The Retro Gem: A Game-Changer for PS2 Owners

The Retro Gem is a latest console mod that promises to make the PlayStation 2 more usable and enjoyable for modern gamers. The mod includes bonus features such as Wi-Fi, download firmware, and other files for debugging and testing, which can be useful for enthusiasts who want to dive deeper into their console's capabilities. Additionally, the mod comes with a Snake mini game, among others.

A Major Improvement for Modern Displays

The PS2 has become an increasingly popular choice for gamers due to its impressive library of games, from beloved franchises like God of War and Smugglers Run to hidden gems like Star Ocean. However, many of these titles were designed with CRT monitors in mind, which can make them appear less vibrant on modern displays like LG OLEDs. The Retro Gem addresses this issue by providing a way for owners to play their PS2 games on more modern screens without sacrificing any of the original experience.

A Mod that's Packed with Features

The Retro Gem takes my favorite console of all time and makes it even more enjoyable for everyone to play on Modern displays. This mod uses mini HDMI instead of full-size HDMI in some cases, which can be a drawback as it's still a poor connector option compared to micro HDMI or optical output. The use of mini HDMI is limited to the PS2 fat version, which utilizes the optical jack to replace it with HDMI and provides a hole for it.

A Pricing Puzzle

The Retro Gem has introduced a pricing system that some may find confusing. Instead of offering a single price point, the mod comes in two editions: basic and shiny. The top-selling features like 1080P output and motion adaptive de-interlacing are locked behind the shiny edition, which costs $120 more than the basic version. This means that users have to budget for the shiny edition as if it were a separate purchase.

A Feature Request: Automatic Progressive Scan

One of my biggest complaints about the Retro Gem is the lack of automatic progressive scan and wide screen output options for games that support them. This feature would greatly enhance the overall gaming experience, especially for titles like God of War or Sonic, which have limited support for progressive scan output. I've discovered that some games only enable 480p mode support through specific button combinations, adding complexity to the process.

The PS2's History with Progressive Scan

The PlayStation 2 has a messy history when it comes to progressive scan output, with only a handful of games supporting it. Some games require special configurations or button combinations to enable 480p output, making it difficult for users to access this feature. I've found that certain games have 1080i output capabilities but fail to activate them through the Retro Gem mod.

A Community Effort

The development of the PS2 HDMI mod is a testament to the power of community and collaboration. The Pixel FX team worked tirelessly to bring this mod to life, with the help of enthusiasts like myself who provided feedback and support throughout the process. Unfortunately, the team's reputation was marred by internal conflicts and disagreements, particularly with the original creator Mike Chi.

A Dream Come True for Many

For those who have been waiting patiently for this mod, the Retro Gem is a dream come true. I've had the pleasure of testing it out myself, and I can confidently say that it's a game-changer for PS2 owners. Whether you're looking to upgrade your gaming experience or simply want to explore more games in your library, the Retro Gem has something to offer.

Conclusion

The Retro Gem is a testament to what can be achieved when passion and dedication come together. For those who own a PlayStation 2, this mod offers a way to enhance their gaming experience on modern displays without sacrificing any of the original charm. While it's not perfect – the use of mini HDMI being one drawback – the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. If you're interested in exploring your PS2 library or simply want to try out some new games, I highly recommend checking out this mod and experiencing it for yourself.

Links:

