Felipepepe's article on getting the correct aspect ratio in DOS games

[felipepepe]

HAVE YOU LEARNED NOTHING? FFS:

 

[:Flash:]

I share felipepepe's detestation of incorrectly scaled games.
Unfortunately, the only DosBox configuration that correctly scales games on my PC is using DirectDraw as a video ouput, and that doesn't work on Linux.

 

[sser]

Felipe, Pablo, Diego, José, Francisco de Paula, Juan Nepomuceno, Maria de los Remedios, Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad, Ruiz Picasso, Pepe deserves to be featured. Beats the other shit you often see on Gamasutra.

 

[crufty]

shouldn't 320x200 -> 320x240 for vga games?

 

[felipepepe]

shouldn't 320x200 -> 320x240 for vga games?

Yes, but if you simply do that you'll get a heavily distorted image.

 

[Utgard-Loki]

CK thinks my real name is lame...

ay ay ay

 

[Clockwork Knight]

CK thinks my real name is lame...

Spoiler

#nomeansno #heforshe #rapeculture

 

[felipepepe]

This was more common:

 

[A user named cat]

Personally, I think the last option is the best – upscaling 5x/6x first, then downscaling with a bilinear resampling. Games didn't look all that sharp back then, so a bit of blurriness is an acceptable tradeoff for a more faithful image.

I never use or recommend bilinear for any emulator, it looks terrible. Blurring is never a good thing regardless of what you're trying to recreate or what size you screenshot. For DOS - nothing beats 5x nearest neighbor scaling and retaining complete pixel sharpness. You're playing on a monitor, not a 1990's screen. Take advantage of it.

This is all incredibly easy to achieve by just using D-Fend:





This article should also be extended to all the people on Youtube who upload LP's of emulated console games stretched to widescreen, then calling the footage "HD". I always notice this with PS1 footage. Drives me nuts and looks horrible. Really the worst offenders though are those who stretch and filter SNES games which look best at 8:7 as originally intended.

 

[felipepepe]

I never use or recommend bilinear for any emulator, it looks terrible. Blurring is never a good thing regardless of what you're trying to recreate or what size you screenshot. For DOS - nothing beats 5x nearest neighbor scaling and retaining complete pixel sharpness. You're playing on a monitor, not a 1990's screen. Take advantage of it.

The bit you quoted was specifically about how to create a decent 640x480 screenshot to use on websites. Using 5x to play is cool and everything, but posting a 1600x1200 screenshot of a DOS game isn't really a viable solution most of the time.

 

[agentorange]

How do you get factor 5? When I try to edit the graphics options in D-Fend I only see up to Factor 3?

 

[crufty]

shouldn't 320x200 -> 320x240 for vga games?

Yes, but if you simply do that you'll get a heavily distorted image.

hmm not sure we are on same...

Spoiler

code

...page here...

when you say 320x200, don't you mean 320x240 for vga games? That is the resolution of VGA iirc: 320x240 x 256 colors...


ninja edit: nope! my bad. 320x240 is modex VGA. 320x200 is VESA VGA...carry on!

 

[Jarpie]

Can't you use 640x400 resolution?

 

[A user named cat]

I never use or recommend bilinear for any emulator, it looks terrible. Blurring is never a good thing regardless of what you're trying to recreate or what size you screenshot. For DOS - nothing beats 5x nearest neighbor scaling and retaining complete pixel sharpness. You're playing on a monitor, not a 1990's screen. Take advantage of it.

The bit you quoted was specifically about how to create a decent 640x480 screenshot to use on websites. Using 5x to play is cool and everything, but posting a 1600x1200 screenshot of a DOS game isn't really a viable solution most of the time.

Ah okay, I missed that detail.

How do you get factor 5? When I try to edit the graphics options in D-Fend I only see up to Factor 3?

I had to add it in manually. I also use Daum SVN build of DOSbox as I'm not sure the regular builds support the higher scaling options but I might be wrong. Here's how you add the option yourself:

File-> Program Options... -> Default Values (under Profile Editor section)
Make sure you're in advanced mode (bottom right corner)
From the "Category" dropdown menu, choose "(DOSBox) Scale"
Add in "Nearest neighbor upscaling with factor 5 (normal5x)"
Done

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I always thought felipepepe's user name was a cover for his real name- Flippy Peepy.

 

[Darth Roxor]

But what if it's actually Pepe Felipe

 

[DraQ]

I think I should add that old CRTs and (in case of for example C64 games) TVs did do wonders for visible image quality.

They produced less perfect images, but when the source image was already low res and possibly even tailored to exploit the display device's imperfections, the overall effect was a much better look.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I always thought felipepepe's user name was a cover for his real name- Flippy Peepy.

What's this about Happy Feet? We're talking about games.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

cool article, Felipe Santa Maria Gonzalez y Garcia Pepe da Silva

Fix'ed.

Another fix

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Felipe Santa Maria Gonzalez y Garcia Pepe

With a name like that, it's more a case of

 

[crufty]

old monitors were shit

 

[dextermorgan]

cool article, Chico Felipe Cayetano Lopez Martinez y Gonzales

Fix'ed.

Fixed for ex-Yugo brofists.

 

[:Flash:]

I think I should add that old CRTs and (in case of for example C64 games) TVs did do wonders for visible image quality.

They produced less perfect images, but when the source image was already low res and possibly even tailored to exploit the display device's imperfections, the overall effect was a much better look.

Case in point CGA composite mode.
Most people possibly don't even realize that some emulated/screenshot CGA games look nothing like the game is supposed to look.