Steam Deathsmiles Scaling Settings?

[notsonic]

I apologize if this is answered somewhere, I've tried searching and didn't find anything.

I've noticed (it's hard not to tbh) that the steam version of Deathsmiles seems to have uneven horizontal and vertical pixel scaling at the default 100% setting. I've gone through every setting from 50 to 150 and I swear it's impossible to find perfect scaling.

114% horizontal seems to be the closest, but you still end up with 3 columns that are uneven. I haven't really bothered to find the best for vertical.

Has anyone found the perfect settings for either the higher res or original arcade modes?

Also I'm running the game at 1280x720 which I believe is the native resolution it expects to run at. The uneven scaling is not a result of the game resolution or monitor, as far as I can tell, especially since it's present in windowed and fullscreen.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

114% is what I play at and I think it looks fine. It's possibly what you're seeing at 100% is something that's not due to a scaling issue, but rather simply how the game displays on a 4:3 aspect monitor (the original type of screen it's played on). If the game uses non-square pixels similar to CPS-2 hardware (I can't remember but I think it's the case for Espgaluda), that could account for what you're seeing, and it's something that's actually totally normal.

[notsonic]

If the game was not square pixels then the assets would look off (circles being not circles) but that doesn't mean it can't be displayed with evenly sized pixels. I'm also fairly certain CV1000 uses square pixels. This isn't relevant to the issue. I think the port is just imperfect.

[JBueno MD]

Perhaps this won’t be of help to you if you are playing on LCD/OLED, but I use 150% Zoom when playing on a VGA monitor, forcing 320x240p@120 Hz Windows Desktop resolution (via nVidia control panel) and toggling 4:3 mode on the General Menu in Game. Looks amazing and pretty damn close to the PCB on a proper 15 kHz monitor. I also play Mushihimesama and Daifukkatsu like this.

Sorry for the crappy pic, a bit hard to have a decent pic while the CRT is refreshing at 120 Hz.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I think the port is just imperfect.

Have you played the game on the PCB before?

The port has some inconsistencies with slowdown compared to the PCB but in terms of graphics I've never heard anyone complain about issues with any of the XB360 / PC era ports.

[notsonic]

I tried with 640x480 and at 114% there's still the same 2 columns of uneven pixels.

I also tried Deathsmiles in mame and it looks fine, but that's a different version. The original arcade version in the steam version at 150% is fine too.

I think the "hd" versions are maybe just bad.

[notsonic]

Here's a quick clip of the problem. There's a vertical line at about 1/3rd and 2/3rds the width of the screen at all times, presumably from improper scaling. It's most obvious around 0:27 when the ground starts to come up higher, but you can see it on the tree trunks in the background at the beginning too. Also it seems to be independent of desktop/game resolution as it's exactly the same 2 columns at 114% at 640x480, 1280x720, 1920x1080, and 2560x1440.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS4UN4IWuKM

[albertredneck]

Resurrecting this for the greater good, as the Xbox 360 port and both PC ports (the Cave one and the City Connection one) share this same problem, at native window size. The Xbox 360 port running at 480p seems to fit the full screen at 116-117% instead of 114%, which is interesting.

Same happens in all the ports, keeping X and Y zoom at the same ratio (the game is perfect 4:3 in theory) you get 2 doubled pixels at 1 third and 2 thirds of the screen at best, as the video from the previous comment shows.

There should be a zoom + X zoom + Y zoom combination that produces a perfect image, although probably with overscan (this is only a problem with the 480p resolution in the 360).

Did anyone get deeper than this?

[jandrogo]

Once you see it, you can’t stop looking at it…