Best config for OpenBOR games at 15KHz

[pakoman]

Hi.


What would be the best pixel perfect resolution for games like Double Dragon Reloaded or Demons N Ghosts without filters nor scaling at 15Khz progressive? Is that possible?

Cheers

EDIT: Basically we need to find out the 1:1 resolution used by OpenBOR for the specific game and set the desktop resolution to that res, then in game options screen-disabled and full screen 

One way to find out the res used is doing a screen capture under window mode and pasting it in Photoshop or whatever to measure the playable area.

[Recapnation]

'Sup, Pako.

I don't think you'll have much luck with those since both seem to have adopted the upscaled presentation as their native resolution. Ghosts'n'Demons' design resolution seems to be 240 x 136, so you can try a desktop of say, 256 x 192 and check if the game preserves it together with its original aspect ratio while forgets about its inherent? scanlines filter at the same time. Too much to ask for, if you want my opinion.

DD Reload is a total mess resolution-wise, so I wouldn't even try:




Cheers.

[pakoman]

Yes, I know. But there should be a best configuration, although maybe it's a hit and miss for every different game.

Is there a way to know the original 1:1 resolution a OpenBor game is using before any scaling or doubling pixels? You said Ghosts'n'Demons' design resolution seems to be 240 x 136. How do you know that? Knowing that resolution for every game makes things lots easier for what I want to achieve.

[Recapnation]

Yes, I know. But there should be a best configuration, although maybe it's a hit and miss for every different game.

Obviously it'll depend on every game's design. Stuff like DD Reloaded is beyond any hope as its title screen reveals -- they took the original DD graphics, upscaled them for a ~4 : 3 aspect ratio and bigger res., filtered them in the process, added brand-new graphics at the new resolution and their ---smurfin---' god knows what else. For these cases, an idea I can think of is using a 31-kHz monitor and an external 'shader' such as this. No clue about Open SOR's limitations, but for KOF XIII (most popular example these days on destroying superlative 2-D art with different design resolutions), they do wonders:



(Bad sample; not my pic., but just to get an idea.)

Is there a way to know the original 1:1 resolution a OpenBor game is using before any scaling or doubling pixels? You said Ghosts'n'Demons' design resolution seems to be 240 x 136. How do you know that? Knowing that resolution for every game makes things lots easier for what I want to achieve.

By a bit of research (since I haven't tried the game yet):



...and another bit of tweaking:



(Have been doing this for years in this thread. Too bad you abandoned us...)

(And, since you seem to like fan-level pasticcio, check also this if you still haven't.)

[pakoman]

The topic in my post is 15khz... You using this mumbo-jumbo shaders?? live and see...     Maybe retroarch could add an OpenBOR core so we can use retroarch´s video configuration and shaders, but my intention is to use a 15 khz CRT.

I'm not really interested in OpenBOR, Mugen and so. Nor looking for homebrew (sadly I don't have time, anyway), I've known about these 2 without really looking for them, however they play almost like the arcade version and I do specially love GNG and DD and are very faithful clones (you should try 'em).

I've sometimes take a look at that post, and there are some nice stuff.

[Recapnation]

Man, for 15-kHz, it's hardware de-interlacing or nothing, and you already told me you aren't interested in that in the other thread. For DD Reload merely de-interlacing won't do and you'll need to downsample the picture with a scan converter which outputs 240 lines, single-scanned. I wouldn't expect great results, anyway.

I'm not really using shaders for anything yet (busy as an idiot here too, as usual), but no wonder I'll buy all of them and their sisters whenever I can play stuff like KOF XIII. I mean, take a look:



They had this:



Yeah, I know; jesusfuckingchrist.

[pakoman]

Yes, but I won't be buying any hardware for this.

DD reloaded seems to use 640x480, using 320x240 (scale 0.5) looks nice, far better than interlaced, but produces some artifacts (it shouldn´t and the scroll suffers). Original DD resolution 256x224 is even worse.

640x480 seems to work just fine with smooth scroll.

Demon n'Ghosts uses a weird bigger resolution, it has an option to disable scanlines, but it doesn't help.

I think I won´t try any further...

[Recapnation]

Is it 960 × 544 for GND, like the screenshot I posted (from their official site, sort of)? Then, can't you use scale 0.25, given that you managed to do scale 0.5 for DDR?

As for the hardware, I can't recommend an Extron interface enough, at least for everybody who doesn't use a de-interlace-capable monitor. It's actually a sync processor, so it also solves sync-on-green issues and whatnot (31-kHz PS2, for instance) if your monitor needs it. And cheap, if you look around.

