And the flaming begins ::)
[snip]
Disprove what I say, and go from there. What I said was not unclear.
At this point I'm not sure what your point is. And, a whole lot of fuss over a terrible monitor choice.
1. My point is and still remains that the arcade vga by ultimarc improves the picture particularly on an LCD screen. It creates the same picture that direct draw creates except for the fact that it fills up the screen.
I am sure you saw the pics, but take a good look at the dots. Do you know why they look "boxy" compared to garbled mess that is Direct 3D.....because PIXELS ON ARCADES WERE SQUARE TO BEGIN WITH! :cheers:
Thats right, the blurred crap you see with arcade monitors and such are an illusion based on the fact that you have poor connections along with compromise of the original digital code.
Does your picture look like the one above without blur? If it doesn't then you have compromised the picture. There isn't any if's and's or but's about this. This is a verifiable fact.
You don't seem to understand how much the new card does with and LCD, look at the link and understand the wonders of the new 352x288 resolution. Like I said, multiple pixels draw a more accurate picture with NO "upscaling". Direct 3D is based on upscaling.
Look at the first posts, look closely at how blurry the power pellet looks, look at your own for crying out loud, can you honestly say that soft look was how it was supposed to be????
BLOCKY was true to the original. Were you not there in the arcades? Even scanlines could not cover up this fact, and like I said, I have actually compared one to one.
Still wondering what the hell this "side lights" thing is. If you find a link to this please pass it on, because I am finding NOTHING on it. Which is strange with even wikipedia. Much less it being some widespread phenomenon that hurts vision???
No, they were not. The images stored in within the electronics were very boxy, but you never ever saw them that way in the arcades. Those boxy image representations were hand tweaked by the artists to take advantage of characteristics of the display...
No, it was a side effect of using a large dot-pitch dot-triad CRT. "square" pixels were a technical impossibility.
You may have compromised what the artist put on his graph paper, but his graph paper was never intended to be viewed as such.
You don't seem to understand how LCD panels work. I can't comment on the card, nor will I for a number of reasons.
Either you 1) live with an approximation of pixel sizes that cause some pixels to be larger than others (also known as artifacting from upscaling)
2) you use only the portion of the screen into which the image resolution can be evenly divided and accept a smaller on-screen image.
In this case it would be 704x576 assuming proper aspect ratios.
3) crop the screen to remove the remainder of pixels which cannot be displayed, in this case resulting in a loss of 32 vertical and 96 lines horizontal. It's also important to note that without some means of communicating the native resolution of the LCD panel to the drivers (which can scale just as readily as D3D, BTW) methods 2 and 3 couldn't be used as there are many different "native resolutions" out there.
Yes, the power pellet was supposed to appear round, not like the thing you drew. The softer smoother look was the intention of the artist, but the low resolution of the display hardware limited what he was able to do there. You are making bizarre assumptions based on something I'm afraid I cannot begin to fathom.
I worked in the glasses-free 3D business for about 5 years and part of my job was to find and evaluate LCD screens to be used with the technology. I have seen many, many LCD panels, all with different pros and cons.
But please don't try to support "what you like" by spreading falsehoods about myriad other topics. People come here to learn, not to be mislead.
RandyT
wow.... :dunno
RandyT
I have sat back and devoured every debate, and key whiz, while being very interesting, essentially spends him time being a "know it all" with virtually no substance.
It's all smoke an mirrors.
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?
Fact CODE is CODE. This is non-debatable(though you seem to think this can be).
The programmers intention....all OPINIONS.
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??
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.
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).
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.
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.
The rest is for the horses to drink.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I am still reeling over this....gee I am sure that tall narrow monitor was cheaper to make then a standard model :laugh2:)??
that and jackasses that have nothing to add but complete foolish behavior.
NO.
I was saying that recreating the original CODE is the ground floor.
NON 1:1 arcade monitors create just as much harm in some cases and in others actually more.
You should never go for the filtering effect until the original code is represented accurately.
You should never go for what YOU think the author intended, you should always go for what was actually there in the code. Accuracy first. Interpretation later.
The code is the "DNA" of Arcades.
I think you misunderstood my arguement about monitors. Randy was saying that Pacman was programmed intentionaly "boxy" because of the limitations of displays at the time. I am blowing the BS whistle from the word go. Monitors weren't 1080p, but they also weren't limited to 252 resolution either! It was obviously the limit of the chip. This is undisputed. Did you really think I needed to have it pointed out that there weren't such high resolution monitors?
