Gp2x Has The Biggest Screen Size Among Handhelds

[junker]

still, the games were meant to be seen a little blury since regular tvs smoothed the images a bit and made things a little blurry.
320x224 is the native resolution of the neogeo arcade platform and genesis/md systems, but is the native resolution of the arcade monitors or tvs 320x224? no!
things did look a bit smooth and blurry, and not unlike what some of the advanced filters can pull off.

 

[declaration]

yes. I think most people would argree that the Zodiac stretching of things like SNES, genesis etc are great. Not everyone is as obsessive about these things as DaveC.

Thats why people get pissed off- because he is melodramatic and makes it sound like Zodiac emus are so blurred you can't even see whats going on when really there is merely a tiny bit of colour blurring that actually resembles what we all remember the game to have looked like at the arcade and on our TVs etc.

 

[lucoxade]

now if someone could incorperate the XAnalogTV screensaver filters into an emulator, that would give me a true console experience that I was used to. Especialy for the Atari2600 and Spectrum

 

[Radek]

I have just done some images comparing results in a 1.5 ratio scaling. All done with different methods and I'd made the post about it already if not a problem with a server so I cann't show the images. My administrator is not too bright as it seems and I'm waiting for an login for a week now!

Damn! :angry:

Sometimes I think I'm tolerating to much incompetence for a thing I paid already!

If tommorow the issues will not be solved then I definitely will go a mad!

 

[trooper]

I have just done some images comparing results in a 1.5 ratio scaling. All done with different methods and I'd made the post about it already if not a problem with a server so I cann't show the images. My administrator is not too bright as it seems and I'm waiting for an login for a week now!

Damn! :angry:

Sometimes I think I'm tolerating to much incompetence for a thing I paid already!

If tommorow the issues will not be solved then I definitely will go a mad!

​

You could always use ImageShack to host your pictures, It`s also free too.

Trooper

 

[Magus 86]

BUWAHAHAHAHA!!! DaveC, you are the man... People arguing with DaveC = Pwn3d.

 

[Radek]

You could always use ImageShack to host your pictures, It`s also free too.

Trooper

​

Thanks for a suggestion, I already did so! So back to the topic.

This is an original image (not scaled, just like it is in a reality):

It is a fragment of main screen of the UQM game. It's a basically open port of StarControl2. I did chose that game (and this fragment of screen) for a very simple reason - it will allow to show points of different methods of scaling most noticeably. All this imho of course and be free to criticize or anything.

So we are discussing a scaling of uneven factors such as 1.5x. This isn't an easy problem as previous posts stated very well. However I will try to demonstrate some of techniques which can help to alleviate it.

So scale this image by factor of an 1.5x (horizontally and vertically) using simplest of all methods: the pointsampling:

.
Ugly, isn't it? It's even worse when playing because any moving object will be rippling like a hell. This is an aliasing (we can call it a distortion too) at its worst.
So there must be a better method and here it is! The bilinear filtering:

It works by averaging of matrix of 2x2 source's pixels to compute the final one. It hides the distortion very well however at a cost - image looks fuzzy. Yet the dreaded distortion is almost gone and our eyes will welcome the change.
But it could be better so we shouldn't stop now, should we?
Look at this then:

This one is was done using the bicubic filtering. It works the same way as the bilinear just has a bigger matrix of pixels (4x4 to be exact). It's apparent the image is a sharper with less fuzziness. The distortion is hidden as well so we might conclude the bicubic is a better solution than a bilinear filter.

These three methods of scaling are a most basic ones so it's time to go after something more sophisticated.

First this:

This was done by using somewhat more complicated algorithm. But first compare this image to the previous ones. What you are seeing?
Far less fuzziness and the distortion isn't showing its ugly head too much. Actually you can even see a blocks of individual pixels (just like in the original)! How was this achieved might you ask. Well... by scaling the image to the bigger size (upsampling) first then scaling it down to the required size (downsampling) second. It's called an oversampling. In this case upsampling was done using plain pointsampling at 2x2 ratio and downsampling was using the bicubic filter at 0.75x0.75 so the final image would be of desired size of 1.5x1.5.
Let gets this concept to a more "hardcore" level:

And then to the really real hardcore:

These last two images were done the same way as previous one (the first with an oversampling). They just used higher rates of upsampling: 4x4 and then 32x32! Actually the last one was more complicated because it was using three stages of downsampling (two bicubics and one bilinear filter in a serial) to scale down to the 1.5x1.5 ratio. As you see you must be a very nitpicking to see differences among them. This is because the 2x2 upsampling was just enough to get a good results. We have a "diminishing returns" syndrome at work here.

