Game Insomnia?

Recap · Post by **Recap** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 6:51 pm

Anyone knows what happened with http://www.gameinsomnia.com/ ? It's webmaster asked me to write an article, I sent it and we spoke via e-mail, but for some reason, he doesn't reply my latter mails. That, and the site being down at the same time makes me wonder.

Randorama · Post by **Randorama** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 10:12 pm

If the webmaster is Icycalm, he said he was moving to France, i remember. Sorry if if this doesn't help.

Recap · Post by **Recap** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 12:47 am

Not sure about his nick name, to be honest.

Edge · Post by **Edge** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 10:55 am

Icycalm (Anthony) closed Gameinsomnia for now.

I am not sure but as far as I remember he wanted to renew the site completely and give it a new purpose. So that the site will go in a different direction.

Last month I visited him in Japan and I guess he now has all hands full moving to France.

Maybe he'll answer a few months later, Recap.

Anyway, what was the article about?

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 12:54 pm

Yeah, it was icycalm. I talked w/ him on the phone last month when I went to Tokyo, but didn't see him. Schedule was too busy. He didn't mention moving to France. O_o

Recap · Post by **Recap** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 5:03 pm

Thanks for letting me know. Weird he didn't tell me.

The article was about the fake low-res display some games use these days and the technicalities involved.

Post by **Dave_K.** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 5:06 pm

Recap wrote:Thanks for letting me know. Weird he didn't tell me.

The article was about the fake low-res display some games use these days and the technicalities involved.

Can you post the article here in the forum? I'm interested in reading it.

Recap · Post by **Recap** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:03 pm

Well, since GI is closed for now, I suppose it won't be a problem. It's HERE due to space issues.

Edge · Post by **Edge** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 12:37 pm

Interesting article, Recap.

I didn't know about that. I was always wondering when seeing the resolution of some Mame games and how those games still where 4:3. Like the old Street Fighters, so they streched the pixels on their original cabinat. And the stretched pixels are the original look.

For me it would be interesting, if you'd write about common deformations through emulators like Mame too.

Recap · Post by **Recap** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 1:04 am

Edge wrote:Interesting article, Recap.

Thank you.

I didn't know about that. I was always wondering when seeing the resolution of some Mame games and how those games still where 4:3. Like the old Street Fighters, so they streched the pixels on their original cabinat. And the stretched pixels are the original look.

Actually, the pixels never were "stretched" since they never were square. They were natively oblong.

For me it would be interesting, if you'd write about common deformations through emulators like Mame too.

What do you mean? How the pixels are deformed using emulators for the every game? Actually, that's not due to the emulators' behaviour, but the video card you use, which, most likely, will be using square pixels. Any game which used natively a non 4:3-proportional resolution, had non-square pixels, so if you display it through a VGA video card which uses square pixels, the picture will be "deformed", that is, the game has a different aspect ratio.

Post by **Dave_K.** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 5:17 am

Recap wrote: Any game which used natively a non 4:3-proportional resolution, had non-square pixels

I'd like to split off a seperate topic on this in the hardward forum, as I'm still puzzled with the CPS2 aspect ratio (which is not 4:3)...so what was the intended display device for this board if it uses oblong pixels?

Here is the split:
http://forum.shmups.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5661

Recap · Post by **Recap** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 11:34 am

Besides the few 2/3-screens games, every arcade game is intended to be played in a 4:3-proportional area. There are some exceptions, thoe - The games which doesn't make use of the whole on-screen resolution (like some NG games) supposedly have to be stretched manually in order to hide small black borders or even graphic thrash.

Post by **Dave_K.** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 11:38 pm

Recap wrote:Besides the few 2/3-screens games, every arcade game is intended to be played in a 4:3-proportional area. .

This doesn't make sense to me the graphics of CPS2 games appear to be created with square pixels, yet the board outputs oblong pixels which appear to be square in something closer to 16:9 aspect.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 11:43 pm

I asked about this in the Hardware forum back when I did the Progear develoepr interview. The oblong pixel was a big obstacle for Cave, as they had never worked with something like this. As Recap stated, it's intended to be displayed in 4:3... it's just that the pixels are a different shape, so you have to paint your pixels accordingly.

Inoue: Well, there's only 16 colors [per tile], and when moving a lot of sprites there's a lot of slowdown. Also, the pixels are non-square (height longer than width), so when you include a normal character drawing it grows vertically. So, supposing your character is going to be stretched you first have to make revisions. The fact that it wasn't just "drawing pictures" was work. It was the first time I had done something like that. And considering that Capcom has been putting out their famous fighting series on this hardware goes to show their technical skills are amazing.

Recap · Post by **Recap** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 11:57 pm

Dave_K. wrote: This doesn't make sense to me the graphics of CPS2 games appear to be created with square pixels,

Why do you say that?

Post by **Dave_K.** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 4:47 am

GaijinPunch wrote:I asked about this in the Hardware forum back when I did the Progear develoepr interview. The oblong pixel was a big obstacle for Cave, as they had never worked with something like this. As Recap stated, it's intended to be displayed in 4:3... it's just that the pixels are a different shape, so you have to paint your pixels accordingly.

