TV aspect ratio in NES emulation

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Depends on the game. Just find something that's supposed to be a circle.

What is the canonical aspect ratio for pixels for NES games? is it standard for all later consoles, too?

in ads it's always stretched, it also looks more comfy and reminds me of how games actually looked, for example smb in 8:7 and without blur doesn't look familiar at all.

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>>4077683

OP here

8:7

see kirby in the first post, now here it is with 8:7 correction (via nestopia's TV aspect ratio option)

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>>4077680

you mean that you really change the emu settings depending on the game?

pic relevant, Bucky O'Hare's stage select has perfectly round planets with square pixels, but was looking distorted on CRT.

>>4077703
it's surprising how few devs gave a shit

>>4077703
>you mean that you really change the emu settings depending on the game?
Of course - doesn't everyone? If it doesn't seem worth it to tweak your settings that's a good sign that you're not really invested in a particular game.

Also, if you're using a fixed resolution display and stretching your game to 4:3 it can look extra shitty if it doesn't work out to an even number of pixels on the display. Half-pixels in motion = shimmer. Using multiples of native resolution is an easy way to avoid that. Figuring out an even multiple of the 4:3 stretch can be tricky and different for not just every system but for different modes on the same system too. I'm sure someone has worked all that out though and you can look it up specifically for 720p, 1080p, 4k etc

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>>4077671

>>4077671
>first you dawn an oval.

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>>4077708
It could also be related to the tools used at the time.

If you check the graph paper used for SMB, you can see they took into consideration the uneven scale.

>>4077720
>Of course - doesn't everyone?

I don't know! That's why I was asking. I genuinely do not know how people deal with that.

With the increasing popularity of pixel art graphics in indie gaming, it could be argued that people tend to accept 1:1 pixel aspect ratio for everything, and never actually bother changing the settings of their emu.

4:3. Anything else is incorrect.

>>4077872
NES is 8:7, not 4:3

https://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/Overscan

>>4078027
Shut the fuck up faggot. TVs are 4:3

>>4078032
>Multiplying the pixel rate by the scanline length gives 39,375,000*6/4/11*640/(135,000,000/11) = 280 pixels per scanline. The PPU puts signal in 256 of these and a border at the left and right sides. The color of this border is the same as the backdrop color (usually the value in $3F00). This makes the pixel aspect ratio on a 4:3 TV to be 240/280*4/3 = exactly 8:7, or about 1.143:1.

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>>4077671
I play in 240p on a CRT. Is this not /vr/?

>>4078037
>thinking I'll read that
TVs at the time were 4:3. Video games were made to be displayed on TVs. Fuck off autistic faggot.

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It's almost like some games compensated for 4:3 and others did not.

>>4078060
It's almost as if it doesn't matter because the only displays available were 4:3 so it's a moot point?

>>4078069
It's almost like were're discussing emulators, which can scale an image to whatever looks best?

>>4078074
It doesn't matter. There's only one correct aspect and it's 4:3.

>>4078079

>>4077680
>>4077703

>>4078083
>>4078053

>year 2030
>tvs are 25:15 ratio
>"hey how should we stretch these old movies to fit modern displays?"
>"well actshully they had multiple aspect ratios. their tvs were 16:9 but some movies were shot in 2.33:1 so theres no right answer
this is what 8:7 autists believe

>>4078128
>Movie filmed in 16:9
>Due to limitations, projected in theaters at 2.33:1
>"How should we release the blu ray?"
>"2.33:1 is objectively the right answer because that's how it was originally released"
This is what 4:3 autists believe.

The moon in Crono Trigger's Magus Castle is an oval. The cogs in Castlevania IV Clock Tower are circles. I don't think it even matters that much.

>>4077815
>With the increasing popularity of pixel art graphics in indie gaming, it could be argued that people tend to accept 1:1 pixel aspect ratio
That is probably fine most of the time and makes everything much simpler. If you run into a situation where it seems wrong THEN do the math. If you're a purist then play on a CRT that has a non-native resolution and do it all backwards, assume 4:3 and adjust as needed .

This is why CRT gamers see the world differently.

8:7 looks best when using sharp pixels but I like it better on 4:3 using a crt shader with curvature. The curvature kind of evens out any distortions to the point that it doesn't matter. There's also the whole mess with overscan, applying different levels of vertical and horizontal overscan is going to mess with the proportions and some games actually need it.

>>4078027
Pixel aspect ratio is a separate thing from the display aspect ratio.

The DAR is always 4:3 on NTSC, but the PAR depends on various things like pixel clock and internal resolution of the console, and the pixels were often non-square. The NES and SNES happen to always have a PAR of 8:7 in NTSC mode thanks to their PPUs.

It's just coincidental that when you force the graphics to have square pixels (1:1 PAR), the display aspect ratio becomes 8:7.

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>godzilla's background only look best with square pixels, it was stretched on CRT

OP here,

to clarify this thread is not about emu > CRT or the other way around, or whether or not emu should always look like CRT. It is to know how people deal with this pixel aspect in general:

1. don't care (ie, leave the emu default setting)

2. always use

3. always make it look like a TV or adjust to the console internal resolution

4. change according to game following personal criteria


>>4078235
thanks for clarifying this!

>>4078257
2. always use square pixels

>>4078257
1. 4 if it's very noticeable.

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The only correct way is to use whichever you think looks best! There's people who honestly, with the entirety of their hearts, believe old games look better when stretched to 16:9. And who are we to say they are doing it wrong, if that's how they like it best?

>>4078273
Fuck off, faggot.

>>4078257
For any console, I always try to correct it to whatever it should be based on the pixel clock.
https://pineight.com/mw/index.php?title=Dot_clock_rates

Most emulators have some kind of "prescale" option, so I'll do an integer prescale to 4x, then a bilinear filter for aspect ratio correction. Gets it pretty sharp while avoiding shimmering. So for NES I end up with a window size of 1170x960.

>>4078273
Dumb animeposter

>>4077671
4:3 is the only correct way.

>>4078531
Thanks for sharing this link, super useful!

>>4077671

I prefer to see circles as circles and squares as squares. Although, with the Genesis it's all over the place.