Well it's all? Not, obviously not!

Two more images and I'm going to a bed.

This one is nothing special really as it's basically somewhat smoother version of a bicubic filtering.

However the picture above is the most advanced scaling showed here. The actual link to the picture is a hint how it was done. It does look like it was done natively for an 1.5x1.5 (assuming the artist was lazy ).

Sorry to stop now but my eyebrows are closing themselves now... Must go to a sleep... I hope I made something interesting to you.

 

[DaveC]

yes. I think most people would argree that the Zodiac stretching of things like SNES, genesis etc are great. Not everyone is as obsessive about these things as DaveC.

Thats why people get pissed off- because he is melodramatic and makes it sound like Zodiac emus are so blurred you can't even see whats going on when really there is merely a tiny bit of colour blurring that actually resembles what we all remember the game to have looked like at the arcade and on our TVs etc.

​

Well when I play Genesis on the GP32 it fills the screen almost fully at 1:1 no stretching no blurring. The tiny 1 mm bars are almost unnoticeable. The point is there is NO NEED for any of this other crap on the GP32 for most stuff. I would rather play Genesis 1:1 on the GP32 than all stretched and fuzzy on some other handheld. What is wrong with that? If you don't need to have it distorted then why do you want it so much? It is like you actually want to have to stretch and blurr it out.

Zodiac and PSP users think filtering looks "great". I think it looks like a blurry mess. To me it sucks balls. This is the part that no one can win, it is preference.

So on the GP32 I get 1:1 fullscreen and sharp, other handhelds you get scaled and blurry. I chose 1:1 and sharp.

 

[DaveC]

320x224 is the native resolution of the neogeo arcade platform and genesis/md systems, but is the native resolution of the arcade monitors or tvs 320x224? no!

​

Well yes CRTs display at 1:1. Arcade monitors are RGB and display 1:1 too, sharper than a TV. They are analog devices and display all of that stuff native.

 

[Epicenter]

still, the games were meant to be seen a little blury since regular tvs smoothed the images a bit and made things a little blurry.
320x224 is the native resolution of the neogeo arcade platform and genesis/md systems, but is the native resolution of the arcade monitors or tvs 320x224? no!
things did look a bit smooth and blurry, and not unlike what some of the advanced filters can pull off.

​

Where did you read the Gp2x uses an arcade monitor? :rolleyes: Emulation is a digital process, you use the resolution the VDP natively outputted, 320x224 here, and display it in a window or on a larger display. You don't try to scale to what the arcade monitor originally used. Here, 320x224 fits neatly into 320x240 with a little extra vertical space, a near perfect fit, no stretching or blurring needed.

Arcade monitor generally never look blurry, they are RGB. TVs do, they traditionally use composite signals like, well, Composite. Or S-Video, or RF. This color compression produces the color bleed, dot crawl and other blurring 'antialiasing' changes that you're used to. These actually make more dithered, pixellated games look better and more colorful in a majority of cases, though.

 

[TheTurnipKing]

Arcade monitors could get a little flakey with age though, so yeah, you might see a less than crisp image on a JAMMA machine.

 

[Jarska333]

Well when I play Genesis on the GP32 it fills the screen almost fully at 1:1 no stretching no blurring. The tiny 1 mm bars are almost unnoticeable. The point is there is NO NEED for any of this other crap on the GP32 for most stuff. I would rather play Genesis 1:1 on the GP32 than all stretched and fuzzy on some other handheld.

Is the 1:1 SNES/MD on PSP really that small? It sounds as if it's basically unplayable, stretched or unstretched, atleast in you opinion... And that the black bars basically jump out and tear out your eyes if they're even a bit bigger than 1mm...