* The Retro Gem

* Lost Sares YouTube Channel

* Twitch Stream

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe best gaming console just got a major upgrade 1080p 1440p CRT emulation preset saving and motion adaptive de interlacing it's beautiful everything I ever wanted the launch of the PlayStation 2 was a huge deal around the globe like millions of other Gamers I patiently waited in line at my local game Shop's midnight launch we all hoped that night that the PS2 would deliver gaming experiences beyond our wildest dreams and in many ways it did but we didn't know that it would go on to be the highest selling game console of all time with over 158 million units sold and a library of nearly 2,000 games providing some of the most unique and experimental gaming experiences ever released and now the console has finally been brought into the HD ERA with pixel fx's retro gym HDMI mod not only can you scale the entire PS2 library to HD but since the PS2 is backwards compatible you also get a free original PlayStation HDMI mod to play virtually all of those games in HD2 two for the price of one well we'll talk about pricing in a moment quality isn't the only Factor though input latency matters a lot and most TVs add a ton of lag to scale old systems up HDMI mods help avoid that there is a pretty big catch and we'll get into it later opening the Retro gem settings menu requires quite the button combo L1 R1 d-pad right and circle but this means you'll never you you'll virtually never open it on accident which is great here you'll have granual control over the whole full Suite of scaling and video tuning in the scaler menu you have full control over Zoom factors to crop off any black areas aspect ratio control and the type of scaling being done sharp smooth and so on you might want to tune this per game as smooth scaling looks better in General on some 3D games with a mostly 3D Focus console or you can just leave it on Sharp but not mess with it that too much your call you also have fine tuning for pre-scale and phase things I'm I'm not even going to mess with right now the D interlacing menu gives you three options Bob weave and motion adaptive this menu is crucial as most of the ps2's library outputs in 480i and de interlacing is one of the biggest sources of blur and lag in modern displays and capture methods Bob just shifts the plane up and down it's the primary dnacing mode used in devices like the 2x retrotink variants and the ossc but for my ADHD inability to ignore constant stimuli the flickery nature is just super distracting and I hate it I never want to see it again but it's lagless and it saves pretty sharp blendy interlacing is what lots of older capture cards or TVs tend to do and it adds input latency and overall just sucks it basically looks like visual vomit because it blurs the fields together it especially sucks for captures that are going to be streamed or compressed in videos lots of older PS2 game videos are ruined by this motion adaptive de interlacing is the best way to handle this it dynamically shifts the interlacing modes and algorithms based on content it looks clean and clear it doesn't really impact input latency and it avoids combing artifacts most of the time time this was the big selling point of the xrgb mini frame Meister back when it was the king of scalers and it has since been implemented in the Retro 5x the gbsc AIO and most recently in the pcsx2 emulator right after my video about it always use motion adaptive the Retro effects menu lets you apply CRT emulation features for scan lines masks color settings and other ways to tweak the visuals to better look like they're being played on an old CRT TV something OLED TVs play really nicely with and just helps keep visuals how they were mostly intended to look on consumer displays at the time there's a slot mask generator to make your own CRT masks just the way you like it and they even have a web UI for this so you can make your own custom slot masks on a computer where you have way easier and better control and then just download it to your retro gem which is pretty neat and of course there's the output resolution menu arguably the most important one options range from 480p to 1440p 480p has both TV and VGA options there's a 96 6p option and A600 X 1200 option which is great for older TVs and monitors to get more crisp native video on those or for outputting to PC CRT monitors 720p and 1080p are output in 16x9 with pillar boxing to be most compatible with HD and 4K displays these modes are perfect for TV play Capture streaming and so on the 1440p mode has a caveat that it outputs in 4x3 Native at 1920 x440 resolution this this is great just to have a higher resolution option if you want to use it and it looks great in capture and lots of 4K oleds have a direct 1440p mode that feels great but this comes at the cost of compatibility not all displays or capture cards will support this Niche basically never used format 4x3 is not around anymore despite what I may wish for at worst it won't display anything at all at best it'll stretch it out to 16x9 if you are having compatibility issues and that will be a pain to squish back without quality loss plus this requ some funky work to make it usable with widescreen modes in games that support it too this was an issue for the retrotink 5x at launch 2 I mentioned that with the special 6X mode that it was working in 4x3 mode and had some capture card compatibility and stuff though Mike G did eventually add a 2560 X 