/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.5314813]

The aspect ratio question FINALLY answered. 8:7 is the way Nintendo intended all along.

[Anonymous No.5314828]

>>5314813
>1:1
what the fuck?

[Anonymous No.5314843]

Never realized how weird sideways Mario looked.

[Anonymous No.5314851]

>>5314813
i like how the wedge has a smiley face on it

[Anonymous No.5314890]

Chubby Mario is cute.

[Anonymous No.5314927]

>>5314851
Its a boot.

[Anonymous No.5314930]

>>5314813
The aspect ratio "question" was never a question. It was always 8:7 PAR. It's simple math.

[Anonymous No.5314950]

>>5314927
No, it's watermelon

[Anonymous No.5314973]

>1:1

[Anonymous No.5315001]

>>5314843
diagonal mario looks even more weird

[Anonymous No.5315437]

>>5314813
He's shorter on the vertical run sprite because stacking sprites horizontally is more problematic because of limits per scanline dumbass

[Anonymous No.5315470]

[Anonymous No.5315482]

>>5314813
I mean there's no real consistency between different games or even within the same games. That's why the consensus is that it doesn't really matter. Look at stuff like super metroid, that game is a fucking mess of assets in regards to PAR consistency. So is SMW. So is Yoshi's Island. It just doesn't matter

[Anonymous No.5315540]

>>5314813
I legitimally thought this was loss lol

[Anonymous No.5315602]

>>5314843
Same here, first time noticing this. Neat.

[Anonymous No.5315606]

>>5314813
This is only a problem or a "question" if you're an emulation baby. Use real hardware and a CRT and you will see the true answer to the emubaby autist question is USE A FUCKING CRT FOR A CONSOLE DESIGNED FOR CRTS.

[Anonymous No.5315641]

>>5315606
>console designed for CRT
But no one ever used a CRT designed for consoles.
This is because CRTs had forward compatibility with consoles and were not designed to be ruined by consoles.
CRTs are precious commodities and should not be further corroded by inferior consoles.

[Anonymous No.5315646]

>b b b but pixels are perfect squares, you should not stretch them

[Anonymous No.5315648]

>>5315641

[Anonymous No.5316468]

>>5314813
No it's not. if it was, they would have hard coded borders into the display.

[Anonymous No.5316473]

>>5315470
Skinny vs chad

[Anonymous No.5316478]

>>5316468
No, there are plenty of situations where systems used overscan and an irregular aspect ratio to give us square pixels and accurately shaped sprites.

[Anonymous No.5316479]

Who cares, on an actual CRT it looks like neither, you emufags.
But this thread is based because it made me realize they changed the Mario sprite when he runs upwards. I always thought it was just the same sprite rotated.

[Anonymous No.5316485]

>>5316468
They did. The PPU outputs 280 pixels per line and 240 lines. The left and right 12 pixels and the top and bottom 8 lines are filled with black, leaving a 256x224 picture in a 280x240 frame. When displayed on a 4:3 TV, that results in a PAR of exactly 8:7.

[Anonymous No.5316493]

>>5316485
You da real MVP, providing factual evidence. Too bad OP is a giant faggot and couldn't understand... oh also this thread is pic related.

[Anonymous No.5316779]

>>5314930
Where did you get that from?
Every TV probably displayed it differently.

[Anonymous No.5316813]

>>5316779
See >>5316485
Yes, TVs with poor calibration might have displayed it differently, but the correct aspect ratio was never in question. Despite what some people seem to think, there were well-defined standards for NTSC TV calibration, regardless of whether or not manufacturers actually bothered to follow them.

[Anonymous No.5316841]

>>5314813
It is absolutely officially 4:3. Automagically stretched by the CRT from a pixel aspect ratio of 8:7.

SOMETIMES developers and artists fucked up and things were implemented in games that did not properly account for the CRT stretch factor. These are MISTAKES and do not actually reflect the aspect ratio of the games.

But go ahead and shitpost about this or another 200 posts and 3000 threads over the next 20 years like you all didn't already know this to begin with.

[Anonymous No.5316865]

What was the aspect ratio of the PSX?

[Anonymous No.5316869]

>>5316485
>The left and right 12 pixels and the top and bottom 8 lines are filled with black, leaving a 256x224 picture in a 280x240 frame
Which are stretched off of the screen of the CRT by the people who calibrated it at the factory and the bezel of the CRT. SDTV is 720x480 but is actually 704x480 active pixels. This black space is not mean to be seen. There's no pillarboxing going on.

