lost_soul on 7/6/2009 at 17:18
I am generally happy as long as it isn't 320x240 and there is some texture filtering like Bilinear going on.
I was playing Unreal the other day and I am still impressed with the sky in that game. The way the clouds move and the fact that there are birds flying around makes it feel like an outdoor environment, even if the terrain is bland by today's standards.
High quality audio is also important. Some older games still support 44100 Hz sound (like Unreal) which is great to listen to with headphones. I cannot stand it when games compress the hell out of the sound effects or dialogue (a lot of N64 games did this).
As for music generated by real instruments, I'm not sold on that. The Unreal games had MUCH better music before they adopted digitized (Ogg Vorbis) music.
greypatch3 on 8/6/2009 at 00:37
While I can't necessarily agree on lower resolutions being better than high (I loved System Shock 2 when I found out it could be run in 1600x1200 on my old CRT with a little tweaking), It does have its faults. One thing I can't stand is when a text box is the size of your head when at a lower resolution, but nobody bothered to do a scaled version at a higher resolution...you end up with text the size of a dot. Deus Ex had sort of a weird solution where at the super-high resolution the text boxes went back to being huge again, but most don't even bother. I can still read the text, but it's not like small text in a book; it's often times an unpleasant experience.
I do miss the look of 2-D stuff, though, but that's not a matter of resolution as much as a lot of style was lost in the transition. Despite the fact that they are painted backgrounds, there's a lot to be said of the look and feel of the old Lucasarts and Sierra adventure games. I know there's the remake around the corner coming out, but even in its most pixellated there's a charm and wit about the style of the original that will be very hard to top.
doctorfrog on 8/6/2009 at 02:59
Quote Posted by greypatch3
Deus Ex had sort of a weird solution where at the super-high resolution the text boxes went back to being huge again,
I've seen this, and I think it is due to the fact that 1600x1200 is exactly double 800x600. Somehow the game sees this and thinks, what the hell, and pixel-doubles everything.* I've seen the same thing with Arx Fatalis as well, aren't those both Unreal 1 engine games?
*Everything having to do with the 2D UI, thanks DDL.
june gloom on 8/6/2009 at 03:25
DX is, AF is not.
DDL on 8/6/2009 at 12:02
DX only actually pixeldoubles all the UI screens (the world itself is happily running at whatever res you chose): they added this because for some reason (possibly engine limitations, possibly just laziness) the UI doesn't scale smoothly. It's the same pixel size at all resolutions, so they reasoned that at 1280x1024 and above the scaling would make most of the text illegible, so they just outright doubled it.
And of course, it then stays at that doubled res for all higher resolutions, so should theoretically eventually look reasonable again.
There is a UI fix for this available, but one of the side effects is that it also shrinks the UI for the scope and the binoculars, so scoping gives you a small hole in the centre of the screen, and so on.
But anyway, yes: on topic, there's a lot to be said for "low res + user imagination".
ZylonBane on 8/6/2009 at 19:03
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
That's called 1:1 pixel mapping, a feature that you find in more expensive LCDs (usually no TN panel monitors). It's superior to GPU-assisted scaling.
No, it isn't. 1:1 pixel mapping is the complete
absence of scaling. Hence the "1:1" part.
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
ClearType Fonts are basically anti-aliased. The end result should be a far improved Windows desktop experience, regardless of if you're running an LCD or CRT.
So-called "ClearType fonts" are just TrueType/OpenType fonts that have been optimized for ClearType rendering. The technology works fine with any vector font.
Keeper_Andrus on 8/6/2009 at 19:10
I can't really tell the difference between 800x600 and the higher resolutions.
Course, I'm legally blind...
Bluegrime on 8/6/2009 at 20:24
I do. Running Windows 98, a GeForce 2 and Sound Blaster Pro might make me a tad biased, though.
gunsmoke on 8/6/2009 at 21:04
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
No, it isn't. 1:1 pixel mapping is the complete
absence of scaling. Hence the "1:1" part.
He said superior to, not equal to scaling.
thefonz on 8/6/2009 at 21:52
Stop being a cheap ass. Buy a new graphics card.
Boing Flip.