 

[junker]

still, the games were meant to be seen a little blury since regular tvs smoothed the images a bit and made things a little blurry.
320x224 is the native resolution of the neogeo arcade platform and genesis/md systems, but is the native resolution of the arcade monitors or tvs 320x224? no!
things did look a bit smooth and blurry, and not unlike what some of the advanced filters can pull off.

​

Where did you read the Gp2x uses an arcade monitor? :rolleyes: Emulation is a digital process, you use the resolution the VDP natively outputted, 320x224 here, and display it in a window or on a larger display. You don't try to scale to what the arcade monitor originally used. Here, 320x224 fits neatly into 320x240 with a little extra vertical space, a near perfect fit, no stretching or blurring needed.

Arcade monitor generally never look blurry, they are RGB. TVs do, they traditionally use composite signals like, well, Composite. Or S-Video, or RF. This color compression produces the color bleed, dot crawl and other blurring 'antialiasing' changes that you're used to. These actually make more dithered, pixellated games look better and more colorful in a majority of cases, though.

​

what i meant to say is that tvs and arcade monitors weren't digital displays, and the image coming out of them weren't the same as what you'd get coming out of the gp32's lcd when playing md, right.
it may have been 1:1 in the case with arcade monitors, but you cant make out the pixels as easily and the image generally isn't as sharp as with an lcd monitor in 1:1, but tvs were usually always blurry, right? especially with composite connection like you said?


anyway, yeah, 1:1 md on the psp is pretty small. i did prefer it, though.

 

[declaration]

Well when I play Genesis on the GP32 it fills the screen almost fully at 1:1 no stretching no blurring. The tiny 1 mm bars are almost unnoticeable. The point is there is NO NEED for any of this other crap on the GP32 for most stuff. I would rather play Genesis 1:1 on the GP32 than all stretched and fuzzy on some other handheld. What is wrong with that? If you don't need to have it distorted then why do you want it so much? It is like you actually want to have to stretch and blurr it out.

Zodiac and PSP users think filtering looks "great". I think it looks like a blurry mess. To me it sucks balls. This is the part that no one can win, it is preference.

yeah, but the SNES bars are annoying and I would use a stetch mode if available.

And yes, I agree it is down to personal preference, but the way you flame the zodiac/psp emus as a "blurry mess" etc is melodramatic and will obviously cause people to contradict you.
You make it sound like you can't even see whats going on/

 

[junker]

nice explanation, Radek!

 

[DaveC]

Well when I play Genesis on the GP32 it fills the screen almost fully at 1:1 no stretching no blurring.  The tiny 1 mm bars are almost unnoticeable.  The point is there is NO NEED for any of this other crap on the GP32 for most stuff.  I would rather play Genesis 1:1 on the GP32 than all stretched and fuzzy on some other handheld.

Is the 1:1 SNES/MD on PSP really that small? It sounds as if it's basically unplayable, stretched or unstretched, atleast in you opinion... And that the black bars basically jump out and tear out your eyes if they're even a bit bigger than 1mm...

​

Well the PSP screen is not as tall as the GP32 screen and the res is more so it is pretty small at 1:1. That is why I don't really like playing those on the PSP. You either get small and sharp OR big and blurry. There is really no perfect solution.

As far as the black bars, just pretend the screen stops there anyway. Tape a piece of cardboard there and make believe that it is full screen

To me the blurry image is much worse, it is like your eyes are going bad and you can't focus.

 

[Radek]

still, the games were meant to be seen a little blury since regular tvs smoothed the images a bit and made things a little blurry.
320x224 is the native resolution of the neogeo arcade platform and genesis/md systems, but is the native resolution of the arcade monitors or tvs 320x224? no!
things did look a bit smooth and blurry, and not unlike what some of the advanced filters can pull off.

​

Where did you read the Gp2x uses an arcade monitor? :rolleyes: Emulation is a digital process, you use the resolution the VDP natively outputted, 320x224 here, and display it in a window or on a larger display. You don't try to scale to what the arcade monitor originally used. Here, 320x224 fits neatly into 320x240 with a little extra vertical space, a near perfect fit, no stretching or blurring needed.

