Correct Aspect Ratio for vertical games on 16:9 screens??

[lettuce]

I have noticed that when playing vertical games on a 16:9 display when its horizontally orientated (not vertically) that the game are display too narrow, on actual 4:3 screen the screen is only a little bit wider than it is tall so when you rotate it for a vertical game the screen is still almost as wide as it was before (maybe just 20% narrower) but mame with default settings seem to make the game super narrow....



Im guessing it might be to do with the default Core Render Options in MAME.ini.....

keepaspect                1
unevenstretch           1
unevenstretchx         0
unevenstretchy         0
autostretchxy           0
intoverscan               0
intscalex                   0
intscaley                   0

i would have thought disabling unevenstretch would fix the issue but all this seems to do is reduce the actual vertical height of the image but even this still seem too narrow a display....



If i rotate the 'keepaspect' image so its a horizontal orientation you can see it isnt quiet 4:3 aspect....



and when you compare it to a 4:3 horizontal game like Final Fight you can still see its slight narrower....



So how do you get vertically game to display correctly so there not super narrow??

[dgrams2000]

Okay, I am not a guru that knows all the technical aspects and jargon, but your screen shots from a 16:9 screen look normal to me.
That is what I see on my 16:9 as well.   

Remember that your vertically based games are a bit thinner. And on a 16:9 they just always look thinner.
Like watching 4:3 on a 16:9.  To me the picture always looks thinner than it should be, but it is not.

I'm not saying you are wrong.. maybe I am.  But I think what you are seeing looks normal for vertical games.

 

[Laythe]

Most LCD displays these days have square pixels.

You can check this on your own display. 

Measure the width and the height of the viewable area of your screen, in inches. 
Say you get 35 1/2" wide by 20" tall.    Divide it like so;  35.5/20=1.775    - that's the physical aspect ratio of your screen.

If the native resolution of your panel is, say, 1920x1080,  1920/1080 = 1.777  - that's the aspect ratio of your screen resolution.    16/9 = 1.777 as well.

If the resolution and the physical size match up, the pixels are square.  If they don't, you can figure out a corrective factor based on the difference between those numbers, but most everything is square now.

So, if your pixels turn out to be square, and you know the CRTs of the original games were 4:3  (1.333)  then as long as your layout file for MAME sets the screen to be height = width * 1.333, your result should be correct.   

To verify what you are getting is correct, measure the gamefield you are seeing on your screen in inches.  Does height / width = 1.333?   If it does, then that's right.

[lettuce]

So MAMEdoesnt take this into account and adjust the screen accordingly even if i have set my screen resolution and aspect ration in MAME.ini so it knows that it a 16:9 screen and 1440p?.

I thought that was what integer scaling setting in MAME did was make each pixel square??

[Laythe]

I have no idea how to reply to your question re: mame.ini, so I am going to skip it.


The first image you posted is 1280x720.  I'm going to assume that means you have a 720p TV or monitor.   1280/720 = 1.7777, so the resolution is 16:9.

I'm going to presume your physical display is also 16:9.  It would be very odd to find a 720p TV or monitor that wasn't physically 16:9.  So I'm going to assume that the pixels in your display are actually square.

In the first image you posted, the emulated screen is 540x720 pixels.  I measured it.  720/540 = 1.333  -  notice that 4/3 = 1.333 as well.   1.333 is the 4:3 ratio. 

So, what you should be seeing in that first posted screenshot should be correct.

You can confirm that it's correct by measuring the emulated game screen on your physical display using a ruler or tape measure.

Does the measured height / measured width = 1.333?   If so, it is as it should be, and it looking skinny is just you and the slimming optical illusion of a wide frame around a tall image.

[markc74]

Laythe has nailed it.

looks right to me too. Final fight is a bad comparison as it has a relatively high horizontal resolution compared to a lot of games.

[Howard_Casto]

^^This^^

At native resolution, Capcom games are practically 16:9 already.  Some will argue that the monitor is supposed to be adjusted to make them 4:3 as well.  I've actually seen them both ways in the wild and prefer the 16:9 ratio as that is how they were presented on the snes ports. 

[lettuce]

I have no idea how to reply to your question re: mame.ini, so I am going to skip it.


The first image you posted is 1280x720.  I'm going to assume that means you have a 720p TV or monitor.   1280/720 = 1.7777, so the resolution is 16:9.

I'm going to presume your physical display is also 16:9.  It would be very odd to find a 720p TV or monitor that wasn't physically 16:9.  So I'm going to assume that the pixels in your display are actually square.

In the first image you posted, the emulated screen is 540x720 pixels.  I measured it.  720/540 = 1.333  -  notice that 4/3 = 1.333 as well.   1.333 is the 4:3 ratio. 

So, what you should be seeing in that first posted screenshot should be correct.

You can confirm that it's correct by measuring the emulated game screen on your physical display using a ruler or tape measure.

Does the measured height / measured width = 1.333?   If so, it is as it should be, and it looking skinny is just you and the slimming optical illusion of a wide frame around a tall image.

I did actual reduce the size of the images by 50% before i uploaded then, i have 1440p monitor btw. Thanks for the detail reply though 

^^This^^

At native resolution, Capcom games are practically 16:9 already.  Some will argue that the monitor is supposed to be adjusted to make them 4:3 as well.  I've actually seen them both ways in the wild and prefer the 16:9 ratio as that is how they were presented on the snes ports.

Im not sure i would compare anything to the snes version of the game, the reason the snes version had borders was more a technical limitation than intentional one i would say

[Laythe]

I did actual reduce the size of the images by 50% before i uploaded then, i have 1440p monitor btw. Thanks for the detail reply though 

Oh!  That makes sense, ok. 

If you don't like the aspect ratio you are getting, regardless of whether it is technically correct or not, it is adjustable.  You can tune it with a mame layout .lay file per game.  (I don't think you can tune it per game in the .ini though.)  Just alter the size and placement of the screen.  Mr Do's arcade has a lot of layout files you can use as an example.  So if there's a few games you want to tweak to be different, you can do it that way.

[Calamity]

The easiest way to force vertical games to be wider is to lie MAME about your monitor's actual aspect ratio. E.g., if your monitor is 16:9, force -aspect 4:3, and MAME will create narrower borders -> wider picture. You can play with values between 16:9 and 4:3.

[lettuce]

I did actual reduce the size of the images by 50% before i uploaded then, i have 1440p monitor btw. Thanks for the detail reply though 

Oh!  That makes sense, ok. 

If you don't like the aspect ratio you are getting, regardless of whether it is technically correct or not, it is adjustable.  You can tune it with a mame layout .lay file per game.  (I don't think you can tune it per game in the .ini though.)  Just alter the size and placement of the screen.  Mr Do's arcade has a lot of layout files you can use as an example.  So if there's a few games you want to tweak to be different, you can do it that way.

Thanks, where do i place the layout files?. The Batsugun they have a picture of on Doctor Do's Arcade does indeed look wider....

[Laythe]

Layout files go in the artwork directory.