Lo-res widescreen games and how to display them

[SriK]

I've been working on a new design for a pixel-art-based sidescroller, and after some thought I've decided that for various reasons this game would work better in a widescreen resolution. Moreover, I've decided that the best design resolution for the game is 480x270; this allows for larger sprites than the 426x240 or 427x240 that seems standard for retro devs, while being years of work less than 640x360 (for a non-tile-based game). This leaves me with the problem of which display options to support, in order to maintain as much compatibility with classic monitors as possible. Now, I haven't owned a widescreen CRT in years and I don't even have a CRT in my apartment right now (only LCD monitors and a projector). So, a couple questions...

1. What is the absolute best way to display a 480x270 game on a 31Khz monitor? Is the only option really just to display a 640x480 image with the 480x270 play area smack in the middle, or are there ways to "force" a resolution which utilizes more screen space (without software upscaling)?

2. What about a 24Khz monitor? Is the best way here to display a 512x384 image with the 480x270 play area in the middle? (512x400, for a 25Khz monitor?)

3. What about HD CRTs? These are 540p internally, but apparently many of them only take a 1080p signal (to display in 1080i). So the best way here is to upscale the image from 480x270 to 960x540 with fake scanlines, then "line-double" this image to 1080p?

4. Is there any reasonable way to display this resolution on normal 15Khz TVs? Preferably without interlacing...?

5. And finally, am I in the wrong for picking 480x270, and is there a better 16:9 resolution (or approximate) that I could work with for my purposes?

If anyone has the time, I would really love if you could test this stuff out for me... Here's a screenshot of the upcoming 480x270 game Bushiden which you can use.



Or if you want to get weirder here's Wild Guns Reloaded, which runs internally at 426x270, but gets stretched out to 480x270 by default on most monitors:



(This game's display situation is such a mess that I think the above is the only screenshot of the game at its internal resolution on the entire Internet. Which is a shame, since it has some of the prettiest pixel art ever made!)

Anyway, looking forward to your replies, and to eventually testing out all of this myself. Thanks for your time!

[Guspaz]

270p is pretty much only well suited for 1080p monitors and nothing else. It doesn't divide evenly into 1440p, or 720p, or 480p, or 240p. So while 1080p displays are by far the most prevalent (for PCs), it's not a good fit if you want to prioritize 15 kHz or 31 kHz monitors. 24 kHz and HD CRT displays are rare by comparison, and aren't worth considering a primary target. Really, if you want broad compatibility, you should be thinking PC monitors (and by extension modern TVs) and 15 kHz televisions.

For higher resolutions, like 1440p, it's not really an issue. Just use an interpolation filter that preserves sharpness and it'll be virtually indistinguishable from integer scaling. I'm not a math whiz, so while I know that multi-tap scalers can do that "properly", conceptually the simplest is to do an integer scale to the next resolution higher than your intended target (1620p) and then a bilinear downscale to the target (1440p).

For lower resolutions, your choice of widescreen is the main issue. 270p isn't so much of a problem because you can just design the game for overscan and crop it down to 240p, but not that many 15 kHz televisions have a 16:9 mode. Some do, most don't. So you'll be left with a lot of bad options, such as cropping to 4:3, or squishing to 4:3, or doing something with 480i. I'm not sure what answer you're looking for here, it's pretty obvious that there is no good way to get a 480x270 image onto a 15 kHz display.

Anything you do on any CRT display to play around with the resolution (like taking advantage of the fact that they have no fixed horizontal resolution, and you can totally send a 427x240 signal to a CRT TV) isn't going to change the fact that the image is going to be displayed as 4:3.

My advice: if you really want this to work, support both 16:9 and 4:3, and either target 240p as the native resolution, or plan for overscan.

[BazookaBen]

Many later 15kHz CRT's have a 16:9 toggle, so it's super easy to play 240p 16:9 games, like Bloodstained CotM, Blaster Master Zero, Blazing Chrome, Hollow Knight, Cyber Shadow, and so on.

But 270p is too many lines, unless you dropped the refresh rate down to 50 or maybe 54.


