Custom Resolutions still not available?

[Kerpo]

Greetings!

I like ScummVM and the possibilities it offers (like the better Mame OPL emulation).

But as I am using a real CRT television and want to play the games there in fullscreen mode (without any 'stretching' or 'scaling' of any kind) in a relatively good aspect ratio, I have realized I can't do it with ScummVM anymore.

This is a difficult thing to explain, so bear with me - I am trying my best.

The problem is that ScummVM selects a resolution, without letting me select the resolution. So when I try to play a game, let's say "Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge", I can't see the full picture (part of text of what someone is saying is not visible, for example), because ScummVM chooses wrong.

I have a lot of custom resolutions, thanks to Soft15kHz and VGA2SCART-cable, and my great ATi graphics card that supports them (even the quirky NES and SNes-resolutions are supported without problems!).

Previously, I couldn't get anything lower than 352x256 to work properly, and ScummVM chose this resolution as fullscreen, and it worked great, all things considered.

But now that I have better selection of resolutions available, it's incredibly frustrating to realize that I can't guide ScummVM to choose the correct resolution.

Choosing 320x200 would be nice, but that resolution is hardwired to be 70 Hz in graphics cards for some reason (that probably would take too long to explain, and probably having something to do with how PC architecture was originally designed, etc.), which means that when forced to 60 Hz (after all, CRT televisions don't usually support 70 Hz), the image gets squished from top and bottom and looks pretty awful.

The solution for this is using a much higher, but still lores resolution, that fits the whole image on the screen, and as a nice bonus, gives us the good, old 'proper aspect ratio' that PC players used to enjoy back in the day of VGA monitors and such with square pixels and all.

When you put the resolution 368x240 fullscreen on the TV, and then render a 1x1 image of 320x200 gamescreen on there, it looks * PERFECT * !

As a nice side-effect, it's also a bit brighter (the more luminous the image, the better it looks, but most people don't realize this, and are content with dim monitors and TVs). And with a 24" TV, the image is still nice and big enough to be enjoyed, so it's a win-win-win-situation.

But ScummVM doesn't realize that there is such a juicy resolution to choose from, and takes some much lower resolution from my wide selection of resolutions, and I, the user, am completely helpless and powerless to do anything about it.

So the only way to really play and enjoy these older games with my setup, is to really just use DOSBox, and forget about ScummVM.

That is a shame, because I like ScummVM, and think it's a really good program, and I know that quite a lot of work has been done to make it what it is today.

I am just amazed that in today's world of all kinds of selections and customizations and options, filters and whatnot (after all, filters exist because people want the games to look as if they are being played on a TV), there's still no option to simply choose your resolution.

Just a simple: "Select resolution" would be fine. Even if I have to do it through the ini-file (which, I think, shouldn't be stored in the Windows directories, but within the game's own directory for convenience - if I reinstall Windows, I lose the ini-file, if it's stored within the Windows-files, but not, if it's in the game's own directory - couldn't the user at least be given a choice about it?), it would be perfect.

MAME does it perfectly.
WinUAE does it perfectly.
Ootake does it perfectly.
DOSBox does it clumsily, but it works.

Yes, I must retract my previous statement about DOSBox not being able to customize the resolution without stretching - turns out, if you use "output=surface" (that's not easy thing to just logically deduce), it won't manipulate the graphics at all, and you are free to use any resolution.

So, curiously, things have turned upside down since I last posted about resolutions; now DOSBox is the only thing I can use for these games, and with it, I can customize my resolutions to my liking (the 368x240 looks so very good, I wish everyone could always play with a bright CRT television using that resolution) with DOSBox, but not with ScummVM.

So, my question is:

Would it be possible (or too much to ask) to add a "Custom Resolution Selection" feature to the future versions of ScummVM?

Even if it's hidden, even if the user has to edit the ini-file, even if it's undocumented or whatever, I'll take it, because it'd enable me to use the lovely ScummVM again.

In my opinion, this sort of selection should be an obvious thing to have in every program that displays lores images, games, demos or whatnot. Every emulator should have such a selection menu, I thought that'd be a self-explanatory thing, that no one would even have to think about, and would be always just included in the same way cars always include a steering wheel and tyres.

But for some reason, emulator coders have a real aversion to this - they strive for 'perfect emulation' or 'lots of filters', but they don't always seem to want people to experience these things authentically on a CRT television, where they would look their best in the user's custom resolutions.

Heck, getting to Stella to conform to a custom resolution is an undocumented 'secret', and a bit of command-line trickery to get to work, but at least it works.

ScummVM doesn't even offer us that. So, could this please be changed, so that also us CRT television owners can finally use ScummVM again?

Please? (:

Thanks in advance.

[LordHoto]

Greetings!

I like ScummVM and the possibilities it offers (like the better Mame OPL emulation).

But as I am using a real CRT television and want to play the games there in fullscreen mode (without any 'stretching' or 'scaling' of any kind) in a relatively good aspect ratio, I have realized I can't do it with ScummVM anymore.