1440 output mode to it regardless I wanted to test with capture cards to see what you're looking at I will mostly point you to the section of my video for the retrotink 5x to talk about capture card compatibility but in a nutshell most USB capture cards even from Mage well will not detect this at Native 1920x 1440 resolution instead it will only pull it in at 2560 X 1440 which means it stretches it out and you'll have to use the scaling aspect ratio filter in OBS with the area scaling mode to squish it back to 4x3 which could cause potential extra artifacting or quality degradation honestly my recommendation for streaming purposes is to just go with the 1080p mode scale it up to whatever resolution you're streaming at most of you that will be 1080p anyway and you'll have the native 4x3 or whatever you're scaling out of the PS2 HDMI and not have to worry about it like normally I would advocate for the highest resolution but with the compatibility concerns in mind and where even magewell USB cards aren't playing nice um my Blackmagic deck link quad HDMI which supports 1440p just completely glitches out when I do this mode I I I just pretty much all my captures in this video were 1080P and that's what I recommend most people stick with I did briefly want to highlight two great things I love about this solution that makes me kind of set on having it alongside my analog flow first is the Retro gems menus actually highlight the resolution each game runs at and what it ends up getting scaled to based on your output resolution this is really cool to see just from a nerdy perspective but if you were ironically using another device like the ossc the the frame Meister the Retro tin 5x it gives you the information you need to better calibrate phase and everything like that such as from with wobbling pixels PS2 retro ttin settings video it gives you that information and makes that a lot easier which is like I said kind of amusing but is really cool information to see and then you can balance out what output resolution you want based on what it ends up getting scaled to cuz often that's higher than 1080p but also the HDMI output cleans up the signal something that I have been complaining about with the PS2 forever and people weren't sure that I was like I knew what I was talking about the ps2's analog output tends to lean towards a green shift or cast on it and this is visible with the retrotink 5x and the 2X and I've seen it even with the frame me there's just this slight green tint that never quite felt right and that is gone on the pixel FX retro Jem like that it is completely digital output and it is clean and does not have that cast and it looks freaking incredible for it it does look wrong in some games like you're like wait a minute minute that's off in all the comparisons I've seen I'm like wait a minute the color is not right to the to the other options but I think it's actually the intended color output there's also a presets menu where virtually every video setting can be saved as a preset and they include a bunch of cool preset settings for different CRT emulations with the goal being that any user should be able to make and upload their own presets to some sort of database for others to try and use hopefully they get to that point another setting that they're trying to implement but it's not here yet is game specific settings but this requires transmitting the game's ID from the console to the Retro gy which doesn't work yet discs don't seem to work at all and opl the library for running games off a hard drive doesn't support it yet either though both of those things are being worked on and might come to fruition eventually I hope so that's always been a really cool feature of emulation I would love to see it here the Retro gem includes bonus stuff like Wi-Fi the download firmware and other files debug testing for your physical installation of the mod if you did it that way a snake mini game among others it's packed this mod takes my favorite console of all time and makes it way more usable for everyone to play on Modern displays like the lovely LG oleds we've been talking about for the past few years and stream especially those who don't have crazy CRT gaming setups like me although if you do you can still output the component from your PlayStation 2 to your CRT or composite or whatever and run HDMI to your capture setup if that's how you want to do it I do have a couple big complaints about this mod and a feature request through to however first as it ships mini HDMI is used instead of fullsize HDMI in some ways mini HDMI is better than micro HDMI but it's still a terrible connector I don't even have that many min HDMI cables compared to micro obviously there are size constraints at play here my PS2 fat version here just utilizes the optical jack to replace it with HDMI so they have a hole for it though I have used the optical out for surround sound before in my setup so that's now gone but mini HDMI just in general sucks I guess I'd rather lose Optical and have mini than lose the component output and have full size second is the pricing setup the console HDMI mod effectively has DLC I think the healthier way to look at it is that you have the option to pay less to get it sooner and get it set up and then you can pay a little more to get the rest of the features later but it's a sucky situation regardless the Retro gem is segmented between basic and shiny editions with the top selling features like 1080P and higher output and motion