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Post by 16bitter on Feb 15, 2015 12:02:25 GMT -5
Hi, I've been keeping tabs on the upcoming Battletoads article when I noticed all the screenshots for the arcade game had to be replaced. I assume this was because of the resolution used, not because of the content. The version of MAME I used that worked with it (Plus + 0.119) insisted on outputting screenshots at 512x224. Digging around, I found that 256x224 seemed more official, but didn't look "right" to me. I think I had settled on 300x224 since that looked closest to what appears on the display (the spherical enemies in the last stage were perfectly round at this resolution). Only today did I see the line that you guys prefer the hardware output as opposed to what seems right on the display. Sorry about that!
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Post by ReyVGM on Feb 15, 2015 12:13:02 GMT -5
Upcoming Battletoads article? Where is it because I can't find anything about it.
If MAME takes the screenshots at 512x224, then that is the official internal resolution. If it looks different in the actual arcade machine, that's because the monitor/display resizes the image to fit the screen. So a widescreen resolution now becomes, visually, a square one.
It would be ideal if screenshots would look like how they look on the display, but unfortunately different displays give you different looks, so you can't rely on something that is never the same. That's why it's better to go with internal resolution.
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Post by 16bitter on Feb 15, 2015 13:02:19 GMT -5
I submitted it back in December, but it hasn't been published yet, probably a combination of article backlogs and this screenshot issue. LINK The arcade game is page 3.
If 512x224 is the official internal resolution, the HG101 staff decided to use the 256x224 instead because the widescreen looks terrible. I guess I was curious whether another version of MAME had the game set at 256x224 or whether they had to resize the images as I did. |
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Post by starscream on Feb 15, 2015 14:32:06 GMT -5
My understanding is that the output of certain systems in MAME/MESS is scaled for technical reasons, that would explain e.g. the very large PCFX width, as the system is supposed to be able render hybrid screens where layers use different resolutions.
Of course, in some cases, it may still be buggy/inaccurate.
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Post by ReyVGM on Feb 15, 2015 21:21:47 GMT -5
I see. But 256x224 is not correct, even if it looks better.
I compared a 512x224 screenshot I took, and then resized it to 256x224, and while the HUD and characters look good, the background lost details only present in the high resolution of 512.
For the purpose of the article I guess this is not important though.
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Post by Weasel on Feb 15, 2015 23:22:03 GMT -5
I would think that the "ideal" screen resolution would be 512x448, with double-tall pixels, using the 256x224 shots as thumbnails.
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Post by Discoalucard on Feb 16, 2015 13:32:58 GMT -5
It's a little bit of a tricky situation! The native resolution is indeed 512x224.
Most of the assets seem like they were designed for 256x224, which is a standard resolution for many arcade and console games. Many of them were just pixel doubled horizontally. However, a few elements were indeed created for the 512 width, like the text in the enemy introduction screens. Some of the fidelity is lost when resized to 256 but it's not major.
However, every game that uses the 256 width resolution, when displayed on an actual arcade cabinet, technically they are stretched out slightly to appear thicker. The problem is that resizing screenshots to do this results in filtering, which looks kinda ugly. So, we use the closest to the internal resolution, most of the time, with the exception of some Capcom boards, which use a 384 pixel horizontal resolution. This doesn't scale down evenly but looks entirely wrong at its native resolution. We keep the native resolution pics usually, but resize the thumbnails. We have to do this fairly often for PS1 games due to the variety of resolutions it uses. But filtering is less of an issue for 3D titles than it is for 2D ones.
For the case of Battletoads, the resizing algorithm in the submitted screenshots seemed to heavily compress the image, which is why I retook them.
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Post by 16bitter on Feb 16, 2015 14:08:15 GMT -5
Gotcha, next time I'll feel assured that MAME knows what it's doing and just leave the source files alone. I'd have happily retaken the shots myself though, feel free to ask. I should be around the forums more often now.
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Post by Discoalucard on Feb 17, 2015 9:45:06 GMT -5
No worries. Under normal circumstances I would've followed up and asked for native res shots, but I'd always wanted to played through the arcade Battletoads, so I used the opportunity to give it a shot.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2015 0:14:04 GMT -5
I never ran across a Battletoads arcade game in the wild in the old days, and finally got around to giving it a shot in MAME around this time last year. Let's just say there's a reason this thing never came to home systems.
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Post by Discoalucard on Feb 20, 2015 12:24:39 GMT -5
I never ran across a Battletoads arcade game in the wild in the old days, and finally got around to giving it a shot in MAME around this time last year. Let's just say there's a reason this thing never came to home systems. I saw it at a minigolf place once years ago on vacation, so I never got to play it regularly. It's...not terrible. On one hand, since it focuses so largely on the beat-em-up stuff, it has a more consistent feel than most of the console games. On the other hand, the beat-em-up stuff isn't so great. Doesn't seem any worse than Battlemaniacs, anyway. Decent music and visuals. |
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Post by 16bitter on Feb 20, 2015 13:51:06 GMT -5
Quite difficult too, at least when trying to go solo. My meager 1CC attempts never got me past stage two.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2015 15:00:10 GMT -5
Comparing it to Battlemaniacs is pretty accurate. The Super NES game felt like a huge step down from the NES original. Even Battletoads & Double Dragon was more solid.
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Post by Bobinator on Feb 20, 2015 15:32:01 GMT -5
I actually really like the arcade game, probably even more than the console Battletoads games, if I'm being totally honest. I guess I just appreciate that it's generally a less frustrating game, overall. Hard, sure, but you can get away with being a lot worse in an arcade game, so I can live with that. I think it's one of those brawlers that doesn't know when it needs to please, please end, but it's got a nice soundtrack and generally plays well enough, although it's even shallower than your average Konami BMU.
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Post by Terrifying on Feb 25, 2015 6:10:38 GMT -5
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this game published by Electronic Arts? Ha, Electronic Arts.
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