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Hey all,

I've been working on making some assets for an SMS project I'm working on. My goal is to optimize it for play on real hardware on a CRT, which results in an 8:7 pixel stretch horizontally.

So far I've been using aseprite to design sprites and such, and I was able to make an 8:7 pixel mode which works great for things around 16x16, but anything larger than that (like a title screen or map) gets SUPER warped and messed up when I try to look at the entire drawing (probably because of non-integer scaling on my monitor)

I've been thinking about ways I could hook up a CRT to my computer to get a really accurate idea of how the graphics will look, but I'd only ever get the correct aspect ratio if that CRT is stretching my image in the same way it would stretch the SMS ( at least if I use square pixels again). How would y'all suggest working around this?

If you're using a regular PC CRT monitor, you could set the resolution to 512x480 or 768x720, assuming you're comfortable with setting up custom resolutions.

Flygon wrote

If you're using a regular PC CRT monitor, you could set the resolution to 512x480 or 768x720, assuming you're comfortable with setting up custom resolutions.

Definitely would be comfortable with that as long as my graphics card can support it. I have Nvidia. I'm pretty sure I can do custom resolutions, but I know I can't do real crazy stuff like 240p

It's possible. The minimum requirement for most PC CRTs is for the horizontal rescan rate to be at least 31kHz (realistically, this is more like 29kHz, but that's still not a lot of wriggle room).

This means that, in theory, you could set the screen resolution to 256x240 120-160Hz or 256x224 120-160Hz (160Hz is the maximum refresh rate of most PC CRTs, regardless of resolution), and it should in theory work.
In reality, you'll be fighting with the Nvidia driver a fair bit to get this working, and it might be worthwhile playing around with CRU.

Be sure to let the applications automatically determine the blanking period - if they're too short, it can cause problems for the CRT.

I'm using CRTEmudriver for exactly this, but it's Radeon based.
It's a hacked driver that enables the GPU to output 15KHz resolutions over VGA(DVI-A) ports. It was originally made for GroovyMAME, but it plays pretty nice with a whole lot of stuf All that's needed additionally would be a VGA to SCART/BNC cable and a fitting tube that takes RGB.
Older versions also needed a sync combiner, like the Ultimate Scart Adapter, but I don't think that's needed anymore

And I guess its possible to achieve that somehow with CRU but I only ever managed to kill every single screenmode with it. So I haven't touched it since ^^"
A secondary screen is pretty essential tho, putting the actual tools instead of just the preview screen into low res will make most pretty much unusable, and the rest still infuriating to use.

Anyway for this was the best investment I ever did for my art (and it's nice for gaming as well^^)

Author	Message
bofner Joined: 06 Aug 2021 Posts: 49	Non-square pixel graphic design Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 4:38 pm
bofner Joined: 06 Aug 2021 Posts: 49	Hey all, I've been working on making some assets for an SMS project I'm working on. My goal is to optimize it for play on real hardware on a CRT, which results in an 8:7 pixel stretch horizontally. So far I've been using aseprite to design sprites and such, and I was able to make an 8:7 pixel mode which works great for things around 16x16, but anything larger than that (like a title screen or map) gets SUPER warped and messed up when I try to look at the entire drawing (probably because of non-integer scaling on my monitor) I've been thinking about ways I could hook up a CRT to my computer to get a really accurate idea of how the graphics will look, but I'd only ever get the correct aspect ratio if that CRT is stretching my image in the same way it would stretch the SMS ( at least if I use square pixels again). How would y'all suggest working around this?

Flygon Joined: 30 Jun 2016 Posts: 196 Location: Melbourne, Australia	Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 5:15 pm
	If you're using a regular PC CRT monitor, you could set the resolution to 512x480 or 768x720, assuming you're comfortable with setting up custom resolutions.

bofner Joined: 06 Aug 2021 Posts: 49	Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 7:58 pm
bofner Joined: 06 Aug 2021 Posts: 49	Flygon wrote If you're using a regular PC CRT monitor, you could set the resolution to 512x480 or 768x720, assuming you're comfortable with setting up custom resolutions. Definitely would be comfortable with that as long as my graphics card can support it. I have Nvidia. I'm pretty sure I can do custom resolutions, but I know I can't do real crazy stuff like 240p

Flygon Joined: 30 Jun 2016 Posts: 196 Location: Melbourne, Australia	Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 3:23 am
	It's possible. The minimum requirement for most PC CRTs is for the horizontal rescan rate to be at least 31kHz (realistically, this is more like 29kHz, but that's still not a lot of wriggle room). This means that, in theory, you could set the screen resolution to 256x240 120-160Hz or 256x224 120-160Hz (160Hz is the maximum refresh rate of most PC CRTs, regardless of resolution), and it should in theory work. In reality, you'll be fighting with the Nvidia driver a fair bit to get this working, and it might be worthwhile playing around with CRU. Be sure to let the applications automatically determine the blanking period - if they're too short, it can cause problems for the CRT.

Dee Liteyears Joined: 16 Jul 2006 Posts: 24 Location: Somewhere out in Germany	Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 8:21 am
	I'm using CRTEmudriver for exactly this, but it's Radeon based. It's a hacked driver that enables the GPU to output 15KHz resolutions over VGA(DVI-A) ports. It was originally made for GroovyMAME, but it plays pretty nice with a whole lot of stuf All that's needed additionally would be a VGA to SCART/BNC cable and a fitting tube that takes RGB. Older versions also needed a sync combiner, like the Ultimate Scart Adapter, but I don't think that's needed anymore And I guess its possible to achieve that somehow with CRU but I only ever managed to kill every single screenmode with it. So I haven't touched it since ^^" A secondary screen is pretty essential tho, putting the actual tools instead of just the preview screen into low res will make most pretty much unusable, and the rest still infuriating to use. Anyway for this was the best investment I ever did for my art (and it's nice for gaming as well^^)

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