Corrected ratio vs pixel perfect

[Anonymous No.8704528]

hey /vr/,

so im making a game in the style of doom clones of the DOS age, which so far, has been an absolute pain in the ass with new hardware

but my question is, how important do you consider the corrected aspect ratio, as opposed to a pixel perfect one? ive found a way to emulate the corrected ratio look, squishing the pixels horizontally from 320x200, to become 4:3, but is that extra step worth it, or should i just leave it pixel perfect at widescreen?

how important is 4:3 with corrected ratio to you in how you perceive DOS games? for me it's important, but I don't want to sink so much time into something everyone else wouldnt care about

pic stolen from doom wiki

[Anonymous No.8704554]

right looks better, left looks like frankenstein's monster

[Anonymous No.8704565]

>>8704528
If you're trying to do retro you should stick with 4:3 and just let players decides how they want the aspect ratio, resolution and screen shape to look.

[Anonymous No.8704608]

>>8704528
>how important is 4:3 with corrected ratio to you in how you perceive DOS games?
I absolutely don't give a fuck.
I don't see anything wrong in the left and in the right picture.
Don't overthink it, only autists and people who won't actually play the game care.

[Anonymous No.8704741]

>>8704528

I'm not really sure if there is such a thing as 'pixel perfect' when it comes to PC games. Outside of aspect ratio, PC devs don't really target single resolutions. I don't think it was that big of a concern, since most people will be running the game with different configurations.

[Anonymous No.8704773]

>>8704528
Pretty important. While people, who "don't care", exist, most people would prefera picture as it was designed, as such a picture does not form a bad feeling of "it's clearly incorrect" in you. Designer had designed this and that elements, monsters and characters with some specific proportions, so distortion in them could change your perception of the game drastically.

[Anonymous No.8704781]

>>8704528
I start to understand, why remasters look so bad nowadays - there are people, who just don't see, that in many cases game creators had intentionally used different proportions, shadows, fogs and other stuff as an design instruments. Looks like people, who "remaster" games, think, that goal always was not to be interesting, but to be realistic.

[Anonymous No.8704807]

>>8704528

Everything in game development takes forever. If this relatively small obstacle is a big deal to you then maybe your project isn't ever going to be finished? I mean, yeah, do what you consider to be the right thing even if it takes an extra step. It'll be good practice for every other part of your project taking far longer than you want or expect it to.

[Anonymous No.8705329]

>>8704528
Corrected aspect ratio will give it the real retro look. People will probably bitch at you for not having 1:1 pixel mapping but don't listen to them.

[Anonymous No.8705332]

>Pixel perfect
Not retro

[Anonymous No.8705337]

>>8704528
If you’re making a new game for modern devices, pixel ratio can be whatever you want. Why would you think this applies to modern games?

[Anonymous No.8705532]

>>8704608
As an autist, this is a fair assessment

>>8704741
I just mean pixel perfect as in square pixels. The resolution will be locked the keep the retro feel, but older DOS games were 320x200 (a 16:9) ratio, but you would manually adjust the monitor to squish the image into 4:9. Most (if not all) developers kept this in mind when designing mobs, characters, everything, so they would appear correctly when the image was squished, as the games weren't meant for widescreen.

>>8704773
This is the way I see it. The games were designed that way because of limitations of the time. imo the best way of making something feel truly retro is to work within those same limitations, albeit, self-imposed.

>>8704781
This is very much how I feel as well. I want the game to genuinely capture the look of that era. There are a ton of "retro DOS" style indie games out there, but they never quite feel truly retro, and I feel like the corrected ratio is a part of that.

>>8704807
I'm fairly experienced in game design, and most things don't present this big of a problem for me, it's just a pain to work within the confines of 90s hardware on a 2022 pc lol

>>8705329
This guy gets it lol

>>8705337
I think you might have misunderstood my post; I'm making a game that imitates the retro DOS look. A few tags up I explained the whole corrected aspect ratio thing, but you can find better explanations of it elsewhere. For me, it's an important part of the retro look, but I want to get a real consensus of what people think before I waste my time making assets that only work in the corrected ratio

[Anonymous No.8705558]

>>8704528
hey reddit,

Not retro

[Anonymous No.8705619]

>>8704528
They only drew the art like that to compensate for how monitors of the time stretched the game. Theres no need to do that today, you can just draw the art in the intended ratio.

[Anonymous No.8705637]

>>8705619
I know, but what I'm asking is whether or not people find the look of that pixel squish to be integral to visually feeling like an actual DOS game?

