Weird blur/ghosting effect on text help plz:(

[Luminaryy]

Hello. Just started Star Ocean:First Departure. I noticed the text is very blurry/out of focus/ghosting like. I attached a picture so you can see. I´m new to ppsspp. Anyone know how to fix this issue?

[Abbanon]

Disable upscaling by setting your Upscale Level to "Off" in Settings > Graphics
That is what's causing the problem.

This is more or less what upscaling filters do:
(left is normal, right is with an upscaling filter)

[Luminaryy]

Ok. I think I tried that option. I was in the game and the text in menus and dialogue change on thier own. Like first its very blurry and ghosty. Then after awhile its like the text automatically change on its own to be more clearer.

I'm going to try the option again.

---

Btw I think the right one looks better. I have 10x resolution in star ocean. It looks smoother. Its just the text that is the problem.

[Abbanon]

The vanilla text is low-res, so it appears very blurry/ghost-like/poor quality when upscaled. That is what upscaling filters do.

[Luminaryy]

So I need to disable upscale and the text will look better is this for all games on PPSSPP?

---

But can I still play at 10x resolution or is that tied to upscale. I'm new to these sort of things. So I just trying to figure out.

---

Thanks for taking your time and help me with this issue.

---

Btw when I disable Upscale Level to Off. What should I set Upscale type to?

[AkiraJkr]

It doesn't matter much, since Upscale is off.

[Luminaryy]

Ok, I tried to turn off Upscaling. But it´s still the same. As you can see in the picture it´s very ghosty/blurred. Can you see the pictures I attached?

[[Unknown]]

It doesn't look blurred to me, just pixelated. But that's to be expected, since the PSP only had a 480x272 resolution - the game's text is pretty low res.

For perspective, if you have a 1080p monitor, and draw a 16 square grid (4 x 4) on it, the PSP's screen only had the pixels of one of those squares.

Also, in your first screenshot, "OK" for example (as well as all the rest of the text) has a "ghost" - which is actually a shadow. The game is doing that intentionally. In the game's world, that is literally just one pixel down and one pixel to the right of the text. Your resolution is just so much higher.

-[Unknown]

[Luminaryy]

So there is nothing I can do? Because when I look at the pictures on mobile its fine compared to monitor and tv. Is there a way to make the text more clearer and notnso ghosty on big screen?

---

It irritates my eyes :/

[Dukatti]

Everything below is based on an idea [maybe tastes] that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kMUoNCS_Xo
is better then
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGFDAsKaXjY , or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yff19nnAdZ4

* * *

The fastest way to get good-looking picture, psp-like or even more - is to enhance a look with shaders:
For high resolutions, that are good to get recommendations from Youtube - try guest.r CRT Lottes TV shader from
https://forums.ppsspp.org/showthread.php...94&page=22
[maybe, Spline36 Upscaler shader too, it's delivering with ppsspp by default] [or maybe anything else that you will find/choose/like more]

After applying - switch resolutions and see a difference in effect strength.
If you will want more - change code to fit your desired resolutions, or a taste.

In case if you will want even more, like force 60fps for shader output, or to mix shaders, or to make new ones - please read LunaMoo's whole thread https://forums.ppsspp.org/showthread.php?tid=6594
[maybe beginning from a last page towards first]. With making special attention to a (!)first post

after all of that, in case if you will still want to understand why every console looks blurred through every [not only ppsspp] emulator - then:
[in a few words it's because PCs are designed for a multiview/precise/24h work, and consoles are for games]

1. Filtering and OS font AA
1.1. Windows Smooth Edges of Screen Fonts [font AA for Linux, in Android I've seen mDNle scenario with it's profiles doing also something like that +colors]
[enabling this - helps to make tiny font readable and you will be able to work simultaneously in 4, 6 or more windows using a one screen]
[and disabling of it makes screen output more pixelated and reduces input lag] [as far as I know all the post-process like filtering, AA and shaders are adding their lag.
It depends on hardware and monitor. I still remember how played on a laptop with 5ms ips 108Hz screen in fighting\racing games on hardest_difficulties\fastest_speeds with ReShade shaders and V-sync]
[thanks to driver setting, high refresh rate and highest/high priority of a process through Task Manager]

