14.851 11-07-2010 13:24:10
Re: Tantei Jinguuji Saburou DS: Akai Chou (DS). (2 respuestas, enviadas el Hablemos de juegos)
14.852 11-07-2010 13:21:51
Tema: Data East Retro Game Music Collection. (11 respuestas, enviadas el Hablemos de juegos)
Un álbum de manos de INH y Team Entertainment dedicado a las series Kuhga y Darwin, a punto de salir:
http://www.team-e.co.jp/sp/data_east/
(Botón 'PV' para el vídeo.)
14.853 11-07-2010 12:49:50
Re: Low-res screenshots (86 respuestas, enviadas el English talk)
By chance, do you have any Technopolis mag where Tamashii no Mon is featured or advertised? I'm desperately looking for the cover art at decent resolution.
Pasting here the promised PC88 Dios screenshot at its native res with 15 kHz video hardware. This is how the game looked like originally on the PC88:
http://i30.tinypic.com/2v8k9oy.jpg
Notice, despite the blurry pic (I was out of luck this time), that it has little to do with what you get with standard PC video hardware. Graphics look almost like a 16-bit console game.
14.854 06-07-2010 23:47:32
Re: Low-res screenshots (86 respuestas, enviadas el English talk)
It's quite unique, at least. Needs some corrections once I get the time to check the Japanese interweb. For instance, I've learned that the 640 x 400 mode of these is not 31 kHz, but 24 kHz. That technically is not 'high resolution', but 'extended resolution', as some put it. But pretty much it's all like I pictured.
The partial scanlines thing is something I have always wondered about in PC98 games. Do you know if it provided any extra performance on games? Its insane that stuff such as Vain Dream 2 and Digan would have the character sprites designed properly in high res, then apply the scanline technique to the backgrounds. It would have been frustrating trying to design the backgrounds to properly fit the scale of the sprites, and the background tiles really aren't that complex so why not just design those properly for high res too.
I disagree. The more the resolution, the more the details needed. Simple tiles would get complex unless you go with 'empty-style' backgrounds and 'flat' colors. Scanline effects just helped to avoid this style, which generally has little to do with the 8-bit style they were trying to evolve. And let's not forget about RAM and even CPU limitations -- in this sense, it indeed did provide 'extra performance' on games.
Anyway, in the case of most PC88 stuff and some of the 98 stuff, Its incredibly bizarre that they had to design stuff in 640x200, knowing that the height will be doubled.
Lets just look at that 640x200 Dios shot you have there, so those are what the original graphic elements look like once designed. So in the case of Dios for example they wanted a realistic proportions look on the characters, yet had to originally design them to be quite wide. It would have been hard to know what a game would end up looking like if your designing stuff originally in a different scale. Companies designing these games at the time would have had to do constant double width mock ups to see what stuff is looking like, or perhaps even design stuff in the double length initially and then cut it back down to half.
I hardly believe that they used square pixels-based video hardware in the early years to design game graphics. They most likely used hardware capable of the same video modes as the target platforms -- remember that work stations and PCs weren't always like they are today and that there was a era where the pixels' aspect ratio was indeed a quite changeable thing thanks to CRT technology.
14.855 06-07-2010 17:54:18
Re: Low-res screenshots (86 respuestas, enviadas el English talk)
Moving this here from the development subforum since I guess it will be of interest for non-contributors too:
Just messing around here a bit. These are some direct screen captures using the emulator. They end up as 640x400, and I've taken one both with and without m88's scanline option. I still have no idea how stuff really should look on a real pc88, so I'll let you analyze it a bit. I'll mess around with m88's options more over time.
In the low res screenshots thread you also mention how some games such as Tritorn 2 were designed with fake scanlines. Are you sure you weren't just fooled by the m88 scanline option? In the first shot of Dios here with the m88 scanline option off you can see that there are no lines at all, though perhaps Dios wasn't designed with fake scanlines?
Perhaps I've completely misunderstood you in the first place, I still don't know much of the technicalities in this area but would appreciate learning more.