Arcade monitor generally never look blurry, they are RGB. TVs do, they traditionally use composite signals like, well, Composite. Or S-Video, or RF. This color compression produces the color bleed, dot crawl and other blurring 'antialiasing' changes that you're used to. These actually make more dithered, pixellated games look better and more colorful in a majority of cases, though.

​

These points brings a questions: what we should use as the point of reference?

A digital ouput of an emulator?
A crt output of an original arcade machine?
A TV output from a console like a SNES?
A technical things like a highfreqency content in an image and level of an aliasing?

I'm not sure myself.

I had been using a TV screens for enought time to know them very well. They blurs, they have a convergence issues, they're flickering and you have to go a very low resolution to actually call an individual pixel a rectangle.

But things gets a more interesting when we have a machine with ability to shifts scanlines with subpixel accuracy. The Amiga is such one for example and if you even get the 1x1 pixel ratio then you still won't get an image what is an 100 percent correct.

 

[DaveC]

still, the games were meant to be seen a little blury since regular tvs smoothed the images a bit and made things a little blurry.
320x224 is the native resolution of the neogeo arcade platform and genesis/md systems, but is the native resolution of the arcade monitors or tvs 320x224? no!
things did look a bit smooth and blurry, and not unlike what some of the advanced filters can pull off.

​

Where did you read the Gp2x uses an arcade monitor? :rolleyes: Emulation is a digital process, you use the resolution the VDP natively outputted, 320x224 here, and display it in a window or on a larger display. You don't try to scale to what the arcade monitor originally used. Here, 320x224 fits neatly into 320x240 with a little extra vertical space, a near perfect fit, no stretching or blurring needed.

Arcade monitor generally never look blurry, they are RGB. TVs do, they traditionally use composite signals like, well, Composite. Or S-Video, or RF. This color compression produces the color bleed, dot crawl and other blurring 'antialiasing' changes that you're used to. These actually make more dithered, pixellated games look better and more colorful in a majority of cases, though.

​

These points brings a questions: what we should use as the point of reference?

A digital ouput of an emulator?
A crt output of an original arcade machine?
A TV output from a console like a SNES?
A technical things like a highfreqency content in an image and level of an aliasing?

I'm not sure myself.

I had been using a TV screens for enought time to know them very well. They blurs, they have a convergence issues, they're flickering and you have to go a very low resolution to actually call an individual pixel a rectangle.

But things gets a more interesting when we have a machine with ability to shifts scanlines with subpixel accuracy. The Amiga is such one for example and if you even get the 1x1 pixel ratio then you still won't get an image what is an 100 percent correct.

​

Preference I guess is what it comes down to. I like the Atari 400 emulator on the GP32 because it looks so nice and sharp. It makes those games look so clean and sharp that it makes me want to play them more then if they were blurry. Originally it was designed for a TV and RF switch which was very blurry but I still like sharp.

I used to play all of my consoles like MD, SNES on an Amiga monitor with custom RGB cables and they looked sharp.

Playing MAME on the GP32 is kind of close to the RGB arcade monitors, it is only a little sharper.

 

[Radek]

Preference I guess is what it comes down to. I like the Atari 400 emulator on the GP32 because it looks so nice and sharp. It makes those games look so clean and sharp that it makes me want to play them more then if they were blurry. Originally it was designed for a TV and RF switch which was very blurry but I still like sharp.

I used to play all of my consoles like MD, SNES on an Amiga monitor with custom RGB cables and they looked sharp.

Playing MAME on the GP32 is kind of close to the RGB arcade monitors, it is only a little sharper.

​

So you prefer a higher frequency content in an image to anything else.

For me this depends on a game. For an example the Draconus on the Atari XL/XE series runs mostly at 160x100 (save the main sprite). This has to be blurred otherwise it's so blocky it's not a funny.

The TaiPeiXL game to contrary is using the 320x192 mode. Blurring is not welcome here however convergence artifacting is because it adds illusions of a colour to the otherwise monochromatic image.

 

[triton]

i used to play most of my game systems on my amiga 1080 monitor but the composit input crapped out, im not sure its any good any more, even throught composit it looked good