Cave PCB's - Aspect Ratio's

Steve · Post by **Steve** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 7:23 am

Maybe a silly question (I know).

What is the correct aspect ratio for Cave games (PCB) -

I have both PGM and SH3 boards.

I play them on a plasma (rotated to vertical).
The screen allows adjustments of both horizontal and vertical (size and position).

I assume the answer is 3:4 (but SH3 harware seems to display in a wider aspect ratio than this).

Steve

SuperPang · Post by **SuperPang** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 10:10 am

Different hardware has different sizing but they're all designed to be adjusted to full screen 240x320.

Steve · Post by **Steve** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 12:51 pm

Thought so, Thanks.

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:53 pm

And isn't the CPS2 version of Progear No Arashi supposed to properly adjusted to 16:9 widescreen format, otherwise certain sprite elements look out of place? I recall Dave K. asking about what the correct screen aspect ratio for Progear and Dimahoo PCBs were. And what are they?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

I'm Alec · Post by **I'm Alec** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:57 pm

PC Engine Fan X! wrote:And isn't the CPS2 version of Progear No Arashi supposed to properly adjusted to 16:9 widescreen format,

Is there another version of progear? It should be the same as any other CPS2 game. As far as I know, none of them are meant for widescreen as there haven't really been any widescreen cabinets until very recently and CPS2 is relatively old hardware.

Post by **Dave_K.** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 10:11 pm

The oddity with CPS2 games is that they do not have square pixels, so at 4:3 some sprites look squished if the artists did not take this pixel aspect into account. Some of the art in progear (and dimahoo) looks like they assume square pixels....but the game hardware was definitely meant for standard 4:3 aspect.

emphatic · Post by **emphatic** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 11:01 pm

Indeed, CPS2 games look very wide:
http://www.mameworld.net/maws/romset/progearj

So does CPS1 games:
http://www.mameworld.net/maws/romset/3wonders

Doesn't "feel" stretched when I run them from MAME on an LCD monitor. However, when I played Three Wonders on my 20" arcade monitor (4:3) lately, it didn't look at all squished. Haven't played any vertical CPS games (except for MAME) on arcade screens though.

Emph

moozooh · Post by **moozooh** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 11:05 pm

I know it might not be natural from the hardware point of view, but in my opinion, Progear is 100% better when played in native 12:7 aspect ratio. It doesn't just look correct that way, it also feels as if you have more room horizontally (because the bullets and enemies aren't squished anymore).

Frederik · Post by **Frederik** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 1:32 pm

moozooh wrote:I know it might not be natural from the hardware point of view, but in my opinion, Progear is 100% better when played in native 12:7 aspect ratio. It doesn't just look correct that way, it also feels as if you have more room horizontally (because the bullets and enemies aren't squished anymore).

Yeah. These "squished bullets" made me crazy, too. It adds to the slighty awkward feeling this game has.

ResOGlas · Post by **ResOGlas** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 9:55 am

Progear is definitely a widescreen game. Only the character select screen is made for 4:3. Horizontal/vertical bullet and ship speed is negatively affected if you do not adjust your display for widescreen.

Of course CPS2 is made for standard 4:3 arcade monitors, but I believe Cave didn't understand CPS2, and made the game for CPS2's native wide original aspect ratio (which is not 4:3 for some insane reason).

Dimahoo is an off one, if adjust for widescreen items are the correct shape but gameplay is correct at 4:3.

Dimahoo should be played at 4:3
Progear should be played at 16:9

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 4:47 pm

ResOGlas wrote:Progear is definitely a widescreen game. Only the character select screen is made for 4:3. Horizontal/vertical bullet and ship speed is negatively affected if you do not adjust your display for widescreen.

Of course CPS2 is made for standard 4:3 arcade monitors, but I believe Cave didn't understand CPS2, and made the game for CPS2's native wide original aspect ratio (which is not 4:3 for some insane reason).

Dimahoo is an off one, if adjust for widescreen items are the correct shape but gameplay is correct at 4:3.

Dimahoo should be played at 4:3
Progear should be played at 16:9

For ResOGlas,

So you're saying that CPS2 Progear will look at it's best on such a true 16:9 aspect ration widescreen setup compared to the traditional 4:3 CRT monitor based setup?

Makes me wonder why Cave just didn't go with such native 4:3 aspect ratio as with most CPS2-based games with it's Progear game.

Did Cave get snagged up on some aspect ration problems when first developing Progear, hence it's current 16:9 widescreen setup?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

moozooh · Post by **moozooh** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 5:25 pm

It's 12:7, actually. The reason is that CPS2's native resolution is 384x224, which is then stretched to fill a 4:3 screen. Cave's graphic artists likely weren't aware of that when they were drawing sprites for the game, so they made square-pixel images that got stretched vertically.

The stretching is most probably done to conserve resources, since 384x288 (110.5k true pixels) is bound to deliver a greater performance hit compared to stretched 384x224 (86k true pixels).

ED-057 · Post by **ED-057** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 7:23 am

Capcom probably just wanted higher resolution without the added expense of a higher frequency monitor, and thought it would be worth it to bump it up to 384x224 instead of the usual 320x224.

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 10:54 am

CAVE PGM games have a resolution of 448x224.

rtw

hattasken · Post by **hattasken** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 11:40 am

448x224, isn't that quite odd? Sorry if I'm derailing, but what's the resolution on the PS2 ports of DDP:DOJ & ESP?

Steve · Post by **Steve** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 11:47 am

448 x 224 is a 2:1 aspect ration.

a 16:9 screen is only 1.77:1 ?

That dosn't seem right ?

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 12:13 pm

Steve wrote:448 x 224 is a 2:1 aspect ratio
That dosn't seem right ?

It might be incorrect, I found the info in the MAME pgm.c source code.

rtw

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 12:41 pm

The pixels themselves can be oblong. I don't think this is the case though, or we would've heard bitching, I'm sure.

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 3:22 pm

I fired up DDP2 in MAME.

If I make a screenshot using F12 I get an image of: 448x224

If I minimize the window and make a snapshot of the playing field I get: 320x224

rtw

emphatic · Post by **emphatic** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 3:56 pm

rtw: Doesn't that depend on your MAME command line? Is MAME set to output the games native resolution?

Emph

moozooh · Post by **moozooh** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 4:07 pm

MAME forces a proper aspect ratio (4:3 in most cases) by default, IIRC.

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 6:43 am

I asked someone a bit more knowledgeable than me

---
The deal is that the monitor stretches it to fill 4:3, so yes the pixels end up taller than they are wide in modes like that. MAME normally dumps the exact pixels, so when you view it on your PC (which usually has square pixels) it'll appear distorted.
---

There is also a difference between aspect ratio and pixel ratio. The PGM games have an aspect ratio of 4:3 and a pixel ratio of 2:1.

rtw