Screenshot thread

[Rincewind]

Completed the first battle eradicating terrorist rebel scum, and made it to the Second Circle of the Emperor's prestigious secret organisation. Hail Imperia!

 

[spekkio]

^
Wrong aspect ratio, newb faggit.

*Edit: I've been converted to the proper Imperial ways.

 

[Rincewind]

^
Wrong aspect ratio, newb.

Okay... because you brought it up, and to prevent the further spread of misinformation: that post of yours is patently wrong about aspect ratios.

Short version that applies to 99% of DOS games:

• In 640x480 mode pixels are perfectly square on a regular 4:3 aspect ratio VGA monitor (1:1 pixel aspect ratio), hence aspect ratio correction must not be applied. You got this part right.
  
• On the same 4:3 aspect ratio VGA screen, pixels are not square in 320x200 mode, but have a pixel aspect ratio of 1:1.2. Therefore aspect ratio correction must be applied! (FYI, you need 320x240 or 320x256 to achieve square pixel aspect ratio with an image that fills most of a 4:3 AR screen)

There's no ifs or buts, and it's not based on "preference" as some people mistakenly believe... Everybody who had a standard 4:3 VGA monitor in the 90s (so literally everybody) experienced 1:1.2 pixel ratio in 320x200 mode, so you always must enable aspect ratio correction for 320x200 in DOSBox. DOSBox Staging that I'm using by the way always does that by default because that's pretty much the only correct way.

About your comments in that post of yours, it doesn't matter that the blue squares aren't perfectly square if you measure them with a ruler when aspect-ratio corrected. The artist most likely didn't give much fuck, he just drew a square with equal sized sides (in number of pixels) and called it a day. What's much more important is that the human faces and characters look correct when aspect-ratio correction is enabled, and just plain wrong and squashed when uncorrected, just like on your screenshots.

More info about PAR if you want to educate yourself. Just do the calculations and see it for yourself. Btw, there was a way to achieve square pixels on VGA displays by using Mode X, but this was rarely used in games, much more often in demoscene productions:

However, 320×240 was the best known and most frequently used, as it offered a standard 40-column resolution and 4:3 aspect ratio with square pixels. "320×240×8" resolution was commonly called Mode X, the name used by Michael Abrash when he presented the resolution in Dr. Dobb's Journal.

(source)

Reference: years of graphics coding and doing pixel gfx on both the Amiga and DOS/VGA, so not quite a "newb", as you put it

Further explanations:

• No, MS-DOS games weren't widescreen: Tips on correcting aspect ratio
• You're playing your DOS games wrong: A word on aspect ratio
• DOS Gaming Aspect Ratio - 320x200

 

[spekkio]

see above

 

[Rincewind]

It's all great and everything, but I still prefer my "plain wrong and squashed" output (320x200 resized 2x):

You might prefer playing it in pink sunglasses standing on your head, still only the aspect-ratio corrected version is objectively correct. That's how the artists created the original art on a VGA screen. You just got used and attached to the incorrect AR, that's all. Btw, the face of the guy obviously looks squashed when not aspect ratio corrected. Same for the floppy image on the backup icon. There's nothing to argue about here, I just pointed out the obvious facts.

I've also checked the '98 Win9x version, and for some reason, characters look exactly as "plain wrong and squashed" as in my screenshots (black bars at top and bottom - IMO to keep proper AR, instead of being stretched vertically, like in your screenshot):

Probably one of many things this version does wrong, 'mrite?

It's a shoddy port then. Most likely they didn't want to fuck around properly upscaling stuff, they slapped on a 2x integer scaler and called it a day. Another reason why they didn't properly AR correct could be that it looks like shit on a 640x480 or 800x600 screen, there would be a lot of interpolation going on. It's much less of an issue at higher resolutions like 1920x1080.

 

[Morenatsu.]

DOS games are pretty much always non-square, even when the artists sometimes forget. Imagine telling people how to play old games while not knowing this very important and irrefutable fact.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Fission Superstar X

Spoiler

 

[Alienman]

That pic in spoiler is me in every multiplayer game.

 

[Sigourn]

Spoiler

 

[Rincewind]

"Arguing" about the necessity of aspect ratio correcting 320x200 DOS games on square pixel aspect ratio modern screens... that's a new low even for codex standards. Feels like "arguing" with a flat-earther. I blame public education!

 

[Morenatsu.]

On the other hand, you definitely shouldn't use aspect ratio correction on 256x240 console games. Unless you should.

And on the third hand, RGB-modding old consoles is absolutely wrong. Composite 4evar.