[Anonymous No.5316870]

>>5316841
You're confusing pixel aspect ratio (PAR) with display aspect ratio (DAR). Common mistake for people who don't understand how analog video works. What 8:7 PAR means is that each individual pixel has an aspect ratio of 8:7; this has nothing to do with the active area's 256x224 pixel count which happens to also be an 8:7 ratio.

The aspect ratio of the active area as displayed on a 4:3 CRT would be 256/224*8/7 = 64:49.

[Anonymous No.5316884]

>>5316865
320x240 4:3 with vertical black bars on the sides that's supposed to be covered by overscan.
Funny you've mentioned that, most fighting games outputted a squishy 512x248 resolution yet nobody argues that's the intended aspect ratio to play those games. Except for Tobal which was full 480i.

[Anonymous No.5316886]

>>5316869
The overscan area is not normally seen on consumer TVs, but if the TV is calibrated to the Rec. 601 standard of 52.148 microseconds per active scanline period, the PAR will indeed be 8:7.

[Anonymous No.5316887]

>>5316884
*cropped by overscan
Fixed

[Anonymous No.5316912]

>>5316865
The PSX has several different display modes. In 256-pixel mode the PAR is the same as the SNES, 8:7. In 320-pixel mode, the PAR is 32:35, same as the Sega Genesis. 366-pixel mode has a PAR of 4:5. 512-pixel mode has double the pixel clock of 256-pixel mode, so the PAR is 4:7. Similarly, the 640-pixel mode is double the clock rate of 320-pixel mode, so 16:35 PAR.

[Anonymous No.5317042]

>>5316870
see
>>5316869
and this post
>>5316886
is bullshit because it's confusing overscan aspect ratio with video timing. The tech is supposed to display a test pattern and compensate for difference between visible aspect ratio and video timing (or modeline or whatever you want to call it these days).

This is all madness. NTSC visible aspect ratio (what you are intended to actually see) is 4:3. Whether it's a TV show, movie, video game, or computer program being shown it's always 4:3. There were various avenues to reach this end depending on the technology but it is always 4:3. Anything else is in error.

[Anonymous No.5317067]

>>5316870
64 / 49 = 1.306
4 : 3 = 1.333

If you had two images that were the same height this would mean the 4:3 image would be 2% wider. Well within the range of visual tolerance and while yes it is technically not 4:3 by the strictest standard, calling it 4:3 by casual reference is fine for everyone who isn't actually developing for the system / setting up pixel perfect emulation / doesn't have crippling autism.

[Anonymous No.5317069]

>>5316870
You're being obtuse on purpose to flex your "knowledge" when that poster had already mentioned the difference between DAR and PAR.

[Anonymous No.5317119]

>>5317042
Overscan aspect ratio is directly correlated with video timing. A TV calibrated with a standard test pattern will display SNES games with an 8:7 PAR. Anything else is, to use your words, "in error".

>>5317069
Well, the difference he mentioned was wrong (the PAR isn't "stretched from 8:7"), so clearly he doesn't really understand the concept of PAR.

[Anonymous No.5317141]

>>5317119
>Well, the difference he mentioned was wrong (the PAR isn't "stretched from 8:7"), so clearly he doesn't really understand the concept of PAR.
You have poor reading comprehension
> Automagically stretched by the CRT from a pixel aspect ratio of 8:7.
The DAR is stretch -from- the PAR.

If you can't even read posts properly then why should we even regard anything you post?

[Anonymous No.5317164]

>>5317141
There's no "stretching" going on. Learn how analog video works.

[Anonymous No.5317189]

>>5317119
>A TV calibrated with a standard test pattern will display SNES games with an 8:7 PAR.
Have you ever actually calibrated a CRT with the right tools and then displayed video on it with the bezel removed? There are very slim black bars on the sides (that are usually covered up by the bezel) because of the slight difference in video timing (as referenced earlier in the thread). The pixel aspect ratio of SNES games being 8:7 is the visible pixel area when the pixels are mapped to a 1:1 ratio of height and width independent of the effects of proper NTSC 4:3 CRT calibration. And it doesn't take into account horizontal blanking or black space. It's not something you are ever supposed to see. It's something people have latched no to because emulators can output it easily and it "looks right" at first glance (especially on LCD monitors) but it isn't.

