure. Take 3 LEDs (Or however many you will be using) and diffuse them. You are using 3mm LEDs, right? Any other size won"t fit in the light box. Trust me, I"ve tried. You can get the LEDs from eBay, like I did. I got 100 of them for only $15 shipped. Very cheap! Buying just ONE 5mm LED from Radioshack costs $5! And the brightness is only about 3,000mcd! My LEDs are 14,000mcd and I got a HUNDRED! Best to buy in bulk. ;)

With the light box closed, I tested the LEDs with the screen placed on top. Looks good to me! Carefully place the metal surround back on, and snap it onto the light box. Be very careful when doing this, if you chip off a corner of the screen"s glass, it will no longer work.

You want to solder the LEDs in parallel. Get some pieces of ribbon cable, and solder together the three LEDs positives together, then solder the three negatives together. Solder the end of the negative wire to the ground spot just to the left of the screen.

Solder one end of the resistor to the positive wire of the LEDs. Solder a wire to the other end. Put the wire through the hole in the board right below the screen. To the side of that hole is a black, blocky-looking component. This is a mini-7805. Solder the wire to the 5v out, which is the leftmost pin.

The wiring is done! Plug the screen into it"s connector on the bottom of the board, making sure it goes all the way in. Press the connector down to secure the cable, and hook up power! If the LEDs light up, great! If not, check all your wiring. Once the LED backlight is working, turn on the NES. A picture should show up on your screen! Great job! You now have the console, battery, and screen section of your portable done! You may notice that the screen is a little dimmer with 3 LEDs, a small consequence of doing the LED mod. See the next step for a fix, where you can do the "brightness mod". See the step after that for instructions on how to remove the anti-glare layer on your screen, which removes the scratches, makes the screen brighter, and makes the colors look better.

Turn the PSone screen board over. Find the chip in the very middle surrounded by a bunch of small surface mount components. Find the one that is called "CV23". This is the brightness control.

Simply take a small section of wire with the ends stripped, and solder one end to the bottom side of CV23 and the other side to the top of it, so that it essentially isn"t there. Enjoy your brighter screen!

This is where you can remove what is called the "antiglare" layer on the PSone screen. This layer is a thin, diffused piece of plastic. It is used to keep the screen from reflecting a lot of light. Removing it takes off any scratches, and makes the colors more vibrant and the screen brighter. Since I did not do this mod myself, I have no pics to explain this procedure with. Instead, here are pictures and documentation from another person. These are courtesy of Hailrazer of the benheck.com forums. The pictures have captions on them with the steps embedded.

If you"re like me sometimes while working on the Psone screen you might scratch it up or smudge it a bit. Also you might notice that it"s a bit murky looking. Like this :

Well on the top of the Lcd is a Antiglare layer. It is a protective layer that is on top of the Lcd that also serves the purpose of reducing glare. But it has the side effect of muting colors and reducing brightness. The solution. TAKE IT OFF !!

1. Remove the metal bracket holding the Lcd to the backlight. Ben has a tutorial on this already so I"ll spare you the details. (Note : This can be done without removing the metal bracket, it just will take more effort later)

2. Remove the Lcd from the backlight (by just lifting it off) and set it on a towel or similar surface. The pic shows leaving it on the backlight but I have changed this. If you take the Lcd off the backlight then you don"t have to wait as long to allow the backlight to dry after performing the mod.

4. Wet the paper towels by dripping water on them slowly. You want enough water on them for the paper towels to be soaked, but not so much that the water is dripping over the edges into the backlight. The paper towels can hang over the top edge but DO NOT let them hang over the bottom edge. You don"t want the ffc"s getting wet for a long time. Also try to get most of the bubbles smoothed out of the paper towels. You want the wet paper towels to make a good contact with the Lcd.

7. On top of the Lcd you will notice a thin layer that is covering it. This is the polarizer/Antiglare layer. The polarizer is on top of the Lcd and it is the thicker layer with a tinted look. the antiglare layer is on top of it. It is paper thin and is clear/slightly cloudy. We are going to use the razor and pick at the edge of this dual layer. The antiglare layer will be very thin and will look like a piece of clear but slightly cloudy saran wrap. It will peel off very easily. If the piece you are pulling up is tinted and stiff STOP, you are pulling up the polarizer layer and this will render the screen useless. Once you get the edge of the antiglare up , pull it off slowly in one motion. After the antiglare is removed you can wipe off the excess water with a lint free cloth like an eyeglass cleaning cloth.

8. After removing the antiglare there is nothing else to do but make sure the Lcd is totally dry and water free , remember water+electronics=BAD. Re-assemble and reconnect the panel after it is dry and enjoy a scratch-free screen with better brightness and colors.

