Splatterhouse

[Black Tiger]

Playing classic 4:3 video games stretched to 16:9 is sacrilege.

No more than playing them on anything but a crt.

[Arkhan]

Playing classic 4:3 video games stretched to 16:9 is sacrilege.

I was going to press the button thing to make it go 4:3 on bigTV. 

[spenoza]

Good luck finding any good CRTs any longer. The older ones are usually abused and the newer ones, what few there are, are of low quality manufacture.

[roflmao]

Good luck finding any good CRTs any longer. The older ones are usually abused and the newer ones, what few there are, are of low quality manufacture.

True, but even my unremarkable old 27" JVC tube tv plays pre-HD systems WAAAAY better than my 46" 1080p HD LCD screen.  The only pre-HD system I have hooked up to the big screen right now is the SNES only because it's in the living room and visitors tend to have fonder memories for that system than the rest of that era.  And the SNES could look so much better if it was hooked up to the 27"...  

Lots of good, cheap tube TVs can still be found on craigslist.  Last time I moved I had a hard time GIVING away my Sony 36" WEGA TV on craiglist just because I didn't want to move that behemoth again.

[spenoza]

Yeah, I have a decent JVC 27" (regular tube, not flat shadow mask/trinitron). It still looks pretty good, but it's developed quite a whine.

[roflmao]

Sorry to hear that.

Yeah, mine's nothing special; it's curved and one of the speakers no longer works so I have the audio going out to an old boom box which sounds better anyway...  But it LOOKS better than if it was hooked up to my big-ole-tv that cost way more. 

I learned something that day.

Anyway, sorry, apparently I've shifted the focus of this thread.  We can pick it up in a new thread if you'd like to discuss further.

[Mathius]

Sorry to hear that.

Yeah, mine's nothing special; it's curved and one of the speakers no longer works so I have the audio going out to an old boom box which sounds better anyway...  But it LOOKS better than if it was hooked up to my big-ole-tv that cost way more. 

I learned something that day.

Anyway, sorry, apparently I've shifted the focus of this thread.  We can pick it up in a new thread if you'd like to discuss further.

We have a thread somewhere, but as usual I am too lazy to look and link.

[Digi.k]

whatchu hookin yo PCE up to the TeeVee with?

I keep thinking about SGX on 55" TV and getting wood.  But I don't want to play Smears and Blurs, I want to play Ghouls and Ghosts

with an RGB scart conversion and a colour booster you will get wood!!

I only know of one uk company that does it but they are not cheap!


http://www.ravengames.co.uk/pcenginewhitecdinfo.htm



haha I'm used to the meshed effects and stretched images now..

It's just normal composite cables hooked up to a plasma tv

[nat]

haha I'm used to the meshed effects and stretched images now..

It's just normal composite cables hooked up to a plasma tv

 

I could never get used to that. For me, a huge part of the allure of video games (16-bit era in particular) is the beautiful pixel artwork and the time the artists took for precision detail. They intended their art to look a certain way.

Playing 4:3 games stretched to 16:9 on an LCD or plasma complete with artifacting and the whole 9 yards, in my opinion, is equivalent to removing every piece from an art museum and replacing them with TV screens simply showing an image of the piece of art. You can still see the paintings, right? They're just on an "up-to-date" screen, right? Wrong. The whole point is lost.

[Digi.k]

I could never get used to that. For me, a huge part of the allure of video games (16-bit era in particular) is the beautiful pixel artwork and the time the artists took for precision detail. They intended their art to look a certain way.

Playing 4:3 games stretched to 16:9 on an LCD or plasma complete with artifacting and the whole 9 yards, in my opinion, is equivalent to removing every piece from an art museum and replacing them with TV screens simply showing an image of the piece of art. You can still see the paintings, right? They're just on an "up-to-date" screen, right? Wrong. The whole point is lost.

You've never lived in the UK Nats..  where our games used to run to be 17.5% slower than NTSC  and borders at the top and bottom of the screen giving a squashed image so for many years us brits/europeans never could play the games how they originally intended to look.. I guess I gotten used to it all these years..

But still I've paid a lotta money in them days to enjoy games in RGB scart on a normal 4.3 crt screen for full speed and full screen, so playing them today stretched on a plasma with full pixellation don't detract me from enjoying the playability of the game..

I don't know maybe I'm just gotten tolerant of this kinda stuff..

I rather just make full use of the screen.  When i change the aspect ratio to 4:3 the side bits just seem empty.







The konami sign is much plainer on the superfamicon and don't rotate like the pce's iirc



BTW this boss sprite is not in the Superfamicom version if I recall.. her hair falls down on the pce.



even on this stage when the lightning flashes. it is slightly different on the superfamicom iirc much more obtrusive on the pce.