The images stored within the electronics were very boxy, but you never ever saw them that way in the arcades. Those boxy image representations were hand tweaked by the artists to take advantage of characteristics of the display and were never intended to be seen block for block. I pushed plenty of pixels in the 80's and that is the first thing I learned.
Many times there are pixels in a low res image designed for CRT display that were never intended to be seen directly, rather it was the effect they had when combined with surrounding areas and viewed on the target display that was intended to be seen. Anti-aliasing is the modern day equivalent that started when displays were much lower res.
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.
Randy thinks that tv's/monitors are the bottle neck and programmers were hindered by them. Randy is wrong.
If computers can recreate Optimus Prime, they should be able to do the same for "imperfections" that give Mame games that "authentic" touch.
NO Einstein. 4kb is 4kb and there wasn't a television around that could not handle anything and everything that an Atari 2600 put out.
Now do I need to further dig out my family pictures to show you the first Christmas that I got an Atari as a tyke? DIMWIT.
You claim to have so much expertise, yet you have no concept of anything that I have written. Do I understand that programmers took SOME advantage of their limitations. Absolutely. Do I believe that they would purposely make anything more blocky...HELL NO.
So I challenge you...please tell me. WHERE AM I WRONG. I have pointed out your mistakes and you dodge...dodge...dodge. It is all there plain as day.
Back in 1979/1980 when they were making Pac Man the programmers and artists made the pellets square with soft color changes so they'd appear round on the display, and they did it on purpose. Why? because it was the most logical way to do it, any change in the hardware such as more memory, faster CPU, higher resolution display; ANYTHING like that; would have increased the production costs and put a hit on the profit line. You seem to think round over square was the most important thing to them when in fact the most important thing was money.
Arcades in 1970-80s should have used LCD displays
We would have enjoyed video games more if stuff was round and not square:
Programmers and artists wanted to make square stuff
with that out of the way I'll say this, eventually arcade makers thought like you and started dumping a lot of money into games and while they didn't use LCDs for displays they started making higher resolution games that used expensive CPUs and stereo sound, high polygon counts and hard drives; know what happened then? yeah thats right, arcades died. profit > LCDs
With respect to the monitor, realising they had a crappy display to work with..
Furthermore, it is incorrect to surmise that what was programmed was intended to be better than what resulted. It is highly unlikely that any programmer would create a game using a display other than what would be used in reality. The reason for this is that the programmer would be able to visualize the creation and modify as neccessary to arrive at the best product. No doubt given a better monitor and a larger budget, more could have been done, but they would know this was a limitation and worked within the constraints.
I have to admit that looking at some of the arguements that others have many of the things that what have been said are based more on a religion rather then what is actually true.
The display was the easy part. Hence the odd screen size.
Everytime I hear someone say it is "too blocky" it says to me that they don't understand that the original code was written that way.
But what is without a doubt provable is who the original code was written, and using a one to one DIGITAL display is putting exactly what was written up on the screen.
The rest of the crap like scan lines can be easily made artificially.
Thats the problem. So many on here absolutely believe this fodder. The truth is that the display was made for the limitations of the chips. The technology of better displays was already out there. As you will see in later years. Displays didn't get any better, yet chipsizes changed drastically. Go through MAME history and see for yourself.
Lets say you are right. Does it make sense to interpret the code wrong first??? Why would anyone choose 640x480 over 352x288 if they had a choice???
Nope. Most people around here are simply trying to reproduce as accurately as possible exactly what they saw in the arcades of the day, while you seem to be after some fictitious, nonsensical blocky version of it that was never ever viewed by anyone in the 80s -- not even the game programmers themselves!!!
It's very obvious from your posts (and your lack of understanding my joke earlier) that you don't have a clue about CGA CRT monitors (maximum of 300 or so lines of horizontal resolution). Hint, if you turn them 90 degrees, then they become "tall and narrow"!
You may prefer it that way, but please refrain from claiming your incorrectly-scaled, blocky version of Mortal Kombat is more accurate than running on the exact same display device as used in the arcades.
Utter nonsense. Even the mamedevs will tell you the effects are at best a meager approximation of the display of an analog CGA CRT.
Hmm you say displays were made for the limitations of the "chips", and then say that displays never changed despite improvements in the "chips" over the years. You just completely contradicted yourself.