If you want to switch between the internal screen and the external screen, that is fine. This means the picture and sound will be on either the PSone screen or the external screen, not both at once. Or, you could have it so the picture will show up on both screens at once. To do that, just attach the cables that were included with the PSone screen and use the official cable.

To use this switch, first solder the audio OUT wire from the NES to one of the middle pins. Solder the video OUT wire from the NES to the other middle pin. It is important to get that right. Now, on the audio side, there are two more contacts, both on either side. Solder the audio wire from the screen (the audio in wire) to one of the outer pins. Now take the audio wire from the A/V out port and solder it to the other outer pin. What you have here is a setup that takes the audio from the NES (middle pin) and switches it to either the left outer pin or the right one. In this case, one of those is the PSone screen and the other is the A/V out.

Now you need to do the same for the video, but you MUST MAKE SURE you solder the PSone screen video wire to the SAME SIDE as the PSone screen audio wire. Same goes for the A/V out. Otherwise, you"ll have video to one screen and audio to the other or vise-versa.

You could use the game console"s original case. For old systems, this is great because there is usually tons of room for extra stuff like a screen, battery, etc. Here is a poorly-done N64 portable. It is possible to make nicer-looking ones, this person just didn"t spend much time on the case. See how important it is to make a nice case?

Take a damp paper towel and wipe off the inside of the plastic where you are going to put the screen, then dry it off. You want this part to be completely free of dust and debris, or it will show up later. You might want to wipe down the actual screen also. Of course, this is assuming you are using a transparent case. If you aren"t, you"ll have to cut a hole for the screen.

Measure with a ruler (or eyeball it like I did) to find the center of your case and place the screen there. Make sure it it"s not at an angle. You don"t want the screen to be crooked!

Using the smallest drill bit you have, drill right where you marked with that Sharpie. If the hole is too small, go to the next drill bit size. You only want to make the holes as big as your screws, maybe half a millimeter larger. Then drill the holes for the screen buttons, in the same manner as above.

Screw your screen in. Don"t do it too tightly, other you"ll cause unnecessary bending of the motherboard. Just tighten all the screws in succession, and check that the board is flat. Just hand tighten the screws.

Flip the case over and check if there is anything (dust, plastic shards, etc) under the screen. If there is, and it"s big enough to bother you, then take it back apart and clean the plastic. Don"t mistake debris on the outside for debris on the inside!

The controller boards, I found, were just SLIGHTLY higher than the PSone screen. Therefore, these go in after the screen. I made the mistake of putting the controller in first and made myself do a lot of extra work.

Start by marking and drilling your holes. Hold the D-Pad section centered in the hole, and use a Sharpie to mark the hole locations, then drill them. Same idea as the screen. I found that the screen"s board was in the way. So I had to use only three screws. To keep the other side symmetrical, I used three screws as well.

Now, here comes the fun part. (Not really, this part sucks.) Take apart your portable so far. Yes, that"s right. Take out the NES board, controller boards, and screen. You need the empty case again. Get a piece of cardboard about the size of the inside of the case and shove it in there. You want to protect the screen area while you are Dremeling and filing.

This is it. The moment of truth. Pop in a cartridge, and flick the power switch. Bask in the glow of the screen. You have made light. And see that it is indeed good.

- There is a big scratch under the screen"s plastic. This happened because I didn"t put down a piece of cardboard when I was making the cartridge hole.

I"ve hacked the screens off of so many portable DVD players to make composite video monitors out of. they will totally work for this application if you cant find a PSone screen, just make sure that the lcd controller is an IR3Y29B.More CommentsPost Comment

Not to downplay some of the stunning visuals that the likes of Square’s art direction and pre-rendered elements, but there is a LOT of competition on the PS1 for some truly impressive coding that really maxed out what the Playstation was capable of. Square will indeed get some mentions below, but you might be surprised by a few developers and games that somehow stayed under the mainstream radar.

One of my other goals in this piece is to try to present diversity – not only in the types of games, but also in the ways developers worked around the limitations of the PS1. There are so many great stories of developers trying new things and accomplishing impressive feats.  I hope you find them all fascinating as well!

Soul Reaver’s soundtrack often gets a lot of acclaim. Even though it could have been simple to include pre-recorded CD audio on a PlayStation game, Soul Reaver actually uses a high-quality sequenced audio (similar to the SNES) that could dynamically altered and shifted based on what is happening on the screen. The Crystal Dynamics team was able to create a soundtrack of phenomenal quality while taking up very little storage space on the disc.  DF Retro’s 36 minute Soul Reaver video digs into some of these.

With many of the innovative art direction and storytelling choices made in Metal Gear Solid, it is easy to overlook many of the technical optimizations accomplished by Konami’s team to create a game that would not only make the most of the Playstation’s hardware but would be an entity that would age relatively well at such an evolutionary stage for console gaming and is one of the most defining games on the PS1.

