Tomb Raider is an odd case of vert- in 320x200 making Lara look tall and thin at 4:3 (and more realistically proportioned) treating 320x200 as a 16:10 wide. You'd have to stick to 640x480 to have the game properly seen in 4:3. I don't think many on those slow pcs that need 320x200 were bothered by it then, though

There was also Z. Coming from popular amiga gamedevs of course square pixels are going to happen

https://youtu.be/D5hiwB7lzk8?t=367
(Rated R for Strong Language!)

This guy makes a pretty good case as to why circles are irrelevant in the aspect ratio debate. Between the rest of that video and part one you have almost 2 hours of analysis on aspect ratios for early PC gaming. I could not watch all of it..

That's interesting about the program you mention at the end -- was it a game? See if you can track it what it was -- I'm curious.

infiniteclouds wrote:

Between the rest of that video and part one you have almost 2 hours of analysis on aspect ratios for early PC gaming. I did not watch all of it..

I did watch part #2. Now I need a headache tablet.. 🙁

leileilol wrote:

Tomb Raider is an odd case of vert- in 320x200 making Lara look tall and thin at 4:3 (and more realistically proportioned) treating 320x200 as a 16:10 wide. You'd have to stick to 640x480 to have the game properly seen in 4:3. I don't think many on those slow pcs that need 320x200 were bothered by it then, though

And I played it in 640x480 (3dfx) on my 16:10 monitor... So I've missed the great opportunity to have aspect correct 16:10 while retro gaming...

Of course the distortion bothered me, I set the screen as narrow as I could but it was still fat (what a fitting typo, 🤣) from perfect.

Btw 256 byte intros often handle 320x200 like it had square pixels and look better on a 16:10 display.

alvaro84 wrote:

Btw 256 byte intros often handle 320x200 like it had square pixels and look better on a 16:10 display.

This makes me wonder, why was the 320x240 resolution not used more often ?
I mean, on CGA/EGA this resolution was perhaps problematic because of cheap CGA monitors;
but VGA monitors were usually more flexible. Even the lowest-end models.

Jo22 wrote:

This makes me wonder, why was the 320x240 resolution not used more often ? I mean, on CGA/EGA this resolution was perhaps proble […]
Show full quote

alvaro84 wrote:

Btw 256 byte intros often handle 320x200 like it had square pixels and look better on a 16:10 display.

This makes me wonder, why was the 320x240 resolution not used more often ?
I mean, on CGA/EGA this resolution was perhaps problematic because of cheap CGA monitors;
but VGA monitors were usually more flexible. Even the lowest-end models.

It was much more troublesome to use as it couldn't fit in a single 64kB segment. 320x200 was extremely convenient to address, 64000 pixels, byte after byte in a linear order. 320x240, on the other hand, needed a fallback to "byteplanes" and it was a hassle to handle compared to 320x200. With VESA BIOS it became easier again but low resolution VESA modes weren't widely supported by the cards' BIOSes. There was UNIVBE of course but many didn't have it. I guess it arrived too late to really change anything.

I cherish VGAs with a wide variety of low res modes like Riva128 or many Radeon cards. Or my Compaq PCI S3 Virge/GX.

Mode 13h uses 64kB RAM, has the linear framebuffer and needs just 2 asm commands to start.

Jo22 wrote:

This makes me wonder, why was the 320x240 resolution not used more often ? I mean, on CGA/EGA this resolution was perhaps proble […]
Show full quote

alvaro84 wrote:

Btw 256 byte intros often handle 320x200 like it had square pixels and look better on a 16:10 display.

This makes me wonder, why was the 320x240 resolution not used more often ?
I mean, on CGA/EGA this resolution was perhaps problematic because of cheap CGA monitors;
but VGA monitors were usually more flexible. Even the lowest-end models.

Well, as far as I can tell:

CGA is basically fixed freqency monitor so had only one "mode" as what comes to video H&V timing, and that has 200 visible lines at 60Hz. In theory, if you wanted more lines, you'd have to make the scan lines shorter (higher H frequency) and it's possible the monitor can't sync to that. And as mentioned before, there was no memory to have 320x240 at 4 colors.

EGA is also basically fixed freqency monitor, but with two "modes", 200-lines (visible) 60Hz mode that expects CGA timings and 350-lines (visible) 60Hz mode which again expects fixed sync timings.

VGA was at first also fixed frequency monitor but with three "modes", 400-line visible mode at 70Hz, 480-line visible mode at 60Hz, and for EGA compatibility it had 350-line visible mode, but it used exactly same timings as 400-line visible mode so it runs at 70Hz.

So on VGA, 320x200 is done by sending each scan line twice to make it 400-line mode (70Hz) and the moment you switch to 320x240 it means you need to be in 480-line 60Hz mode.
So 320x240 was only possible on VGA and the drawback was slightly more visible flicker because the reduced frame rate to 60Hz.