Making the code for VGA has to be more expensive than CGA (I'm guessing...I don't know Pascal, Fortran, or any other language of the day), which would be one reason the programmer would create a lesser design. Additionally, there may have been monitor capable of 640x480, but those were expensive and not the ones being used. The programmers would use the monitor that would be destined for the game and that choice would have been driven by economics as much as anything. No one is saying that if a VGA monitor was going to be used the code would be written to display a lower resolution. They are saying that CGA monitors were being used and those monitors are limited to what 352 x 288. So the programmers would have taken this into account.
Admittedly, even the best record with the best turntable will not have the dynamic range of a CD or DVD but that doesn't speak to the harmonics missed by the digital media. By the way, the approximations that occur in digital media occur over the entire frequency range not just at 100kHz which is about 80KHz above human hearing and in isn't even within the capabilities of the microphones used to record to pick up.
What do you think is happening...LCD's are picking up something that isn't there. :laugh2: Any "blocky" pixels, are an accurate representation of the original code. I doubt I will ever get this through to you. But yes, PIXELS ARE SQUARE!!! They are not little round "dots" as you think they are. Truth is truth, and your ignorance of this is astounding. Even Randy doesn't dispute this. It is all how they are handled after being presented is what is being debated here.
The images stored within the electronics were very boxy, but you never ever saw them that way in the arcades. Those boxy image representations were hand tweaked by the artists to take advantage of characteristics of the display and were never intended to be seen block for block. I pushed plenty of pixels in the 80's and that is the first thing I learned.
You may have compromised what the artist put on his graph paper, but his graph paper was never intended to be viewed as such.
The reason why they didn't draw "kittens" is because it took too much thinking to do so. They could have given a rats ass as to a circular pixel looking better then square because it was too much money/programming, over getting the product out on the shelves. I can understand that.
Those graph paper images were what the programmers used as a reference to calculate bit values for the graphics and modified those values once they saw how they were represented on the actual CRT. In my mind, I too equate that pattern of 1's and 0's with a graph paper matrix, mainly because I actually used it to create graphics in those days. However, the fact is that there was no square grid in reality. It was just data arranged in "X,Y" co-ordinate fashion inside a memory chip. Each 1 or 0 didn't need to be represented as a square. It was just convenient to do so. It could just as easily have been associated with a grid of circles, or diamonds or even fuzzy little kittens. The square was not what was important, it was the grid.
QuoteIt's very obvious from your posts (and your lack of understanding my joke earlier) that you don't have a clue about CGA CRT monitors (maximum of 300 or so lines of horizontal resolution). Hint, if you turn them 90 degrees, then they become "tall and narrow"!
I have perfect understanding, and what you don't seem to get is that the display was made specifically for the game. If you think that monitors were limited by 300 lines it shows even more ignorance on your part. The tall and narrow display was a manufacturing choice not a hardware limitation.
What do you think is happening...LCD's are picking up something that isn't there. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Any "blocky" pixels, are an accurate representation of the original code. I doubt I will ever get this through to you. But yes, PIXELS ARE SQUARE!!! They are not little round "dots" as you think they are. Truth is truth, and your ignorance of this is astounding. Even Randy doesn't dispute this. It is all how they are handled after being presented is what is being debated here.
And what you don't understand is
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v27/genesim/ArrowGraphPaper.jpg)
Can never be
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v27/genesim/ArrowGraphPaper.jpg)
On a CRT that is 640x480 because
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v27/genesim/ArrowGraphPaper.jpg)
is not possible AND filling up the screen because it is not in the correct resolution, so it can never be
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v27/genesim/ArrowCRT.jpg)
BUT with the Arcade VGA which again uses multiple pixels comes closer to
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v27/genesim/ArrowGraphPaper.jpg)
so therefore with scan lines enabled
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v27/genesim/ArrowCRT.jpg)
or something alot closer can happen!!!!
Do your pictures help you as well?
Unlike many of you guys, I do not continue to embrace an old technology without an open minded approach to the fact that CRT's are archaic and are becoming just as obsolete as old records.
Blind devotion, that is all it is. The fact that many of you cannot get the most absolute simple point makes me believe that you aren't seeing, because you do not want to see.
I answered your questions now any of you answer this.
Yes or no. Did monitors display property that was able to outdo anything that a vintage game back then was capable of?
Do you really seriously take it all a step further and believe that a monitor back then was only able to display 16 colors???
Most of you have not even bothered to read what I have wrote. It remind me of tools that get a big screen display and yet don't bother to use the most simple connection to hook up their vision....like say a purely digital HDMI over a composite cable??!!
If you even got my point from the beginning, I am not even arguing just for LCD, it is just what I have. Though you cannot get away from the fact that you lose quality (as the original programmers wouldn't have wanted if they would have been given an affordable choice) by using an ANALOG connection over a digital one.
