As a Sega Genesis gamer, do you care about stretched aspect ratio?

Hey guys,

There is a bit of a schism amongst the NES/SNES guys regarding aspect ratio due to the fact that the resolution that is most commonly used - 256x224 - is stretched outside of a square pixel aspect ratio. This is perfectly normal and by design for a CRT, of course - but many guys have gamed on emulators for a long time and prefer the closer to square pixel look of the SNES.

You can contrast that with what Genesis Does(TM) :cool: which is (mostly) use 320 pixels in width - something that is going to be closer to 4:3 square pixels when paired with a vertical resolution of 224 or 240.

However the low resolution mode of the Genesis makes use of that 256 pixel width, and it is stretched on a CRT similar to the SNES.

I was just wondering - do you guys care about the stretch at all? It seems like Genesis emulators mostly stretch low resolution mode (as opposed to SNES emulators), and I assume most of the Sega guys go with the flow and aren't bothered by it, but I figured I would ask. I grew up playing these systems on a CRT, so I am a 4:3 guy. How about you?

I just made a video about it, but I figured I would ask you guys directly.

https://youtu.be/TY8HAjJfSO0

I prefer my games to have correct aspect ratio

I haven't read your post but my answer is YES! Ioathe incorrect aspect ratios in all forms. EDIT – Read now, I'll catch up on the vid when I can.

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Originally Posted by cleeg

I haven't read your post but my answer is YES!

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Haha! A passionate response! :sonic:

I have a feeling people are going to post regarding 16x9 stretching without reading OP.

But yeah, 4x3 is OK with me, even though I believe there are examples of circles not looking correct at 4x3 since the designers made the art for 256x224 (why, I have no idea).

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Originally Posted by Gryson

But yeah, 4x3 is OK with me, even though I believe there are examples of circles not looking correct at 4x3 since the designers made the art for 256x224 (why, I have no idea).

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Thanks, Gryson. The circle discussion is definitely a heated part of the SNES (and Amiga) debate regarding aspect ratio.

I prefer 4:3 since that is how those systems and games were essentially meant to look. In fact when I look for gaming LCDs, I make sure they are able to offer a 4:3 mode on the digital inputs such as for DVI and HDMI. I require this because my converter/upscaler that I use, always wants to stretch the image on the HDMI output.

I prefer without no doubt the H40 games cause in a RCA/RF connection the dithers really work with the illusion of a new shade or transparency when h32 mode, the dithers are visible.

The resolution doesn't make a difference to aspect ratio. The pixelart should be proportioned to 4:3 regardless. With that said, I'm guilty of often forgetting to set the proportions before cleaning up or doing the main pixel work. But everything I've done has been for fun in random spurts, during pockets of free time. If I was doing it fulltime under professional conditions, I would have a routine in place for it and would double check everything.

But I'll admit that good 8/16-bit pixelart in the wrong proportions still usually looks great, even a lot of symmetrical assets. Film, tv and misc productions also regularly flub the proportions of layered assets.

Aspect ratio is still independent of resolution though. Which is why it was silly when ports of vertical arcade games added a side bar to 1:1 assets. You still don't have the proper playfield, but now everything is also distorted.

I don't use emulators but the ones used for games published on PSN, Steam and GOG.

I want the game's aspect to be of what was intended on what was intended. So real hardware on a CRT with the highest connection (video hook up) possible of only what was available at the time in my region.

And that's how I roll.

It was not uncommon to compensate for the different aspect ratio in 256×224 (especially with stuff like circles), so yes you should actually stretch it for graphics to look OK.

I think the problem is people playing without any sort of filtering - stretching 320×224 to 640×448 is fine (often it's padded vertically to 640×480 because the padding is quite small), but stretching 256×224 to 640×448 when you don't have any filtering is often awful. This is less of an issue at higher resolutions, mind you, but even then it can be a sore point - especially when 240p upscaled to 1080p is a 4.5x factor x_x

No stretch. Keep aspect ratio as was intended.

I wonder though -- could a homebrew game at 320x224 be optimized for a 16x9 display? It would be one more thing the SNES could never pull off.

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Originally Posted by Gryson

I have a feeling people are going to post regarding 16x9 stretching without reading OP.

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Originally Posted by axel

No stretch. Keep aspect ratio as was intended.

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Welp :v

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Originally Posted by axel

I wonder though -- could a homebrew game at 320x224 be optimized for a 16x9 display? It would be one more thing the SNES could never pull off.

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Virtua Fighter 32X has a widescreen mode it seems. 2D graphics are still stretched but the 3D graphics are corrected for widescreen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn7PPPd5NqA

Also missed this one:

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Originally Posted by Black_Tiger

Aspect ratio is still independent of resolution though. Which is why it was silly when ports of vertical arcade games added a side bar to 1:1 assets. You still don't have the proper playfield, but now everything is also distorted.

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Weren't a lot of those games 224px or 240px wide in the arcade? (since they essentially used a 4:3 screen turned sideways) That means the sidebar is actually used to cover up the excess space on a 320px-wide screen (but also probably so they could move the HUD away from the top of the screen, giving a bit more of room to see incoming things).

Shining Force and the Monster World games drive me nuts with their low resolution. You're Mega Drive exclusives damn it, use the PROPER Mega Drive resolution.

Of course I do :D

When discovering the Mega Drive and SNES about 2 years ago, the first thing I noticed was the resolution difference: 320x224 pixels for most Mega Drive games while the SNES is stuck in 256x224 meaning that Mega Drive games have better aspect ratio once in 4:3 (as intended) and also +25% screen space!

This is a huge fail on the SNES side and very noticeable with multiplats such as Earthworm Jim, Rock 'n Roll Racing, the FIFA serie, the Strike serie (Desert, Jungle and Urban), The Lost Vikings, Mickey Mania and well, many others!

Sadly some Mega Drive games run in 256x224 pixels, in some cases it's OK, when it's about demanding games such as F1 or Kawasaki Superbike, but this should have been avoided for classic 2D games such as Monster World IV. But fortunately and as I said, the majority of Mega Drive games run in 320x224 pixels :)

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Originally Posted by Black_Tiger

Which is why it was silly when ports of vertical arcade games added a side bar to 1:1 assets. You still don't have the proper playfield, but now everything is also distorted.

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It wasn't silly at all. The playfield width stays the same in most cases and thanks to the combination of 320x224 pixels resolution plus a side bar, this helps to keep proper aspect ratio once in 4:3 and this also makes a bit of room in the playfield by removing all the HUD infos from it. Sadly a few Mega Drive games don't use this formula (Twin Cobra for example) and look bad compared to the ones which do (Tatsujin, Slap Fight MD, Mercs...).