adaptive de interlacing being locked Lo behind the shiny Edition it's $120 for the basic and $190 for the shiny Edition just just budget for the shiny treated as a $190 purchase that's all I can say lastly my feature request would be some way to automatically trigger progressive scan and wide screen outputs for games that support it on the PlayStation 2 there's only a handful of these games like the God of War series but the ps2's history with progressive scan output is kind of messy when working on a video a while back I noticed there are some games like everyone's favorite Sonic game the Hedgehog that only had 480p mode support in a specific release of the game and not in the normal base original you know original release that I had and supposedly some games require button combinations at launch to enable 480p in the first place kind of like GameCube games it's a mess and I I have a link to a database for games that support what in the description but it's a mess and being able to globally just toggle it on would be great as a bonus note 1080i output from the four or so games that support it does not work with the Retro gem but you're not missing anything though I have been waiting for this for a long time I sent my community manager and backing track producer to too many games back in 2019 to preview Dan's work on the PS2 HDMI mod at the time and since then pixel FX was founded with a group of the modders they produced the PS1 HDMI mod to get that part of this mod working and so on but we're finally here 4 years later if only the pixel FX team wasn't dead set on nuking the reputation by needless ly going after Mike Chi over and over get your together guys I'll always be happy to see my favorite console get more love I've got this bad boy powered up with a 2 tab SSD full of games my massive and expanding disc Library behind me MIM card Pro for the PS1 with the PS2 model coming this fall the 8bit dough wireless dongle Gauntlet Tekken God of War Smugglers Run Fatal Frame Star Ocean life's pretty good I kind of want a couple more modded ps2's like this for different setups I could have one in the house one for streaming and whatever would be nice it's been a well gym playing all these games again to test it out if you want to experience this but the setup or mod all sounds like too much for you then you have to click this video to see how emulating the PS2 compares the playing it on the console and whether that solution is better for you also don't forget this video we're talking about the musthave you know top games for PS2 that you should check out if you're looking for some inspiration I'll probably be streaming a lot of this over on Twitch and on the Lost Saves YouTube channel later this week links below if you want to go follow there and check it out remember to Be Kind Rewindthe best gaming console just got a major upgrade 1080p 1440p CRT emulation preset saving and motion adaptive de interlacing it's beautiful everything I ever wanted the launch of the PlayStation 2 was a huge deal around the globe like millions of other Gamers I patiently waited in line at my local game Shop's midnight launch we all hoped that night that the PS2 would deliver gaming experiences beyond our wildest dreams and in many ways it did but we didn't know that it would go on to be the highest selling game console of all time with over 158 million units sold and a library of nearly 2,000 games providing some of the most unique and experimental gaming experiences ever released and now the console has finally been brought into the HD ERA with pixel fx's retro gym HDMI mod not only can you scale the entire PS2 library to HD but since the PS2 is backwards compatible you also get a free original PlayStation HDMI mod to play virtually all of those games in HD2 two for the price of one well we'll talk about pricing in a moment quality isn't the only Factor though input latency matters a lot and most TVs add a ton of lag to scale old systems up HDMI mods help avoid that there is a pretty big catch and we'll get into it later opening the Retro gem settings menu requires quite the button combo L1 R1 d-pad right and circle but this means you'll never you you'll virtually never open it on accident which is great here you'll have granual control over the whole full Suite of scaling and video tuning in the scaler menu you have full control over Zoom factors to crop off any black areas aspect ratio control and the type of scaling being done sharp smooth and so on you might want to tune this per game as smooth scaling looks better in General on some 3D games with a mostly 3D Focus console or you can just leave it on Sharp but not mess with it that too much your call you also have fine tuning for pre-scale and phase things I'm I'm not even going to mess with right now the D interlacing menu gives you three options Bob weave and motion adaptive this menu is crucial as most of the ps2's library outputs in 480i and de interlacing is one of the biggest sources of blur and lag in modern displays and capture methods Bob just shifts the plane up and down it's the primary dnacing mode used in devices like the 2x retrotink variants and the ossc but for my ADHD inability to ignore constant stimuli the flickery nature is just super distracting and I hate it I never want to see it again but it's lagless and it saves pretty sharp blendy interlacing is what lots of older capture cards or TVs tend to do and it adds input latency and overall just sucks it basically looks like visual vomit because