What shmups have an option for a high resolution mode (Arcade Mode)?

[Joe Redifer]

Thanks for posting those, Michael.

The pillarboxed mode on Image Fight seems to match up with the arcade pretty well, whereas the fat mode does not.

Verdict:  the Pillarboxed mode is closest to the arcade.


The arcade mode of Dragon Spirit looks like it is halfway between the "fullscreen" and pillarboxed modes of the PCE version.  The fat version looks more stretched than the arcade, and the skinny version looks a touch more squished than the arcade. 

Verdict:  The arcade seems to be the closest version to the arcade.

[Bonknuts]

Micheal: You grabbed those screen shots from the real systems or emulators? Because "snapshots" from emulators don't provide pixel aspect ratios needed for comparison.  If you find out the pixel aspect ratios, then you get scale them into the correct format for comparison.

[Tatsujin]

mal is right. he just explained me that last time, when i was wondering, why the CPS-1 screenshoots are that wide, if taken from a emulator. and his answer, that the analog pix of a crt aren't square like the emu display them on a flat etc., which was right plausible.

[Black Tiger]

I'd actually planned on mocking up shots of each game in the list with 4:3 aspect ratios like this-





I'm late for work this morning, so that was all I could put together for now.

[ceti alpha]

Thanks guys for posting these comparison pics. Very nice. 

[spenoza]

I think the reason the stuff looks fat is because the PCE's default resolution is a square, whereas TVs have a 4x3 rectangular aspect ratio. The TV stretches the image to fit the available screen real estate.

If you play some of these games on certain emulators they look just fine (in window mode anyway) because they preserve the square image size and don't stretch to fill a theoretical 4x3 screen.

[Necromancer]

@ M.H. - Many thanks for the screen shots.  It's a good thing that you labeled which PCE image was full screen and which was arcade mode, otherwise I would've been utterly lost. 

@ B.T. - Late for work, yet you still found the time to take some screen shots.  Pure kick ass. 

[nat]

Great comparisons guys. Maybe this will put all the naysayers who claim arcade mode "just squishes the graphics" to rest.

[Michael Helgeson]

Actually the pics I posted were from a second run. I was originally imagining a grand gallery with pics of all sorts of games from my tv,but after messing with just Image Fight on my tv and having no luck getting good clean shots,plus playing Arcade Image Fight I had to tilt my tv,taking one for the team because you know how much I love you guys ,I finally got fed up though and went to the emu directly for shots because I didn't like the blur on the cam pics.

 Rest assured though before I did so,I did alot of comparing. I would get to a certain point on the arcade,pause,then switch video channels to the one the PCE was on,play to that point,pause,flip back and forth and compare,run again in arcade mode to that point,compare,then run ME on my tv for the heck of it to get a extra look at things for the sake of doing so. I did this with both Image Fight and Dragon Spirit.
Heres some of the ugly proof that I did take time to do so on a TV:

[nat]

I just crushed Final Soldier in the arcade-res mode. If anything, it seemed to make the gameplay a little smoother and maybe even made the game a bit easier overall.

[SignOfZeta]

Great comparisons guys. Maybe this will put all the naysayers who claim arcade mode "just squishes the graphics" to rest.

Not really because in some games that's clearly all it does (SSS, Burning Angle) but in Dragon Spirit it actually effects the game play. I think the verdict is, "it depends".

Believe me, I'm a sucker for shooter correctness and display modes that seem wacky to most people but essential to me. When Under Defeat came out my TV was sideways for weeks (because my VGA CRT doesn't like being tate...at all). I just don't see the point is smooshing SSS into a fake vertical mode. Since it was never in the arcade it should have just been designed around a 4:3 ratio in the first place (which is was) like Radient Silvergun.

You can get the same results just adjusting your display to smoosh away a third of the screen space.

[Michael Helgeson]

Good suggestion,but not everyone has the service codes to their tvs Zeta,nor are they always easy to obtain. Sometimes its easier for you to,you know,enter a code or choose  a option on the game itself....

[Joe Redifer]

On those Image Fight screens Michael just posted (the ones with the shot of the TVs), it looks to me like the normal mode is most faithful to the arcade whereas the "arcade mode" is squished.  Just look at the little circle on the landing pad.  It is round in the arcade version.  On the PCE "fat" screen, it is pretty much round, maybe slightly stretched too wide, but not much.  The PCE "arcade mode" is clearly a squished oval, not round at all.  The "arcade mode" fails.  Normal mode for the win on Image Fight!

Michael, you should not compress your images so much.  Look at the reds and the text and all that.  It's barely readable.  What exactly are you doing to destroy those images so much? 

[SignOfZeta]

Good suggestion,but not everyone has the service codes to their tvs Zeta,nor are they always easy to obtain. Sometimes its easier for you to,you know,enter a code or choose  a option on the game itself....

I was being sarcastic.

[ceti alpha]

I just wish there was a way to see everything in arcade mode. Everything needs to be in arcade mode.