/vr/ - Retro Games

CRTs didn't display pixels. They didn't render them, they blended them and drew the graphics.

>>8364602
I use a actual CRT at native resolution for emulation

square pixels, 4:3 looks retarded more often than it helps

>>8364602
The intended look is 4:3
>muh perfect circles
The intended look is ovals

>>8364602
>use "nearest neighbor"
>guy living next door comes to your house to play bubble bobble with you

>>8364602
>Brainlet tier
4:3
>Average tier
8:7
>Genius tier
26:21

This is indisputable

>>8364687
>16:9

>>8364702
3:2

>>8364602
4:3 with light interpolation. Literally no reason to use pixel perfect aside from seeing how developers took 4:3 into account.

>>8364602
Real CRT user so i don't ever have to worry about this stupid zoomer stuff.

>>8364602
Either. I always use the way it was originally intended to be displayed.

>>8364610
I'm really hoping this is a false flag LCDfag pretending to be retarded, but the sad fact is many CRTfags are really this retarded. Zommers gonna zoom.

>>8364813
Shut the fuck up.

Capcom arcade games were specifically designed with 4:3 in mind. They even drew their sprite lineart on graph paper with rectangular cels.

>>8364602
Pixel perfect, I hate when proportions are not respected.

>>8364876
4:3 us proper proportions. They were designed for standard 4:3 displays

we need to switch to hexagons

Neither. CRTs didn't truly display at 4:3 because of the bezels and overscan. The correct aspect ratio is actually 64:49, which is about 1411x1080 on a 1080p display (4:3 is 1440x1080). Emulators like bsnes, genesis gx plus and duckstation all default to 64:49 instead of 4:3.

>>8365046
Bruh, nobody ever forced you to move the edges of the displayed image all the way to the edges of the physical screen.
That's a good thing with emulation these days, you can set a arbitrary resolution that matches the screen and then use integer scaling with aspect ratio correction and you'll have the right aspect ratio on a CRT for any specific console or the resolution the game uses, just with miniscule black bars.

>>8365052
Stretching to the edge of the screen isn't really an issue nowadays since emulators and frontends already have good interpolation options for preventing aliasing. Integer scaling is nice but you really need a 4k monitor to get the most out of it. Either way, it doesn't change the fact that 4:3 isn't the correct aspect ratio for TV displays at the time. It's a close approximation, but still a little too wide.

>you'll have the right aspect ratio on a CRT
This discussion is purely about emulation on a flatpanel display. If you have a CRT, you should just render it in 1:1 PAR and adjust the display yourself. No need to worry about 64:49 AR.

>>8365074
>Stretching to the edge of the screen isn't really an issue nowadays since emulators and frontends already have good interpolation options for preventing aliasing. Integer
What I just said.

>Integer scaling is nice but you really need a 4k monitor to get the most out of it.
No, it's also used for example to fit 512x240 to a resolution of 640x240 without scaling, it just forces 1:1. Just a quirk of RetroArch.


>Either way, it doesn't change the fact that 4:3 isn't the correct aspect ratio for TV displays at the time. It's a close approximation, but still a little too wide.
Hence why you can set a arbitrary resolution that matches your physical screen and let the emulator fix the aspect ratio depending on that.

>This discussion is purely about emulation on a flatpanel display. If you have a CRT, you should just render it in 1:1 PAR and adjust the display yourself. No need to worry about 64:49 AR.
Won't help if you're using a incorent resolution for your CRT or wrong scaling options, 1:1 PAR doesn't mean it will physically know the dimensions of your screen. Same applies that I just explained above.
You do realize you could even display 1920x1800 on a 5:4 CRT with correct aspect ratio? Hence why you need to fix your physical picture size and resolution yourself manually before you let the emulator deal with fixing the specific console or game for your screen with proper scaling.

>>8364687
why 26:21? why not like 11:9 or something?