Inoue: Well, there's only 16 colors [per tile], and when moving a lot of sprites there's a lot of slowdown. Also, the pixels are non-square (height longer than width), so when you include a normal character drawing it grows vertically. So, supposing your character is going to be stretched you first have to make revisions. The fact that it wasn't just "drawing pictures" was work. It was the first time I had done something like that. And considering that Capcom has been putting out their famous fighting series on this hardware goes to show their technical skills are amazing.

Wow! So Cave actually created Progear graphics with this oblong pixel format in mind? I wonder if other non-Capcom developers knew this.

Recap wrote:
Dave_K. wrote: This doesn't make sense to me the graphics of CPS2 games appear to be created with square pixels,
Why do you say that?

The best example I have it Dimahoo. At 4:3 full screen the "P" power-ups are oval shaped, but when the screen is adjusted to square pixels (16:9 looking) the "P" look perfectly circular. It doesn't look like Raizing created this with the oblong pixel format in mind.

Recap · Post by **Recap** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 12:12 pm

Dave_K. wrote: The best example I have it Dimahoo. At 4:3 full screen the "P" power-ups are oval shaped, but when the screen is adjusted to square pixels (16:9 looking) the "P" look perfectly circular. It doesn't look like Raizing created this with the oblong pixel format in mind.

Never saw that game, but you just can't form your opinion for a single "P" icon, can you? Any CP-S x game gets a correct aspect ratio in 4:3 / 3:4, you only have to see one of the sprites on fighting games. If there's a sprite which looks definately deformed on Great Mahou in 3:4, it may well mean that they starting to conceive the game (and draw some of the graphics) for another hardware with different pixel's shape, although they end using the CP-S II for whatever the reason, which, being a non Capcom-developed game, it wouldn't be too surprising. It doesn't mean that the whole game is designed for a non-3:4 area. As I told you, every arcade game is.

Post by **Dave_K.** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 5:04 pm

Recap wrote:
Dave_K. wrote: The best example I have it Dimahoo. At 4:3 full screen the "P" power-ups are oval shaped, but when the screen is adjusted to square pixels (16:9 looking) the "P" look perfectly circular. It doesn't look like Raizing created this with the oblong pixel format in mind.
Never saw that game, but you just can't form your opinion for a single "P" icon, can you? Any CP-S x game gets a correct aspect ratio in 4:3 / 3:4, you only have to see one of the sprites on fighting games. If there's a sprite which looks definately deformed on Great Mahou in 3:4, it may well mean that they starting to conceive the game (and draw some of the graphics) for another hardware with different pixel's shape, although they end using the CP-S II for whatever the reason, which, being a non Capcom-developed game, it wouldn't be too surprising. It doesn't mean that the whole game is designed for a non-3:4 area. As I told you, every arcade game is.

There are other aspects of Dimaho which seem stretched, the P icon was just the most noticable. I understand if developers started working on this before the target platform was decided, then some parts may be off. But if the developers created all the graphics with square pixels for 4:3 aspect, and then put on CP-II hardware, the result would be non-4:3/3:4 aspect graphics.

You could check Dimahoo out for yourself by running it in mame with hwstretch turned on (for full 4:3) or off (for square pixel) and see which graphics look correct to you. Try also with Progear and you will see what I mean when I say the plane looks short a stubby at full 4:3.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 1:15 am

But if the developers created all the graphics with square pixels for 4:3 aspect, and then put on CP-II hardware, the result would be non-4:3/3:4 aspect graphics.

That was apparently the problem that Cave faced w/ Progear, and I would assume every other 3rd party developer that wasn't expecting oblong pixels. Just a hunch.

Recap · Post by **Recap** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 1:59 am

Dave_K. wrote:
There are other aspects of Dimaho which seem stretched, the P icon was just the most noticable. I understand if developers started working on this before the target platform was decided, then some parts may be off. But if the developers created all the graphics with square pixels for 4:3 aspect, and then put on CP-II hardware, the result would be non-4:3/3:4 aspect graphics.

The point is that we don't know if they really conceived initially the game for another platform, while we DO KNOW that all the arcade games are intended to be played in 4:3 / 3:4 and they used the CP-S II to support their game at the end. Oblong pixels aren't really that rare, and actually there are more old-days systems with them than with square pixels. Any designer knew how to manage it. There you have the SFC.

You could check Dimahoo out for yourself by running it in mame with hwstretch turned on (for full 4:3) or off (for square pixel) and see which graphics look correct to you. Try also with Progear and you will see what I mean when I say the plane looks short a stubby at full 4:3

Sorry, I've seen Progear on direct emu screenshots and the plane looks like crap with that aspect ratio. Maybe you're used to weird aspect ratios for some reason.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 2:42 am

I play the Progear PCB and it fits perfectly on my 4:3 monitor.

Post by **Dave_K.** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 5:09 pm

GaijinPunch wrote:I play the Progear PCB and it fits perfectly on my 4:3 monitor.

Of course I can fit my progear PCB entirely on my 4:3 monitor as well, but with oblong pixels. I'll give this topic a rest since I can't prove certain games were created using square pixels (outside of my subjective opinions already given).