it blurs the fields together it especially sucks for captures that are going to be streamed or compressed in videos lots of older PS2 game videos are ruined by this motion adaptive de interlacing is the best way to handle this it dynamically shifts the interlacing modes and algorithms based on content it looks clean and clear it doesn't really impact input latency and it avoids combing artifacts most of the time time this was the big selling point of the xrgb mini frame Meister back when it was the king of scalers and it has since been implemented in the Retro 5x the gbsc AIO and most recently in the pcsx2 emulator right after my video about it always use motion adaptive the Retro effects menu lets you apply CRT emulation features for scan lines masks color settings and other ways to tweak the visuals to better look like they're being played on an old CRT TV something OLED TVs play really nicely with and just helps keep visuals how they were mostly intended to look on consumer displays at the time there's a slot mask generator to make your own CRT masks just the way you like it and they even have a web UI for this so you can make your own custom slot masks on a computer where you have way easier and better control and then just download it to your retro gem which is pretty neat and of course there's the output resolution menu arguably the most important one options range from 480p to 1440p 480p has both TV and VGA options there's a 96 6p option and A600 X 1200 option which is great for older TVs and monitors to get more crisp native video on those or for outputting to PC CRT monitors 720p and 1080p are output in 16x9 with pillar boxing to be most compatible with HD and 4K displays these modes are perfect for TV play Capture streaming and so on the 1440p mode has a caveat that it outputs in 4x3 Native at 1920 x440 resolution this this is great just to have a higher resolution option if you want to use it and it looks great in capture and lots of 4K oleds have a direct 1440p mode that feels great but this comes at the cost of compatibility not all displays or capture cards will support this Niche basically never used format 4x3 is not around anymore despite what I may wish for at worst it won't display anything at all at best it'll stretch it out to 16x9 if you are having compatibility issues and that will be a pain to squish back without quality loss plus this requ some funky work to make it usable with widescreen modes in games that support it too this was an issue for the retrotink 5x at launch 2 I mentioned that with the special 6X mode that it was working in 4x3 mode and had some capture card compatibility and stuff though Mike G did eventually add a 2560 X 1440 output mode to it regardless I wanted to test with capture cards to see what you're looking at I will mostly point you to the section of my video for the retrotink 5x to talk about capture card compatibility but in a nutshell most USB capture cards even from Mage well will not detect this at Native 1920x 1440 resolution instead it will only pull it in at 2560 X 1440 which means it stretches it out and you'll have to use the scaling aspect ratio filter in OBS with the area scaling mode to squish it back to 4x3 which could cause potential extra artifacting or quality degradation honestly my recommendation for streaming purposes is to just go with the 1080p mode scale it up to whatever resolution you're streaming at most of you that will be 1080p anyway and you'll have the native 4x3 or whatever you're scaling out of the PS2 HDMI and not have to worry about it like normally I would advocate for the highest resolution but with the compatibility concerns in mind and where even magewell USB cards aren't playing nice um my Blackmagic deck link quad HDMI which supports 1440p just completely glitches out when I do this mode I I I just pretty much all my captures in this video were 1080P and that's what I recommend most people stick with I did briefly want to highlight two great things I love about this solution that makes me kind of set on having it alongside my analog flow first is the Retro gems menus actually highlight the resolution each game runs at and what it ends up getting scaled to based on your output resolution this is really cool to see just from a nerdy perspective but if you were ironically using another device like the ossc the the frame Meister the Retro tin 5x it gives you the information you need to better calibrate phase and everything like that such as from with wobbling pixels PS2 retro ttin settings video it gives you that information and makes that a lot easier which is like I said kind of amusing but is really cool information to see and then you can balance out what output resolution you want based on what it ends up getting scaled to cuz often that's higher than 1080p but also the HDMI output cleans up the signal something that I have been complaining about with the PS2 forever and people weren't sure that I was like I knew what I was talking about the ps2's analog output tends to lean towards a green shift or cast on it and this is visible with the retrotink 5x and the 2X and I've seen it even with the frame me there's just this slight green tint that never quite felt right and that is gone on the pixel FX retro Jem like that it is completely digital output and it is clean and does not have that cast and it looks freaking incredible for it it does look wrong in some games like you're like wait a minute minute that's off in all the comparisons I've seen I'm