[spenoza]

haha I'm used to the meshed effects and stretched images now..

It's just normal composite cables hooked up to a plasma tv

 

I could never get used to that. For me, a huge part of the allure of video games (16-bit era in particular) is the beautiful pixel artwork and the time the artists took for precision detail. They intended their art to look a certain way.

Well, they didn't intend it to be stretched to 16x9, but they DID intend it to be smoothed and blurred via analog connection to the TV. That was the standard back then. They didn't intend them to be pixel clear via RGB signal or like you see things on an emulator. They rely on the blurring of a CRT display and analog signal to help smooth the colors and jaggy edges. It's a balance. You want the colors and lines and details to be clear, but you want some natural analog/CRT smoothing to help balance the image. If pixel art for games was designed, at the time, without this kind of effect in mind it was out of foolishness, because 95-99% of gamers were going to be getting those effects. You design for the 95%, not the 5%.

[nat]

haha I'm used to the meshed effects and stretched images now..

It's just normal composite cables hooked up to a plasma tv

 

I could never get used to that. For me, a huge part of the allure of video games (16-bit era in particular) is the beautiful pixel artwork and the time the artists took for precision detail. They intended their art to look a certain way.

Well, they didn't intend it to be stretched to 16x9, but they DID intend it to be smoothed and blurred via analog connection to the TV. That was the standard back then. They didn't intend them to be pixel clear via RGB signal or like you see things on an emulator. They rely on the blurring of a CRT display and analog signal to help smooth the colors and jaggy edges. It's a balance. You want the colors and lines and details to be clear, but you want some natural analog/CRT smoothing to help balance the image. If pixel art for games was designed, at the time, without this kind of effect in mind it was out of foolishness, because 95-99% of gamers were going to be getting those effects. You design for the 95%, not the 5%.

This is basically exactly what I was trying to say... You pretty much just made my entire point.

[Black Tiger]

Well, they didn't intend it to be stretched to 16x9, but they DID intend it to be smoothed and blurred via analog connection to the TV. That was the standard back then. They didn't intend them to be pixel clear via RGB signal or like you see things on an emulator. They rely on the blurring of a CRT display and analog signal to help smooth the colors and jaggy edges. It's a balance. You want the colors and lines and details to be clear, but you want some natural analog/CRT smoothing to help balance the image. If pixel art for games was designed, at the time, without this kind of effect in mind it was out of foolishness, because 95-99% of gamers were going to be getting those effects. You design for the 95%, not the 5%.

Except for arcade games like Splatterhouse, of which 100% would be played on an RGB screen.

I rather just make full use of the screen.  When i change the aspect ratio to 4:3 the side bits just seem empty.

It's just an illusion in your mind. The sides of the widescreen are still boarders of the image, but somehow your mind isn't bothered by the emptiness at the top and bottom of your screen, where the image should be stretching up and down to. It's the same difference, only the proper perspective only appears at 4:3.

[spenoza]

Oh, well, in that case, I'm OK with that.

[Bonknuts]

haha I'm used to the meshed effects and stretched images now..

It's just normal composite cables hooked up to a plasma tv

 

I could never get used to that. For me, a huge part of the allure of video games (16-bit era in particular) is the beautiful pixel artwork and the time the artists took for precision detail. They intended their art to look a certain way.

Well, they didn't intend it to be stretched to 16x9, but they DID intend it to be smoothed and blurred via analog connection to the TV. That was the standard back then. They didn't intend them to be pixel clear via RGB signal or like you see things on an emulator. They rely on the blurring of a CRT display and analog signal to help smooth the colors and jaggy edges. It's a balance. You want the colors and lines and details to be clear, but you want some natural analog/CRT smoothing to help balance the image. If pixel art for games was designed, at the time, without this kind of effect in mind it was out of foolishness, because 95-99% of gamers were going to be getting those effects. You design for the 95%, not the 5%.

 That's the case now, but Magweasel has a piece of info/interview stating that someone at NEC or Hudson wanted to make an RGB out adapter (like the booster) for the original system. It just never got released. Not that it matter too much. The SDTV's themselves might have some blurriness to them, but it's more to do with the tv SET rather than the PCE's composite signal - which is impressively crisp. The signal itself doesn't hide dithering the way the Genesis/MD composite output does on the CVBS out (regardless of the TV). But then again, the MD came stock with RGB amp out and on the port. You have a much tougher time arguing that MD games were meant only to be played on RF or CVBS than RGB for that system, than with the PCE/TG. And even then, not all RGB sets are created equal. The RGB monitors in the arcade weren't as super crisp as the VGA and SVGA monitors of the same period (very early 90's). No arcade setup looked like my super square edged crisp SVGA monitor in '92. Not even close.