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Ultimarc Arcade VGA2 comparisons using a LCD for PC
RandyT:
--- Quote from: genesim on June 27, 2007, 05:32:22 am ---Now let me get this straight. You are pointing to a PICTURE(??!!) and saying that is what the original code was supposed to be??? Gee and can we do the same for the pacman that is not pictured directly to its left?
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A pie with a slice cut out of it as a character on the side of an arcade machine is too abstract, so they gave it feet and eyes. Apples and oranges.
--- Quote ---Fact CODE is CODE. This is non-debatable(though you seem to think this can be).
The programmers intention....all OPINIONS.
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Which mean mine are as valid as yours, I suppose. But here is one absolutely undeniable fact: without the display, all that code is just 1's and 0's. It doesn't become the Pac-Man that lived in your local arcade until it is coupled with a display like that which was used in the original machine; a 15khz, RGB, large dot-pitch CRT monitor...oriented vertically. Anything else is, using your vernacular, "faked". Not saying that it's bad, just that it's not what you are trying to convince yourself of it as being.
--- Quote ---Do I need to spell it out even more? Can you imagine if the MAME team took your approach and just arbitrarily added things to make it fit what you THINK the programmers wanted??
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It's not about what anyone thinks the programmers wanted, rather an attempt at re-creating the original look of the game as it existed in the arcade. And that is exactly what many of those filters are there for.
--- Quote ---You keep saying my screen shots in some way take away from my point. How do you figure?? My first attack is at least getting it through some skulls that the ORIGINAL code should not be tampered with before it gets to the source. Filters change this, and are not real. The screen shots first posted are the EXACT resolution of the screen shot of what code was rendered through MAME. Any other size is an estimate. Nothing to do with the screen, but everything to do with what the Arcade VGA is putting out.
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Quite simply, your "screen shots" don't have enough pixels in them to fill the screen. So if MAME isn't scaling then something else has to be. And I am assuming that something to be hardware scaling on the video card, which equally fits your definition of "tampering". IOW, you are throwing up the source as evidence of a great output system that hasn't even touched it yet. Nonsensical, to say the least. It's literally as silly as telling everyone about a great painting you did, and then for proof, you show them the photo you used for inspiration.
--- Quote ---Direct 3D even without filters also has the same problem. FAKED resolution. I can tell you for damn straight that Pacman was not meant to be played on 640x480 which is the lowest that windows allows(though I have heard of other cards that allow different resolutions, but that is another story).
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Your LCD doesn't go below that either. "Faked" is "Faked". But don't take my word for it. Hit the menu button on your LCD while a game is running and tell me the resolution and the frequency that is being reported on the input. And if you'd like, do some math and report to us how those numbers interact with the points you have been trying to make.
--- Quote ---Now lets get to this point that you say...uh if it doesn't divide evenly, then it can't possible be more accurate.
You do realize that with any screen that is not exactly to the Pacman specifications there has to be black bars on the side. Lets say for instance that those black bars are where the rest of the "left over" resolutions reside. Black is black...who cares how many pixels represent it. As long as the picture is centered, and it is close to the horizontal resolution. This would be a drastic improvement over just assigning a generic resolution for all games which is what Direct 3D does.
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Talking about the empty space on the sides of a vertical game is just more obfuscation and doesn't relate to the point.... If the vertical resolution is the limiting factor, consider it and it alone. Again, if you don't like what Direct3D does to your screen, turn it off. That's what I did when I took the photograph.
--- Quote ---Isn't it true that Pacman was developed on a single chip processor. Gee that wouldn't have anything to do with the display adapter not even coming CLOSE to filling up the CRT technology of the time. CRT monitors have been around at much higher resolutions since the 40's. The problem is the chip communication. If they could have made it rounder they wouldhave. Don't be rediculous.
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You seem to be dancing all around the point, yet never seem to get your feet wet in it. A complete system cannot exist without all the parts that comprise it. Maybe color monitors of much higher resolution did exist at the time, but they cost 10x what an entire game sold for. Memory was also very very expensive, so there were a multitude of reasons why the programmers couldn't make the graphics smoother. But the neat thing about artistic types is that you can hand them a stick, a bic lighter and a sheet of paper and you get a result that is much greater than the sum of the physical components. To say that an artist does not take advantage of the traits inherent to his medium only tells me that you aren't one.