1.2. DPI scaling [for Windows]
[it was made to fit programs text size to fit user's OS settings of text size] [it's upscaling [scales/stretches_proportionally original small image of a window to a big] ]
[an instead it's better to always use 100% font size and learn to create custom resolutions, and switch them through Display Adapter Properties, or Nvidia/ATI/Intel control panel
[not through default Windows dialog] to make text appear bigger]

2. Driver settings [Windows]
[Nvidia Profile Inspector for Nvidia, RadeonPro for ATI]
[usually, just google every setting and free everything from kind of AA, or filtering]
[a little bit tricky would be to find Anisotropy filtering sharp settings] [these one] [Driver Controlled LOD Bias - off, LOD Bias - -3, Negative LOD bias - Allow]
[export created profiles to a storage, import on every PC's restart] [depending on a GPU, and on OS, and maybe on a driver - config will be different]
[easy way - is to apply settings from different hardware to a new machine, restart, then see a difference & adjust. Then again export/save/overwrite for this especial machine]

3. Resolution [Windows]
3.1. Original console resolution
[a main idea is to run a game of it's designed resolution. Usually it's better to adjust resolution to a smallest font used in a game. However, beginning from ps3 lots of games might look better with lower resolution
[by a trick of hiding visible unrealistic/plastic/soapy parts]
[to simplify things - use console screens resolutions per emulator, then depending on text size, only if you will hardly want it - adjust further]
[it's especially useful when games are creating vertical lines, or lack sun, fog and else effects]

3.2. Changing resolution
[Windows by default switching to a lower resolutions by a means of scaling - as a result image appears blurred. However switching using this way is faster and reliable [programs will not randomly shutdown on a change]]
[an istead it's better to change them through Display Adapter Properties. And in case of using PC - make sure that scaling is performing on a Display [not on a GPU] through Nvidia/ATI control panel]
[that way lower resolution would be sharp]

3.3. Overclocking display for even better look
[there is a CRU utility, that is especially useful for laptops to go higher 60Hz refresh rate limit]
[and there is also PowerStrip utility] [it has more settings] [I just haven't test it, because CRU utility already made all the work for me to a moment when I get a know of it]
[in case of PC it's better to use CRU as a very good calculator to apply settings through Nvidia/ATI/Intel control panel] [otherwise created resolutions will conflict on hibernation and restarting]
[originally a reason in increasing a refresh rate is in reducing input lag and making objects on a screen move smoother]
[however it has one amazing side effect - with values close to a display limit - display will create it's hardware CRT looking-like-a-shader effect enhancing image like 1000 times.
Visually similar to square pixels that you see on GBA/NDS/PSP] [it's possible to record it with outside of computer camera] [or to aply shaders to a recorded with software video] [I will know how to do it after lots of time]
[for ips displays it requires to use f.lux <=4.78 or Windows Nightlight Settings with color temperatures moved away from default 6500K] [to 1200, 3900, 4250, or 10 000]
[otherwise display will flicker on a fullscreen white until you return to a lower refresh rate]
[changing resolutions of Linux and Android requires more steps and work from cmd line, and I haven't test overclocking yet [will do after lots of time too] ]

4. Emulator settings
[just double the settings of drivers settings. Also try to stick with Nearest Filtering. In games where it's creating unplayable artifacts - change to Auto [console-like] ]
[as for ppsspp there are games that might look better with original fonts http://forums.ppsspp.org/showthread.php?tid=2730 For some of the other games it's also a way from in-game to a playable state.
And this is also applies for some of the other emulators.]

[LunaMoo]

Practically none of the above matters and some of the suggestions might even introduce artifacts/incorrect pixel size etc. especially in games ported from older generation like this one.
As [Unknown] said, it's just an extremely low res texture.

Upscaling algorithms doesn't look nice on fonts neither on most more detailed content really and the only way to really make it nice and sharp is to replace the texture completely with a higher definition one. Look into texture replacement feature of PPSSPP which can change:
   
into:
   
This is however a manual process which has to be done per-game, it will never be automatic, might take lots of time and in some cases artistic skills.

[Luminaryy]

Ok. How do I do all of this? Seems like a hassle though. Maybe I take the headache instead