Sega Saturn resolutions

[brendanraymond]

So, i was playing my newly repaired saturn on my brand spankers xrgb-3... and all I can say is I never realised how pixilated sega rally is. I know that the Sega Saturn is capable of widescreen resolutions and from the wiki, it does this too:

Programmable display resolution:

Horizontal sizes of 320, 352, 640, 704 pixels
Vertical sizes of 224, 240, 256 scanlines, non-interlaced
Vertical sizes of 448, 480, 512 scanlines, interlaced (only PAL consoles support 256 and 512 scanline displays)
Hi-Vision (EDTV) and 31 kHz (VGA) display support:
31 kHz: 320×480 or 640×480, non-interlaced (progressive scan)
Hi-Vision: 352×480 or 704×480, non-interlaced (progressive scan)

So my question being, how can one make use of these programable resolutions?

Also I noticed that when transfered from PAL SegaRally through RGB on 60Hz, all of the on screen sprites are offset 30~50% down the screen... but if I put it into 50Hz, it puts the onscreen sprites in the right spots, but the whole screen is offset by 30~50%... but if moved up into the screen area, it doesnt fit the screen like the 60Hz did... So Im presuming I need an NTSC version of the game... but my next question being, what other PAL games dont make the cut? all of them, or just a select few? What about all my backups that are in the PAL format? I have a feeling that a simple region change on the ISO and a reburn wont solve my problems...

Any ideas anyone?

Cheers

[gravitone]

The higher resolutions were usable on the saturn, even the vga like non-interlaced ones. The trouble is that you loose almost all graphics chip functionality like scroll layers, etc and just end up with a glorified framebuffer, which incidentally also takes up more VRAM leaving less for sprites, textures, and what not. So there is no way to actually convert existing games to run at high-res since they all require those features. And yes, you have to get those NTSC versions to play with if you want the picture to line up properly AND not have offset bugs and what not. It might just be a symptom of first-gen saturn titles but I have no experience in this matter. Someone else here might be able to give you more information.