The biggest mistake I see people make these days with aspect ratio is they take this 8:7 PAR image and they display it on a CRT like a PC monitor or something like an arcade monitor and then they use the monitor's horizontal controls to stretch that image out to the where it reaches the bezel. That is not correct. That will not take the small difference between NTSC standard and the console in question, whatever it may be, into account. Nor will it account for whatever your settings might be if you are using an emulator. You may have to go in and either check or uncheck a box that will enable or disable pixels which are normally cropped from the image. This is more common with the NES where you can enable the extra 16 lines of video from 224 to 240. But if you do this and then just stretch the image to the bezel using monitor controls you'll end up with a wrong looking image.

[Anonymous No.5317194]

>>5317189
>and then displayed video on it with the bezel removed?
Should have specified SNES video. NTSC 4:3 standard video will reach the edge of the glass (if you're doing it right, a lot of CRT manufacturers overshot the mark on purpose because it slightly improves corner focus and geometry.)

[Anonymous No.5317217]

>>5317164
Learn how digital to analog video conversion works and I'll actually respond to any more of your idiotic posts.

>>5317189
/thread

[Anonymous No.5317221]

>>5315470
Fujoshitbait special needs gundam protagonist *is* supposed to look like an anexoric, that doesn't help the 4:3 camp.

[Anonymous No.5317335]

>>5317189
I've calibrated quite a few CRTs, yes. I think we're actually arguing the same thing, but getting hung up on terminology. To clarify, PAR is the ratio of width to height of each pixel, so a 1:1 PAR would mean perfectly square pixels. The SNES does not output square pixels. I think we're in agreement here.

For the SNES, and NES for that matter, there are 341 pixel clocks per line (sort of... it's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the number we need to be concerned with). Of those, 280 fall within the active scanline length defined by Rec. 601, with syncing and blanking intervals making up the rest. Ignoring the bezels for a second, those 280 pixel clocks are what will be "displayed" on the CRT, but the area that actually contains graphics is a bit smaller than that at 256 pixels in width. That's where the slim black bars you're talking about are coming from. Like you said, most if not all of that will be covered by the bezels, so you won't normally see it on a consumer CRT.

The SNES and NES have the same PAR of 8:7 even though NES games typically display all 240 lines, so the width of the picture is the same but the height is not. So yes, if you try to adjust the display such that the graphics fill the 4:3 visible area perfectly, you'll end up with an image that's too wide.

Hopefully that clears up any confusion.

[Anonymous No.5317503]

>>5317335
and the end result is a visible image that is not 8:7, but instead something like 64:49?

[Anonymous No.5317549]

>>5317503
Depends on what you mean by "visible" since some of the image will likely be hidden by overscan, but yes, that's the aspect ratio of the area of the SNES' output that contains graphics.

[Anonymous No.5317554]

>>5317335
>The SNES does not output square pixels.
What the fuck am I reading

[Anonymous No.5317842]

>>5317549
So OP is wrong?

[Anonymous No.5317882]

>>5317842
depends on the dev (there are examples of both), but ultimately it's up to the consumer

[Anonymous No.5317886]

>>5317842
OP is right, though a bit ambiguous. The ratios given in the image are PAR, and it's correct to say that SNES graphics should not have a PAR of 1:1 (square pixels), but rather 8:7 (pixels slightly wider than they are tall).

For a practical example, let's say you want to emulate SNES games at a 4x scale with the overscan area cropped out. The correct resolution of the emulator window on your modern square-pixel HD monitor should then be 256*8/7*4 = ~1170 pixels wide by 224*4 = 896 pixels tall. Higan gets this right. Snes9x doesn't unless you manually set its "Stretch:AspectRatioBaseWidth" setting to 293, though the default of 299 isn't too far off.

[Anonymous No.5317890]

>>5317554
To be most pedantic the SNES doesn't output pixels at all.

[Anonymous No.5317893]

>>5317886
OP never said PAR, he just said "8:7 is the way Nintendo intended all along." which is bullshit. Nintendo didn't know what the fuck it intended because Nintendo isn't one person and different devs did different things as you know.

But at the end of the day what got to the TV is 4:3 (okay 64:49) and that is official as you are ever going to get, warts and all.

