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Post by Xeogred on Apr 5, 2020 14:19:48 GMT -5
Guess I'll note I'm running snes9x-1.54 above there. Sarge's version seems different and maybe newer. I don't tend to update emulators much unless I run into a game that's got issues.
Be weary of "Blend Hi-Res Images", that one being on was giving me strange graphical issues with Treasure of the Rudras. I'm surprised I was able to figure out what the culprit was.
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Post by Sarge on Apr 5, 2020 17:26:22 GMT -5
I was using 1.53 for a long, long time. I updated a few months back.
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Post by Ex on Apr 5, 2020 20:34:06 GMT -5
Guess I'll note I'm running snes9x-1.54 above there. The current SNES9X version is 1.60. It caused some graphical weirdness with Seiken Densetsu 3 for me as well. So I disabled it. - Thanks for the feedback Sarge, toei, Xeogred. I guess my biggest concern is getting the resolution correct. Now I'm not a super expert on the SNES video output, but apparently it's 256x224 8:7 native. It does seem strange to me that Nintendo would have chosen to render SNES games at 8:7, when they knew full well that TVs of the time were 4:3. Plus I know that many SNES games only show square pixels if you choose 8:7 aspect ratio, despite developers knowing about the aspect ratio disparity. It would seem developers would have developed the graphics to look correct on a 4:3. By that I mean pixels would be rectangular in 8:7 but square in 4:3. So the question for me starts with the 256x224 resolution. For instance a SNES emulator running its resolution at 640x480 doesn't scale to the SNES 256x224 cleanly at all. Yet there is no common fullscreen PC resolution that scales 256x224 cleanly (that I'm aware of). CRT TVs didn't have this problem, because they had no inherent native resolution. They merely took the incoming image, and stretched it to fullscreen 4:3, presented by a grid of phosphorescent pixel counts that varied based on the manufacturer. CRT computer monitors are different though, as they are keyed to a particular resolution, despite being able to show other resolutions. For example, my dork cave computer's CRT monitor is from 2004. It was has a 4:3 aspect ration and is optimized for 1024x764 @ 85hz. So that is the resolution/hz I run said monitor at. Therefore in SNES9X, I emulate the SNES in that resolution, but stretched to fullscreen, to fill the 4:3 monitor just as a CRT TV would have been. But is that a dumb thing to do?
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Post by Sarge on Apr 5, 2020 21:17:07 GMT -5
Filling a 4:3 monitor at that resolution isn't so bad, but you're definitely going to get shimmer/pixel distortions on the vertical axis that way unless you do integer scaling. But I haven't tested a lot of fullscreen stuff on a CRT monitor in a long time. Chances are, you may want to just deal with some slight black borders (i.e. maintain integer scaling), and find the mode that gets you the closest to full screen.
Nintendo wasn't the only company that chose that resolution, either. The PC Engine also uses that resolution for most (but not all) of its games. The Genesis also has some 256-pixel-wide games, but more often used 320 instead. Pretty sure higher modes on SNES bring some limitations because of memory issues, so most devs stuck with the least limited mode, 256x224.
In all technicality, the SNES is actually using 256x240, like the NES, but eight pixels at the top and bottom are "overscan" region. The SNES can mask these pixels, though, where the NES didn't.
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Post by Ex on Apr 5, 2020 21:23:34 GMT -5
Filling a 4:3 monitor at that resolution isn't so bad, but you're definitely going to get shimmer/pixel distortions on the vertical axis that way unless you do integer scaling. Yes that DOES happen if I don't use integer scaling. I still don't understand why they internally rendered at 8:7 aspect ratio though. Was this a cheaper hardware thing or something?
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Post by Sarge on Apr 5, 2020 21:46:21 GMT -5
I think it's purely memory constraints, and it seems to be pretty common with other systems as well. The Intellivision had a positively wonky 160x96 pixel resolution. The Colecovision, however (and the Master System) used 256x192, which is a proper 4:3 aspect ratio. Same with at least one Genesis resolution mode, which was 320x224 (effectively 320x240), but it also came with that 256x224 mode, which tells me there's a reason why that resolution existed. It might even have something to do with NTSC timings and how they fed it into the TV. But I'm not really an expert on that. Actually, the more I think about it, memory is probably the driving force behind the resolutions. And I'm also willing to wager that the SNES might have had less to work with simply because it could display more colors on screen than the Genesis, so it probably chewed up more memory, leaving less video memory for a potential 320-pixel mode. The SNES also has a 512x448 mode, but that's interlaced, and comes with all sorts of caveats, probably also related to memory (plus the inability of the system to effectively push that resolution for action games). EDIT: From Wikipedia: SNES: Apparently the Genesis also had 64 KB of VRAM. So maybe that's why? I'm just speculating right now.
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Post by Xeogred on Apr 5, 2020 22:15:46 GMT -5
No joke, it was merely just a few years ago when I first saw "8:7" somewhere, probably when I was getting back into some emulation via snes9x and saw it default to that setting. I had no clue. Just grew up knowing 4:3 and 320x240 / 640x480.
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Post by Sarge on Apr 5, 2020 22:53:47 GMT -5
Hmm, PC Engine also has 64 KB of VRAM. But it's capable of displaying some crazy non-standard resolutions - R-Type uses several different resolutions depending on region: 320 here, 352 in Japan, and 336 for the CD version. Weird stuff! Guess the devs have a lot more control over the dot clock to set those things.
Also, while not a lot of games used it, the PS1 also had a 256x224 mode. The best game on the system, Symphony of the Night, uses this mode. It's also why the pixel scaling is super wonky on the Saturn port, which can't go down to that resolution.
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Post by Ex on Apr 5, 2020 23:53:52 GMT -5
It's kind of amazing that oldschool cathode CRT TVs could handle all these disparate resolutions so well.
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Post by anayo on Apr 6, 2020 9:13:43 GMT -5
My current SNES9x config:
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