Screen resolution madness

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

Its seems to me that the standard resolution for PC applications has a
4:3 ratio. Ten years ago, it was 640X480, and then 800X600, and then
nowadays it's 1600x1200. This makes sense, considering most PC
monitors have a 4:3 aspect ratio like a television screen.

For this reason, I usually run my computer with a resolution of
1280x960. Unfortunately, I notice that many games opt to support
1280x1024 rather than 1280x960. Wouldn't an image look distorted on a
1280x1024 resolution?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

1280x1024 LCD monitors do not have the same aspect ratio as a CRT. The
aspect ratio is 5:4 instead of 4:3. The pixels are square.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

On 29 Jul 2005 16:33:47 -0700, mexican_equivalent@yahoo.com wrote:

>Its seems to me that the standard resolution for PC applications has a
>4:3 ratio. Ten years ago, it was 640X480, and then 800X600, and then
>nowadays it's 1600x1200. This makes sense, considering most PC
>monitors have a 4:3 aspect ratio like a television screen.

Actually, ten years ago, 320x200 was in common use (8:5 aspect ratio).

>
>For this reason, I usually run my computer with a resolution of
>1280x960. Unfortunately, I notice that many games opt to support
>1280x1024 rather than 1280x960. Wouldn't an image look distorted on a
>1280x1024 resolution?

Images only look distorted if the images were designed to be drawn on a 4:3
aspect. Otherwise, they will look fantastic, as long as they aren't tiny
or stretched to madness.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

On Fri, 29 Jul 2005 22:55:29 -0400, bk039@ncf.ca (Raymond Martineau)
wrote:

>On 29 Jul 2005 16:33:47 -0700, mexican_equivalent@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>>Its seems to me that the standard resolution for PC applications has a
>>4:3 ratio. Ten years ago, it was 640X480, and then 800X600, and then
>>nowadays it's 1600x1200. This makes sense, considering most PC
>>monitors have a 4:3 aspect ratio like a television screen.
>
>Actually, ten years ago, 320x200 was in common use (8:5 aspect ratio).

Actually, it was usually 320x240 (once again, a 4:3 ratio.) Of
course, 10 years ago, 640x480 pretty much WAS becoming the default
minimum, in most cases. Time flys by...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

There were a couple odd resolutions used with PC/computer games back then,
but they were anamorphic (nonsquare pixels).

If anybody wonders about 1280x1024 resolution and how it got started-
business workstations and spreadsheets, that's the answer. They didn't give
a damn about gaming at the time, or compatability with TV's. Fortunately,
today this whole thing is relatively trivial with newer LCD's. With a DVI
connection and an NVidia card, you can scale the image to whatever
resolution you want and it will look correct on your monitor. With ATI
cards, you can force the card to output a "centered" image, but the image
won't scale to the resolution (they need to fix that, IMO).

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

mexican_equivalent@yahoo.com wrote:
> Its seems to me that the standard resolution for PC applications has a
> 4:3 ratio. Ten years ago, it was 640X480, and then 800X600, and then
> nowadays it's 1600x1200. This makes sense, considering most PC
> monitors have a 4:3 aspect ratio like a television screen.
>
> For this reason, I usually run my computer with a resolution of
> 1280x960. Unfortunately, I notice that many games opt to support
> 1280x1024 rather than 1280x960. Wouldn't an image look distorted on a
> 1280x1024 resolution?

I've always thought that too, but it seems no-one's been able to clearly
tell me why they like to use something other than a 4:3 aspect ratio on
a square monitor...

The extra space gained isn't a good reason. Things are still
squashed/stretched incorrectly. A bitch to use when working with images.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

Magnulus wrote:
> 1280x1024 LCD monitors do not have the same aspect ratio as a CRT. The
> aspect ratio is 5:4 instead of 4:3. The pixels are square.

That's the first explanation ANYONE's ever given for the purpose of
1280x1024. My life is now complete.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

mexican_equivalent@yahoo.com looked up from reading the entrails of the
porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>Its seems to me that the standard resolution for PC applications has a
>4:3 ratio. Ten years ago, it was 640X480, and then 800X600, and then
>nowadays it's 1600x1200. This makes sense, considering most PC
>monitors have a 4:3 aspect ratio like a television screen.
>
>For this reason, I usually run my computer with a resolution of
>1280x960. Unfortunately, I notice that many games opt to support
>1280x1024 rather than 1280x960. Wouldn't an image look distorted on a
>1280x1024 resolution?

Only if it were designed to be shown on a 1280x960 resolution only.
This would affect pictures, but not games that support 1280x1024.

Playing the mmorpg City of Heroes, I played at 1280x960, then later went
to 1280x1024. Nothing was distorted, I just gained a bit more screen
space (which was really handy since I had a fairly cluttered info-heavy
GUI setup.)

Now if you're using an LCD, and trying to play in a resolution that's
not native, you could possibly end up with some distortion.