This is a difficult thing to explain, so bear with me - I am trying my best.

The problem is that ScummVM selects a resolution, without letting me select the resolution. So when I try to play a game, let's say "Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge", I can't see the full picture (part of text of what someone is saying is not visible, for example), because ScummVM chooses wrong.

I have a lot of custom resolutions, thanks to Soft15kHz and VGA2SCART-cable, and my great ATi graphics card that supports them (even the quirky NES and SNes-resolutions are supported without problems!).

Previously, I couldn't get anything lower than 352x256 to work properly, and ScummVM chose this resolution as fullscreen, and it worked great, all things considered.

But now that I have better selection of resolutions available, it's incredibly frustrating to realize that I can't guide ScummVM to choose the correct resolution.

Choosing 320x200 would be nice, but that resolution is hardwired to be 70 Hz in graphics cards for some reason (that probably would take too long to explain, and probably having something to do with how PC architecture was originally designed, etc.), which means that when forced to 60 Hz (after all, CRT televisions don't usually support 70 Hz), the image gets squished from top and bottom and looks pretty awful.

The solution for this is using a much higher, but still lores resolution, that fits the whole image on the screen, and as a nice bonus, gives us the good, old 'proper aspect ratio' that PC players used to enjoy back in the day of VGA monitors and such with square pixels and all.

When you put the resolution 368x240 fullscreen on the TV, and then render a 1x1 image of 320x200 gamescreen on there, it looks * PERFECT * !

As a nice side-effect, it's also a bit brighter (the more luminous the image, the better it looks, but most people don't realize this, and are content with dim monitors and TVs). And with a 24" TV, the image is still nice and big enough to be enjoyed, so it's a win-win-win-situation.

But ScummVM doesn't realize that there is such a juicy resolution to choose from, and takes some much lower resolution from my wide selection of resolutions, and I, the user, am completely helpless and powerless to do anything about it.

So the only way to really play and enjoy these older games with my setup, is to really just use DOSBox, and forget about ScummVM.

That is a shame, because I like ScummVM, and think it's a really good program, and I know that quite a lot of work has been done to make it what it is today.

I am just amazed that in today's world of all kinds of selections and customizations and options, filters and whatnot (after all, filters exist because people want the games to look as if they are being played on a TV), there's still no option to simply choose your resolution.

Just a simple: "Select resolution" would be fine. Even if I have to do it through the ini-file (which, I think, shouldn't be stored in the Windows directories, but within the game's own directory for convenience - if I reinstall Windows, I lose the ini-file, if it's stored within the Windows-files, but not, if it's in the game's own directory - couldn't the user at least be given a choice about it?), it would be perfect.

MAME does it perfectly.
WinUAE does it perfectly.
Ootake does it perfectly.
DOSBox does it clumsily, but it works.

Yes, I must retract my previous statement about DOSBox not being able to customize the resolution without stretching - turns out, if you use "output=surface" (that's not easy thing to just logically deduce), it won't manipulate the graphics at all, and you are free to use any resolution.

So, curiously, things have turned upside down since I last posted about resolutions; now DOSBox is the only thing I can use for these games, and with it, I can customize my resolutions to my liking (the 368x240 looks so very good, I wish everyone could always play with a bright CRT television using that resolution) with DOSBox, but not with ScummVM.

So, my question is:

Would it be possible (or too much to ask) to add a "Custom Resolution Selection" feature to the future versions of ScummVM?

Even if it's hidden, even if the user has to edit the ini-file, even if it's undocumented or whatever, I'll take it, because it'd enable me to use the lovely ScummVM again.

In my opinion, this sort of selection should be an obvious thing to have in every program that displays lores images, games, demos or whatnot. Every emulator should have such a selection menu, I thought that'd be a self-explanatory thing, that no one would even have to think about, and would be always just included in the same way cars always include a steering wheel and tyres.

But for some reason, emulator coders have a real aversion to this - they strive for 'perfect emulation' or 'lots of filters', but they don't always seem to want people to experience these things authentically on a CRT television, where they would look their best in the user's custom resolutions.

Heck, getting to Stella to conform to a custom resolution is an undocumented 'secret', and a bit of command-line trickery to get to work, but at least it works.

ScummVM doesn't even offer us that. So, could this please be changed, so that also us CRT television owners can finally use ScummVM again?

Please? (:

Thanks in advance.

Can't you use the "OpenGL (No filtering)" graphics output, use fullscreen and select 368x240 by using Ctrl+Alt+'+'/'-'?

[LogicDeLuxe]

Actually, VGA did line doubling in lores modes. Thus using the 2x mode and no aspect ratio correction (640x400 progressive) on a CRT should look exactly the way it did with VGA.
If the TV crops the borders, 720x480 should work.

[tobybear]

BTW: Using the command line parameter "--config" you can specify a different location for your ini file, e.g. one that resides in the application directory.

http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/User_ ... ne_options