>>8364602
The eyes in 4:3 are different sizes which looks derpy. Some games might've accounted for the stretching but it seems like most didn't so you're better off with pixel perfect.

>>8364813
You’re the zoomer. He’s right.

>>8364705
1:1

>>8365257
>why 26:21? why not like 11:9 or something?
4:3=28:21
8:7=24:21
26:21 is the genius midway point, enjoyed by true connoisseurs of retro video games.

>>8365603
Sounds like the worst of both worlds. Just play on 64:49 like pic related>>8365046

The best pixel aspect ratio will depend on a game by game basis. Some devs accounted for rectangular pixels and some didn't.

>>8364602
With a CRT you can have both.

>>8364817
>>8365576
>angry zoomer is angry

>revolver cylinder is only a perfect circle when using square pixels
>NES game that came out in 1991

For every example of something in a game designed for CRT stretching, you can find a counter-example. And in this case this thing is part of the hud, with only black space around it, so they could very easily have done something about it, unlike level background tiles which are a lot harder to work with if you want to make perfect circles.

There is a reason why the Game Boy, released in 1989, has square pixels. But some CRTfags claim square pixels didn't even exist until flat TV/computer screens came along.

Whether you like square or rectangles is down to preference, I don't care either way, just stop pretending your preference is "objectively a fact"

>>8366617
>There is a reason why the Game Boy, released in 1989, has square pixels.
Because they were stealing the idea from MB, who did it 10 years earlier?

>>8364602
>I hate non square pixels
How many retro consoles even have actual square pixels at 4:3 anyways? I can't think of a single one.

>>8366658
Genesis and 5th gen consoles I think?

>>8365046
can't tell difference between middle and right hmmm

>>8365046
The one on the right is only slightly wider than 4:3, and 4:3 comes closer to being perfectly circular than the one on the right. Those ARs are negligible.

>>8364602
Square Pixels. It looked weird to me because i was used to CRT, but it made more and more sense the more i looked into it.
>>8364675
I used to think the same, but it's just the devs didn't care to adjust it to look correctly on CRTs, besides big things like the Chrono Trigger moon or the MK logo. There's no way they intended to have the Morph Ball be an egg or to have characters with one eye bigger than the other for no reason. They either just couldn't be bothered or didn't think people would notice it.

>>8366740
I appreciate the attempt but your drawing looks off. Either way, the one on the right isn't wider than 4:3, it's more narrow. Negligibility doesn't really matter either, it doesn't change the fact that 64:49 is more accurate if you're emulating. Like I said in my post, most emulators already default to this AR, so the discussion is mostly semantics.

>>8366943
What values would 64:49 be?

>>8366943
>your drawing looks off
1:1 locked scaling with circle shapes + snap to the blue lines done in photoshop. There's no hand drawing here, son. It's as perfect as a circle gets. If there's any deviation, it's on your screenshot.

>>8366954
I mean no offense, but I can very clearly see the deviation on your image. Even your attempt to outline the 1:1 PAR looks off. It's mathematical impossible for 64:49 AR to be WIDER than 4:3 AR. Use an online aspect ratio calculator if you find the concept confusing. Match the vertical resolutions and you'll notice that 4:3 has a higher horizontal resolution. (1411x1080 vs. 1440x1080)

>>8366950
What do you mean? Their resolutions on a modern flat panel display? It would be:

1411x1080
1881x1440
2821x2160

>>8366762
This

>>8364970
That's not true, almost the entire library of retro games doesn't take in account the 4:3 crt ratio, let's take the games Nintendo made for the Snes as an example, how many of them are not stretched ?
And if they really cared about proportions to begin with, they would have also cared about the speed on pal games and made them more suited to the 50hz tv.

>>8366975
I told you no. The image shows the 256*8/7 picture with a 1:1 circle, a 4:3 circle for the 4:3 image (not shown) and the 8/7. You're arguing with graphics editing software, and you can try it yourself if you find the concept confusing. By the way, I'm pretty sure the picture you posted was originally part of a collage where it was labeled as a "compromise" AR rather than "correct".
https://streamable.com/liyi3d

>>8367102
Ok that makes more sense. I was confused about how the circles were labeled. I thought 1:1 was referring to 1:1 PAR and 8:7 was 8:7 PAR. My bad.