--- Quote ---The rest is for the horses to drink.
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What do you have against horses? :)
RandyT
ahofle:
--- Quote from: RandyT on June 27, 2007, 12:49:23 am ---And BTW, as stated before, you aren't getting 100% accurate pixel representation unless the native LCD resolution can be evenly divided by the target resolution. If your assertion is anything other, then you are mistaken on that front as well.
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This is obviously the reason he "can't figure out" how to take a simple picture of his monitor so we can demonstrate his incorrect aspect ratio on Mortal Kombat. Although maybe his LCD magically physically morphs into a 1.57x1 aspect ratio display to eliminate black bars?
--- Quote ---Yeah, and just exactly how do you save a screenshot without it displaying?
The information is one to one. If it displays, then that is what is produced.
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Wrong. The Mortal Kombat screenshot you generated by pressing F12 in MAME has 102,656 pixels. Your LCD has 768,432 pixels. You neglected to show us the other 683,776 invented pixels.
I only hope the EE guys don't discover this gem of a thread and send it (and the OP) to post hell within minutes LOL.
genesim:
ahofle,
Are you reading? Do you even understand a damn thing as to how the card works??? Einstein, I repeat, MULTIPLE PIXELS are used to generate the resolution.
Windows display properties reports the resolution as 401 x 256 at 60Hz.
When I hit F11 on MAME it reports the refresh at 53 fps. This leads me to believe that the computer is being "fooled". Software can work wonders, and I am not about to try to figure out how it came to that conclusion, all I know that this is proof that it DID!
Unless of course my computer is now "lying".
The screen shot is the exact resolution that is being sent to the card, and the fact that it plays is what is EXACTLY running. What more can I tell you.
As for needing a picture, I can take pictures all day, and it wouldn't change the fact that the Ultimarc website has the best one. It illustrates the point exactly, and me not being an expert in photography have added nothing to the mix. I have taken multiple pictures and it just isn't lit well. I am not hiding anything though, like so many accuse me of. You want proof, go look at the link, because that is exactly what I am seeing. I have a 7.2 megapixel camera and it still pisses me off that I can't get a non-blurry image. I cannot reproduce what I see. But I match colors for a living and my job is being able to see differences up to 3 decimal places, a crap resolution is not going to be my downfall.
Now seriously, get your head out of the clouds. IF I take a snapshot, and even if my LCD doesn't report it correctly, does it change the authenticity of the snap? I am illustrating the difference of direct draw and direct 3D, so at this point, it really doesn't even have anything to do with a monitor does it??
Not that what I said is wrong, but I can't even get some people to see one plus one. That is how I debate. I start from the ground up.
Key Whiz,
--- Quote ---Your LCD doesn't go below that either. "Faked" is "Faked". But don't take my word for it. Hit the menu button on your LCD while a game is running and tell me the resolution and the frequency that is being reported on the input. And if you'd like, do some math and report to us how those numbers interact with the points you have been trying to make.
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Fake is not Fake, as I have tried to illustrate. There are degrees of being faked. As I said to ahofle, the widows display properties show 401x256 at 60. That is what is being reported. PERIOD.
Now how it got there, I don't pretend to know, but there are a million ways of doubling/tripling pixels that could produce acceptable means. Perhaps the black lines on the side are how it is done. You do realize that 401 lines aren't easily noticeable. Could it really be that hard to leave off most of one line, and yet get a proportional enlargement that would be much more satisfactory as opposed to using direct 3D which upscales windows defaults of 640 x 480 as best?
You keep going over that native resolution doesn't change for LCD, YET I have told you time and time again that I FREAKIN' KNOW THIS. Listen broken record, I got it, and it takes nothing away from my point. MULTIPLE PIXELS MULTIPLE PIXELS MULTIPLE PIXELS. Am I getting through here??
Does it really matter if multiple blacks are used on the the borders of Pacman if the rest of the resolution is upscaled accordingly to present a bigger pictures while still mainting the aspect ratio(or very close to it)? Actually when I look at the picture in startup mode, the white border of the agreement guide is cut off(before the game loads), but when Pacman starts, you only get a cut black border at most. I have compared, and it looks like behavior like this has happened. NO LOSS in my book.