Old-computer screenshots is indeed quite a tricky subject. Most of them from 1983 onwards--PC88 included--supported both, 15 kHz (low res) and 31 kHz (hi res) modes. For PC88 and PC98, almost always you'd find either, 640 x 200 or 640 x 400 (they were actually 640 x 240 and 640 x 480 once the monitors' benchmarks were set as I explained earlier, but let's just leave that apart for now). PC88's hi-res mode was pretty limited color-wise, so we must assume most games used 640 x 200. So an actual frame-buffer screen from your game should be like this:
By that (which I guess it's the first PC88 screen ever at its original resolution [laughs]), you can understand why the emulator--conceived, sadly, only for stardard PC video cards--automatically line-doubles the image (1st screen in your post) -- the aspect ratio through a standard PC is way too distorted. The game, you know, despite the resolution, had a 4 : 3 aspect ratio (not really 4 : 3 if we count the excluded borders, but close enough). It could be possible--I never had a PC88--that the game was line-doubled on the original frame-buffer for a 'fake' hi-res display so that the emulator is actually mimicking that behaviour, but given that there also existed 15 kHz-only PC88 monitors, I don't find that too plausible. That's also the reason for a universal scanlines simulation feature on the emulator (your 2nd screen) -- it's the most natural way to replicate the original low-res display on hi-res video hardware (therefore rendering the line-double method quite useless), though we've already explained that the final result here--no matter the type of monitor you're using--lacks the beauty of actual 'scanlines' for several reasons (hence the point I've been claiming for years of never using a standard PC for proper emulaton, if you're really into that).
Now PC98 is a bit different. It was especially designed for hi-res (most of its monitors indeed couldn't do 15 kHz) and we must assume that most games were rendered at 640 x 400. This was a problem for simultaneous PC88/PC98 releases or PC88 - PC98 ports -- you now needed to double the original lines for a hi-res display, and that's what many devs did:
PC98 Xak
PC98 Fray
(They didn't need any excuse though -- many original PC98 games were also designed at half the display resolution, saving RAM demands and well, effort.)
Fortunately others decided against this awful method and invented the scanlines simulation -- instead of drawing the same line twice, even lines would be black lines. That PC98 Tritorn II screenshot you mention, to answer your question, doesn't have scanlines added by the emulator; the game was rendered exactly like that. You can check these other examples for more color:
PC98 Lessern Mern
PC98 Vain Dream II
Notice the scanlines are applied only on the action area or the background -- there's no way an emulator could do that. Of course they went even further and invented different patterns which, applied on the line-doubled picture, would alleviate the issues of design - display discrepancies:
PC98 Digan no Maseki
So that's why you won't find (my guess) a scanlines simulation feature on any PC98 emulator.
This pretty much covers, not just your questions, but the whole core of what was going to be part 2 of the Scanlines -- Ab Initio article, so it's now done for anyone's interested. Thank Macaw. The only remaining thing would be illustrating with actual photographs the wonders of 15-kHz RGB CRTs to let everybody see what they've missed, and that will come with the new Site's content itself. So yeah.
Edit: Grammar bits.
14.856 06-07-2010 09:19:54
Tema: Soul of Darkness (DSI). (2 respuestas, enviadas el Hablemos de juegos)
Anunciado para el DS-I Ware estadounidense:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ0Bx8w5 … r_embedded
Como conversión de: http://www.gameloft.com.ec/juegos-celul … -darkness/
14.857 06-07-2010 00:52:25
Re: The King of Fighters XIII anunciado oficialmente. (76 respuestas, enviadas el Hablemos de juegos)
Paquete con digitalizaciones a gran resolución del último avance de KOF XIII en Arcadia Magazine junto a la publicidad interior:
http://www.mediafire.com/?t5rmnuzmiiw
(http://cyberfanatix.com/forums/index.ph … l#msg27543)
La Technical Reference cuenta ya con varios capítulos, accesibles desde aquí:
Vía http://game.snkplaymore.co.jp/official/ … countdown/
...mientras la útlima entrada del 'blog' de desarrollo está dedicada al equipo de Kim:
14.858 05-07-2010 17:26:52
Re: Katekyoo Hitman Reborn! DS: Flame Rumble XX. (1 respuestas, enviadas el Hablemos de juegos)
14.859 05-07-2010 17:18:51
Re: Juegos para teléfonos móviles nipones. (19 respuestas, enviadas el Hablemos de juegos)
14.860 05-07-2010 17:15:43
Tema: Sanwa Denshi Rakuten Shop (0 respuestas, enviadas el Arcade sticks)
Nos apunta AM-Net que Sanwa solo venderá sus productos directamente a través de Rakuten a partir de ahora, de modo que los pedidos a la marca solo pueden realizarse desde aquí:
14.861 05-07-2010 17:10:13
Re: Play Station Network: Game Archives. (10 respuestas, enviadas el Hablemos de juegos)
A finales de mes se añadirá otro de los cotizados del 'shooting', Zanac X Zanac, curiosamente vía Gung-Ho y D4 Enterprise. La primera también sirvió ya los dos Black Matrix de PS, por cierto:
14.862 05-07-2010 16:59:18
Re: Blue Roses ~Yousei to Aoi Hitomi no Senshitachi~ (PSP). (14 respuestas, enviadas el Hablemos de juegos)
14.863 05-07-2010 14:00:18
Re: Low-res screenshots (86 respuestas, enviadas el English talk)
Recap escribió:I hear you on the KOF XII subject. I'm still to see how the game works with the system set at 480p and a 31-kHz monitor, though it can't do the background graphics any good, so I'm not holding my breath. What a waste...