The effective use of polygons and textures was a solid foundation for Metal Gear Solid, but Konami took it one step further by having a dedicated “optimization” programmer that went through all the code to find crucial points of the engine to turn into assembly code. (Mostly to get models to fit nicely in the PS1’s small 1kb fast-cache)

To help with the more cartoon-like animation, they used a sophisticated three or four-joint weighing system instead of a 1-joint system with few “bones” that a lot of developers were using at the time. They used high-end animation software on their PCs and then mapped every vertex for every frame at 30 fps since the PS1 couldn’t render it in realtime. The also wrote their own vertex compressors in assembly language to optimize the processing efficiency.

Andy also did some other crazy coding work that would help create a system for making their work efficient and make the most of the Playstation’s resources. Their level designs came out at about 8 to 16 megs each, so he developed an algorithmic texture packer that would efficiently cram the levels into the PS1’s 2 megs of RAM. Some of the levels came out at 128meg, so Dave created a bidirectional 10x compressor to help get the 128meg levels down into 12 and also developed a tool for managing the construction of the gigantic 3D worlds. On top of all that, Andy created a new programming language (with Lisp syntax) that featured “all sorts of built in state machine support (very useful with game objects), powerful macros, dynamic loading etc.”.

Because of this, the team was actually a bit concerned that Crash was accessing the CD more than the PS1’s drive was rated for. So if you ever notice that it seems like the drive is being read a lot while playing, you’ll know why.

For Crash 2, the team at Naughty Dog rewrote approximately 80% of the game engine and tool code based on the lessons they learned and the bottlenecks they saw in the first game. In the end, Crash 2 aimed for twice as much on the screen while maintaining the 30 frames per second. It also added more effects such as Z-buffer-like water effects, weather, reflections, particles, talking hologram heads, etc.

This innovative and influential series was set out to mimic the feel of 1960s and 1970s car chase films and put you in (partially) faithful recreations of actual city layouts such as Miami, LA, and New York that you could explore in an open world environment. Driver 2 expanded on the free-roam structure of the original and added the ability to step out of your car to explore on foot and commandeer other vehicles in the game’s open world environments. If this sounds familiar, you could say Driver 2 was very influential on the PS2-era Grand Theft Auto titles and the other “sandbox” games that were spawned from GTA’s success. Of course, the Driver series was running well on the PS1 and squeezing what performance it could out of the hardware to make it all happen.

Tony Oakden, the lead programmer on Driver, shared the the original Driver started out as a PC game, but was moved to the PS1 as it became a dominant platform, “Technically it was a bit of a nightmare to port code from the PC to the PlayStation… The PlayStation isn’t particularly hard to program for, in my opinion, but by the late 90s it was already quite dated compared to current generation PC with dedicated video cards… The processor was quite a bit slower than the standard PC of the day, there was hardly any RAM, no hardware floating point support at all and a rather primitive rendering system with no Z-Buffer or perspective correction… “So we had to take the version made for the PC, which had all that extra processing power and hardware, and make it work on the Playstation. We had to pull all sorts of tricks to make the game work let alone look good.”

On top of the already impressive game, Driver also featured a Director Mode that let the player shoot and cut their own mini car chase movie with a simple, freeform camera system. Most modern games have a similar camera, but it’s mostly for internal purposes of taking media screenshots and trailers. However, touches like this showed that the team at Reflections had a real passion for creativity, maxing out the hardware, and making people take notice.

Instead of porting Quake II, the development firm, Hammerhead effectively re-created the game from scratch with the Playstation’s hardware limitations in mind while trying to keep the PS1 version as faithful to the original as possible. The end result was incredibly impressive considering the circumstances and became the standard for how first-person shooters on the Playstation (or even the Saturn and N64) should be judged.

Quake II on the PS1 manages to run in 512 by 240, at a smooth 30fps regardless of the number of players. There is a minor loss of detail for the four-player mode, but given the relatively small display area (given the smaller displays of the day), it was a modest sacrifice.

Easily overlooked for a handful of reasons, Alien Resurrection on the Playstation is actually an interesting example of a quality first-person shooter that had to deal with the PS1’s hardware limitations.

Capcom did let some compromises show in the Playstation port, but more weren’t too impactful on most players. Sound was heavily compressed, which caused the voices and sound effects to be more muffled than later home ports. Some fake transparent sprites were also swapped in for actual transparencies. Some frames of character animation are missing, but more players won’t notice and the sacrifice was rather respectable for the PS1. One of the more noticeable compromises was there was more loading time (with static character artwork) between battles. On the bright side, the Playstation port did add extras such as six more characters and some new game modes.

