Scaling from 640x480 to 256x192

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japzone
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Joined: Tue Feb 02, 2010 2:39 am

Scaling from 640x480 to 256x192

Post by japzone »

I know you'll shout at me saying the DS can't do it, but why does the DS have to? I was just thinking (and you're welcome to say this is impossible, With Reason) couldn't it be possible to patch a game on the Computer to a lower Resolution and then play the resulting patched game on the DS. That way the scaling is done before hand and the DS doesn't have to do any Scaling, Therefor allowing the game to run faster since the CPU isn't wasting time scaling the Image down. I mean, How hard is it to reduce an Image's or Video's resolution on the computer first. Another Plus to this is that it would reduce the file size as well. I personally wouldn't really mind if the Quality is reduced.
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eriktorbjorn
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Post by eriktorbjorn »

I imagine it's probably a bit more than the graphics that need to be re-scaled if you do it in beforehand. Any data structure describing where the player can walk (care would probably have to be taken to make sure that the scaling doesn't completely close off any narrow parts of it) or where objects are positioned, any script referring to absolute screen coordinates, any part of the game engine itself that refers to absolute screen coordinates, etc.
fingolfin
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Post by fingolfin »

Also, text would be unreadably small, unless the font would get a separate treatment; it probably would have to be re-layouted and possibly edited for shortness.

All in all, doing this to a game would be a *major* task, one for which all the tools are missing, and which would require a lot of dedicated manual work; it can't be automated to well, at most semi-automated. *If* the tools existed for it, which they don't in general.

All in all, your idea is of course in theory possible; but doing it in reality, as always, is a bit of a different thing... :)
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