Most multi-sync/31 kHz arcade monitor have the same large pitch as usual TVs driven at 15kHz. That means you can't obtain such precise scanline (as on the picture shown before) at 31 kHz on these.
The electron gun is conceived for bright and large beam spot, and you have limited number of phosphore triads. You need a 21 or 22" PC monitor with thin electron gun and precise grid (but small screen size...) or an insanely expensive 32" CRT Broadcast monitor that can really display 720p. You can also have good results with CRT projectors (but not as good as direct view CRT).I don't own an Xbox 360, but I'm pretty sure that the downscaling to 480p is filtred. Anyway, even if it's not as precise as the picture posted above, it will alway be more pleasant to the eye than rough cubic pixels at different resolution of the background, and of course blurry filtred sprites.
And more importantly, you can play the game that way since the system (either, the 3-60 or the Type X 2) does support 480p. Your samples are great and necessary for showing everybody that KOF XII's graphics are ruined by lame design decisions and a full-of-shit technology, and hopefully you'll create with them some short of a virtual museum in order to let the internet see and take notes, but... just that.
This picture [>] is based on a nice .png screenshot of KOF XII (720p), reduced to 360p with nearest neighbor option. Perfect pixel for the sprites and the background, displayed in heavenly conditions on a performant CRT. Each time I look at this, and then go to see the game on 768p or 1080p flat screen (because there are very few true 720p flat pannels out there...),
I do really wonder if there's not a true 768-lines mode on this game. Blaz Blue has it, and Type X 2's most common mode is WXGA, given the arcade monitor standards.
Considering that KOF XIII only runs with filtred sprites upscaled at 150%, there's definitly no chance to try any tricks to display a nice picture on the best CRT displays.
I'm sure there'll be an option to remove the filter (at least for home versions), but in the end, same issue as in XII -- you can't play the game and please your eyes at the same time.
Men, I hate fixed res' pannels, and I hate the "everything scaled and filtred" shit.
What's the point to have easily adressable pixels (the only advantage compare to CRT) if most time you get blurry picture and artifacts ? Flat pannels are just good for internet browsing and word processing. For everything else, you need true multi-sync monitor. And CRT is the only technology that can gives you this.
It's called 'the brainless syndrome of our masses' and it's the same reason why handhelds have taken over proper systems, to name just one. Rhetorical answer for a rhetorical question, I know.
Without modesty, I can say that I'm the expert of CRT photographing. :P
With my advices, you will achieve such quality as this :
Fine then. Moving this part of the conversation to the development subforum then.
Keep in mind that true scanlines aren't perfectly regular black lines; they vary according to the colors they separate, being even virtually invisible with some colors like red if the screen is not too big
The red beam is alway driven stronger than the green and blue (because red phosphore is less efficient and needs more current), but with a proper set-up of every parameters, you can obtain precision at all levels.
So, the usual blur and merging that occur with bright red portions are not a characteristic of the CRT picture, it's just a question of the quality of the adjustment. Hence, we see that carefull observation is not enough, you need to know the way to set-up a CRT to determine what to do for recreating a CRT picture in digital environement.
The truth is that I love the slight 'melting' with bright red lines and whatnot. I'm so used to it that I like to think of it as a particularity of CRT displays (and indeed I miss it in your photographs). But I can understand that, while it may help the overall visual enjoyment depending on your tastes, it goes against pure 'pixel analysis', yeah.
The goal is to "interpret" the picture in only one pass (to have minimum use of resources and minimum lag), directly taking each original pixel and "construct" the final result according to a table that store small sets of values ( 1A to 4F in the examples above) for every variations of greyscale. There would be only one comparison with each previous pixel per line, to determine if the beam increases or decreases. Well, it's a simulated scanning (from top to bottom and left to right) to obtain the data, but the result is made of a full frame (no layers, no transparencies), constructed for fixed resolution.