 

[Rincewind]

On the other hand, you definitely shouldn't use aspect ratio correction on 256x240 console games. Unless you should.

I don't know much about old consoles, having never owned or played with one. Are you referring to the resolution of the NES? If so, all these older consoles were meant to be hooked up to standard 4:3 DAR (1.333:1) TV sets. But 256/240 = 1.0666(6), which means you were meant to display the image with square pixel aspect ratio on the TV, letterboxed?

Or did the image fully fill the screen so it was overscanned? Meaning the effective visible are was somewhat smaller than 256x240?

The SNES had a bunch of different resolutions with 3 different aspect ratios, were these all overscanned as well? And I guess vertically-doubled resolutions like 512x224 had 1:2 PAR pixel-rectangles.

Progressive: 256×224 (8:7), 512×224 (16:7), 256×239 (256:239), 512×239 (512:239)
Interlaced: 512×448 (8:7), 512×478 (256:239)

Most TVs didn't have image stretch controls, that kind of adjustment had to be done by a TV technician, so I'm quite sure you were stuck with whatever pixel aspect ratio the console's composite output used.

Just curious of this stuff!

 

[Fedora Master]

(Synthetik 2)

 

[Morenatsu.]

On the other hand, you definitely shouldn't use aspect ratio correction on 256x240 console games. Unless you should.

I don't know much about old consoles, having never owned or played with one. Are you referring to the resolution of the NES? If so, all these older consoles were meant to be hooked up to standard 4:3 DAR (1.333:1) TV sets. But 256/240 = 1.0666(6), which means you were meant to display the image with square pixel aspect ratio on the TV, letterboxed?

Or did the image fully fill the screen so it was overscanned? Meaning the effective visible are was somewhat smaller than 256x240?

The SNES had a bunch of different resolutions with 3 different aspect ratios, were these all overscanned as well? And I guess vertically-doubled resolutions like 512x224 had 1:2 PAR pixel-rectangles.

Progressive: 256×224 (8:7), 512×224 (16:7), 256×239 (256:239), 512×239 (512:239)
Interlaced: 512×448 (8:7), 512×478 (256:239)

Most TVs didn't have image stretch controls, that kind of adjustment had to be done by a TV technician, so I'm quite sure you were stuck with whatever pixel aspect ratio the console's composite output used.

Just curious of this stuff!

I think it would end up as 4:3 on an actual television, but most games I've played completely ignore this. So all those chibi JRPG characters are shorter and fatter than they should be. Some games were properly made for 4:3, but it depends. Not sure about other resolutions. Personally, I just play things in the original resolution on a CRT and adjust the geometry for each game.

Other fun examples are Radiant Silvergun and Soukyugurentai, both vertical shooters for the Sega Titan Video that apparently gave no shits and used square pixels, which at that system's resolution makes them widescreen. No idea what they'd look like in an actual arcade.

 

[Cryomancer]

 

[FreshCorpse]

Baking bread in the Monomyth demo a few months back

Post-tutorial plot slides from Highfleet

Spoiler

Some cool, expressive interior design from Thief

Re-roll animation in Into the Breach

 

[FreshCorpse]

Two fun NPC portraits from ATOM RPG. All NPCs have unique portraits and dialogue in this game and while that must have been hell to produce it is a joy to play

Some of the lighting effects from Splinter Cell 1 (2002), this thing was ahead of it's time. Very linear though, apparently they ditched Thief-style linearity about halfway through development.

Spoiler

 

[FreshCorpse]

And one more (I had to split this up across multiple posts because it seems there is some limit on images per-post or something?)...

I've been experimenting with Playnite as a replacement for Steam/GOG Galaxy. It's basically a "meta game launcher". That sounds awful but actually turns out to be quite a good idea. I mostly buy from either the steam store or gog and but do have the odd thing on origin/uplay/epic. I cannot be buggered to keep multiple clients open at the same time and playnite shows everything at once in one program. It's FOSS and written in C# which, AFAICT (I'm not a windows person professionally), is a reasonable and fairly efficient way to write GUI applications on Windows these days.

I take a lot of steps to avoid "analysis paralysis" in choosing a game to play which basically amounts to having a four tier system: stuff I'm playing now ("Current"), downloaded stuff I might want to play soon ("Prospects"), stuff that is endless or casual ("Perennials") and then stuff I've put to the side for whatever reason ("Backburner"). Having a single, meta-launcher thing makes it way easier for me to just keep stuff straight and actually succeed in playing the main thing that I want to play every time I sit down at my PC - in practice all lists except Current are closed so I'm just picking from three games.