[pakoman]

GND uses some weird openbor version and has most features locked. DDR is more versatile when it comes to modify video settings.

Enviado desde mi X6pro mediante Tapatalk

[pakoman]

I've asked BonusJZ directly for Ghosts´n Demons and:

The game native resolution is 480x272 which is the closest i could pick (from engine) to the double wonderswan resolution and aspect ratio. Just go to video options and set "screen" to "disabled" to play at native resolution.Also when in game/intro press UP+S (default key) to turn off backlit scanlines that game use it by default.

So, here is, just set the desktop resolution to 480x272 and works fine. Great arcade feeling!

Basically we need to find out the native resolution of the game and set the desktop resolution to that res, then in game options screen-disabled and full screen 

[Recapnation]

You actually don't want the "native resolution", but what I call the "design resolution" -- the 1 : 1 mode. I thought I had made myself clear enough in this post, but it seems the hotlinking didn't work there, so here it is:





The former is a screenshot (960 x 544) found in the game's official site, if I recall. It easily lets us see it's quadrupling the original graphics, so that we get the latter image (240 x 136), which has wrong colors due to the black lines on the former but lets you verify the 1 : 1 graphics just by looking at the HUD's fonts.

So what the author calls "native resolution" is indeed referring to the game engine, which doubles the design resolution, and displaying that is far from an "arcade feeling", which, first and foremost --I'm sure you'll agree-- should preserve the 1 : 1 graphics. Also, you're altering the game's aspect ratio to a point with no possible correction and forcing a weird vertical refresh at 272 lines (unless you have an even weirder CRT). What you need the author to tell you is if the game engine lets you display the game 1 : 1 somehow, so that you can set the desktop at 256 x 192 or so as I mentioned and get it displayed with whichever borders.

[pakoman]

You actually don't want the "native resolution", but what I call the "design resolution" -- the 1 : 1 mode. I thought I had made myself clear enough in this post, but it seems the hotlinking didn't work there, so here it is:





The former is a screenshot (960 x 544) found in the game's official site, if I recall. It easily lets us see it's quadrupling the original graphics, so that we get the latter image (240 x 136), which has wrong colors due to the black lines on the former but lets you verify the 1 : 1 graphics just by looking at the HUD's fonts.

So what the author calls "native resolution" is indeed referring to the game engine, which doubles the design resolution, and displaying that is far from an "arcade feeling", which, first and foremost --I'm sure you'll agree-- should preserve the 1 : 1 graphics. Also, you're altering the game's aspect ratio to a point with no possible correction and forcing a weird vertical refresh at 272 lines (unless you have an even weirder CRT). What you need the author to tell you is if the game engine lets you display the game 1 : 1 somehow, so that you can set the desktop at 256 x 192 or so as I mentioned and get it displayed with whichever borders.

Come on Recap, stop being the devil advocate 

The game is a OperBOR windows remake of the Wonderswan version not a jamma board, but as the author said 480x272 is the closest he could get under openbor. It's not intended to be played at 224 × 144 with who knows what pixel proportions... Even if you capture the screen in windowed mode without scanlines or filters can easily appreciate that the game uses 480x272.

I don't care if some of the sprites were double sized during the design I'm just trying to display it the best way in a 15 kHz CRT. And actually using that resolution shows the game full screen without any scaling artifacts.

BTW 272p lines suits for 15 kHz and is 1:1 the res used by the game (or at least double). 192 would produce ugly scaling artifacts (you can't leave black borders under OpenBOR). About refresh rate...welcome to PC games!

[Recapnation]

The game is a OperBOR windows remake of the Wonderswan version not a jamma board, but as the author said 480x272 is the closest he could get under openbor. It's not intended to be played at 224 × 144 with who knows what pixel proportions... Even if you capture the screen in windowed mode without scanlines or filters can easily appreciate that the game uses 480x272.

I don't care if some of the sprites were double sized during the design I'm just trying to display it the best way in a 15 kHz CRT. And actually using that resolution shows the game full screen without any scaling artifacts.

BTW 272p lines suits for 15 kHz and is 1:1 the res used by the game (or at least double). 192 would produce ugly scaling artifacts (you can't leave black borders under OpenBOR). About refresh rate...welcome to PC games!