You guys wanna keep playing blind, go walk with the shepherd.
Its not blind devotion, most of us are simply stating we prefer the same hardware they used in arcade for our cabinets, something you cant seem to grasp.
See first. STOP RIGHT THERE. I have said it a hundred posts back. If you are using a CRT monitor that has different display properties then the original pacman. i.e. take out your frickin' ruler and measure the size of the screen.... Then the result is that anything that is not being used to display(without proper software) is compromising the scope of the picture. I am speaking about YOUR monitor now. Switch gears and read slowly.
Furthermore, the original arcade being based on a CRT has more inherent problems that I mentioned above. I will repeat for further clarity..read on.
Is there anything Yoda about what I have just said. Tell me any part that you do not understand. Any part at all, and I will gladly say it another way. Don't put me down. Acknowledge the statements I have made.I don't understand why you keep posting. I've acknowledged that you've made statements that favor opinion over fact. Also, Opinion does NOT equal fact.
Thats the first thing I don't get. I've seen Pac-man on 15" monitors and 25" monitors (reunion cabs) so inherent monitor size shouldn't be a factor.
Also I never said my display was perfect or had an uncompromised picture....
now I will repeat, the "inherent problems" of the CRTs were taken into consideration when games were being made and the people who made it took advantage of the flaws.
You seem to also dance around the fact that those extra inches can distort the original intent.
But hey, because you say you have seen it, so it must be alright. ::) I have seen SFII cabs completely changed over to a Mortal Kombat display, it doesn't exactly make it correct. True Mortal can be played on many different displays, but the odd resolution and refresh rates get totally ruined by a generic display.Im not sure of this point, because I had a generic Jamma cab and played pit fighter, street fighter, mk, and a few other random titles and the screen was filled up very well (19" monitor, cant tell you the brand, its been too long) thought sometimes minor tweaking was needed.
So by that rationale all music recordings should only be put on their original media and never be tranferred to a superior format???Please dont bring in the audio format discussion. By your rational with it a concert will sound better on a CD then being there live because they'll remaster it and remove the mosquito that was hovering around eddie vedder's head. Honestly I could care less about audio formats.
Oh yeah, I am sure the reflection problems and color bleeding was something the programmers wanted. Because oh no, it is so terrible to actually avoid the problems that mask something like....uh THE ORIGINAL PROGRAMMING.
What you don't understand is that these are FACTS. UNDESPUTED FACTS. It is a FACT that CRT's DISTORT THE PICTURE because of their tube display. It is a FACT that reflections are a problem not inherent in LCD's. It is a FACT if you do not have a monitor that is a 1:1 relationship in CRT form that you have compromised the original intent of the programmers. It is a FACT that ANALOG also loses quality with every transmission.
Now can we move on to my other points. Have we got the first part agreed upon?
The first picture was not the original programmers intent.
But hey, I give up. See what you want.
As for my arcade panel of which you put down as well, let me ask you. How else do I play a 3 player game(If I want to include my wife on NBA Jam series which are probably the only game she really loves to play)? Or how else do I have 2 grown men playing a fighting game without being on top of each other? How do you play Ikari Warriors(another one of my favorite games of all time)??
Lastly, how the hell do you get along without a rollerball?????? My frankenpanel works for me. And the differenence between you and me is that I don't start by criticizing someone else's choice till they have put me down. My control panel is my proudest part of my arcade. And I have no regrets for the money I have paid, and the time I put into it. Hell you put me down for my display, and you can't even get old games played with the right equipment. Its obvious to me that "good enough" is your forte. Keep playing those 4-way games in your 8 way config. :applaud:
To the rest that requested, I posted the pictures, it is up you guys in the end to decide what you want.
By the way, I just can't help it. You act as if the Pinky picture produced was manufactured. It is only displaying what the original code is directing.
You cannot blow up the pictures with any real comparison(my camera just can't do it), but the results are the same. All you have to do is just crop the pictures I have posted and you will still see the difference.
But hey, just keep putting the card down, and I will continue to use it. I see with my own eyes, and this display is superior.
DirectDraw capable display device when the proper options are set in MAME.
I am not speaking about Direct Draw. They are 1:1 with one exception. IT CANNOT FILL THE FRICKIN SCREEN! That is the advantage.
Direct 3D approximates in a much more detrimental way when blown up to default windows displays. This is fact.
