SNES is not 4:3 the DAR is 64:49(or 128:105 if you’re counting 256x240 instead of 256x224)
8:7 is the PAR
Although 8:7 is square pixels, the game wasn’t intend to show like that. The moon is not round, the CRT correct is the way to go. Also they use techniques to save graphics power. That’s why some games ont he snes look blurrier than mega drive. The main Resolution on Snes is 256x240 while the Mega Drive is 320x 224. Some games in mega drive is 256x240 like Wonder Boy in Monster world…
I thought it was game dependent, some games were build to accommodate for it, others werent?
Cyber, thank you for doing that. That’s really helpful and thank you for clarifying so much of it. I think I might be overthinking the pixel thing anyway. The PPI of the device is going to be so relatively high compared to that of my laptop screen or something similar that I think distingushing any subpixel issues might be difficult to do anyway, but again, I could be completely wrong there.
Thank you for the screenshots too, did you have any thoughts on what you thought looked better or worse?
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@songoku, @RetroGames4K, @WoundedBum, @hunterk
Okay folks we’re straying a bit off topic here since aspect ratio was only being talked about in the context of getting the best or at least better output in my Sony Megatron Colour Video Monitor based preset packs through the use of custom scale factors which is accessible via setting the "Aspect Ratio" Scaling Parameter to "Custom" and then adjusting the custom scale factors via the "Custom Aspect Ratio" Scaling Parameters.
Further, there seems to be some sort of debate emerging here which might probably belong in another topic since I don’t see the reason why publicly documented and available information should go back to being left to interpretation and opinion including the omission of information based on being familiar with or having only knowledge of the hardware in limited regional contexts.
So try not to bury what I’m trying to highlight here, which is something that might actually be novel to many in terms of how to deal with uneven scanlines and moiré patterns as well as how to find sweet spot resolutions and aspect ratios where pixels look their best and certain special effects are rendered exceptionally, which might not always be the case using typical or commonly used settings.
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Games don’t look blurrier on SNES
They just have less horizontal resolution so ports from MD can appear fatter and have less screen estate
Look at Sonic 1 fan port for SNES, you get horizontal screen crunch, basically a smaller viewport
BTW SNES games were generally 256x224(albeit maybe on a 256x240 viewport) and MD games 320x224 or 256x224. But both MD and SNES have the same exact DAR regardless of resolution(320 mode on MD has 32:35 PAR which gives the same 64:49 DAR).
Yes, and games can even often have mismatched assets, but I don’t know why you chose Chrono Trigger of all games considering that that is the game with the famous moon which only looks right on original console DAR.
That said if anything looks off at you in 4:3 it may be because it’s off in 4:3. The original hardware doesn’t output 4:3 DAR so 4:3 will be stretched compared to what original hardware outputs.
BTW @Cyber the CRT does not stretch the image(unless the user itself manually stretches it or squishes it via the settings menu but that’s a different thing). Analog CRTs are dumb devices, they just spit whatever signal they are fed(within tolerances of course). Not even the console itself stretches the image. It simply outputs non-square pixels. The reason they used non-square pixels of course was economical, practically no device was outputting square pixels back then for this reason.
Did I say “the CRT stretches the image”? I said “on a real CRT the image is stretched.” Are we ignoring context and intended meaning and engaging in debate over semantics and interpretation of a sentence instead?
The end result, which is what the user sees is an image that is stretched horizontally from the way it was originally output by the console. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong in the appropriate thread.
Anyway, as I said, this is really for another thread. We’re still trying to deal with uneven scanlines in a preset pack here and now that’s getting further and further from the bottom. I admit I brought up the whole SNES 8:7 thing because that’s definitely a squished resolution if used for emulation but can we kindly continue the aspect ratio discussion in another thread please?
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I thought Chrono Trigger was known for being difficult in that the static image of the moon was looks good in the DAR, but the rest of the game is not.
Woops, sorry Cyber, I posted at the same time.
All my Mega Bezel presets for systems that used a TV are forced to 4x3. Output resolution does not effect how a TV displays content… there is never letterboxing of any kind.
Cyber is correct.
For a reference here is a video of a TV with a built in SNES.
The same is true for all consoles displayed on a CRT TV, there is nothing to debate.
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