[Anonymous No.8705724]

Make a good game
Not a "le retro game", we have enough shitty call back games so focus on making it fun first and foremost

[Anonymous No.8705746]

>>8704528
Just do 320x240. Pixel perfect and was a old standard (though I think it was more Windows 95 then DOS.)

[Anonymous No.8705970]

>>8705532
>320x200 (a 16:9) ratio
That's 16:10

[Anonymous No.8705973]

>>8705970
Why don't people say 8:5

[Anonymous No.8705987]

>>8705973
Because 16:9 is well established and it's easier to mentally picture a 16:10 ratio using 16:9 as a basis. I know it's not right and it irks me too, but it does work as a mental shortcut.

[Anonymous No.8706139]

>>8705970
>That's 16:10

I hated when PC monitors went from 16:10 as the standard to 16:9. I still have a Dell 16:10 monitor that displays at 1900x1200. I prefer monitors with more vertical space. Also, 16:10 is perfect for DOS gaming.

[Anonymous No.8706269]

>>8704528
You're making the game from the ground up, right? Just go with whatever you think would look best, if you feel you could better display your graphics with perfectly square pixels, go with that. However, if you think the stretched pixels look nice, by all means go for it.

Also, if you use procedurally generated levels for an FPS, or intentionally make the sprites or models look ugly, I will come into your house at night.

>>8704554
>>8704565
>>8704608
>>8704741
It's less noticeable with Doomguy's face, but it becomes pretty obvious with some of the monsters.

[Anonymous No.8706335]

>>8706269
>if you use procedurally generated levels
Not him but I do in my FPS hack n slash. Suck my ass. :^)

[Anonymous No.8707110]

>>8706269
>It's less noticeable with Doomguy's face, but it becomes pretty obvious with some of the monsters.

I pulled out a 16:10 monitor that I have in storage. This one came from an old DELL PC and is 19inch and displayed a max resolution of 1440x900 and plugged it into my current PC using a DVI connection. I then downloaded the shareware DOOM 1.0, and ran it in DOS BOX using the 16:10 monitor. 320x200 looks like it scales nicely on a 16:10 display. Though I had to use the windows resolution options in DOS BOX to make it upscale, as DOSBOX under Linux doesn't know what monitor to display DOOM on. It goes for my 16:21 monitor.

[Anonymous No.8707131]

>>8707110

Monitor is this one. manufactured in 2007.
https://www.amazon.ca/Dell-S199-Panel-Widescreen-Monitor/dp/B00CEB816S

[Anonymous No.8707290]

>>8705970
o oof youre right, my bad. same point tho

>>8705724
making it an engaging experience is always the more important part a game. the basic gameplay functions are there, im just building a kind of vertical slice to get playtested, and the retro feel has an important effect on the game itself in a way i dont wanna give away, but i assure you, it bugs the everloving fuck out of me when people makes visually cool games that suck balls because muh aesthetics

>>8706269
fair enough. i just have a massive love for retro games, and wanted to authentically replicate the experience for reasons i wont go super into.

>Also, if you use procedurally generated levels for an FPS, or intentionally make the sprites or models look ugly, I will come into your house at night.

Absolutely the fuck not. i do think theres a time and a place for anything, but i went to school for game design, and level design is probably the part im most passionate about making a genuine experience. im no sandy peterson, but with any luck, i can channel some part of him in what i do.

[Anonymous No.8707398]

>>8705970
>>320x200 (a 16:9) ratio
>That's 16:10

Commander Keen in Goodbye, Galaxy. @ 320x200 resolution. Upscaled to 1440x900 (16:10). This is running in DOSBOX.

[Anonymous No.8707683]

>>8704528
I don't think any of the players would care what shape pixels are if playing fullscreen on a HD display.
But here are some difficulties if you chose nonsqaure pixels. Firstly, many CRT users would want an low-res mode with no upscaling - to scale the picture on the display itself just like in DOS days. But other retards (and looking at you OP you're close to this status yourself) would screw themselves over by activating this option on a modern LCD display which is always square pixels.
Besides, some LCD users may want to play in a small window (or on a lowres handheld) to get these sharp pixels which also wouldn't be possible with nonquare ones.
Interestingly, I haven't seen any games for modern systems using non-square pixels. Anyone have an example?
>>8705532
>I just mean pixel perfect as in square pixels.
"Pixel perfect" is an awful term for square pixels because if taken literally it means a different thing. A picture could easily be considered perfect in it's pixels only when they aren't square.