You're saying one thing and also the opposite, 'man. You seem to grasp now that the game [the freaking WHOLE game; there's not a single screen in the official site? which could lead us to believe that the graphics' design resolution is not regular, that is, there's hardly a sprite or tile in the game drawn to not be 1 : 1 with the others] is designed at 240 x 136 but then you also call (480 x) 272 the "1 : 1 res". You appear to be worried about "pixel proportions" and the "intended [way] to play the game" but then you're happy with des-troy-ing the graphics' aspect ratio by displaying them 4 : 3 full-screen. You treat a 201X handheld-based action game [which ultimately wants to be a "JAMMA board"] like if it were a 198X MS-DOS piece regarding v. refresh... And yet, it's me the one advocating devil? C'mon, Pako...

192 would produce ugly scaling artifacts (you can't leave black borders under OpenBOR).

Are you sure of that? That author told you there's a key to turn off/on scanlines effect in-game, isn't there another key for changing the size of the displayed area during full-screen? Comes off a bit weird that you can't leave borders on this engine considering that most games are natively 4 : 3 -- all the people with wide screens are forced to run them with wrong aspect ratio?

[pakoman]

The game is a OperBOR windows remake of the Wonderswan version not a jamma board, but as the author said 480x272 is the closest he could get under openbor. It's not intended to be played at 224 × 144 with who knows what pixel proportions... Even if you capture the screen in windowed mode without scanlines or filters can easily appreciate that the game uses 480x272.

I don't care if some of the sprites were double sized during the design I'm just trying to display it the best way in a 15 kHz CRT. And actually using that resolution shows the game full screen without any scaling artifacts.

BTW 272p lines suits for 15 kHz and is 1:1 the res used by the game (or at least double). 192 would produce ugly scaling artifacts (you can't leave black borders under OpenBOR). About refresh rate...welcome to PC games!

You're saying one thing and also the opposite, 'man. You seem to grasp now that the game [the freaking WHOLE game; there's not a single screen in the official site? which could lead us to believe that the graphics' design resolution is not regular, that is, there's hardly a sprite or tile in the game drawn to not be 1 : 1 with the others] is designed at 240 x 136 but then you also call (480 x) 272 the "1 : 1 res". You appear to be worried about "pixel proportions" and the "intended [way] to play the game" but then you're happy with des-troy-ing the graphics' aspect ratio by displaying them 4 : 3 full-screen. You treat a 201X handheld-based action game [which ultimately wants to be a "JAMMA board"] like if it were a 198X MS-DOS piece regarding v. refresh... And yet, it's me the one advocating devil? C'mon, Pako...

192 would produce ugly scaling artifacts (you can't leave black borders under OpenBOR).

Are you sure of that? That author told you there's a key to turn off/on scanlines effect in-game, isn't there another key for changing the size of the displayed area during full-screen? Comes off a bit weird that you can't leave borders on this engine considering that most games are natively 4 : 3 -- all the people with wide screens are forced to run them with wrong aspect ratio?

The game is a remake of the Wonderswan (224 × 144 black and white, don't know the hz) version which is made under OpenBOR. OpenBOR's closest match to that is 480x272 and that's the resolution used by the remake (either you turn OFF or ON the scanlines) that as you can notice looks very different from the original Wonderswan version. The sprites and tiles original resolution (that obviously came from all the different versions of the GNG saga and systems with different resolutions). I didn't ask BonusJD about the pixel proportions and Hz the game is intended to run at (are you sure about square pixels? maybe 60hz? maybe the desktop resolution hz whatever it is?).

Bear in mind that I'm talking about playing it in a 15 khz CRT 4:3 here, not in a fancy tri-sync 15-24-31 khz monitor (I'd wish I'd have one of those instead of a such limited old tv!), nor a real Wonderswan, nor fixed res 60 hz LCD, etc. 

Please feel free to try out yourself other configurations and share your results. BTW don't discard trying 480x272 if you can't find a better one!

[Recapnation]

Forget the Wonder Swan version. This is a full remake with its own entity which indeed uses some graphics from Makaimura, and maybe Choh. It has been made for current Windows-based PCs and therefore, it expects square pixels --even if the assets it takes come from games with non-square pixels-- and around 60 Hz, yeah. In any case, never ever ~50 Hz and stretched vertically as you're doing. (Wonder Swan is around 75 Hz if I recall, by the way).

My point is, I guess -- don't destroy your video games. If you don't have the hardware to run something properly, wait till that moment in your life you do. In this case, we can check if Open BOR can work together with a shader, so that you can use an infinitely better scanlines effect to the factory one, on a PC monitor. But before, I'm trying to know if we must really surrender regarding the ideal configuration, which, again, is using 240 x 136 with borders on a 15-kHz progressive mode. You said that you can use scale 0.5 in that other Open BOR game, yet you haven't asked him about how to use it in GND or if he would be willing to release a version which allows that along with no-stretch, which is the only relevant question here, actually.