As if porting Street Fighter Alpha 3 (a 1998 arcade release) wasn’t a tall enough order, Capcom also decided to bring Capcom vs SNK (a 2000 game) to the PS1 as well. This fighting game developer rivalry-turned-collaboration is best known for ports to the likes of the Dreamcast (and the sequel also saw ports to the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube). Capcom used the NAOMI hardware (a stronger arcade version of Dreamcast hardware) for Capcom vs SNK instead of the aging CPS II, so they were able to do a lot of cool graphical techniques and presentation eye candy to breath fresh life into sprite-based 2D fighters as the genre was starting to lose mainstream appeal.

The compromises is the Playstation port are strategically subtle and are more than acceptable considering what the developers had to head with. Capcom vs SNK on the arcade had a slick graphical presentation that give chills to hardcore 2D fighting fans in 2000. Capcom managed to maintain most of that feel on the PS1. If you know where to look, you can see that there’s less flashy animation in the round intro graphics, but to the casual fan, it still looks solid. The characters are missing their dynamic shadows against the backgrounds, but its just feels more like a classic 2D fighter with them removed. Character sprites are somewhat reduced, but they look pretty darn close to the originals. The HUD where the power bars are shown have lower-resolution artwork, but no big deal.

Marvel vs Capcom was also a hot title around this era and featured the tag team feature in the arcade and on the Dreamcast port. The Playstation port was severely crippled, cutting the ability to switch characters within a round, among other things. Capcom vs SNK, however has a different approach to the multi-character team matches. The arcade version and all its port only switch characters when the first fighter on your team is knocked out, so Capcom didn’t have to stress as much about dynamically switching characters on the Playstation. Between having a few more years to hone their skills (Capcom vs SNK didn’t arrive on the PS1 until 2002) and this memory requirement, Capcom vs SNK is by far a less compromised port than Marvel vs Capcom and even holds up pretty well compared to Street Fighter Alpha 3 (but being ported from a higher standard).

In a shmup, you ideally want to see as much detailed destruction on your screen as possible, without any slowdown. Einhander delivers on those dreams in full polygonal glory. (This shooter has polygons, but the environment is not fully 3D and the gameplay is still true to the 2D roots) Einhander, for the most part, flies by at a solid 60 frames per second, however there are some minor slowdown issues once things get hectic with 20+ enemies on the screen at once.

Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation – Tomb Raider franchise raised standards early on the PS1, but had a hard time keeping pace with graphical innovation. But this final PS1 installment showed some real improvement due to a new engine. This time around, Lara actually sheds water droplets after emerging from water. The game’s impressive lighting effects are shown off by flames, flares, and dark, musty caverns.

WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role – THQ set the standard for a realistic wrestling games on the PS1 and it rivals those on the N64. The wrestler models are realistic in shape and motion, with excellent, lifelike animation. Squint during an intro, and you might be fooled into thinking you were watching an actual human being walk to the ring. The crowd is well animated and sports different signs depending on who is in the ring.

Speed Punks / Speed Freaks – While it isn’t as well-rounded of a racing game, Speed Punks rivals the graphical effects and frame rates (especially in 4 player mode) of the best of the PS1 and N64 racers. Visually the game has an excellent graphics engine, free of any pop-up and slowdown. The level designs are simply built for speed (but not as large as some other racers). In fact, Speed Punks is one of the few games that really lives up to it’s namesake, offering a sense of speed you just won’t find in any other kart racing game.

Regarding Wipeout 3, at least the SE European version has another ace up its sleeve: it’s one of only about two PS1 games to feature simultaneous spilt-screen and link capability for four players. That was a lot of fun!

One game not mentioned, and I’m not surprised, is Foresaken. I don’t know the technicalities but its graphics engine is hi-res, smooth, very detailed, has amazing lighting and some breathtaking animation. Since the soundtrack is simple CD Audio, it has done something very smart to fit each level completely into RAM. And the enemy AI is one of a kind for the PS1, with dodging and strafing strategies.

Driver 1 innovated, with its free-roaming and data streaming. It was great. The sequel, by being designed for PC but pushed to the PS1, tried to do more (curved roads and getting out the car) but in the process it became a horrific glitch-filled slow-down-filled mess.

The other games on this list succeeded with their efforts and innovations. D2 shows what results when you try to do more than your system has grunt and memory for. It was not fun to play. It’s one thing to squeeze the last drops of juice out of the PS1 to do something smart; it’s another to just force the machine to do more than it can reasonably cope with.

From my knowledge no ps1 game does Cel Shading “properly”, its all just faked in the texture. So its not really pushing the PS1, in fact, because the material doesn’t react to lighting (as its unlit) its actually better on performance.

Wipeout 3 can’t have this resolution 720×480, it’s impossible. Playstation 1 can’t handle this resolution. Sega Saturn for example can handle it. If you run the game in emulators with resolution info you can see that actually run at 512×256 at 16bit. It is great achievement in the saga for PS1. Highest resolution, at 30FPS and all Gouraud quads whit lighting. Congratulation for the article! Thanks for sharing retro-knowlodge! Greeting!