You can also use linear mode 0x13 with 320x200 but fiddle with CRTC registers to get 480 lines, leaving remaining lines blank, so you get 320x200 60hz with 4:3 aspect ratio, as i.e Jazz Jackrabbit does 😉

infiniteclouds wrote:

https://youtu.be/D5hiwB7lzk8?t=367
(Rated R for Strong Language!)

This guy makes a pretty good case as to why circles are irrelevant in the aspect ratio debate. Between the rest of that video and part one you have almost 2 hours of analysis on aspect ratios for early PC gaming. I could not watch all of it..

I got about two seconds into the video. NOT watching that. Life's too short to listen to an angry neckbeard yell at Youtube because he feels need to "correct the world."

Anyway the point I was making is there isn't a be-all-end-all setting from stuff in the pre-LCD era. It was kind of expected back then that you'd adjust your equipment so that things looked 'right.' Aspect ratio in general was a bit of a nebulous thing back when even TVs weren't consistent.

THAT SAID... the abstract shield indicator in Overkill is one thing but IMHO stars and planets should be round. 😜

infiniteclouds wrote:

That's interesting about the program you mention at the end -- was it a game? See if you can track it what it was -- I'm curious.

I've been trying to figure out what it was for a while now but no dice. I wanna say it was an early vector game, maybe an Elite knockoff or something like that?? Might have even been on Amiga. If anyone else runs across it please post it up!

leileilol wrote:

There was also Z. Coming from popular amiga gamedevs of course square pixels are going to happen

After doing some quick testing, I've found Deluxe Paint II on DOS does not aspect-correct its "circles" even in modes that are far from square (e.g. 640x350.) If you draw a circle using the tool it's always y x y pixels regardless of screen mode. I'm betting the Amiga versions behaved exactly the same (and Amiga had crazy resolutions like 1280x256 to deal with. 😵 ) Good old DPaint was used so heavily for game art I wouldn't be surprised if it's a big part of the reason.

xjas wrote:

After doing some quick testing, I've found Deluxe Paint II on DOS does not aspect-correct its "circles" even in modes that are far from square (e.g. 640x350.) If you draw a circle using the tool it's always y x y pixels regardless of screen mode. I'm betting the Amiga versions behaved exactly the same (and Amiga had crazy resolutions like 1280x256 to deal with. 😵 ) Good old DPaint was used so heavily for game art I wouldn't be surprised if it's a big part of the reason.

This seems to be the reason that so many games have weird looking circles or spherical objects like those Overkill screenshots. Here's a tutorial video for Deluxe Paint III for the Amiga showing the 'circle tool' in action -- https://youtu.be/8VwDGrDj7ww?t=966 .

320x240 wasnt used much because it was an unchained mode. it wasnt the chunky pixel 320x200 easy to use mode. if takes a bit to get your head around unchained modes if you had never developed that type of stuff before (eg: amiga game modes were all unchained).

infiniteclouds wrote:

This seems to be the reason that so many games have weird looking circles or spherical objects like those Overkill screenshots. Here's a tutorial video for Deluxe Paint III for the Amiga showing the 'circle tool' in action -- https://youtu.be/8VwDGrDj7ww?t=966 .

Yep, sure looks like he's using an NTSC Amiga at 320x200. Worth noting the PAL ones didn't have truly "square" pixels at 4:3 either, they even erred a bit in the opposite direction at 320x256. IIRC Amiga monitors had a bunch of overscan and weren't all that accurate in image placement anyway.

I wonder if people started caring about it more because digital photos & live action video became common?

xjas wrote:

After doing some quick testing, I've found Deluxe Paint II on DOS does not aspect-correct its "circles" even in modes that are far from square (e.g. 640x350.) If you draw a circle using the tool it's always y x y pixels regardless of screen mode.

"Preferences -> Square Aspect" would help with that.

^^ Oops. 😜 Completely forgot about that option (well, never realized it was there...) I did say it was some quick testing.

Also, even without that enabled DPaint draws circles with double horizontal dimension at 640x200, but still essentially treating it as a 16:10 mode. I imagine 1280x256 on Amiga was similar (as far as I can tell DPaint IV & V support this mode!)

xjas wrote:

TL;DR: aspect ratio for old DOS stuff wasn't set in stone as some of the more pedantic folks out there like to imply.

It's not a position you should need to show wrong by finding counter-cases, though. If someone claims something was intended in a particular way, they're expected to provide the specific evidence to each case they speak for or be making a weak prescription.

Many dos games look better with square pixels. The late rally-sport may or may not be another one that needs them, but it's hard to argue intent without first asking the author whether he cared back then.