FioGermi wrote on 2022-04-23, 06:57:Dumb question. But is there some easy way to way to side-by-side compare how bad 5:4 stretches vs true 4:3 with screenshots?
Just curious how ugly the stretch looks
Take a 1024x768 screenshot in a game and then resize it to 1280x1024 in Photoshop without maintaining aspect ratio.
mihai wrote on 2022-04-16, 21:55:my EIZO 1933 allows scaling options in the OSD (1:1, aspect ratio, full screen).
I just bought an Eizo S1933 because of your comment, and I can't find any scaling options in the OSD. Maybe I'm blind, but where do I find those settings?
Edit:
I can't find anything about scaling in the manual either.
maybe aspect radio can only be switched for dvi signals
I'm using DVI and there's absolutely nothing in the OSD
maybe aspect radio can only be switched for VGA signals
😜
Put simply (copy pasta of some oldies elsewhere)
1280x1024 is based on nice power of two values (like 1024x768), thus easy to handle and maximizing the use of RAM, as it exactly filled 1.25 MiB in 8 Bit Mode and 2.5 MiB in 16 Bit Mode (*1) Both sizes could be well added as a series of 5 RAM banks to the card. In addition it's worth considering that later single chip VGA designs were usually fully programmable, thus able to offer next to any resolution (within their pixel clock that is).
And yes video cards with 2.25mb (1024x768) and 2.5mb on the dot did exist.
Some years later 1280x1024 got a revival when upcomming (relative) low cost LCD manufacturing process passed the 1024x748 ability for 15".
The concept however of 5:4 aspect ratio, and 1280x1024 graphics coordinates, is actually much older than you think.
Many non-ibm work stations with fixed frequency screens used 1280x1024 (back in the 80’s) for the aforementioned reasons above.
In the consumer space…
It dates back at least to the BBC Micro introduced at the end of 1981; it had graphics modes designed around the PAL TVs used in the UK, with 160x256, 320x256, and 640x256 modes, all with a standard coordinate system of 1280x1024 for easy graphics programming. At 8x8 character size, this allowed an 80x32 text display on affordable hardware at home, better than many of the cheaper dumb terminals. The Acorn Archimedes, which succeeded the BBC Micro in the late 1980s, extended this capability to 640x512 with PAL TV timings, as well as supporting VGA/SVGA resolutions when connected to a PC-type monitor.
These resolutions were very easy to implement on PAL, using a 16MHz master dot clock, since the time between horizontal sync pulses is exactly 64µs, and there are slightly more than 512 lines (divided between the two interlaced fields) in the display-safe area. This relatively high level of capability was used by the BBC to generate broadcast TV graphics during the early to mid 1980s.
By 1984, early SGI IRIS workstations supported high-resolution graphics, with - in particular - 1024 rows of pixels:
The IRIS 1400 comes standard with 1.5 MB of CPU memory, 8 bit-planes of 1024x1024 image memory. A section of the framebuffer could be selected for display output, the size of that section depending on the output device's capabilities.
Apple introduced what was then considered a very high-resolution monochrome display in 1989, supporting just 1152x870 resolution (in a 4:3 aspect ratio), a size most likely designed to just fit in a megabit of RAM. A special modification to the Acorn Archimedes series allowed it to support 1152x896 (close to 5:4 aspect ratio) on a particular monitor, probably very similar to the one made by Apple; the Archimedes allocated display memory in system DRAM, so it didn't have a hard megabit limit as a Mac's graphics card did.
As the availability of fast and affordable memory became less of a restriction on graphics capabilities in the 1990s, it is notable that 1280x1024 with a 5:4 aspect ratio was specifically catered for by high-end monitor vendors. If three bytes per pixel are used to support 24-bit truecolour, moreover, this is a resolution that fits comfortably in a comparatively affordable 4MB of VRAM. CRTs could easily be built this way, as the natural shape of a glass tube is circular, thus the squarer the aspect ratio the easier the CRT was to make. This also did not restrict the display from handling 4:3 aspect ratios cleanly, just leaving a slightly different pattern of blank borders at the edges. Once 1280x1024 was established, LCD monitors for computer use were made to support it (in contrast to those for televisions)
The slightly taller aspect ratio is useful in text modes, where programmers appreciate having more lines of code on screen more than they do having more columns, and also in desktop environments where menus and toolbars have a habit of consuming vertical space more often than horizontal. The present trend towards wider aspect ratios, by contrast, is driven by the movie and gaming industries which want to cater for human peripheral vision, and thus immersion in the scene, rather than for display of information.
Bubu2000 wrote on 2022-12-06, 12:43:I just bought an Eizo S1933 because of your comment, and I can't find any scaling options in the OSD. Maybe I'm blind, but where […]
mihai wrote on 2022-04-16, 21:55:my EIZO 1933 allows scaling options in the OSD (1:1, aspect ratio, full screen).
I just bought an Eizo S1933 because of your comment, and I can't find any scaling options in the OSD. Maybe I'm blind, but where do I find those settings?
Edit:
I can't find anything about scaling in the manual either.
Hi
I was referring to this menu - as per attachment.
I have several eizo monitors, and the menu was in s2100, not s1933 - sorry for the confusion.
I hope you either like the monitor ( I do, it is a nice IPS screen) or that you could return it.