--- Quote ---You seem to be dancing all around the point, yet never seem to get your feet wet in it. A complete system cannot exist without all the parts that comprise it. Maybe color monitors of much higher resolution did exist at the time, but they cost 10x what an entire game sold for. Memory was also very very expensive, so there were a multitude of reasons why the programmers couldn't make the graphics smoother. But the neat thing about artistic types is that you can hand them a stick, a bic lighter and a sheet of paper and you get a result that is much greater than the sum of the physical components. To say that an artist does not take advantage of the traits inherent to his medium only tells me that you aren't one.
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I have never disputed that what you say COULD be true. But at the same time, why would an artist CHOOSE his pellet to be that shape over a perfectly round one?? Don't you think it is more to do with the limits of the chipset over the supposed cost of a monitor(I am still reeling over this....gee I am sure that tall narrow monitor was cheaper to make then a standard model :laugh2:)?? Or do you really believe there was tons of chips laying around, and tons of ram and they just wanted to use that screen so bad, but they would rather be "arty" about it. :laugh2:
I got one even better...just maybe monitors were actually so cheap compared to the chip set, that one could do a read made of just about any resolution they wanted, so the lazy asses programmed as they saw fit rather then matching a standard. I am not saying this was a bad thing, but if you take a look at the 101 resolutions, I highly doubt the monitor was a real problem.
What I do know, and I will say it again. Getting the original vision right FIRST is a must. It may be one's and zero's, but it is still repeatable. Do you understand? It doesn't matter how it is displayed afterwards, it matters how it is sent to the screen. If you have an incorrect aspect ratio like 640x480, then "simply turning off direct 3D" is not going to cut it. Direct 3D does not work with lower resolutions because most video cards do not have that to start with, and as you said LCD screens can't go below it anyway. So can you not fathom the idea that Direct 3D would actually do more harm then good in this case. Well I can tell you that it does. When I put on Direct 3D while it is in a lower then say 800x600 then actually whole rows are cut out from the "rounding". If you have a high display like LCD, then you obviously have to write software that will correct this by using MULTIPLE PIXELS to represent one. OR you have Direct Draw and you don't utilize the screen. How else can I explain this? I can say it over and over, and you just won't get it.
The artist part comes AFTER you get the resolution correct. Not BEFORE. You can put any effect on a correct estimation, but as they say, if you start with 640x480, you can't polish a turd. You may get it really shiny, but a turd is a turd.
Lets face it, do we really disagree that much? I know exactly what you mean, and I see merit in a programmer most definetly knew his hardware, but still you cannot ignore the fact that the limitations of the software were the bottle neck. Do you really dispute this?
I don't think an LCD player is a crappy display, and in alot of cases if done correctly it can give you closer results with clever software(or hard encoded/rigged hardware). You don't believe so. Cool. Everyone has opinions. Perhaps you may be closer to knowing what the original programmer thought. But it doesn't matter because the documentation is there and yes....that one was a one, and that zero was a zero, and no after the fact monitor is going to change this.
Oh incidently I feel that I am an artist as well as a scientist. Not only do I excel at abstract thinking, but the talent runs through my family, with the closest as my dad being a painter. Still, you can learn through observance. I don't have to be hit by a car to know what it does to you.
I hate idiotic rationale like your background lends some kind of weight to having more knowledge. History will show you that people with absolutely no connection to x technology can know more then someone that has spent a lifetime in the field. The greatest inventions of the world were materialized through that one guy that could make the connection.
ahofle:
--- Quote from: genesim on June 27, 2007, 05:11:46 pm ---I am still reeling over this....gee I am sure that tall narrow monitor was cheaper to make then a standard model :laugh2:)??
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Oh man this is good stuff...
Wanted:
Talented scientist/artist who excels in abstract thinking to help me convert a standard 19" CGA monitor to a Pacman monitor. I've tried looking everywhere for a replacement, but all I can find are short and fat ones (I need tall and narrow), so I've decided to try a conversion. Please advise.
RandyT:
I concede because you were obviously born smarter than me and my continuing to post in this ridiculous thread is unfortunately proof of that.
RandyT
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