[Anonymous No.8707689]

>>8706269
Fuck you. I want a FPS with procedurally generated levels. You have tens of thousands of manually crafted levels already, better go play them than bitch.

[Anonymous No.8707728]

Made a comparison for you to see what choice OP actually offers (if they're sane that is, I certainly hope so)

[Anonymous No.8707729]

>>8707728

[Anonymous No.8707802]

>>8704528
Just realized you can offer this choice to user. In case of FPS game the only part or art that is affected but this is HUD (including player character hands). Almost any HUD would still look ok if it's aspect ratio is compromised and you could rescale hands (with a high quality scaler preferably), not a big deal.

[Anonymous No.8707838]

>>8707802
An example. Bicubic resize. Disregard transparency - didn't care to do it properly.

[Anonymous No.8707847]

>>8707838
Or nearest neighbor.

[Anonymous No.8708232]

>>8706335
Enjoy making a bad game.

>>8707689
Go try out Obsidian with Doom, then.
https://doomwiki.org/wiki/OBSIDIAN
It can achieve mediocre levels if you're lucky.

[Anonymous No.8708245]

>>8708232
Thank you, Mr. Expert. I will, lol

[Anonymous No.8708252]

>>8708245
Do you have a blog or something?
>>8708232
Thank you, Mr. Expert. I will, lol

[Anonymous No.8708270]

>>8707398
Yep, already pointed out, doesn't change the actual question

>>8707683
I mean, the point is that I want to emulate the look and feel as accurately as possible, not "hee hoo its retro because its low res." It would include a crt filter to sell the look, and i considered having an option for crt mode, where, if enable, it would turn off said filter, and return it to normal res so if a person wanted to play it on a real crt, they could scale it themselves for full effect. this could also be used to play it normal widescreen with square pixels, and I don't mind that being the option, but regardless, the recommended way to play it will be 4:9. Nobody has to scaled the picture on their LCD, that's what the whole post is about; I was able to make it happen in game, by scaling the picture correctly using a shader texture.

>>8707728
This isn't really a new argument, people have argued whether square pixels or proper ratio correction are the best way to play older games, as many were designed with ratio correction in mind, which is why, when emulated today, mobs, letters, logos, etc, look stretched too wide.

>>8707838
Yeah, I think when I started considering having a mode for crt's specifically, I realized I could just allow a menu option for it. The shader isn't exactly a doozy to disable or anything, but it will have to swap cameras, and that's easy to bug out.

>>8707689
Holy shit, I cannot believe that's a real sentence.

[Anonymous No.8708276]

For the zoomers who only played old games via DOSbox because they saw a streamer playing Dark Forces once, watch this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvckyWxHAIw

[Anonymous No.8708280]

>>8708252
I'm not that communicative, lol. I will appeal for a Steam release when the thing is done. Try being a game developer in a poor and (now) war-torn county... :^|

[Anonymous No.8708375]

>>8708280
You're literally me. Except that I'm in the invading country that is now cancelled by the whole world which is no good at all game business wise. Wanna discuss gamedev and shit? Made a server just for this thread - disc*rd.gg/xhj4BVqT

[Anonymous No.8708437]

>>8706269
there is nothing wrong with procedural generation, surprise surprise it's badly implemented in lots of cases.

[Anonymous No.8708494]

>>8708270
>>>8707398 (You)
>Yep, already pointed out, doesn't change the actual question

No, I guess it doesn't. Personally, I just never put it together that 300x200 was a 16:10 aspect ratio. Which made me get one of my old 16:10 LCD monitors out of the closet to see what a DOS game would look like at 320x200 at full screen in 16:10. It shouldn't come to any surprise that it is a perfect 4.5x upscale to 1440x900 on the vertical and horizontal resolutions and it looks good. I have never seen a DOS game at native 16:10. In the past, I would avoid 320x200 when playing an old DOS game on Windows 98, and go for 320x240 (4:3) or higher instead. 320x200 was a pretty normal default resolution for the DOS era. It was also pretty normal to play a game at that resolution on a 4:3 monitor. My 16:10 LCD came from 2007. Not exactly period correct. But cool experiment for me.

[Anonymous No.8708518]

>>8708270
Before anyone hits me with it, I meant 4:3, I was looking at 16:9 when I wrote that lol

>>8708494
So you would opt for a square pixel resolution to match your screen even on old games? That's pretty interesting, but I guess it would favor the few games that weren't made to be corrected

[Anonymous No.8708540]

>>8708270
>this could also be used to play it normal widescreen with square pixels
Nonono man this is wrong. The game must be played in the aspect ratio you designed and coded it. There are no excuse for distortion.
By the way, why don't make it so any aspect ratio is supported? Some people hate black bars for some reason, and there's no reason to not do it if you offer changeable fov.
>This isn't really a new argument
Well it's kinda is. People are often arguing about how to scale an old game output. But your question is how to design your game.

[Anonymous No.8708585]

>>8708375
Later maybe. Let's see how things go in the next weeks...or months.

[Anonymous No.8708619]

>>8708437
I think it depends strongly on what kind of game you're making, look at Diablo for a game where it works really well. I'm probably biased because every retro-styled FPS which has come out with procedurally generated levels in the past 7 years have had dogshit level generation.

[Anonymous No.8708665]

>>8708619
Random generation in 2D is comparably easy. Doing true random 3D map generation is hard, so I'm relying on a prefab system and a prefab 'mutator' on top of that. This way you still get hand-built parts with additional elements of randomization.

[Anonymous No.8708695]

>>8708585
I'll see if I ever recognize your game then, anon.

[Anonymous No.8708701]

>>8708619
Not really, it's just hard to do correctly and devs phone it in.
Doom works fine with Oblige. It's just bad implementation that gives it a bad name.

[Anonymous No.8708757]

>>8708665
2D versus 3D certainly adds an all new dimension of difficulty to something like this, fittingly. I'd insist that you make quite a lot of different prefabs, and that even when you have released the game, you then add even more as patches or free DLC.

There's also more to consider, like the actual progression of a level, as well as progression of secrets, you need more than just the most baseline logic for this (ergo, the generator makes a locked door and then just slaps the key somewhere in the level, there has to be more).

>>8708701
That looks fine, but how does it play? What kind of intents, concepts, and ideas do you get out of the level?

[Anonymous No.8709015]

>>8708540
I suppose that would be a better solution, but I would prefer to have a way for true crt players to play it on their sets, and that would require me to change it. I could feasibly include all of these options, I just would ideally keep it 4:3, but if the general consensus is that widescreen should be an option, its not the biggest hit to the look

[Anonymous No.8711307]

>>8708757
Awful attempt at feigning intelligent discussion anon.

[Anonymous No.8711858]

>>8708518
>So you would opt for a square pixel resolution to match your screen even on old games? That's pretty interesting, but I guess it would favor the few games that weren't made to be corrected

No. Most software designed for 320x200 was generally meant to be displayed on a 4:3 aspect ratio monitor. Though, some users may have actually adjusted their monitor settings to squash the image down. The images that I posted, were just a test to see what a 320x200 image would look like evenly upscaled on a 16:10 monitor. I think Keen looks kinda good in 16:10, but I wouldn't use this for all DOS software. Some might find it interesting, though.

[Anonymous No.8711946]

>>8711858
Yeah, that's what my initial argument was; that most games were intended to be ratio corrected on a crt, so that's the look I was going for, I just don't know if other people find it integral to the look. But I wouldn't mind including a widescreen mode for people who do want it.

[Anonymous No.8711958]

>>8711946
Or rather, would the small sacrifice of immersion be worth it for gaining the lowest common denominator of people?

[Anonymous No.8712287]

>>8704528
The doom hud should be rendered with non-square pixels because that was the way it art was drawn. If your draw your art with square pixels, then its going to look right with square pixels.
> ive found a way to emulate the corrected ratio look
I have no idea why you consider this to be a big deal in the first place, you just draw a textured quad and the pixel aspect ratio is dealt with automatically because you have stretched the textured over the quad.

[Anonymous No.8712369]

>>8712287
>The doom hud should be rendered with non-square pixels because that was the way it art was drawn. If your draw your art with square pixels, then its going to look right with square pixels.
Well, no, you fucking idiot, the art was drawn with the expectation that it would be stretched vertically. With the clay models they compressed the sprites vertically after scanning, because otherwise they would come out looking stretched.

[Anonymous No.8712394]

>>8712369
No idea what your issue is, we both are basically saying the same thing.

[Anonymous No.8712401]

>>8712287
It's not a big deal to make the shader, I just want to know what most people who are interested in the same games as me think would be better for the look. A lot of this thread is derailing from my actual question to telling me things I already knew.

If I'm the one being unclear, let me know, because I know that's a possibility, too, I just thought my initial question was fairly straightforward.

[Anonymous No.8712419]

>>8704528
>but is that extra step worth it
Of course. That's how the games really looked back then and the hardcore enthusiasts will appreciate that extra detail.

[Anonymous No.8712421]

>>8712394
I cannot read.