But since most games are designed for 60fps, running anything lower will lead to judder.

[SriK]

Yep Guspaz, that's all what I thought, but I was hoping someone knew some obscure trick or something lol. 720p and 1440p+ can be handled alright with that interpolation method, and that's indeed what I was planning for the "raw" display. A CRT filter may pose problems at 720p, since 270 doesn't divide evenly into 720, but I've recently seen CRT filters that work okay even with non-integer scaling. (And 720p is only really an issue for Nintendo Switch these days, anyway.) So, it sounds like I can't have my cake and eat it too... I just needed to make sure.

Designing the game for overscan sounds untenable... that's, what, 33% less horizontal space? If it was just a few pixels it would be fine, but at that point you're almost designing a whole new set of levels. Maybe it'd work for a simple platformer (like a Mario or Sonic game), but I don't think it would work for the kind of design I'm planning (or the kind of art direction, for that matter).

And BazookaBen, those games still display in 4:3 without letterboxing right? Just squished or cropped... so that's also suboptimal. Seems like if I'm set on 16:9 270p then the only options are border art at 480p and interlacing at 240p. I'm sure the latter looks like complete shit, but who knows lol. (Or maybe 640x360 will end up being possible and everyone can play it on a 480p screen with letterboxing.)

[BazookaBen]

And BazookaBen, those games still display in 4:3 without letterboxing right? Just squished or cropped... so that's also suboptimal. .

No, those games are 16:9. Like Blazing Chrome is 427x240.

So I will setup a 427x240 resolution on my PC, then set my TV to 16:9. So I will have a 240 line image, but it's letterboxed in the center of my 240p CRT, which is fine.

Some photos from my TV:

[SriK]

Damn! So there's really a good reason all those games go for 427x240! I had no idea these TVs existed, is there a list of models that support this feature anywhere? I should cop one.

[Guspaz]

Later ones do. My Sony Trinitron WEGA flat CRT had such an option. But my previous Zenith basic CRT television didn't. My PVM does too. You can't really count on it, though. I'd guess that the majority of CRT televisions don't.

Overscan for 240p to 270p is only ~6% on the top and bottom. Yeah, it's a lot more on the left/right, but that's not overscan, that's aspect ratio, you would be expected to have the game reformat itself for that aspect ratio, shifting UI elements inwards and displaying less of the game world. I'm not sure why that'd be a problem with a sidescroller.

[strayan]

426x240would be ideal for EDTV (852x480) plasmas.

[BazookaBen]

Damn! So there's really a good reason all those games go for 427x240! I had no idea these TVs existed, is there a list of models that support this feature anywhere? I should cop one.

Even if a TV doesn't have the 16:9 mode, you can always compress V-size in the service menu. Sure, that would be a pain in the ass if you're jumping between 16:9 and 4:3 games in the same day, but it's an option.

A good strategy for PVM's with an "underscan" button is to change that mode's geometry to be 16:9 instead of a general underscanned image.

And only Blazing Chrome is 427x240. Other games are 426x240, 424x240, 400x224, 416x240, and so on.

Celeste and 1001 Spikes are 320x180. So just having your desktop at 320x240 in 4:3 will get those games to render out correctly

[SriK]

Thanks for the display suggestions everyone, I will look into these later.

Yeah, it's a lot more on the left/right, but that's not overscan, that's aspect ratio, you would be expected to have the game reformat itself for that aspect ratio, shifting UI elements inwards and displaying less of the game world. I'm not sure why that'd be a problem with a sidescroller.

To me aspect ratio is not just a matter of display but also of game design. Think about an action scenario as simple as the runners in the original Contra: how much more of a joke would they be if they appeared a third of the screen further away from you, rather than right near you? Or think about the Medusa Heads in Castlevania, or even how most static scenes in these games are artistically composed at a certain aspect ratio (just like films). And other genres work this way too; in Wild Guns Reloaded they couldn't just expand the visible area of the original game and stop there, they also had to add more enemies, change some enemy behaviors, and make other adjustments around the change from 4:3 to 16:9 (even basic things, like the time that the crosshair takes to move across the screen, had to be accounted for). That's not to say that all these problems are impossible to solve, and several games have solved them, but I'd rather not put an insane amount of design effort into something like this if I can avoid it. Technical effort is another thing, and that I am willing to put in.