[Anonymous No.5317895]

>boomer image file size: 1k
>zoomer image file size: 56k

[Anonymous No.5317896]

OP is wrong, it depends on the game and visual preference of the user. I prefer the 1:1 look

[Anonymous No.5317897]

>>5317890
I wouldn't really say that. It's just that the pixel is a bit more of an abstract concept when it comes to analog video. A pixel is a set of voltages which are (basically) constant over a small slice of time as determined by the pixel clock. But that really is getting pedantic.

>>5317893
I can agree with that.

[Anonymous No.5317905]

>>5317897
the pixels of the snes output are convolved with the shadowmask of the crt, to be mathematically exact

[Anonymous No.5318246]

Can someone explain to me how to do turtle tip in Super Mario Bros.? I can't pull it off.
Do I just jump on the koopa once or do I have to press jump every time I touch koopa?

[Anonymous No.5318252]

>>5318246
It usually works on that staircase in world 3, on that on step. Just keep trying it, and it's random if Mario is going to keep scoring and stop and keep scoring or dud out. Just spend some time on it. It's easy.

[Anonymous No.5318260]

>>5318252
Yes, I remember which level but do I jump once or every time I touch koopa?

[Anonymous No.5318262]

>>5314813
noob here, why does sideways mario look weird? Diagonal makes sense, but why can't sideways one be 1:1 with the regular mario?

[Anonymous No.5318487]

>>5314813
Do you have a single fact to back that up? The proper aspect ratio is whatever the TV displays it at, like how all old Capcom games are actually widescreen but not meant to be displayed that way, it was just an easy way to get more pixels on the CRT arcade monitor of the day.

[Anonymous No.5318692]

>>5318262
Because the pixels aren't square.

[Anonymous No.5318718]

>>5318262
IIRC the pixels that the sprites are composed of are not perfect squares, they're rectangular, or at least that was the case on NES

[Anonymous No.5319073]

>>5318262
Because the devs took PAR into account when drawing the graphics. Kind of surprising they'd bother with something so minor but neat.

[Anonymous No.5319225]

>>5314813
This image is misleading. It doesn't specify whether it is talking about aspect ratio or pixel ratio, and that makes a difference.

When you display SNES games on a LCD monitor with a 1:1 pixel ratio the image will have a 8:7 ratio. That's the top image.

When you stretch the image so that the *pixels* of the game (not the monitor) have a ratio of 8:7 you get the bottom image.

The image should have been labeled 8:7 aspect ratio at the top and 4:3 aspect ratio at the bottom.

[Anonymous No.5319273]

Agreed, Super Mario Advance was not meant to be played on the Game Boy Advance's screen resolution.

[Anonymous No.5319278]

>>5314927
>>5314950
It's clearly a smile.

[Anonymous No.5319327]

A certain YouTuber I watched made a video about this, and most games were made in 8:7 but stretched to 4:3. Some games were made for 4:3, so its either pixel perfect or original. THAT IS YOUR ANSWER, STOP BRINGING UP THIS STUPID ARGUMENT IF WE KNOW THE ANSWER ALREADY.

[Anonymous No.5319382]

>>5319225
I think using ratios makes it more confusing than it needs to be. Using the pixel width x height (in mm or um) along with the aspect width x height (in pixels) would give a much clearer picture and make it more reproducible.

[Anonymous No.5319416]

>>5315470
What's with the line in the hair of the 4:3 picture?

[Anonymous No.5319419]

>>5314813
Why couldn't Nintendo just make a better machine and go with 320x224 across the board and spare us all this bullshit?

Sega as always doing things right.

[Anonymous No.5319429]

>snes games were intended to be played on displays that did not exist
>this is somehow more likely than developers just fucking up

[Anonymous No.5319434]

>>5319419
Because a higher resolution would've required more expensive hardware.

[Anonymous No.5319441]

>>5319419
The Genesis didn't have square pixels either, it was 32:35 PAR in 320-pixel mode meaning the pixels are narrower than they are tall.

[Anonymous No.5319449]

>>5319441
Genesis did have square pixels what the shit are you talking about?
You would have small borders on top and bottom on Sonic 1 for example. 8 pixels from the top and 8 pixels from the bottom were cut.
Basically it's just 320x224 inside a 320x240 frame.

[Anonymous No.5319452]

>>5319434
If they had blast processing they could have done it.

[Anonymous No.5319492]

>>5319429
Sorry bub, this is /vr/, the home of developer intentions. It's not possible for a developer to produce a game that isn't fully intended to be compatible with whatever the argument is.

