Tekken 5 PAL/NTSC differences

[fallenangle]

I've spent a bit of time recently on PAL Tekken 5 and one thing that bothers me is the display. The image framing seems too tight.

In the main games at the start positions the characters' feet are half missing. I tried adjusting the image centering up and even thought it was a TV over-scan thing but when I adjusted it (via the service menus) I found that it wasn't. BTW this applies whether using PAL50 or the 60Hz option.

What I'm wondering is if this is a PAL conversion issue and if the US NTSC version is different or has the same framing. It's only a minor thing and doesn't really affect gameplay but I was wondering why it should be like this. The Retro Arcade versions of Tekken 1/2/3 (like the PSOne games) on the T5 disc clearly have a slightly more distant camera viewpoint which I definitely prefer.

[Soi]

I think it is caused by the widescreen mode. It uses a zoomed in view. Try it in 4:3.

[fallenangle]

I hadn't thought of that - thanks or the suggestion.

I'd still like to know if the same framing issue applies to the US NTSC version too.

Even now I play Tekken 3 on my PSOne very regularly and I wish they'd converted that instead of the arcade version included on T5. That has framing issues too and no way of correcting it either.

Even though the PAL PSOne T3 version has typical lazy conversion top/bottom borders but because there's plenty of free space around the characters it doesn't matter. Like a lot of those PAL conversions those borders mean you can actually make them fit a widescreen TV very well with surprisingly little distortion.

But the one thing the T5 version does have is the advantage of 60Hz which I didn't think would make much difference but actually does. It made me think about hunting down a PS T3 US NTSC copy even at this late stage.

[fallenangle]

I've been playing around with T5 on the widescreen TV I have which allows me to get into the service menus to alter size/shape etc. ^^ You're quite right about the widescreen mode being 'zoomed in' cutting off part of the image. I reckon more than 5% of the vertical image height has been removed when compared to the 4:3 option.

What's interesting is that when used on 4:3 but using the pseudo-widescreen (panoramic) mode on either of my widescreen TVs the image shows only a little distortion. In fact with this and the TV's positioning controls and the inbuilt T5 centring option it allows you to keep the HP bars fully visible and still see the whole character unlike the true widescreen mode. This is just like I found I could do with Tekken 4 which doesn't have a widescreen option.

But it's whether the widescreen cut off applies to the NTSC version of T5 is what I'm interested in finding out. Surely somebody here knows.