Widescreens On Handhelds

[craigix]

Just wondering what the current feelings are now the PSP screen has been around for a while.

 

[Alex.]

I'll be honest and say that for me it makes little difference. The only factor is portability, and part of me thinks that a wide screen will encourage a larger casing altogether, which would be bad for a handheld (the GP2X's size is ideal, both screen and casing), anything smaller or larger would be uncomfortable for my hands.

Of course, prepare yourself for the (anti-)scaling zealots, well, sucks to them, native homebrew is the future

PS: widescreen laptops are such an annoying gimmick, I prefer the good old 4:3 screen ratio myself.

- Alex

 

[m8ex]

I say widescreen if it's looks like a gbasp/nds/laptop. Otherwise it would be to wide.

 

[kialzzz]

A handheld with a 640x480 screen would be nice although a widescreen at close to that resolution wouldn't be too bad either.

 

[gamercorps]

portable projection....Like to have the tech embed projection into a handheld so I can play on any wall, the trick would be to have some stability so when I'm duck'n and weave'n the pic stays centered...ok back to reality, stick with widescreen, its not a fad and no longer the exception. Why stick to old ratio's when all your display output devices are changing?

 

[DaveC]

So the next version is going to be widescreen huh?

That will suck balls. If you want widescreen just get a PSP

You don't need widescreen to play cps etc, you just need more *resolution*. Plus widescreen makes the system much longer. For what? Amiga? since when was the Amiga widescreen? All Amiga games looked 4:3 to me. Movies? who cares there are a million billion widescreen movie players out there. Is it wise to ruin all emus and PC ports just to play some crappy quality video? The ONLY thing that would benefit from a 16:9 aspect would be movies.

Since MORE systems are 4:3 than widescreen it would be retarded to ruin most things with that craptacular stretching for just a few things.

The whole reason that I DONT use my PSP for emus is because of the lousy stretching.

If you were going to get away from 320 x 240 go to 640 x 480, not some shitty widescreen. With 640 x 480 you could do a straight pixel double (not that fractional distorted shit) for older systems and have more resolution for new stuff.

 

[m8ex]

Since MORE systems are 4:3 than widescreen it would be retarded to ruin most things with that craptacular stretching for just a few things.

It would be retarded to stretch it more sideways just because it's widescreen... or is it impossible to scale to 640x480 just because the screen is 854x480?

 

[Vimacs]

im fine with widescreen as long as it is at least 240 px high and has over 3.5".
What i would basicialy like is a gp2x size screen which expands a bit more to the sides.
maybe 360 x 240

 

[DaveC]

Since MORE systems are 4:3 than widescreen it would be retarded to ruin most things with that craptacular stretching for just a few things.

It would be retarded to stretch it more sideways just because it's widescreen. or is it impossible to scale to 640x480 just because the screen is 8**x480?

640 x 480 is not widescreen that is a 4:3 ratio.

Widescreen is taken to mean 16:9. This means that you would be stretching sideways. It you left it 1:1 you would get a smaller image than what we have on the GP2X now. Why would you want a smaller image? Going down in size from what we have now would be stupid.

im fine with widescreen as long as it is at least 240 px high and has over 3.5".
What i would basicialy like is a gp2x size screen which expands a bit more to the sides.
maybe 360 x 240

Standard widescreens for handhelds use 480 x 272 like the PSP though. That is what it would be as they wouldn't have the money to develop a custom screen.

It would make the unit bigger that way to. The question is why do we need it? If the unit is goung to be MAINLY a movie player then fine. If it is MAINLY going to be for games, emus and ports then 4:3 makes the most sense. You have to decide where you are going to target it to to make a smart decision.

4:3 - better for emus, ports. Movies letterboxed

16:9 - better for movies. games are stretched and distorted or small image.

"well the PSP does it so everyone else should too" Is bad logic.

