Upscaling 8 bit games

[Nintendo]

These filters are more for the repackaging and reselling of these games to a younger audience I suspect.

I agree its another sell people a game they have bought three times already dillema but you must admit its eye candy pity sd looks so bad on hd tvs I bought a scanline generator just to play old dreamcast and arcade games recently if only someone could implement a algorythm to have this effect on hd tvs .

Not if you use a component cable.

very true but the old shitty crt look suits games like that beter than using component also it works brilliant for mame as well space harrier and other sprite scaling games look beautiful the way we remember them in the arcades hd is good for current gen alas the pandora can only output sd so unless we get an addon in the future for hdmi (which is highly unlikely)we'll have to make the best of what we have. The pandora is mostly retro so its ideal.

You have a point. But might I just add that I'm using emulators with filtering.

 

[CAZMIESTER]

These filters are more for the repackaging and reselling of these games to a younger audience I suspect.

I agree its another sell people a game they have bought three times already dillema but you must admit its eye candy pity sd looks so bad on hd tvs I bought a scanline generator just to play old dreamcast and arcade games recently if only someone could implement a algorythm to have this effect on hd tvs .

Not if you use a component cable.

very true but the old shitty crt look suits games like that beter than using component also it works brilliant for mame as well space harrier and other sprite scaling games look beautiful the way we remember them in the arcades hd is good for current gen alas the pandora can only output sd so unless we get an addon in the future for hdmi (which is highly unlikely)we'll have to make the best of what we have. The pandora is mostly retro so its ideal.

You have a point. But might I just add that I'm using emulators with filtering.

Earlier mame builds had scanlines the only ones i know now with filters is kawaks and xbox fba all other emus seamto be disabled as far as video filters go.

 

[Nintendo]

I like the nostalgic look of scanlines sometimes.

 

[White Demon]

I had a look at the pdf and while the upscales in that looked pretty good, I am in the camp that prefer to see the simple upscaled pixels in all their ugly glory. As long as any emulator to implement this sort of thing has the option to turn it on or off (and I'm pretty sure thay would) then I'd be happy.


But I don't see the point of doing it in Pandora emu's, it'd be kinda pointless on the small screen and an unnecessary waste of the Pandy's resources.


As for the subject of scanlines, every attempt I've seen to emulator them so far have looked awful, I've found it makes the game almost unplayable and I always turn them off.

 

[bismuthdrummer]

If you love clubbing sensitive pixel art, then this is for you.

 

[-Tj-]

I got goosebumps while watching that video, not because I thought it was cool or amazing, but because I thought it was hideous.


It's all well and good that this tech exists, and I'm sure someone will like it enough to use it, but good pixel art is an art in itself, with each pixel and color having been chosen to do its job and to be seen in a particular way. By filtering it to 'up-res' it, you destroy an artist's work and vision. It's like applying a smart blur filter to a Van Gogh painting and saying you made it better.


If they're going to bother with making an HD version, I'd rather they take the time to redraw the sprites by hand so at least it looks like something an artist did, not something that came out of a Flash trace contour process.

 

[elwing]

please, stop attempting to steal my pixels

 

[Garg]

Can anyone post another copy of the PDF? The site seems to be getting hammered.


I for one would love to have this as an optional filter (no art imperialist is going to vectorize your pixels if you don't let them) if it could be run in real time. I'd be more interested in using it on larger screens than on the Pandora, though.

 

[Jourdy288]

Can anyone post another copy of the PDF? The site seems to be getting hammered.


I for one would love to have this as an optional filter (no art imperialist is going to vectorize your pixels if you don't let them) if it could be run in real time. I'd be more interested in using it on larger screens than on the Pandora, though.

1+. I just want to see it on Secret of Evermore.


Or some Atari 2600 games LOL.

 

[Cas]

Hey kids! Get off my pixels!


Back in my day, we were connecting our consoles to the TV aerial plug, dag nabbit!


I don't like most of the filters, the only one I appreciate are those that try to simulate the rendering of a CRT.


But maybe I'm a grumpy old fart

Got to agree with this sentiment, ScummVM uses those smoothing filters, do not like them myself, it just does


not look right somehow.


Lets start a hands of the pixels campaign

 

[Poem58]

First they start with upscaling your 8 bits...


Then they'll 3D your 2600...

Having grown up with an Atari 2600 all I can say is I hope they never go 3D with that. The realism would cause me to get lost in the game and I just know I would be forever plagued with nightmares of Space Aliens or Gorilla's throwing barrels at me. The fear of actually falling from the Pitfall rope into a tar pit, oh the thought of it just sends chills up my spine! Someone help me! there's a crazed scorpion chasing me! Aaaauuuggghhhh! What would actually be the worst is those things you had to take the manuals word for as to what they were, imagine the horror of being chased by things you can't recognize!

 

[-Tj-]

Having grown up with an Atari 2600 all I can say is I hope they never go 3D with that. The realism would cause me to get lost in the game and I just know I would be forever plagued with nightmares of Space Aliens or Gorilla's throwing barrels at me. The fear of actually falling from the Pitfall rope into a tar pit, oh the thought of it just sends chills up my spine!

I've long thought that older games (not all of them) allowed you to get more involved in a game because you had to imagine a lot of it. By doing this you become part of the game, making things up as you go along. Games now give you so much information that you don't have to do anything in your head but play them. This is partly why I don't like these kinds of upscaling procedures. It tries to do the imagination part for you. I've seen some of these kinds of filters used in a number of emulators, and while they're fun for like a minute just to see what they do, it usually gets turned off and never used again. The novelty of it dies fast.


It's like the difference between Tron and Tron Legacy (or Tron 2 or whatever it's called everywhere). The original, for me, felt way more like a computer world than the new one did.


I'd much more appreciate a filter that simulates CRT so at least I can feel like I'm playing it the way it looked back in the day, the way the screenshots looked in magazines and stuff.

 

[Trip]

It's already bugging me how companies are releasing crappy ports of old games on newer systems but I can understand it as it's just easy money for them. As much as I find this technology interesting on a technical level it will probably only make things worse and companies wont take the time and effort to make decent remakes any more


This also seems to change the graphics of the games too much from the original. this could mean that you wouldn't even feel like you were playing the same game and you would loose that feeling of nostalgia and fondness that that many people experience whilst playing these games.


Still interesting though and I'd like to try it out just to see how well it works (or not)

 

[ahahah]

i personnaly prefer the original 8-bit sprite charm