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Lossless scaling

Deleted Member 16721

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Didn't see it was only $5, I bought it and tried it with Arcanum. It adds a bit of flickering for some reason, to my eyes it looks better. Also, Kenshi upscaled 6x to 4K+ looks great, but it could be my imagination on both accounts. But it does seem like it makes the games look better.
 

Deleted Member 16721

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Scratch that, I don't think I was using it right. You have to use it in windowed mode. I don't think I'll be using it after all, just going to use Nvidias DSR and upscale Kenshi to 4K and be done with it. :)
 

Bester

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Fluent can you post screens of Serpent in the Stagland with this thing on pls?
 

Deleted Member 16721

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Fluent can you post screens of Serpent in the Stagland with this thing on pls?

I honestly don't think it will do much. You should just buy it and try it. I'm not even sure I had it working right or how to use it. It zooms in really close when I try to use it.
 

Vicissitudes

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I've found some info on so-called lossless scaling and the state of the problem (appears to be a bit outdated, now): http://tanalin.com/en/articles/lossless-scaling/

This article was super informative thanks for posting that.
If I'm assuming correctly - the real difference is when you actually have 4k display and try to view anything 1080p. Apparently AMD and Nvidia don't care about this issue - I recommend the read for all playing on 4k displays.

Since I've got one I noticed that all games that are 1080p are being stretched by graphic card or monitor to 4k have a tiny blur. It's super noticeable when there is text on the screen. And the worst case scenario is games that do 4k ingame but scale also the text/menu/icons so they are like for ants or whatnot - tiny unreadable shit.
Having said that - it means screenshots are not representative - but I'm gonna do tests in the evening on Stasis (only 720p support ffs) and Serpent (good catch) , maybe Arcanum if I have time. Arcanum had tiny tiny icons afair?

Sratopotator
I don't use AA since it totally beats the purpose imo. Why would u use it since it's gonna work on entire window just like any other filter than normal 2/3x in dosbox games, blurring out the text and sharp edges of icons/menus. In dragon age origins I had AA from game settings and scaled up it looked fine.
My guess the guy added it to please the crowd that doesn't like seeing glorious pixels on screen. Just like ppl playing dosbox gmz with blur filters.

When it comes to fallout I always used res mods so I can play on 4k fine - but it means I can run other games in native, where there are no existing res mods, just scaled without blur to 4k.
 

Sratopotator

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In dragon age origins I had AA from game settings and scaled up it looked fine.
I assumed that the guy added AA cause scaling with in-game AA causes problems (even more blur or distortion). At least it should cause problems, but maybe the algorithm fires before any in-game AA is applied? I don't know if that's possible, are you sure that in-game AA actually works?

If I'm assuming correctly - the real difference is when you actually have 4k display and try to view anything 1080p. Apparently AMD and Nvidia don't care about this issue - I recommend the read for all playing on 4k displays.

Since I've got one I noticed that all games that are 1080p are being stretched by graphic card or monitor to 4k have a tiny blur. It's super noticeable when there is text on the screen.
You can disable or change GPU scaling in amd/nvidia control panels. If you don't use a TV, it should be possible to disable upscaling on the display and play in perfectly mapped 1080 on 4k.
I've read that some 4k displays are fucked cause they always force some stuff, but if you can disable upscaling from 1080p on Your display, then just fiddle with GPU scaling settings. Something like:
1. Don't stretch, keep the original proportions
2. Do the scaling on the display (if the article is correct then scaling on GPU is inferior, try both options)
3. Override application settings
^ This is how it looks in Nvidia CP, more or less. I don't know how broad the settings are in AMD CP.
4. Keep the in-game resolution at half or quarter of your monitor's native res. So: 3840 × 2160 -> 1920 x 1080 -> 960 x 540 -> can go even lower if the game allows 'exotic' resolutions

Generally, playing 1080 on 4k is only a problem for TV owners and unfortunate blokes that bought shitty 4k displays that always force upscaling. Are you absolutely sure that you are one of them?
 

passerby

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For some reason everyone in the 90 got obsessed with making pixels dissappear and when high enough texture resolution was impossible, filters were applied to make pixels dissappear.
Filters make everything blurry and look worse than nearest-neighbor interpolation, but you can't tell individual pixels apart and that was considered ultimate achievement for 3d graphics for some reason.
Enabling, nearest-neighbor interpolation for textures in any old 3d game, when possible with console command/config file, improves visuals greatly.

This app applies nearest-neighbor interpolation to the output frame. There is no nearest-neighbor interpolation option available for scalling in GPU drivers, or display devices that I know of, because to this day retards believe pixels are bad and blur is good.
So what you describe is not a replacement for this app. The fact that this option is not available in the drivers, or display devices is a complete retardation, but this is the world we live in.
 
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Vicissitudes

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Exactly - when I was playing on 1080p monitor and Stasis came out with 720p I thought it was a bug :( then dev said nope - that's by design..
I have very little tolerance for blurry stuff - in modern games motionblur and dof is first thing I turn off whenever it's possible.
 

Sratopotator

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I'm not saying that this method is useless, I'm only talking about 1080p sources. Vicissitudes and the author of this app, both said that there is a universal problem with blur when playing 1080p games on 4k displays. I'm only wondering about that.
Obviously, nearest neighbour interpolation missing from current year drivers is a shitty practice.

I'm just wondering how the fuck there is a problem with 1080p on 4k if going 540p on 1080p gives a really good result, at least for 2d stuff.
Would 540p on 1080p look better with nearest neighbour interpolation? Probably yes, but how the fuck should i know.
Is there any visible blur when going 540p on 1080p with current year GPU scaling? None, or almost none.

So the problem applies to 1080p ->2160p, but not to 540 -> 1080?
 

Vicissitudes

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screenshots incoming!

let's start with the game that put me off from playing the most - Stasis. Imo it's finally sharp since the dev decided to use the tiniest font possible. When it released I played it on windowed since couldn't handle the blur then just quit cause headache of being 5cm from the monitor.
Setup: 720p scaled x3 to 4k by lossless
VTMvFiG.jpg


next up is Staglands - now this is was tricky to set up since the dev also hid any graphic options and the UI is scaling dynamically based on the window size - so in 4k you get the icons and menus small like ants - just look at it.
Setup: Default fullscreen
2HC8LmV.png


so what I did I went to windowed mode and tried to eyeball the window size of the 1080p to hit the full screen x2 scaling. result is quite pleasant and makes the game playable on 4k. black bars are the result of the eyeballing window size of 1080p - you could easily adjust it further make them gone.
Setup: Eyeballed 1080p with scaling x2 by lossless
DxnEllS.jpg


and the last one but not least - Arcanum.
Now I personally didn't play this game for at least a decade so I don't remember if this is how the game looked exactly but is this how the game is suppose to look in HD? I mean the size of the text and menus, inventory or icons? This is with the biggest fonts available in the config files for high-res patch. Not to mention that the characters and env objects are really small and camera is showing like insane distance around the player.

Setup: 1080p from highres patch with x2 scaling by lossless
ygDl9aI.jpg


Personally this is how I would enjoy Arcanum if I was playing it again.
Setup: High-res patch with default settings (720p) scaled x3 with lossless + max size fonts from high-res patch. Check the menu size + characters + camera distance. Imo much better - similar result to original Fallout with high resolution patches with x2 scaling enabled. Looks better imo.
dRndbaF.jpg

maybe i missed something with arcanum setup - input would be welcome from anyone having it in HD
 
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Vicissitudes

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I'm not saying that this method is useless, I'm only talking about 1080p sources. Vicissitudes and the author of this app, both said that there is a universal problem with blur when playing 1080p games on 4k displays. I'm only wondering about that.
Obviously, nearest neighbour interpolation missing from current year drivers is a shitty practice.

I'm just wondering how the fuck there is a problem with 1080p on 4k if going 540p on 1080p gives a really good result, at least for 2d stuff.
Would 540p on 1080p look better with nearest neighbour interpolation? Probably yes, but how the fuck should i know.
Is there any visible blur when going 540p on 1080p with current year GPU scaling? None, or almost none.

So the problem applies to 1080p ->2160p, but not to 540 -> 1080?
check out the Stasis game - the blur is not extreme but it's there when playing full screen and it's going from 720p to HD regardless of the monitor quality nor scaling method in nvidia panel.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/380150/discussions/0/527273983050254592/
https://af.gog.com/forum/stasis_series/game_resolution_settings?as=1649904300
 
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Deleted Member 16721

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Vicissitudes So did you find it made Serpent in the Staglands look better at all? I can't really notice a difference and I had a placebo effect last night using it.
 

passerby

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I had a closer look at the steam page and the app actually doesn't do nearest neighbor, low effort... he should add an option to scale to any res with it.
It only does integer scalling, same as normal2x-5x scaller in dosbox and doesn't scale to any resolution, so you have to turn off scalling on the display and live with black borders if you don't want any blur.

For example you can do 640x480 x2, to 1280x960, with nearest neighbor some 2x2 pixels, could be turned into 2x3, or 3x2, or 3x3 pixels in the intersections and with slight local distortions you could fill the whole height of the screen to 1440x1080.
With 4k display you would get 4x4, with some pixels getting 4x5, distortion would be impossible to notice.

The most improvement potential in intiger/ nearest neighbor is for old, low res games. When going from 1080p to 4k, the base 1080p resolution is already so high, that any blur is very slight, but still straight 2x is preferable to filtering.
 
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HansDampf

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What a shame. Integer scaling is standard feature in pretty much every emulator. I shouldn't have to pay money for software that does the same thing for old windows games. Something like the nearest neighbor anti-alias shader (or nearest neighbor interpolation?) that's available for RetroArch would be nice. Why is this so difficult?
 

passerby

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Why is this so difficult?
0,1% of the userbase care, 10% of the userbase would turn intiger/nn by accident, or without understanding what it does and then was unsatisfied that thay can see pixels on their expensive UHD display, so hardware manufacturers do not provide such options on purpose.
Short answer: idiocracy.
 
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Sratopotator

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check out the Stasis game - the blur is not extreme but it's there when playing full screen and it's going from 720p to HD regardless of the monitor quality nor scaling method in nvidia panel.
720p to 1080p is not pixel perfect mapping. 1080p to 2160p (4k) is.
My point is that if you could display Stasis (720p) on native 1440p (720p x2) display, it should not look blurred! (that much, or maybe at all)
Analogically, displaying 1080p sources on 4k should not look blurred (1080p x 2 = 2160p = 4k).
Again, I'm strictly speaking about displaying 1080p on 4k.
Nice screens btw.
 

Burning Bridges

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I also don't understand why this is an issue.

The last time I played old games that required scaling was on an ATI card, but it worked perfectly.

Of course you cannot get around 4:3 aspect ratio or fixed integer ratio but I managed to use most of my screen and get an imaged optimized for my native resolution. Of course you must use fixed integers or it will become interpolated and blurry. You cannot multiply by lets say 1.333 and retain a sharp picture. And neither can this program hence the "integer scaling". "Integer scaling" basically just turns 1 pixel into 4, 9 or 16 etc.

P.S. I think my old Viewsonic had inbuilt scaling that did everything perfect, but I kind of forgot the details. I played very old games while retaining the native sharpness.
 

Burning Bridges

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While I know shit about actually using a 4k display, the author of this app is still :retarded:.

He's showing 3 games on the store page as examples. Both HL2 and Shadow Tactics have native 4k support. ???
He uses re-scaled pictures in those screenshots, or some other fuckery. HL2 for sure:
Notice holes in the cables on the left?
ANTIf0.jpg
His algorithm does some silly things to the image (I'm not saying that making such stuff work is easy):
His own FTL screenshot. Native version (1):
ANTJKx.jpg

2x scale, without AA (2):
ANTQfH.jpg

Notice the artifacts? Both images are taken from the same screen, so it's not from compression (or he fucked up when making the screen).
Anti-aliasing method he uses in the app is shitty, at least on the screens (I'm not going to install steam just for checking this shit out). Image visibly loses definition - everything is rounded a bit or even looks cartoony, it reminds me of HQ2/3 scaling from scummvm. Depends on personal preference but i dislike it, and from what I've seen on config screenshot you cannot change AA method in any way.

Last thing i don't fucking understand is this: Isn't this method of scaling exactly the same as going pixel perfect? 1 pixel is displayed as 4 in both cases.
Followup question: Isn't 1080 on 4k pixel perfect?????
If that's the case, then anything 1080 will NOT look blurry on 4k if no unnecessary upscaling is forced (like when using TVs or specific displays), and the author of this app is a fucking moron.

I may be speaking out of my ass about pixel perfect, not 100% sure, but recent upscaling/resolution/post-processing illiteracy is driving me crazy. The guy wants money for this shit so it triggers me even more.

TLDR:
This app may still be useful for games that do not handle 1080p or custom resolutions (Fallout does! Pixel perfect is the way! agris can confirm :cool:), but it's always better to go as much 'native' as possible, so the app can be considered as a last resort tool when there are no alternatives.

Huh?

Yeah. How is this not just housewife antialiasing?

Either you scale up an image by making 1 pixel into 2x2 or 3x3 pixels etc. This is only necessary to fill the larger screen but the same as native resolution. i.e. a 1440p scaled image should look the same as on a 480p monitor, only 3x larger.

Or you use a filter, but how does that not make image blurry? Lossless? my ass

Image-a-shows-a-blurred-image-of-Lenna-blurred-using-a-Gaussian-kernel-with-s-1.png


The example presented is particularly shitty because it uses one of the oldest AA methods. Really good scaling algorithms use subpixel accuracy but what the guy shows is what we already had.

I don't get it, he promotes a tool that does not distort the image then uses shitty smoothing. Probably just another sophisticated cataract simulator, just like NVIDIA DSR.

I also begin to suspect that some people have problems understanding what screen resolution is. Because they seem to expect that scaling a raster frame could add details, but this is impossible without vector graphics.
 

Burning Bridges

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https://steamcommunity.com/app/993090/discussions/0/1744482417428260952/

Fluent said:
I have a 1080p game - Kenshi, and a 1080p monitor. I want to upscale as much as possible, though, to make it look prettier on the 1080p monitor. Is this app for me? Will it upscale to 4K and then my monitor which I know is 1080p will have a nicer looking game on it?

s this the same Fluent as on rpgcodex?

good God this seems to be a real comedy goldmine :lol:
 

passerby

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The app only offers integer scalling and you'll get black borders if it doesn't fit, AA is optional and seems to be non blurry type, something like hq scaller in dosbox.
Artefacts looks like typical jpg compression artefacts, if some app user here care, he can make bmp screenshot and confirm, or deny artefacts. Why and how would someone make integer scalling with artefacts ?

For stretching to fullscreen he could add nearest neighbor interpolation option in many cases it could look really good. If someone bought the app and care, he can suggest this on the steam forum.
For example with 640x480 x4 -> 2560x1920, then stertched to 4k, roughly every 10th row/collumn would get stretched from 4p to 5p, I'm possitive such small distortion wouldn't be noticeable at all.
 
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Vicissitudes

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Vicissitudes So did you find it made Serpent in the Staglands look better at all? I can't really notice a difference and I had a placebo effect last night using it.
Main thing it made it playable as in you can see the inventory without magnifying glass. As with Arcanum - imo it's much closer to what the devs intended to look like when it comes to the icons, text, inventory and the camera distance.
 

Vicissitudes

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For me this app does this: no blur when full screen and keeps the menus and text big enough to be comfortably playing on 4k. Should this be solved automatically by drivers/monitors? Absolutely. But this is not the case right now and has not been for years.
Tse Tse Fly post explains most of it with examples.
 

Sratopotator

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Heh, app description has changed, HL2 and Shadow Tactics screens disappeared. The guy even added some Fallout 2 screens.
He probably read our ramblings.

Gut. At least potential buyers are not misinformed.
 

anvi

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Can it be used outside of Steam?
 

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