 

[starpause]

i'm not voting because my ideal size/form factor isn't on the list.

my favorite design for a device is the GBA-SP. it's so smart to have the case fold over to protect the screen. the thing fits just right in my hands and isn't too bulky for my pocket. the original DS _is_ too bulky for my pocket, haven't tried the DS light.

the gp2x alone isn't too bulky for my pocket but with a carry case it becomes too bulky. a friend keeps his in just a sock, maybe i need something similar but with space for headphones and extra batteries. if the gp2x folded over and had an internal battery i wouldn't need a case!

so if i was dreaming ... i'd request an open source handheld with the brains of the gp2x and the case of a GBA-SP. i don't care if the screen is wide or not.

 

[DaveC]

i'm not voting because my ideal size/form factor isn't on the list.

my favorite design for a device is the GBA-SP. it's so smart to have the case fold over to protect the screen. the thing fits just right in my hands and isn't too bulky for my pocket. the original DS _is_ too bulky for my pocket, haven't tried the DS light.

the gp2x alone isn't too bulky for my pocket but with a carry case it becomes too bulky. a friend keeps his in just a sock, maybe i need something similar but with space for headphones and extra batteries. if the gp2x folded over and had an internal battery i wouldn't need a case!

so if i was dreaming ... i'd request an open source handheld with the brains of the gp2x and the case of a GBA-SP. i don't care if the screen is wide or not.

How do you play vertical oriented games such as MAME with a clamshell? You don't I take it. Some of us do, and folding systems don't work well played vertical. Plus it is just more parts to break and loosen up, no thanks.

 

[techFreak]

Why do you complain so much about stretching screen? You can just keep 4:3 ratio and leave blank borders on left and right. Plus 16:9 movies are on the widescreen looks better in my opinion.

 

[m8ex]

Since MORE systems are 4:3 than widescreen it would be retarded to ruin most things with that craptacular stretching for just a few things.

It would be retarded to stretch it more sideways just because it's widescreen. or is it impossible to scale to 640x480 just because the screen is 8**x480?

640 x 480 is not widescreen that is a 4:3 ratio.

Widescreen is taken to mean 16:9. This means that you would be stretching sideways. It you left it 1:1 you would get a smaller image than what we have on the GP2X now. Why would you want a smaller image? Going down in size from what we have now would be stupid.

yes 640x480 is 4:3. But is it impossible to scale the image to that resolution if the screen is 854x480?
Just because the screen is a widescreen doesn't mean you have to use the "wide".

LOL @ B

 

[DaveC]

Why do you complain so much about stretching screen? You can just keep 4:3 ratio and leave blank borders on left and right. Plus 16:9 movies are on the widescreen looks better in my opinion.

I just SAID why. Because you get a SMALLER image than what we have now if you leave 1:1 on a widescreen because of the damn 272 high vertical resolution. You would have larger borders on the top and bottom as well as the sides. I don't want a SMALLER image, that would be going backwards.

You say movies look better on 16:9. Maybe true but emus look better on 4:3 So now you have to choose, mainly for movies or mainly for ports, emulation.

Why do you need a fucking widescreen? It does NOTHING for gaming. Fuck movies. Aren't there enough movie players out there for you? You want "yet another". You guys are clueless of the market for the device. Do you think the GP32 and GP2X gained favor because it plays MOVIES! No, it is from Homebrew, emulation, and ports. That was it's niche. Those things don't benefit at all from a widescreen and only suffer. It you want another "me too" PSP clone movie player , good luck with it.

 

[shinneri]

640x480.

 

[Tobriand]

I must say if anything, I'd go for 640x480 over 320x240 (though I'll admit, widescreen is nice for movies), but with a caveat. Whatever system it is that uses 640x480 *must* have some scaling hardware (probably the 2x stuff would do, but even still). The reason? Rendering 640x480 means rendering 4x as many pixels if you're having to blit manually. Which means for any given frame, it takes 4 times as long to write to memory. Not that that means 4x slower, since there's a lot more than the final memory dump in calculating a frame, but in general, 320x240, at least without good video hardware, will be a lot faster than 640x480.

Widescreen... I still like my emus not to looks too blurry if possible, so I'll skip on that, thanks...

 

[m8ex]

I must say if anything, I'd go for 640x480 over 320x240 (though I'll admit, widescreen is nice for movies), but with a caveat. Whatever system it is that uses 640x480 *must* have some scaling hardware (probably the 2x stuff would do, but even still). The reason? Rendering 640x480 means rendering 4x as many pixels if you're having to blit manually. Which means for any given frame, it takes 4 times as long to write to memory. Not that that means 4x slower, since there's a lot more than the final memory dump in calculating a frame, but in general, 320x240, at least without good video hardware, will be a lot faster than 640x480.