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

drocket <drocket@hotmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of the
porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>On Fri, 29 Jul 2005 22:55:29 -0400, bk039@ncf.ca (Raymond Martineau)
>wrote:
>
>>On 29 Jul 2005 16:33:47 -0700, mexican_equivalent@yahoo.com wrote:
>>
>>>Its seems to me that the standard resolution for PC applications has a
>>>4:3 ratio. Ten years ago, it was 640X480, and then 800X600, and then
>>>nowadays it's 1600x1200. This makes sense, considering most PC
>>>monitors have a 4:3 aspect ratio like a television screen.
>>
>>Actually, ten years ago, 320x200 was in common use (8:5 aspect ratio).
>
>Actually, it was usually 320x240 (once again, a 4:3 ratio.) Of
>course, 10 years ago, 640x480 pretty much WAS becoming the default
>minimum, in most cases. Time flys by...

Uh no.

MCGA = 320x200 x256color (or 640x400 x2 color).

That's what we all played the Wing Commander games in (for one example.)

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

drocket wrote:
> Raymond Martineau wrote:
> >Actually, ten years ago, 320x200 was in common use (8:5 aspect ratio).
>
> Actually, it was usually 320x240 (once again, a 4:3 ratio.) Of
> course, 10 years ago, 640x480 pretty much WAS becoming the default
> minimum, in most cases. Time flys by...

320x200 seemed much more prevalent based on my own experience with
games 10 years ago. I don't have any handy charts or statistics
unfortunately but I remember most games around that time using the
standard 320x200x8bpp resolution-depth.

--
Best Regards, mattchu
np:

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

On 30 Jul 2005 21:07:06 -0700, mattchu.mattchu@gmail.com wrote:

>320x200 seemed much more prevalent based on my own experience with
>games 10 years ago. I don't have any handy charts or statistics
>unfortunately but I remember most games around that time using the
>standard 320x200x8bpp resolution-depth.

I did a quick bit of reseach, and my vague memories seem to be at
least somewhat correct: The 'official' VGA resolution was 320x200
(which was based on a text mode of 40x25), but many games used 'Mode
X', which was 320x240. Mode X wasn't an official VGA resolution, but
was popular because it was a lot faster on most video cards, and could
support double buffering. So early VGA games most likely would have
used the 'standard' resolution of 320x200, but later games, especially
those pushing the technical envolope, would likely have used 320x240.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_X

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

1280x1024 on a CRT is usually distorted.

 

[shawk]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

"Magnulus" <magnulus@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:623He.45038$sJ4.8731@bignews5.bellsouth.net...
> 1280x1024 on a CRT is usually distorted.
>

21" FD Trinitron CRT. Optimal resolution (confirmed by manufacturer) is
1280x1024 at 85Hz I dont see any distortion?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

"Magnulus" <magnulus@bellsouth.net> looked up from reading the entrails
of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:

> 1280x1024 on a CRT is usually distorted.

There are some older games that were pretty much hardcoded at 4:3 and
would look distorted on anything at 1280x1024.
As I said, newer stuff like CoH has no distortion on a CRT.
I've played a bunch of things at both 1280x960 and 1280x1024 and there's
no difference beyond a bit more screen real estate - no distortion at
all.

If you're getting distortion at 1280x1024 on new games, you must have a
horrible CRT, since even my 17" backup monitor (Samsung syncmaster 750s)
is distortion free at that res (it's highest.)

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

Look, both 1280x1024 and 1280x960 can't look right. The pixels are
square in both resolutions, and the aspect ratio of your monitor doesn't
magically change.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

Magnulus wrote:
> Look, both 1280x1024 and 1280x960 can't look right. The pixels are
> square in both resolutions, and the aspect ratio of your monitor doesn't
> magically change.

I see your logic behind this belief but it is possible for both to
display correctly. 1280x768 produces an accurate representation of
images on my CRT just as well as it does at 1280x1024 or 1280x960 or
any other standard resolution. When it's at 1280x768 it just has
larger, negative borders on the top and bottom of the screen to
counteract distortion that might occur had it attempted to fill the
space completely.

One way to quickly gauge whether there is distortion or not is to
create a perfect circle in an image editing program and compare it to a
perfect circle in real life. Sometimes I have to tweak the monitor a
little but it does a fairly accurate job of displaying without any
noisome distortions at most resolutions.

--
Best Regards, mattchu
np:

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

"Magnulus" <magnulus@bellsouth.net> looked up from reading the entrails
of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:

> Look, both 1280x1024 and 1280x960 can't look right. The pixels are
>square in both resolutions, and the aspect ratio of your monitor doesn't
>magically change.

Yes they can, and do, both look right on a CRT.

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

Magnulus wrote:
> Look, both 1280x1024 and 1280x960 can't look right. The pixels are
> square in both resolutions, and the aspect ratio of your monitor doesn't
> magically change.

Oh. I missed the part regarding the aspect ratio -whoops! Yes, the
aspect ratio will differ between the resolutions.

For standard Windows operations and tasks most resolutions look correct
with sometimes a few tweaks.

--
Best Regards, mattchu
np:

 

[Andrew]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (More info?)

On Mon, 01 Aug 2005 16:53:58 -0700, Xocyll <Xocyll@kingston.net>
wrote:

>> Look, both 1280x1024 and 1280x960 can't look right. The pixels are
>>square in both resolutions, and the aspect ratio of your monitor doesn't
>>magically change.
>
>Yes they can, and do, both look right on a CRT.

No they don't. One is a 5:4 ratio and the other is 4:3, Mags is right.
--
Andrew, contact via interpleb.blogspot.com
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