Many developers, using a standard drawing algorithm designed for squarish resolutions, doubtless forgot that the unique characteristics of resolution and monitor on 320x200 modes required a different algorithm.

Yes, this could explain why circles sometimes appear ovular when you use a display with standard 4:3 aspect ratio. So it depends on who "draw" the circle?
What I mean is this: The screenshot below is taken from Wing Commander Privateer (without aspect correction). As you can see the circles of the crosshair and the radar display are almost - well - circles, whereas the planet in the mfd left above is not, it is elliptical.
If you use dosbox' aspect correction(= 4:3) , the crosshair and the radar display are ovular, whereas the planet in the mfd is - a circle.
By the way: the screenshots used in the original manual of the game look like 320x200 without aspect correction, but this might be due to the publishing technique...

Planets are no spheres, so their projection is no circle 😀
Well no clue if/how much this is visible for earth/known planets,
and if this was relevant during development of that game.

...mhm.... seems as if I have lost myself again in some unimportant cosmological detail... 😢

Okay - I know it is absolutly not relevant if the crosshair (or the planet display) is a circle or no circle, as it does not affect the gameplay after all. But still I ask myself how those games were meant to look like.

wd wrote:

Planets are no spheres, so their projection is no circle 😀
Well no clue if/how much this is visible for earth/known planets, <snip>

Must be down to some 1/10th of a percent I guess. Totally impossible to see for the human eye. I am sure Wikipedia has the answer.

Edit: For Earth the answer is :

Physical characteristics Mean radius: 6,371.0 km Equatorial radius: 6,378.1 km Polar radius: 6,356.8 km Flattening: 0.003352 […]
Show full quote

Physical characteristics
Mean radius: 6,371.0 km
Equatorial radius: 6,378.1 km
Polar radius: 6,356.8 km
Flattening: 0.0033528
Circumference: 40,075.02 km (equatorial)
40,007.86 km (meridional)
40,041.47 km (mean)

So - something like 0.3%

Also instead of aspect correction in dosbox you can specify 8/5 fullscreen resolution, for example 640x400 if original is not working or if monitor handles 320x200 in a weird way.

So - something like 0.3%

Now we just need to figure out if the planet in focus is similar
to earth, and if not what the maximal possible aspect ratio of
a planet is.

But still I ask myself how those games were meant to look like.

They probably didn't bother as much as you do.
Take into account the CRT width/height settings which were a bit different on every monitor back then.

Regarding Pinball Fantasies, was the "high-res" mode properly displayed anywhere? (except that dosbox was hacked to display that mode with non-stretched ball).
It might have been planned for some special ("insert coin" 🤑) video game machine, though.

First define "properly displayed". If I'm not mistaken only PC port of PF (ported to PC by Frontline Design) has "high-res" mode and it was stretching mode-x to it's limit. 😎

wd wrote:

Now we just need to figure out if the planet in focus is similar
to earth

As you can see the sensors of the spaceship have clearly identified the object ahead as "Ple. Planet" which is short for Pleasure Planet and therefore of course it can not be similar to earth! 😉

They probably didn't bother as much as you do.

I didn't bother either. I was happy as long as the games run at all. My first color display was a used 14" monitor which at the end of his life decided to be a monochrome display again (all the colours turned out, except for green). But I allways had this imagination that the developers of the games must possess some kind of ideal PC where the games would be(dis) played as they were designed. Well, *sniff* seems as if I was too naive...

Silent Loon wrote:

What I mean is this: The screenshot below is taken from Wing Commander Privateer (without aspect correction). As you can see the circles of the crosshair and the radar display are almost - well - circles, whereas the planet in the mfd left above is not, it is elliptical.
If you use dosbox' aspect correction(= 4:3) , the crosshair and the radar display are ovular, whereas the planet in the mfd is - a circle.
By the way: the screenshots used in the original manual of the game look like 320x200 without aspect correction, but this might be due to the publishing technique...

When drawing a circle in a 2D program, then you get a real circle, which is shown by the ship displays. I guess they took the easier route here. Cause managing a radar with a circle is much easier than a oval radar, cause the distance per pixel would be different.

While the 3D game world, with the planets are properly rendered for the screen resolution the game uses. Not really a 3D game, since it uses sprites and stuff, but close enough. With Quake, for example, you can run the game in 320x200, 320x240 or a bunch of other resolutions and the graphic always get the "correct" projectation, excluding widescreen monitors 😜

And the manual was probably made in some Windows 3.x program (or maybe Mac) which doesn't use 320x200 but normal 4:3 square pixel resolutions. And they didn't bother to resize the screenshots.

Miki Maus: yep, I'm talking about DOS version. It had increased vertical resolution, which was obviously not meant for 4:3 screens. So the ball was not displayed as a circle, but stretched. 'm wondering if there's a display/machine with a special aspec tratio, e.g. 3:4 or simiar that was displaying it without stretching.