Widescreen... I still like my emus not to looks too blurry if possible, so I'll skip on that, thanks...

Whats wrong with 854X480(or 427X240) with borders? no blur, just clean 1:1 or 2:1 scaling.

 

[DaveC]

I must say if anything, I'd go for 640x480 over 320x240 (though I'll admit, widescreen is nice for movies), but with a caveat. Whatever system it is that uses 640x480 *must* have some scaling hardware (probably the 2x stuff would do, but even still). The reason? Rendering 640x480 means rendering 4x as many pixels if you're having to blit manually. Which means for any given frame, it takes 4 times as long to write to memory. Not that that means 4x slower, since there's a lot more than the final memory dump in calculating a frame, but in general, 320x240, at least without good video hardware, will be a lot faster than 640x480.

Widescreen... I still like my emus not to looks too blurry if possible, so I'll skip on that, thanks...

I may be wrong but I think doing a simple 2:1 image double is pretty easy. You don't have to calculate all kinds of weird fractional stuff and filters. I would imagine a new system would have hardware for that though.

I must say if anything, I'd go for 640x480 over 320x240 (though I'll admit, widescreen is nice for movies), but with a caveat. Whatever system it is that uses 640x480 *must* have some scaling hardware (probably the 2x stuff would do, but even still). The reason? Rendering 640x480 means rendering 4x as many pixels if you're having to blit manually. Which means for any given frame, it takes 4 times as long to write to memory. Not that that means 4x slower, since there's a lot more than the final memory dump in calculating a frame, but in general, 320x240, at least without good video hardware, will be a lot faster than 640x480.

Widescreen... I still like my emus not to looks too blurry if possible, so I'll skip on that, thanks...

Whats wrong with 854X480(or 427X240) with borders? no blur, just clean 1:1 or 2:1 scaling.

There are no standard LCDs that do such a goofy res that is why. It would need to be custom made.

Standards are:

320 x 240 QVGA

640 x 480 VGA

480 x 272 16:9 widescreen

 

[m8ex]

I must say if anything, I'd go for 640x480 over 320x240 (though I'll admit, widescreen is nice for movies), but with a caveat. Whatever system it is that uses 640x480 *must* have some scaling hardware (probably the 2x stuff would do, but even still). The reason? Rendering 640x480 means rendering 4x as many pixels if you're having to blit manually. Which means for any given frame, it takes 4 times as long to write to memory. Not that that means 4x slower, since there's a lot more than the final memory dump in calculating a frame, but in general, 320x240, at least without good video hardware, will be a lot faster than 640x480.

Widescreen... I still like my emus not to looks too blurry if possible, so I'll skip on that, thanks...

I may be wrong but I think doing a simple 2:1 image double is pretty easy. You don't have to calculate all kinds of weird fractional stuff and filters. I would imagine a new system would have hardware for that though.

I must say if anything, I'd go for 640x480 over 320x240 (though I'll admit, widescreen is nice for movies), but with a caveat. Whatever system it is that uses 640x480 *must* have some scaling hardware (probably the 2x stuff would do, but even still). The reason? Rendering 640x480 means rendering 4x as many pixels if you're having to blit manually. Which means for any given frame, it takes 4 times as long to write to memory. Not that that means 4x slower, since there's a lot more than the final memory dump in calculating a frame, but in general, 320x240, at least without good video hardware, will be a lot faster than 640x480.

Widescreen... I still like my emus not to looks too blurry if possible, so I'll skip on that, thanks...

Whats wrong with 854X480(or 427X240) with borders? no blur, just clean 1:1 or 2:1 scaling.

There are no standard LCDs that do such a goofy res that is why. It would need to be custom made.

Standards are:

320 x 240 QVGA

640 x 480 VGA

480 x 272 16:9 widescreen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vector_...o_Standards.png
WVGA?

 

[moz]

i dont get the amiga/ST relationship in screen size