ELI5. Why did European releases of older games(SNES and PS1 etc..) run slower than their North American counterparts?
In: Technology
Hertz I believe in the USA would run at 60hz while Siemens electrical system created in Germany would run at 50hz. Meaning slower frame rates.
A bit more technical detail:
Older games were meant to run at a very specific framerate which for TVs in North America is ~30 frames per second. Everything in the game was tied to this rate as a way to keep time, so an action that is supposed to take 1/2 a second would be programmed to run for 15 frames.
TVs in other regions didn’t run at ~30 fps, for instance PAL in Europe ran at 25 fps. This means that same software meant for NTSC regions would run at 83% speed it was intended. That same 15-frame action would actually take 0.6 seconds instead because it doesn’t know the displayed framerate is lower than expected.
It’s possible to compensate but requires a fair bit of engineering and testing. Companies found it easier to just ignore the issue.
PAL, the standard for analog television used in Europe, has a lower frame rate than NTSC, the standard used in North America. The games and systems were configured to be best for the television they would run on.
From what I’ve read in various articles it has less to do with FPS and more to do with the television refresh rate of both regions. European TVs had a refresh rate of 50Hz for the longest time compared to North America with a 60Hz refresh rate. TVs in the European region later offered the option to switch between 50 and 60. Some Japanese consoles even offer the opportunity to play a game in either format, but slowdown is going to exist if you use 50Hz.
International shipping and availability has since put an end to this, not to mention the fact that video game technology has improved drastically since.
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