[Anonymous No.5319493]

>>5319449
It has borders on the left and right as well. The PAR is intentionally similar to MPEG's Source Input Format, which uses 10:11 PAR.

It's closer to square than the SNES is, and close enough that many artists didn't bother correcting for the aspect ratio, but to say it had square pixels is simply not correct.

[Anonymous No.5319514]

http://retro-sanctuary.com/comparisons%20-%20earthworm%20jim.html

[Anonymous No.5319519]

>>5319434
nod really

[Anonymous No.5319521]

>>5319493
>It has borders on the left and right as well
Indeed. And the Neo Geo has this as well.
Years ago this caused me no end of annoyance trying to get my games set up right in native res.

[Anonymous No.5321503]

[Anonymous No.5321508]

[Anonymous No.5321760]

>>5317067
That's because the visible area of TV screen was not *exactly* 4:3. Similarly, 256x224 pixels is not exactly what fits in the visible area of TV screen. It depends on TV, some showed a few lines of overscan on top or bottom, or some pixels on left or right side that are part of borders.

There is only one scientific way to determine active display aspect ratio:
DAR = W x SCLK / PCLK / H
where:
W = the number of active pixels
SCLK = dot clock required for PC square pixels (14,75 Mhz)
PCLK = PPU dot clock
H = number of active lines (×2 if non interlaced)

[Anonymous No.5321869]

>>5321760
>SCLK = dot clock required for PC square pixels (14,75 Mhz)
Where did you get that number? On an NTSC display calibrated based on Rec. 601, the dot clock required for square pixels in 240p should be (27/2)*(10/11)/2 = 135/22 or 6.14 MHz.

Otherwise, the formula works, since your SCLK/PCLK is equivalent to the PAR. For SNES, the dot clock is 945/176 MHz, so:
DAR = 256*(135/22)/(945/176)/224 = 1.306

[Anonymous No.5321991]

>>5314813
>what is overscan

[Anonymous No.5322176]

>>5321503
American female.
>>5321508
Glorious nipponese female folded over 1000 times.

[Anonymous No.5322212]

>>5314813
Wait, so the sideways Mario isn't just the system rotating the sprite 90 degrees? The SNES can't do that?

[Anonymous No.5322329]

The true intended aspect of Mario FINALLY revealed by smw cover art analysis, all your questions answered.

[Anonymous No.5322375]

>>5322212
nope. object graphics (snes word for sprites) can only flip tiles horizontally and vertically by hardware. rotation is not available. one could rotate in software, but this wasn't done here.

[Anonymous No.5322585]

>>5322329
TIL Mario is from Australia.

[Anonymous No.5322593]

>>5314843
Never realized how weird your face looks sideways

[Anonymous No.5322594]

>>5314973
>not 20004/20004

[Anonymous No.5322630]

>>5314851
so that dumb children playing the game will recognize that it's not an enemy, since the player needs to run into it.

[Anonymous No.5322691]

>>5322593
Here's your (Vernon)

[Anonymous No.5322721]

>>5314828
Are you retarded?

[Anonymous No.5322728]

>>5322721
Yeah:)

[Anonymous No.5322895]

>>5321869
Yes, my mistake, I was thinking 14.75 Mhz for PAL standard square pixels. SCLK would indeed be 12+3/11 MHz for NTSC standard square pixels.

DAR is different when a 50hz video signal is output because there are more lines per frame and the spacing between active lines is shorter on TV, thus compressing display height and increasing DAR.

[Anonymous No.5322913]

>>5322691
Thanks. I was scared stupid I wouldn't get a (Vernon)

[Anonymous No.5323014]

Who cares? Death Of The Author.

[Anonymous No.5323787]

>>5317189
I was just in the CRT thread and was reminded of this thread, and one other thing that will mess up many novice users. And that is the black borders that some games have embedded within their image. Final Fantasy VI is one of these games. Some games have them only on the top or bottom, some only on the sides. Some all the way around. Stretching the image so that it touches the bezel of a CRT all the way around is wrong.

But you know what? I'm probably still going to do it if i can get away with it. Especially if the border goes all the way around. And I will stretch the screen slightly out of ratio if I think I need to in order to get rid of some sliver of black space.

[Anonymous No.5323789]

>>5323787
>Stretching the image so that it touches the bezel of a CRT all the way around is wrong.
Should have been more specific. I mean stretching the non-black part of the image to the edge of the bezel.