Just out of curiousity. Could you please explain to me how the MAME screen shot(which wasn't used for the majority of the pictures that I posted), is not an accurate representation of what is being diplayed?
When you zoom in on the pictures I have posted, the similarity is astounding. Do I need to waste my time doing this too? Do you not understand that the camera has limitations when showing pictures of that detail.
I was asking you the question, but actually your opinion doesn't prove anything. Obviously to some, seeing is believing, and I think this smackdown is necessary to put an end to this whole idea that my original pictures posted were somehow sacrificing the image that was being put out by my display. It was and still is a 1:1 relationship and it shows the inherent problems of Direct 3D which stretches the picture. You continually say....well use Direct Draw, but you miss the most obvious point of all....THE WHOLE SCREEN ISN'T BEING UTILIZED TO FULL EFFECT! Multiple pixel assignment is absolutely necessary to get the most of any monitor, especially an LCD. Without that, then you have distortion of the original vision.
Pics to follow as soon as I get home and set up my tripod. Though if one uses their brain you can already see the relationship from what I have posted already.
By the way, prescaling is too generic. Its all good if you have an even number, but what about odd ratios that cannot display properly? Wouldn't it make much more sense to assign say a odd number display to an area like the black bars on the side of pacman which don't need to be correct anyway? You can get the same effect without ever seeing the difference. I can see for myself that part of the Pacman display was cut off to achieve the 352x288 ratio that I have posted. The end result is something I don't really care about anyway. Pacman being 224x288 means that something had to be changed with a square display. It is a mathmatical necessity.
Now how they got to that number, I do not know, nor do I care. The end results are astounding(as I have posted) and that is what matters to me.
It is without filtering, and hardware stretch...uh STRETCHES the picture that is why it looks worse.
It wouldn't matter what you saw. You will stay prejudice. I know what my eyes are seeing, and the pictures are as accurate as they can be considering the limitations.
Incidently, how am I getting Direct 3D filtering on a direct draw?
Also, you really need to understand that even though the un-stretched DirectDraw image doesn't fill the screen, it is the only means of getting a true, clean 1:1 pixel ratio on an LCD monitor.
I wish I could put the odd resolutions to the test with anti-aliasing, but MAME32FX doesn't let you pick the resolutions other then windows default. Perhaps I am missing something.
As pixel count gets higher and higher, the differences will become more and more neglible using multiple pixel technology.
BUT, I do standby that Direct Draw with hardware stretch shows the obvious problems that you preach against.
Now that said, I did try the bitmap prescaling and I saw similarities. Still, you cannot get away from the fact that the tricks are being used on Windows default settings as opposed to using a programmed fixed resolution through the hardware.
The resolution that is displayed is exactly what is being picked.....I just don't know how they got there.
From what I have seen, it doesn't appear like there is much to gain from the card over bitmap prescaling except for one thing. EASE OF USE. .
Still, I think it is a waste of time at this point, because I concede that the results are going to be like the pictures above. I wish I could put the odd resolutions to the test with anti-aliasing, but MAME32FX doesn't let you pick the resolutions other then windows default. Perhaps I am missing something. That or another version of MAME would better achieve this. By the way....ignorant/lazy for the dos version. Tried it once...got it running, thought it was too much bother. Nothing against people that do, but making little notepad commands just isn't my cup of tea...and yes I have done front ends too, I just prefer the windows interface.
But Randy, I have to say, are you still standing behind the fact that Direct Draw with hardware stretch is better then the Arcade VGA estimation? It is there in the pictures, and I can't imagine how anyone would prefer that crap.
Correct, and I believe I said that already.
Please refresh my memory. I think the things I have preached against are sharp edged images. Everything else are just facts.
As for it occurring in "hardware", so is the DirectDraw and D3D scaling. Again, no magic there.
I believe I stated this already as well.
They were as much to allow you to see that fact as others who might be following along.
But I honestly think that it is a difficult proposition to get a good looking classic arcade game representation on an LCD panel. It's my opinion that neither really do the game justice.
But hey, I can see how a competitor would be jumping all over this. Showing Ultimarc as having a good product is not exactly your first priority. I can understand that.
:laugh2: Now that was funny.
:cheers:
you are a smart --I'm attempting to get by the auto-censor and should be beaten after I re-read the rules-- of great caliber....I salute you
Patent Doc
:laugh2: Now that was funny.
:cheers:
you are a smart --I'm attempting to get by the auto-censor and should be beaten after I re-read the rules-- of great caliber....I salute you
Patent Doc
I aim to please. :blah: