Pandora Pandora Screen Resolution And Lcd Size Queston (possibly Stupid)

[Guyfawkes]

This is possibly a dumb question but I need to ask as its bugging me

I am thinking about coding a Picross game for the Pandora and am currently trying some designs for it. What is bugging me is the screen resolution of 800x480 and the physical lcd size. Until now I have been working with small resolutions and small lcd screens ie. GP2X 320x240 and 3.5" size. The pandora would be 800x480 with 4.3" LCD so its a large resolution but smaller in relation screen.

So I was wondering if there would be any potential problems when coding games for large resolutions but with smaller screens if you get what I mean. I have uploaded two rough designs of my game from a week or two ago at http://www.emuboards.com/scratch/picross1.png (double pixel grid) and http://www.emuboards.com/scratch/picross2.png (single pixel grid). Would there be any problems with single pixel lines as in the 2nd image, would they be too small to see? I can imagine that the boxes on Picross would maybe too small to see or touch to fill in as well?

Like I said this is probably a dumb question

 

[fusion_power]

I've never played A Picross game but I think the Grid is important. Because the Pandora screen is not much bigger than the GP2X screen but with the Double Pixel per inch, I think you need 2 Pixel width grid. Everything should be doubled. When you see a 1 Pixel line at the GP2X, you see a 2 Pixel line at the Pandora. A 1 Pixel line at the Pandora would be really tiny I think.

Maybe you can code your game just in 400x240 (Single Pixel sizes) and than just use 2x scaler of the Pandora (I think the Machine can scale in Hardware)

 

[Julius]

Most image editing programms allow you to set a custom (printing) resultion, e.g. how many pixels per inch/cm. Thus that should give you a good approximation.

My personal guess it that it would be probably better to use three pixel wide lines, but the two outer pixel rows mostly used for blending and antialising the corners.

 

[Chip]

This is possibly a dumb question but I need to ask as its bugging me

It is not a dumb question, nor is it an easy one to answer. True, the dot pitch on the screen will be tiny, but it is not as though individual pixels will be invisible to the naked eye. I do not think anybody will have trouble seeing single-pixel lines for your project. So since it doesn't come down to need, you can decide based on want. Use whichever width you like best.

 

[Guyfawkes]

Thanks for the replies. The design can easily be changed to varying pixels on the grid but for now I will keep it at 1 pixel and if necessary change it when it can be tested on the pandora.

 

[Zarneth]

The only real problem with the small size of the screen will be fonts and icons which will need to be big enough so people don't have to squint to read them.