It may not be very clear, because it's not so easy to explain it in french even for me... ^^
But I think this is the best way. The difficult part is to create the table, you need a perfect screenshot to start from. For this, I will use my method, because it's very tweakable and precise. I need to adust every layer according to the observation of the behavior of the real beam in the best condition : the proper set-up of the screen. For this last point, I'm ready now, I know. :-PI need to explain the trick and convince somebody to write a bunch of code lines, somebody who wants to recreate a perfect CRT picture, not somebody who think that CRT screens produce genuine dirty pictures with lot of defects that you need to focus on. In fact, that's the tricky part ! ^_^
So, wait and see...
Looking forward to it, though you need too big resolutions for that and you know web design requirements... Nevertheless, your ultimate goal is solving to some degree the emulation-related issue, isn't it?
14.864 02-07-2010 12:44:24
Tema: 'Scroll' horizontal para el próximo de Cave. (40 respuestas, enviadas el Hablemos de juegos)
...Que tendrá su primer 'test' público a finales de mes y será totalmente original:
http://cave-game.cocolog-nifty.com/blog … -f2df.html
14.865 02-07-2010 12:41:08
Re: Eiyuu Densetsu: Zero no Kiseki (PSP). (28 respuestas, enviadas el Hablemos de juegos)
![>]](http://raster.effect.free.fr/31khz/KOF_sprites_360p/KOF_XII_360p_01d_(1366x1080).jpg){kind=link}
14.866 01-07-2010 22:39:54
Re: Fire Emblem: Shin Monshou no Nazo ~Hikari to Kage no Eiyuu~ (DS). (3 respuestas, enviadas el Hablemos de juegos)
14.867 01-07-2010 22:35:00
Re: La Tale (WIN). (3 respuestas, enviadas el Hablemos de juegos)
14.868 01-07-2010 22:32:34
Re: Elminage II. (11 respuestas, enviadas el Hablemos de juegos)
14.869 01-07-2010 22:31:21
Re: Curiosidades, en este hilo. (1.691 respuestas, enviadas el Hablemos de juegos)
Hubo una serie dedicada a Ketsui por el mismo fabricante unos meses atrás y ahora es turno para Dai-Ou-Jou:
14.870 01-07-2010 22:21:08
Re: Low-res screenshots (86 respuestas, enviadas el English talk)
Welcome, Eboshidori. And thanks for the kind words. I hear you on the KOF XII subject. I'm still to see how the game works with the system set at 480p and a 31-kHz monitor, though it can't do the background graphics any good, so I'm not holding my breath. What a waste...
We have here a 'true low-res through your PC' thread [ > ] where we go a step further than most people and also explain how to get the card to run at the proper refresh rate for every particular game. If you happen to have an Arcade VGA / old ATI card and haven't gone through the issue yet, you have there an interesting read.
And yeah; that Leo screenshot is quite a pleasure for the eyes. I think it's people like you the ones who are going to enjoy the next Postback update the most. I talked with Ronan about asking you how to properly photograph a CRT, since it seems it's a matter you have lots of experience with. I've learned some bits since that Willow screen I linked in a previous post here and I'm more satisfied with my results every day, but maybe you still could show me some tips for the camera. My Trinitron is 'high curvature', though, making the screenshots less... 'consistent' around the corners. If you agree, we could follow the conversation in the development subforum.
14.871 28-06-2010 12:37:25
Re: Game Side. (55 respuestas, enviadas el Hablemos de juegos)
Nº de Agosto, y último regular, a priori, dedicado al género de los juegos de tácticas, con especial atención para el nuevo Fire Emblem de DS, artículos sobre Rockman 10, "El Soft Legendario de FM Towns", entrevistas al director de Ghost Trick y 5PB en relación a Ketsui Extra, etc., etc.:
14.872 25-06-2010 11:16:37
Re: The King of Fighters XIII anunciado oficialmente. (76 respuestas, enviadas el Hablemos de juegos)
'KOF XIII Technical Reference chapter 1':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4WhEc_pjOE
Se confirma su salida en tres semanas.
14.873 25-06-2010 11:14:10
Re: The King of Fighters: Sky Stage. (22 respuestas, enviadas el Hablemos de juegos)
Una interesante columna--inscrita en la campaña promocional de Neo-Geo Heroes--sobre Last Resort. Viene a confirmar el parentesco entre el juego, Irem y KOF que ya apuntamos en su día [ > ] ante el escepticismo de más de uno.
http://game.snkplaymore.co.jp/official/ … umn02.html
La primera entrega estuvo dedicada a ASO: