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Author Topic: Question about resolutions (computer monitor and TV 720p 1080p)  (Read 1469 times)

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cloudeleven

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Question about resolutions (computer monitor and TV 720p 1080p)
« on: February 22, 2022, 06:06:00 pm »
I've been playing MAME (with HLSL) on a 19" Dell LCD 4:3 PC monitor with 1280x1024 resolution. If I get a large TV to play MAME on, say a used 42" LCD off FB Marketplace, would the image look lower resolution on a 720p HDTV than on my PC monitor? From my calculation the 4:3 game screen space on the 720p HD TV would be 960x720 resolution (75% of the full 1280x720), which would be 691,200 pixels, or about half the number of pixels as my current 1280x1024 (1,310,720). So a 1080p HDTV would be closer to my current PC monitor res, which would have 1440x1080 = 1,555,200 pixels in the 4:3 game screen space. Does that sound right or are my calculations off?

Or I dunno, the lower res 720p might actually make the MAME games look better since they were low res games to begin with.

Wanting to go with an HDTV instead of a CRT because of size/weight (I can't lug a 30+" CRT up flights of stairs to my apartment   ;).
« Last Edit: February 22, 2022, 06:14:10 pm by cloudeleven »

buttersoft

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Re: Question about resolutions (computer monitor and TV 720p 1080p)
« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2022, 08:36:16 pm »
When it comes to scaling unevenly, more pixels is always better. With integer scaling, other factors will come into play like the quality of the display itself, how much light it's outputting, if the colours are rich, motion blur, display lag, etc. Those are always relevant, of course.

Some old arcade games are 320x240p. which at 3x is 960x720. Other games, like all CPS1/2 titles, are 384x224. And there's everything in between. Scaling those to fullscreen will give uneven results, and a higher res display to do that with will help smooth things out, i would imagine, even with HLSL effects enabled.