Even if a TV doesn't have the 16:9 mode, you can always compress V-size in the service menu. Sure, that would be a pain in the ass if you're jumping between 16:9 and 4:3 games in the same day, but it's an option.

A good strategy for PVM's with an "underscan" button is to change that mode's geometry to be 16:9 instead of a general underscanned image.

And only Blazing Chrome is 427x240. Other games are 426x240, 424x240, 400x224, 416x240, and so on.

Celeste and 1001 Spikes are 320x180. So just having your desktop at 320x240 in 4:3 will get those games to render out correctly

Thanks for the info, that's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for and I've noted it down. And yeah I know I know, it's crazy how many resolutions modern devs have tried to get widescreen to work in low-res If I went with 16:9 240p I might go with 432x240 (as it's divisible by both 8x8 and 16x16 tiles), then crop a few pixels off the sides as I needed. 180p seems too claustrophobic if I want sprites larger than like 16x16.

[SuperDeadite]

In the old days, before the widescreen button on 4:3 CRTs, we would simply adjust horizontal and vertical screen size manually for certain games. X68000 did this a lot, Cotton, SSF2, etc. Arcade games did this too, but a lot of operators didn't really care enough to adjust them right.

[Guspaz]

Works on a PC CRT, where you've got dials for that, not so much on a television, where the 16:9 button is usually the only influence the user has over the geometry.

[BazookaBen]

Works on a PC CRT, where you've got dials for that, not so much on a television, where the 16:9 button is usually the only influence the user has over the geometry.

We're all power users here. Just hop in the service menu and reduce v-size.

[Guspaz]

Yeah, but you're talking about design choices for a game, presumably something being sold to the general public. People here aren't representative of the market.

[SriK]

The general public is playing these games on HD and 4K displays, I think (if they're playing them at all)... Most of this thread isn't relevant to them.

Assuming a 16:9 design resolution that can output at 15Khz, there are some "ease of use" things I could include with the game. I could include CRT calibration test patterns in the options menu (including a grid with circular patterns, so the user can verify that they have the correct aspect ratio) and I could also include some basic instructions there telling the user to create a custom resolution (maybe even telling them about how to use CRT Emudriver, or how to use CRU to edit a monitor's EDID). In the ideal case, perhaps the game could even create all the necessary registry overrides and whatnot for the user, if he or she chooses (and if the user is willing to accept whatever risks that entails), and then it would almost be an invisible process aside from the user having to change the v-size in the service menu. But that would need a lot of testing, and it might not fly with the storefronts.

[BazookaBen]

I think a really useful test pattern would be some sort of grid to check for integer scaling on both axes.

[orange808]

Can you tell us more about your development environment and target platform(s)? My first thought about your game asset internal "pixel size" was: "it doesn't matter". Is perfect integer scaling really that important?

How does this work? If you want to target a wide audience, you need widescreen. Will your team design game mechanics that rely on visibility on the edges of the screen? If so, your game 4:3 experience will be "unfun". Games are fun by definition.

Keep in mind that having a boxed 4:3 screen inside a widescreen frame will annoy many gamers. Feeling annoyed isn't fun. (And, of course, as a game designer remember "we are not necessarily our audience/customers". Our ability to dismiss underscan or high difficulty won't reflect a general audience.)

So, you could vary the "asset pixel size" of the viewport slightly and scale that up pretty, if you can make the outside horizontal edges of the screen a nonfactor. But, you can't make 4:3 too hard or nerf your 16:9 experience. What a pain in the ass.

Personally, I'd ignore 4:3 shit entirely and target proper 16:9 480p if I absolutely had to have integer scaling. Although if you plan to scroll/move the viewport during game play, a "screen" might be larger than the viewport. So, 270p for your assets could still work, because the viewport would move.