Yeah, I'll keep it, it was only 20€. It has 29.000 operating hours and still looks and feels like a new one.
We have Eizo ColorEdge monitors at work, but they're a little to much for retro gaming 😁
Shponglefan wrote on 2022-04-16, 14:53:This thread has me wondering why 1280x1024 resolution was even a thing. Why didn't companies just use 1280x960 and stick with the 4:3 ratio? Especially since 1280x960 would have evenly scaled up 640x480 and 320x240 resolutions.
Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-16, 15:13:So, RAM back then being damn expensive, my rational is: They did the math and recognized that 1280 x 960 in 24 bit true color without any bells or whistles (double bullshitting, 3D, etc.) would be 3.5 MB, wasting HALF A MEGABYTE on the best-equipped mainstream card imaginable to man back then. So they pimped that to almost four MB in the line count.
My theory is: business and LCD technology. The 4:3 ratio for computer CRT displays was adopted from TVs of course, and largely stayed that way for manufacturing compatibility purposes. Computers and productivity work can adapt to different aspect ratios a lot easier than TVs and movies, so there wasn't a huge concern to keep the 4:3 ratio for newer LCDs.
Despite how many PCs were sold on the consumer market in the late 80s and 90s, it pales in comparison to how many were bought for office work. Proportionally taller displays are typically better for productivity because more often than not you're reading and writing text and data. A taller display allows more lines of text to be displayed at once. A wider display may be able to display as much, or more, total text, but very long lines of text make it slower for your eyes to track the carriage returns and to read from one line to the next. When I worked as a DB programmer in 2004, I had two Dell 5:4 monitors on my desk. I rotated one into portrait mode. I used that one for my SQL IDE, word processing, and web pages. The landscape monitor was for Excel and Outlook. Within a few months, at least three other devs copied me.
The 4MB frame buffer probably influenced the decision to settle at the specific 1280x1024 resolution. But they just as easily could've used 1333x1000 or similar if they really wanted to keep 4:3. Also, the 5:4 ratio has long been one used in photography and other mediums, so maybe someone wanted to adopt it from there.
Businesses were the ones buying most of the early LCDs to replace CRTs ( draws less power and takes up less desk space, both huge considerations when you're talking dozens or hundreds on premises ). This of course trickles down to the consumer market, where average Jack and Jill probably don't know or care what an LCD's native resolution or aspect ratio is, they just want to know it will work with Windows so they can email grandma, browse the internet, and do their taxes. While gaming certainly drives a lot of computer innovation, computer gamers are still a minority of computer users, especially back in the 1990s and early 2000s. Consideration for game aspect ratio compatibility was probably the least concern when LCD monitors were being developed.
Shponglefan wrote on 2022-04-16, 14:53:It also seems weird from an aspect ratio perspective to first go narrower (i.e. from 4:3 to 5:4), before the subsequent trend to go wider (16:10 -> 16:9 ->21:9 -> etc).
As hinted at above, I don't think it's so much as computer monitor manufacturers intentionally experimenting with aspects and pushing it on consumers so much as consumers using what was available as home computer components were available. Wider ratios had been used in film for decades of course ( CinemaScope around 2.40:1, VistaVision at 1.85:1 ), but home TVs were at 4:3 because that's what broadcast TV was. The 16:9 ( or 1.78:1 ) ratio was chosen for broadcast TV for a few reasons. One, it's close to 1.85:1, which VistaVision claimed was the same ratio as normal human vision. 16:9 is also close to halfway between legacy 4:3 TV and ultrawide 2.40:1 movies, so it could display that old content fairly well. And I may be wrong, but I don't know that I'd say 16:10 preceded 16:9 for computers. If anything I'd say they were more or less available at the same time.
Until the broadcast HDTV standard was enforced, I don't remember many monitors and TVs sharing connectors. Most TVs were coax, composite, or component. Very few had VGA or DVI connectors. The first computer monitor I ever used that had HDMI was a Samsung 1920x1200 display I helped my parents shop for in 2008. I recommended they get a 16:10 instead of 16:9 because I had really liked my 1680x1050 laptop I'd had since 2004. The extra height was a big benefit in productivity work, at least to me. I bought a desktop 1680x1050 monitor in 2011 because I couldn't afford a 1920x1200 model. But I don't remember if it had HDMI or not ( I don't think it did ). I still prefer 16:10 displays for computers and tablets, even if they're not as common.
Once so many displays were being made in 16:9, manufacturers more or less blended the TV and computer display manufacturing together. Also it became much more common to watch movies and TV content on a computer at that time, so having a similar screen ratio as your TV was more desirable.
I wouldn't say anyone is trying to push 21:9 or 32:9 displays as the new norm; I'd say it's more are more a matter of experimentation and making a different option. 21:9 is very close to 2.40:1 used in ultra wide movie formats. I remember it was also being introduced when having multiple monitors on your desk was staring to become more common. One big draw I liked about it ( and still do ) is it gives some extra peripheral view in games, but doesn't require the desk space or graphical horsepower for triple screen surround gaming. A 21:9 display can also snap two application windows side by side when working ( either 1280x1080 or 1720x1440 ) which is a very usable resolution and ratio. So it can kind of simulate two monitors at once. Of course that's the purpose of 32:9, having two displays share one stand without a bezel between them.