>originally part of a collage where it was labeled as a "compromise" AR
No, I got it from a random forum post on the internet years ago. Initially I wasn't sure what the poster was referring to, until I calculated the aspect ratio myself and realized that it was the default NTSC AR that emulators use. There are plenty of people (especially on a lot of older retro forums like NES dev blogs) that agree that (8/7)^2 is the actual aspect ratio of a CRT. Hence why the NTSC setting on emulators default to it.

I couldn't see any consensus on why the general public believes 4:3 is the correct AR of that era. But it mostly seems to be a marketing term that is the closest approximation of 64:49. There's also the fact that movies fit their film aspect ratio on an anamorphic AR of 4:3, which leads to more confusion.

>>8367157
>My bad.
Son of a bitch, you were supposed to argue with me. But really, CT was mostly designed for 4:3 (as exemplified by the Moon looking like an egg at 1:1), except for some elements here and there like the character portraits. It's the first party Nintendo titles that weren't designed for 4:3. I can't find that collage anymore so here's some SFII instead.
https://wiki.nesdev.org/w/index.php/Overscan

>>8367186
For Chrono Trigger it's the reverse, actually. The Moon is like the only thing were they bothered to adjust for 4:3. Big things like that is all devs adjusted for in general. The MK logo, the Planet in Metroid...

>>8367186
>Son of a bitch, you were supposed to argue with me.
I'll gladly keep arguing with you if you want anon. I just conceded that I misunderstood your image.
>But really, CT was mostly designed for 4:3 (as exemplified by the Moon looking like an egg at 1:1), except for some elements here and there like the character portraits. It's the first party Nintendo titles that weren't designed for 4:3.
But I don't really care about the discussion of square pixels vs. stretching them like OP. I already understand that some games were designed around it, some weren't. The entire point of my argument was that stretching your games to 4:3 on emulator is incorrect since it doesn't account for overscan and borders in the DAR. I've already read that NES dev article extensively before and there's a part where it talks about exactly what I'm referring to.
>Or when enlarging 4.5x to fit a 1080p screen, output 256*(1080/240)*(8/7) = 1316 pixels. Then you can emulate the overscan by drawing a TV bezel on top of the edges of the emulated picture.
And since emulators crop the overscan and borders, you end up with 64:49 AR, not 4:3.

Here's another blog post from nesdev that goes a bit more into it.
https://archive.nes.science/nesdev-forums/f5/t15879.xhtml

>But people remember the display with the overscan chopped off. Emulators tend to approximate the visible image as 256x224 or 320x224 pixels, which is 64:49 DAR, and 64:49 is close to the nominal 4:3, just as "2.35:1" is close to the actual ratio of scope, which is 2.39:1 on film or 2.40:1 on Blu-ray. And when upscaling for HDTV, you usually want to display it as if the overscan were also upscaled, as HDTV programming on broadcast and cable is generally formatted with overscan to accommodate early-adopter CRT HDTVs. This means upscale the entire 280x240 or 350x240 pixels to 960x720 or 1440x1080.

>>8367186
>>8367246
Oh also as an addendum, I reverse searched the Chrono Trigger collage and came up with this video. It wasn't where I got the image from, so I'm not sure if its the source. But in the beginning of the video he just reiterates what I've already been talking about ITT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2owtAwcysQI

>>8364602
non-square pixels drive me insane. it's probably what i'm most autistic about when it comes to picture quality.

>>8366658
even so, the compressed video output combined with the "blurry" picture of CRT displays made this significantly less noticable than say on an LCD.

>>8367756
Why? If you were a sperg, wouldn't you care more about authenticity?

>>8364602
Either option Bub is cute :3