Have you experimented with test assets and found the fun, yet? I wouldn't even attempt too many assets before I found the gameplay.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Ever since I read a guy I follow from long ago seriously complaining about how much impact the side scroller genre has lost because of the widescreen format, I myself can't feel satisfied enough anymore with these retro games from nowadays. Its not just because much tension is lost due to the extra perceivable area which generally makes it easier than it should, but also because the sprites have become too small for such a large onscreen area - it's just less pretty, in a silly way. Blazing Chrome, Ninjawarriors Once Again, Blasphemous... you name it. And it gets even worse when you see how many of these started as 4:3 games.

Unsurprisingly then, I was going to say Aren't there enough wide screen side scrollers already? Why not making it for 4:3 and sell that as a feature, explaining the above things? Filling the borders with gadgets or non-trivial info a la M2 if anything is now a style after all. And many people are starting to see 4:3 + borders as something natural for old games, as concepts such as native aspect ratio get more and more difussion, so those people are somehow getting more used to this format.

But mate, that's not what you're asking for, so I'll try to say something useful - I agree with those saying that 480x270 is the worst choice out there if you have the commendable intention of allowing your game to be displayed at its native resolution. You can manage to somehow have little vertical borders on many 31khz PC CRTs thanks to custom modelines and the monitor's geometry tweaks but that's far from optimal. If I were you, I'd firstly ask myself if I want a low-rez look for my game, if I need scanlines. Because if you do, going above 240p is saying goodbye to it. Moreover, I'd even say that forced 16:9 240p (or even 4:3 256p!) makes scanlines hardly perceivable below 25 inches or non-pro displays (back to the beginning, I know...).

[SriK]

The target platforms are Windows and consoles (the highest priority console being whichever Nintendo console is out at release, since sidescrollers currently sell best on Switch by an order of like 10x). Perfect integer scaling is important for sure; CRT filters look like shit at non-integer scales, because of uneven scanlines. But like I said I recently found out about a couple modern ones that appear to do alright even in this mode, so maybe this is no longer an issue? I don't really care about those who want perfectly "clean" 4x Lego pixels, at least. I'll support the option for sales' sake but I won't lose any sleep if it's not perfect (in fact I may sleep better if it isn't).

The game I'm about to release, Steel Assault, is in a 4:3 resolution (with optional border art) and I haven't received many complaints. I'm sure we'll lose sales because of the letterboxing, but how much we lose remains to be determined. And orange808, like I said above to Guspaz, I think it's hardly possible to design a sidescroller without relying on the sides of the screen... Without giving away too much about my new design (not that it matters, but hey) there's more going on onscreen than your average action game, plus the sprites are a bit larger and a bit more detailed than usual, so the shift to 16:9 and the additional leeway it gives may actually help the game and keep things manageable. I haven't fully prototyped it out yet, though; it's a very involved design and there are a lot of technical details I still have to figure out (as you can see lol). But the basic foundations seem solid, so far.

Also, Bassa-Bassa, I think Ninja Warriors Once Again is a bad example to make your point. The others, sure, but that game is awesome and the sprite size works perfectly. And whatever was lost in Natsume's recent revivals, the updated art and music more than make up for, in my opinion... They're beautiful games and I'm incredibly glad that they exist. A little easier than the originals, sure, but I mean look at them.

And yeah, this thread has convinced me to move away from 270p for sure. The moment I saw BazookaBen's photos, I knew I had to do it. Now the question is which 240p resolution to choose... the best choices seem to be 426x240, 424x240, or 432x240. The first is standard 240p NTSC widescreen, the second is divisible by 8x8 tiles, and the third is divisible by both 8x8 and 16x16 tiles. Some games like Blazing Chrome use 427x240 but I don't like that it's an odd number, for various technical reasons (and possibly adult onset OCD as well). 640x360 would indeed be the ideal for a low-res game, but if I want detailed backgrounds that aren't obviously tiled then it could add a year or two of dev time. (Unless the backgrounds are painted, or polygonal.)

P.S. Who's the guy you follow from long ago, Bassa-Bassa?

