Emulator Res.

[madmatt]

Qestion.....  What resolution do you guys run your emulators at; NES, SNES Sega master system, Gen., TG16, etc.

I have an old 19" CRT... if that help.   
Right now I'm running most of them on 1024 x 1280.... but i'm not sure if that's too high.
Thanks.

OUT,
MM

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

Depends on what you want to achieve... The three major schools of thought are something like 'pixel perfect', 'enhancement', and 'lolwut? I don't care'.

Some people prefer to have the systems displayed at the exact pixel ratio of the original systems with no visual modification. This involves either running your monitor at the original resolution (Which cannot be done for most resolutions on a 31kHz monitor), or at some exact multiple of the resolution (eg, exact doubling such as going from 320x240 to 640x480). An exact integer scaling is essentially visually identical to the original resolution. If you only have a handful of standard resolutions installed on your computer (640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, etc) then the various resolutions are going to not fit exactly and thus have boards around the image.

Enhancement is using any one of a number of algorithms to attempt to compensate for the differences in resolution by creating additional pixels to smooth out edges. With this technique, usually the more resolution you give it to work with, the more pronounced the effect will be.

Then there's just not caring.. This usually means bilinear filtering, or non-filtered but stretched with weird artifacts. But hey, you can still play the game, amirite?

[Vigo]

I don't think there is a not caring vs not caring issue. The thing about old consoles is that they are in an analog resolution, while modern resolutions are all digital. When you were playing these consoles back in the day on your old tv, you definitely did not have a pixel perfect image. I personally feel pixel perfect is a tad too sterile looking.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

Well there certainly has to be some subset of the people using emulators who just don't care what it looks like as long as they can play the game, those that do care about the actual image itself are either going to want it exactly as the pixels are rendered, or 'enhanced' in some way, be it through interpolation or CRT emulation like the new HLSL effects.

I understand what you mean about the old consoles only being viewed on TV sets (probably with RF inputs, as well), but from an emulation standpoint since we're using different output devices I'd still have to lump that in with "Enhancement" since you're adding something to approximate an analog effect on what's essentially purely software in the form of the emulator itself.

Regardless, it's still all just personal preference. Anything beyond that is semantics. (:

[Vigo]

Yeah exactly, It's just a hard thing to say what is a true perfect for consoles, some people are purists and some people want a specific look.

And yeah, there are people who really don't care. I spend waaaay too long tweaking each emulator, but I could have just said screw it and went with default fullscreen settings. Besides fragments, I probably would have had some nasty tearing and jitter as well.

My advice to anyone is to just try a variety of resolutions, filters and graphics settings on a number of different games with different art styles. You will find the "look" for you.

[madmatt]

WOW... that's was more information then I would have imagined.

I was just trying to good for the look I had back in the day with an old-school TV;
then it starts the whole analog vs digital. 

I just was something clear (but not too clear) and no boarder if I can help it.

I guess I  have alot of tweaking to do.

Thanks again,

MM

[Vigo]

Well, it might be a good idea to try running the emulators at the same resolution as your computer is set at. It will allow the emu to run without needing to flash the screen over to a different resolution. If it looks good enough for you at that resolution, then it might just be all you need to worry about.