Anyway, I strongly recommend making sure that playing games is not a case of "let's open steam and look at stuff and maybe find something" as that's just a route to wasting your free time. YMMV

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Shadow of the Colossus 2021 Prey for the Gods Praey for the Gods

Spoiler

 

[Rincewind]

Shadow of the Colossus 2021 Prey for the Gods Praey for the Gods

Does it have the same pathos and melancholy as SotC, or is it just some action game? One of the most atmospheric parts of SotC was approaching the colossi and lurking around their lair before the battle.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Other fun examples are Radiant Silvergun and Soukyugurentai, both vertical shooters for the Sega Titan Video that apparently gave no shits and used square pixels, which at that system's resolution makes them widescreen. No idea what they'd look like in an actual arcade.

Actually I'm looking at it again and it seems like SSF is just a retarded emulator when it comes to resolutions. I was assuming its aspect ratio correction was, well, correct, but 4:3 isn't really correct at all. On closer inspection, both games have some non-square assets (more so in Soukyu than RS), with the actual ‘intended’ ratio being 10:7.

Most of the time, these kinds of systems are listed as using 224 lines, but that's not really true. From what I understand, they do output 240p/480i, since those are the only timings TVs support, but the edges aren't rendered fully since they're usually overscanned. So it's actually 240p with slight letterboxing, with the visible area being 10:7. Both of these games use 352x224, which is 11:7, and the graphics are a mix of 1:1 and non-square assets (10:7, maybe even actual 4:3), which is annoying, but the difference between 11:7 and 10:7 is small enough that the squishing of certain elements is tolerable. But resizing 224p to 4:3 is pretty blatantly wrong.

No screenshots, but I did the math. Half the artists and the emulator developers didn't, though.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Shadow of the Colossus 2021 Prey for the Gods Praey for the Gods

Does it have the same pathos and melancholy as SotC, or is it just some action game? One of the most atmospheric parts of SotC was approaching the colossi and lurking around their lair before the battle.

Shadow of the Colossus is superior in terms of atmosphere, immersion, and artistry, but even though it isn't a classic Praey for the Gods is well worth playing. Rather than a narrower focus on boss fights, it incorporates puzzles, hidden treasures, resources & crafting, hunting, combat against mooks, parachuting & grappling, optional non-linearity for confronting the bosses, and totems that can be collected to improve the PC's health or stamina. Ico (2001) and Shadow of the Colossus (2005) are both symbolist masterpieces, and Praey for the Gods isn't so evocative of a particular sentiment, whether melancholy or anything else, but it is a fun game and quite an accomplishment considering it was developed by just 3 people (for comparison, Shadow of the Colossus has 37 people listed in its credits for core development, not including sound, quality assurance, producers, or other peripheral staff).

 

[Rincewind]

Half the artists and the emulator developers didn't, though.

Yeah, it's pretty sad when even coders working on graphics stuff who should know better lack basic understanding of these topics. Don't even get me started with the proper use of gamma correction; 99% of the world (including most Adobe apps, various software libraries, image viewers, etc) are doing it absolutely wrong. E.g. most blending modes in Photoshop are gamma incorrect, but it can't really be changed because people are used to the broken stuff (you can fix it with plugins though and by not using about 90% of the blending modes).

Game devs have started to see the light in the last 5-10 years or so because you get horrible results with Physically Based Rendering if you fuck up the gamma, and of course any CGI & compositing software used in movie production got it right as far back as in the 90s because things go horribly wrong otherwise when dealing with real world footage... Most other people still live in the dark ages. Anyway, rant off...

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Half the artists and the emulator developers didn't, though.

Yeah, it's pretty sad when even coders working on graphics stuff who should know better lack basic understanding of these topics. Don't even get me started with the proper use of gamma correction; 99% of the world (including most Adobe apps, various software libraries, image viewers, etc) are doing it absolutely wrong. E.g. most blending modes in Photoshop are gamma incorrect, but it can't really be changed because people are used to the broken stuff (you can fix it with plugins though and by not using about 90% of the blending modes).

Game devs have started to see the light in the last 5-10 years or so because you get horrible results with Physically Based Rendering if you fuck up the gamma, and of course any CGI & compositing software used in movie production got it right as far back as in the 90s because things go horribly wrong otherwise when dealing with real world footage... Most other people still live in the dark ages. Anyway, rant off...

Are you aware of any guides for this stuff, that would be comprehensible to a programmer?

 

[Drop Duck]