[awe444]

Since you’re targeting Switch as a platform, definitely go with either 424x240 or 400x240. There are a number of quality games on the Switch using those resolutions (Sonic Mania, Bloodstained CotM, Freedom Planet, to name a few) and by some miracle all of them were implemented with integer scaling without filtering, and so they look super crisp at 3x scaled on the Switch’s 720p screen.

[orange808]

Steel Assault looks very nice. I hope it does well for you. I'm a dinosaur that appreciates 4:3, so I'll check it out.

[SriK]

Since you’re targeting Switch as a platform, definitely go with either 424x240 or 400x240. There are a number of quality games on the Switch using those resolutions (Sonic Mania, Bloodstained CotM, Freedom Planet, to name a few) and by some miracle all of them were implemented with integer scaling without filtering, and so they look super crisp at 3x scaled on the Switch’s 720p screen.

I found out about this while doing research too. According to this NeoGAF thread, what Sonic Mania does is scale up its internal 424x240 image 3x to 1272x720, with nearest-neighbor filtering, CRT filter, or whatever other option the user sets. Then it stretches that image out ever-so-slightly to 1280x720. So that one at least has a tiny bit of filtering, according to the Internet. As for the others, from cursory examination of a couple screenshots, it seems that Freedom Planet does the same thing as Mania, and that Bloodstained does a clean scale with letterboxing. (I should just buy Mania on Switch and verify what it's doing for myself... I played so much Sonic as a kid that I'm not at all interested in playing more these days, barring an HD reinvention of the series with hand-drawn Cuphead-style art. In fact my very first foray into game design was making ROM mods for Sonic and Mario games, at the ripe age of 8.)

I just tried cropping that Wild Guns screenshot and testing a bunch of these resolutions (420x240, 424x240, 426x240, 432x240). Although 426x240 does look the best (since it's closest to actual 16:9), 424x240 doesn't look much worse when scaled the same way as Mania. So that's probably the way to go. Anyway, pillarboxing is always an option, and I doubt many people would complain.

And thanks, orange808!

P.S. Correction to my previous post: CRT filters look like shit at non-integer scales under 1080p. At 1080p+ they look alright, it's when I have to resize a 1080p capture to fit a small Twitter window or a screenshot thumbnail that I start to see nasty moire. I hate it, but there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it, aside from turning the filter off.

[BazookaBen]

Sonic Mania on PC actually supports 4:3 320x240 with a config file tweak. The camera follows Sonic, meaning the game is 100% playable

[Bassa-Bassa]

The game I'm about to release, Steel Assault, is in a 4:3 resolution (with optional border art) and I haven't received many complaints. I'm sure we'll lose sales because of the letterboxing, but how much we lose remains to be determined. And orange808, like I said above to Guspaz, I think it's hardly possible to design a sidescroller without relying on the sides of the screen... Without giving away too much about my new design (not that it matters, but hey) there's more going on onscreen than your average action game, plus the sprites are a bit larger and a bit more detailed than usual, so the shift to 16:9 and the additional leeway it gives may actually help the game and keep things manageable. I haven't fully prototyped it out yet, though; it's a very involved design and there are a lot of technical details I still have to figure out (as you can see lol). But the basic foundations seem solid, so far.

Also, Bassa-Bassa, I think Ninja Warriors Once Again is a bad example to make your point. The others, sure, but that game is awesome and the sprite size works perfectly. And whatever was lost in Natsume's recent revivals, the updated art and music more than make up for, in my opinion... They're beautiful games and I'm incredibly glad that they exist. A little easier than the originals, sure, but I mean look at them.

Haha, I knew the Steel Assault project, very interested in it and its cool that you're already working on the next one instead of porting it to every possible platform or creating additional content as if it was an unfinished product. Don't misunderstand me, I think NWOA is awesome and I'm happy enough with the additions - exception made with the expanded viewport (and... the absence of a CRT shader). The original worked much better in this regard (same reasons I explained), but yes, the sprite size at least is comparatively a little bigger here than usual at least.