like wait a minute the color is not right to the to the other options but I think it's actually the intended color output there's also a presets menu where virtually every video setting can be saved as a preset and they include a bunch of cool preset settings for different CRT emulations with the goal being that any user should be able to make and upload their own presets to some sort of database for others to try and use hopefully they get to that point another setting that they're trying to implement but it's not here yet is game specific settings but this requires transmitting the game's ID from the console to the Retro gy which doesn't work yet discs don't seem to work at all and opl the library for running games off a hard drive doesn't support it yet either though both of those things are being worked on and might come to fruition eventually I hope so that's always been a really cool feature of emulation I would love to see it here the Retro gem includes bonus stuff like Wi-Fi the download firmware and other files debug testing for your physical installation of the mod if you did it that way a snake mini game among others it's packed this mod takes my favorite console of all time and makes it way more usable for everyone to play on Modern displays like the lovely LG oleds we've been talking about for the past few years and stream especially those who don't have crazy CRT gaming setups like me although if you do you can still output the component from your PlayStation 2 to your CRT or composite or whatever and run HDMI to your capture setup if that's how you want to do it I do have a couple big complaints about this mod and a feature request through to however first as it ships mini HDMI is used instead of fullsize HDMI in some ways mini HDMI is better than micro HDMI but it's still a terrible connector I don't even have that many min HDMI cables compared to micro obviously there are size constraints at play here my PS2 fat version here just utilizes the optical jack to replace it with HDMI so they have a hole for it though I have used the optical out for surround sound before in my setup so that's now gone but mini HDMI just in general sucks I guess I'd rather lose Optical and have mini than lose the component output and have full size second is the pricing setup the console HDMI mod effectively has DLC I think the healthier way to look at it is that you have the option to pay less to get it sooner and get it set up and then you can pay a little more to get the rest of the features later but it's a sucky situation regardless the Retro gem is segmented between basic and shiny editions with the top selling features like 1080P and higher output and motion adaptive de interlacing being locked Lo behind the shiny Edition it's $120 for the basic and $190 for the shiny Edition just just budget for the shiny treated as a $190 purchase that's all I can say lastly my feature request would be some way to automatically trigger progressive scan and wide screen outputs for games that support it on the PlayStation 2 there's only a handful of these games like the God of War series but the ps2's history with progressive scan output is kind of messy when working on a video a while back I noticed there are some games like everyone's favorite Sonic game the Hedgehog that only had 480p mode support in a specific release of the game and not in the normal base original you know original release that I had and supposedly some games require button combinations at launch to enable 480p in the first place kind of like GameCube games it's a mess and I I have a link to a database for games that support what in the description but it's a mess and being able to globally just toggle it on would be great as a bonus note 1080i output from the four or so games that support it does not work with the Retro gem but you're not missing anything though I have been waiting for this for a long time I sent my community manager and backing track producer to too many games back in 2019 to preview Dan's work on the PS2 HDMI mod at the time and since then pixel FX was founded with a group of the modders they produced the PS1 HDMI mod to get that part of this mod working and so on but we're finally here 4 years later if only the pixel FX team wasn't dead set on nuking the reputation by needless ly going after Mike Chi over and over get your together guys I'll always be happy to see my favorite console get more love I've got this bad boy powered up with a 2 tab SSD full of games my massive and expanding disc Library behind me MIM card Pro for the PS1 with the PS2 model coming this fall the 8bit dough wireless dongle Gauntlet Tekken God of War Smugglers Run Fatal Frame Star Ocean life's pretty good I kind of want a couple more modded ps2's like this for different setups I could have one in the house one for streaming and whatever would be nice it's been a well gym playing all these games again to test it out if you want to experience this but the setup or mod all sounds like too much for you then you have to click this video to see how emulating the PS2 compares the playing it on the console and whether that solution is better for you also don't forget this video we're talking about the musthave you know top games for PS2 that you should check out if you're looking for some inspiration I'll probably be streaming a lot of this over on Twitch and on the Lost Saves YouTube channel later this week links below if you want to go follow there and check it out remember to Be Kind Rewind\n"