2D game specific field?

[Marioysikax 89]

As I have been editing and creating more and more articles, I have started to stumble upon one thing: 2D games. 

 

If we talk about majority of 2D games, they are usually made with sprites which has certain size. This means they have to be either upscaled, downscaled or scaled with 1:1 pixel ratio to fit the selected resolution. Just glad that in most cases, games are done for current and last console standards, which are 720p and 1080p and most users on PC will have 1080p or lower resolution display, so with bigger titles this usually isn't major issue. 

There's tons and tons of differend scenarios with 2D games it's hard to count, some allow arbitary resolutions and move sprites in the playfield nicely, others use intended resolution and scale from there either with or without aspect ratio, some won't allow using larger resolutions and leave scaling to GPU/Display, few even use vectors or insert sprites to 3D enviroment, etc. 

 

So there's not really good way of representing the info, but I feel like especially with pixel art using games it would be really useful to represent the information somehow as with those will get blurry mess with improper upscaling or if GPU handles the scaling. 

 

I've been trying to use screenshots, screenshot comparisons and wikipedia article to help pointing out things, but it always feel pretty tagged on in articles. Output resolution and windowed mode resizing/aspect ratio is easy to fill in exsisting fields but everything else is bit harder. 

[Guest]

Oooh, nearest neighbour, do you know how to force that on any game? That would be really useful for StarCraft. That would also be useful for 4K screens.

 

Anyway what would the field be called like? Scaling?

[Marioysikax 89]

Oooh, nearest neighbour, do you know how to force that on any game? That would be really useful for StarCraft. That would also be useful for 4K screens.

 

Anyway what would the field be called like? Scaling?

I would also LOVE to know if there's method to force nearest neighbour or any other filtering methods to game is using low resolutions, but sadly I don't. That would indeed be really useful with tons of situations. I do remember my old machine letting me to choose display for scaling device which did use far better scaling method instead of blurring everything. 

 

I'm mostly pitching this idea, haven't gotten any solid idea on my head, but scaling sounds pretty solid name for it with possible values and hidden if unknown and possibility to several values:

• Limited resolution/GPU scaling
• 1:1 pixels
• nearest neighbour/direct scaling
• bilinear/Lanczos/similar
• pixel art scalers
• vectors/3D models (and with this AA would be required value)
• ???

Then having own article here instead of using wikipedias and note field could easily be used to represent that does the game render at fixed rendering resolution or if assets are done for specific resolution (this one maybe requiring some reference instead of guesswork, but e.g. direct Nintendo DSi port has 99% change of all the assets being done for 256x192 and is pretty easy to test). 

[Marioysikax 89]

Also, I really do feel like even minimal implementation would be really good, even simplier like scaling option true/false with note field to state it. After all there seems to be more and more emulated games being sold on Steam (Metal Slugs, Bubsy) and emulators do give tons of customization in terms of sprite upscaling which may not translate into sold game. 

Then there's Final Fantasys which Square seems to love porting to iOS/Android and from there to PC (V and VI specifically), which has SNES sprites upscaled using bilinear filtering and mods made to use nearest neighbor instead. 

[Blackbird 54]

Not a bad idea. 3D games already have some specific stuff like FoV/AF/Surround

[Garrett 214]

Yes, this would be a chance to sort out a range of other settings, possibly under an additional information section (as with the input settings upgrade).

 

"Internal resolution" (or similar) would work for this particular case.

[Guest]

I don't think having Ambient Occlusion, DOF, Blur and stuff like that in the table is really important, but the rest sure I guess. And I really think the Video table shouldn't get overly cluttered or things will get way harder to read.

[Garrett 214]

If the template had three sections, based on the current rows there would be output (resolution, FOV, windowing, Vsync, FPS), effects (AA, AF), and other (color blind).

 

Video settings currently has 13 rows in a single group. With a split layout there would be far fewer rows per group despite introducing new rows.

[Blackbird 54]

Please no more hidden settings. The Input ones being hidden is annoying enough. I wish I could somehow force it being open so I don't have to open it every time :/

[Guest]

If the template had three sections, based on the current rows there would be output (resolution, FOV, windowing, Vsync, FPS), effects (AA, AF), and other (color blind).

 

Video settings currently has 13 rows in a single group. With a split layout there would be far fewer rows per group despite introducing new rows.

What would it look like? I can't really picture it myself. Also I really would prefer if the 60/120 FPS thing was removed, and replaced with the High FPS field again. The 60/120 fields should be always hidden, while the high frame rate field is the only visible one.

[Marioysikax 89]

I'd love to see a more detailed proposal as to what field/fields you'd like to see there. Our coverage of 2D titles in terms of settings is rather poor at the moment (though in all honesty, we should consider vastly expanding the array of fields in general, for plenty of other modern features, like AO, AA settings, independent output/rendering resolutions, DOF, blur, scaling, and so forth).

Problem is that there's so many differend ways to make 2D games that it's really hard to even think about setting that would cover the whole thing. 

But to start with and narrowing down my earlier post, scaling field with direct (1:1, neighbor, max res, vector), blurring (e.g. bilinear) and smoothing (e.g. eagle) as value would cover majority and make it much much easier to actually fill the table (because it's would be near impossible to ask editor to distinguish Bilinear from Lanczos or XBR 3x from hq3x). And of course all three could be used as some games offer several methods and the field couls also be used with 3D games to specify sprite/texture scaling (with older titles this is usually really visible).

 

"Internal resolution" (or similar) would work for this particular case.

Internal/rendering resolution would make things much easier for sure. However only way to easily fill the table is for pixel art using games or games specifically telling this. Of course with other cases pixel counting can be done, but not sure how many editors would be willing to do that or even know how (same problem that input lag field had). 

 

Also I really would prefer if the 60/120 FPS thing was removed, and replaced with the High FPS field again. The 60/120 fields should be always hidden, while the high frame rate field is the only visible one.

This is outside the topic and I remember it being explained multiple times why this is, main reason being SEO. Also 120+ FPS field is still identical to HFR one as that's still my main focus when editing articles.