And yeah, this thread has convinced me to move away from 270p for sure. The moment I saw BazookaBen's photos, I knew I had to do it. Now the question is which 240p resolution to choose... the best choices seem to be 426x240, 424x240, or 432x240. The first is standard 240p NTSC widescreen, the second is divisible by 8x8 tiles, and the third is divisible by both 8x8 and 16x16 tiles. Some games like Blazing Chrome use 427x240 but I don't like that it's an odd number, for various technical reasons (and possibly adult onset OCD as well). 640x360 would indeed be the ideal for a low-res game, but if I want detailed backgrounds that aren't obviously tiled then it could add a year or two of dev time. (Unless the backgrounds are painted, or polygonal.)

I really hope now that Steel Assault sales (and feedback) makes you reconsider going 4:3 as well for the next project , but have you thought of 384*216? You may not know it but, once you reach certain number depending on the 15kHz TV, the more the horizontal resolution, the worse the picture looks. Usually, over Saturn's 352 pixels/CPS' 384, even a good/late TV set won't resolve them properly and the picture starts to get blurrier than needed. Everybody will have to adjust the horizontal amplitude with the TV's service menu as well, given that it's sure that the overscanned area will be huge at >400 pixels (CRTs' physical display is not as fixed as one could think).

For this reason too, with just 216 vertical pixels, likely most users will get tiny horizontal borders, which kind of helps to get a more accurate aspect ratio for those without 16:9 mode or a good access to the service menu. And finally, you scale it evenly to 1080. 720p users will be the losers here, but those are Switch (handheld) players, normally the ones who don't care about technicalities as this. And anyway, are you sure you're releasing your new game before the Switch 2? 720p is not living much longer.

[SriK]

Yeah, the lack of a good CRT filter is indeed a real problem with TNWOA. At least the game offers scanlines, and if you're playing it on a projector then you can very slightly defocus the image to simulate a bit of blur LOL, and that's okay once you get used to it. With WG Reloaded you can just use Reshade on the Steam version and it looks great.

And jesus, this situation keeps getting messier... I am just going to buy a high-end CRT this weekend and try all this shit out. I was hesitating on buying one of these again until later, since I'll probably want to move out of my new apartment relatively soon (we got our current rate at a COVID discount back when landlords in this city were bleeding, and I expect them to jack the price up) but fuck it.

384x216 might work fine, but when I compare this 424x240 crop of Wild Guns Reloaded to a 384x216 crop, it seems like a shame to lose all that screen space:



Only 8% more pixels than 4:3 240p. Of course, if I was working on this game in a dev context I would probably have the artists redraw everything rather than simply crop the scene, but still, the end result would either have to lose detail or lose visible area. By the way, note that right now our sprites are a bit larger than the player character here (and a bit more dense). I want to have the largest and most expressive characters I can this time around lol, and this seems to be around the standard upper limit for a sidescroller (barring special exceptions like Alien Soldier, or side-view brawlers like TNWA).

By the way, in the meantime, if you have a decent CRT model then would you mind displaying both of these pictures and taking photos for me? Or if anyone else who's reading this has the time, I would really appreciate it.

Regarding the potential Switch 2, Nintendo said last year that the Switch was only halfway through its lifecycle. And it had been out for, what, almost 3 years? I fully expect to release the next game before 2024 lol.

[Guspaz]

Regarding the potential Switch 2, Nintendo said last year that the Switch was only halfway through its lifecycle. And it had been out for, what, almost 3 years? I fully expect to release the next game before 2024 lol.

Slightly more than 4 years now. A refreshed Switch seems extremely likely at this point (the leaks/rumours are very common and consistent at this point), the only question is if it'll be in 2021 or 2022 and how extensive it'll be. It's going to be a refresh, though, probably not something you might call a "Switch 2". Which means backwards compatibility should be maintained.

The Switch has been outselling all other consoles combined for months now, they don't have a ton of financial incentive to replace it.

[SriK]

Yeah, I've heard about the rumors of "Switch Pro" with DLSS. I bet Nintendo's cert check will now require the game to pass compliance testing on both models of the console (which will probably mean that the cert process takes a week or two longer for devs) but I doubt they're counting scanlines or anything like that. Really, I was just balking at the idea of the new game taking 3+ more years to make lol.

[Bassa-Bassa]

With WG Reloaded you can just use Reshade on the Steam version and it looks great.

Forgive me for this OT question, but isn't Reshade supposed to add latency? Furthermore, what's your experience with CRT shaders and input lag, when coding your own games? Very curious, given the arcade-y premise of Steel Assault!

And jesus, this situation keeps getting messier... I am just going to buy a high-end CRT this weekend and try all this shit out.

Notice that the quality lose affecting high resolution pictures applies only to low-TV lines displays, namely TV sets or arcade monitors. Highend pro monitors won't have the issue at all, being >500 TV lines. Though these have the "issue" of not displaying very naturally 15kHz videogames. And they're the minority, specially if you count Europe, were RGB TV sets were the norm. Moreover, their screens are usually small, and your game's picture will be even smaller for being 16:9... It's indeed a bit messy, but keep in mind that over 400 horizontal pixels and wide format is an oddity of our days - messy solutions is what I would expect at the very least. The wide screen mode for 4:3 TVs was an afterthought which usually punishes the user with an annoying horizontal line there on the upper limit of the active area - nobody really used it in the end.

384x216 might work fine, but when I compare this 424x240 crop of Wild Guns Reloaded to a 384x216 crop, it seems like a shame to lose all that screen space:

With "losing screen space" do you mean that you'd have a physically bigger displayed picture with the former resolution format (on a 4:3 TV)? Then, you'd be altering the aspect ratio, and that's not what you want, right? Both formats should fill the same "screen space", since both respond to 16:9.

If you just mean that you lose visible area and miss that, well, the game's designed for an even larger visible area (the backgrounds were, at least, if my memory serves). It's a gallery shoot'em-up, as well. It all depends on how you design it all from the ground up, doesnt it?

By the way, note that right now our sprites are a bit larger than the player character here (and a bit more dense). I want to have the largest and most expressive characters I can this time around lol, and this seems to be around the standard upper limit for a sidescroller (barring special exceptions like Alien Soldier, or side-view brawlers like TNWA).

If your character is already dotted and you care about onscreen size, then the smaller the screen resolution, the larger it'll be... But yeah, maybe you don't want it that large... lol

By the way, in the meantime, if you have a decent CRT model then would you mind displaying both of these pictures and taking photos for me? Or if anyone else who's reading this has the time, I would really appreciate it.

I use a Euro Sony RGB non-flat TV, quite nice and big enough, but clearly not the best display for high resolution pictures (over 400 horizontal pixels). It's not that they look bad mind you, but higher TV lines sets are better suited for those as I mentioned. And I'm these days in my parent's place. The bigger difference with those samples on a 15kHz TV anyway (with the same physical screen area for both) would be how prominent the dark lines get. The added "blur" due to oversized horizontal resolutions is not something an ordinary photo could capture, or even many eyes notice at first.

[SriK]

Forgive me for this OT question, but isn't Reshade supposed to add latency? Furthermore, what's your experience with CRT shaders and input lag, when coding your own games? Very curious, given the arcade-y premise of Steel Assault!

I'm sure it must add a little bit of latency but I didn't really notice myself, although I'm not extremely sensitive to this stuff. I've played other 2D action games like Gunvolt Chronicles and Kamui using Reshade, without any major problems (I couldn't get the scanlines to align perfectly with the upscaled pixels on Gunvolt, but I got close enough that it looked great in motion anyway). Also, note that I played WG Reloaded on a projector, albeit a model with lower latency than usual (a bit less than 1 frame). So if anything is going to add lag, it's going to be that lol. But I cleared the game, as well as the OG (on RetroArch with the lookahead feature), so it must not have been too bad... although it's not a very hard game.

I haven't ran extensive tests with a slow-motion camera or anything like that, but I can tell you from my basic tests that the additional input lag on Steel Assault is less than 1 frame, with or without filtering. Our CRT filter is pretty simple: it just generates the appropriate scanline pattern for each resolution, overlays it on top of the bilinearly-upscaled image (with the equivalent of Photoshop's Overlay effect), and then does some quick brightness/contrast adjustments. Less than 100 lines of code overall iirc, and it still looks pretty good. There are definitely better options though, especially nowadays, and I will be researching them extensively. I talked to the Bushiden programmer the other day and he said he uses his own heavily-modified version of Timothy Lotte's filter (which comes with RetroArch).

Notice that the quality lose affecting high resolution pictures applies only to low-TV lines displays, namely TV sets or arcade monitors. Highend pro monitors won't have the issue at all, being >500 TV lines. Though these have the "issue" of not displaying very naturally 15kHz videogames. And they're the minority, specially if you count Europe, were RGB TV sets were the norm. Moreover, their screens are usually small, and your game's picture will be even smaller for being 16:9... It's indeed a bit messy, but keep in mind that over 400 horizontal pixels and wide format is an oddity of our days - messy solutions is what I would expect at the very least. The wide screen mode for 4:3 TVs was an afterthought which usually punishes the user with an annoying horizontal line there on the upper limit of the active area - nobody really used it in the end.

Lol let me rephrase: I meant a good 15kHz TV, not a "high-end CRT". I was looking at Trinitron models, ideally one of the FV310, FV300, or FS120 series. You're saying that e.g. PVMs don't display 15kHz games naturally, because most of them have so many TV lines...? I've never owned one (yet?) but the photos I've seen make the quality look awesome on those too.

(Also, d'oh: "kHz" not "Khz".)

With "losing screen space" do you mean that you'd have a physically bigger displayed picture with the former resolution format (on a 4:3 TV)? Then, you'd be altering the aspect ratio, and that's not what you want, right? Both formats should fill the same "screen space", since both respond to 16:9.

If you just mean that you lose visible area and miss that, well, the game's designed for an even larger visible area (the backgrounds were, at least, if my memory serves). It's a gallery shoot'em-up, as well. It all depends on how you design it all from the ground up, doesnt it?

I meant that I lose visible area. But yeah, I can always design around it if I really need to.

If your character is already dotted and you care about onscreen size, then the smaller the screen resolution, the larger it'll be... But yeah, maybe you don't want it that large... lol

The main char and a couple other sprites are "dotted" (although not animated), and so are a couple backgrounds, but I would probably end up redoing the designs a bit anyway if I got some of the illustrators whom I've been contacting lately on board. Almost nothing is completely set in stone at this stage, except the theme and the basic ideas underlying the game's system. But I think it is going to be incredibly cool and novel if I pull it off, which is why I'm so hesitant to spoil the details lol.

I use a Euro Sony RGB non-flat TV, quite nice and big enough, but clearly not the best display for high resolution pictures (over 400 horizontal pixels). It's not that they look bad mind you, but higher TV lines sets are better suited for those as I mentioned. And I'm these days in my parent's place. The bigger difference with those samples on a 15kHz TV anyway (with the same physical screen area for both) would be how prominent the dark lines get. The added "blur" due to oversized horizontal resolutions is not something an ordinary photo could capture, or even many eyes notice at first.

I would love if you could show me what it looks like anyway, even if you can't capture the blur No pressure or anything of course, I'll have my own setup again to test this soon enough.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Lol let me rephrase: I meant a good 15kHz TV, not a "high-end CRT". I was looking at Trinitron models, ideally one of the FV310, FV300, or FS120 series. You're saying that e.g. PVMs don't display 15kHz games naturally, because most of them have so many TV lines...? I've never owned one (yet?) but the photos I've seen make the quality look awesome on those too.

I ain't no expert on professional monitors and many people here should be the ones answering this other than me, but not every PVM model has that high count of TV lines nor is really "highend". Some are built closer to consumer specs (usually the ones with a bigger screen) and are usually the best regarded for 15kHz gaming. Though hey, not everyone thinks like this - many people love the look of clear-cut scan lines and perfectly-defined blank lines...

I would love if you could show me what it looks like anyway, even if you can't capture the blur No pressure or anything of course, I'll have my own setup again to test this soon enough.

I need to get back home first but I'll try to remember by then, mate.