Just played through Sonic 2. I really wonder what the problem is. Aquatic ruin boss: flies from left to right, you jump on the arrows to get him. If you make the boss and the arrows a little faster the balance is the same.Valuable time spend on coming up with borders and ways to make the screen smaller could be spend doing other tings, like playing sonic 2, scratching your heels or singing in the shower .
Actually, the difference in ratio's shouldn't at all be a problem. If you play in 4:3 and arrive at a boss, you'll have a bit of room to side-scroll from left to right than in 16:9, where the side-scrolling is less or not present at all. In Special Stages, you could get a bar on either side of the screen (one side, but that side is the player's choice), with a basic map and where the rings are tallied. As long as the differences between standard and widescreen are merely cosmetic, then you don't have to worry about redesigning anything between the ration's. Anyway, having two different versions kinda sucks. It's like Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, which ignores your progress in standard / widescreen and has you start afresh in the new ratio (though the original data is kept). But, come to think of it, there's more ratio's than just 4:3 and 16:9. Widescreen monitors are mostly 16:10 (or 8:5), and there are some monitors that are 5:3. Setups with 2.35 and 2.39:1 aren't unheard of either. As for timing, that would only be a problem if you have a slow computer. I hate to bring another problem up, but I must. The game is going to only be presented in 4 time resolution, yeah? So, this means that higher screen sizes have greater views of the area. The graphics' resolutions are locked, so playing on a screen with 640 × 480 (yeah, I know, it practically doesn't exist anymore) will result in half the view you would get in the original, which ran in 320 × 224 (which can be rounded up to 240 with the inclusion of black bars on the top and botton). The ideal resolution for Sonic 2 HD would, therefore, be 1,280 × 896 +. Any less and your field of view goes down, which will serve as a problem for lower resolution players. A quick look at Net Applications' Resolution Statistics shows that around 70% have a resolution lower than the desired resolution. So, my point here is, how are we going to solve this? Will the game be offered in three (idea for 960 × 672 +) or two times resolution (640 × 448 +) as well? Huge resolutions could cause problems too, like the afforementioned bosses and special stages (though playing in 1,920 × 1,200 or 2,560 × 1,600 would be pretty darn awesome, regardless whether the game runs in 4 times or higher resolution (four tmes for view area and more for detail)). Would you then offer the game in five (1,600 × 1,120 +), six (1,920 × 1,342 +) or seven (2,240 × 1,568 +) times resolution? Here's a table to make things a little clearer. And then, there's splitscreen multiplayer...
My monitor can easily go up to 1280x896. It's not so uncommon for a video game to temporarily set a resolution higher (or lower) than your default one.
Yes, but monitors can't display resolutions higher than their native resolution (correct me if I'm wrong), so this becomes a problem for the people who have 15" or less monitors which can't display more than 1,024 by 768. There's also those with 16" or less widescreen monitors that can't display more than 1,280 by 800. They still count, and we still want them to be able to play too.
I don't think we need reasons for people to avoid the game. I mean, that'd be idiotic. The speedrunning community is important. Otherwise, who's gonna find a speedrun video on YouTube on Sonic 2, be amazed that there's an HD version, come here and download it if the speedrunning community isn't making said video's? Besides, Sonic's always been (or should be) all about speed and getting the best times. Not being able to compare times for the sake of an aspect ratio difference would annoy the fans and their friends too. "I got 1:12.57 on Zone 4 Act 2! What's your best time?" "1:16.10, but you play it in widescreen, right?" "Um... Yeah. Why?" "You have more space to avoid the attacks than I do 'cause I can't play it in widescreen." "But my time's still better, right?" "You can't compare them." "That's stupid! I would've thought they were paying attention to these kinds of things! They have to everything else!"
There could easily be options to change the aspect ratio in game, and I bet that people would know that there is a difference between screen modes.
To sort out the wide screen problem as already posted make the game render in wide-screen so that it fits with the HD standards more :P peopel that play it in 4:3 or whatever should have black bard at the top and bottom, loads of games do this nowdays on consoles, even sonic 06 does (dunno about unleashed) im sure it cant ruin the game that much just to make it perma wide screen can it?
If that happened, I would refuse to play it. That's BS, I hate when movies do that too, it's retarded. Just fill up the screen space the correct way for 4:3, and make black bars on 16:9. I never minded black bars when on widescreen, I don't get the problem with them. But black bars on top in 4:3 cut off so much of the picture, and it's annoying.
Fact: 16:9 is one of the reason this project exists. What do we have to do with childish people arguing over what their best speedrun is? Let them eat cake, we're just remaking a game with improved graphics.
Black bars suck. Why not have it so that in boss areas, the area is designed to fit a widescreen area, but if you play it in 4:3, the screen scrolls. Simple solution, problem solved! I suggest you direct your attention to the resolution problem. In a nutshell, Sonic 2 HD will render at 4 times resolution. The area you can view is reletive to your monitor's resolution. If you have a low resolution monitor, your view is compromised. Having a huge resolution might create problems in the boss areas and special stages. If we address this problem, we can completely forget about the 4:3 vs. 16:9 problem because solving this problem solves the aspect ratio problem too. I suggest giving players the ability to play the game with graphics multiplied by a number that gives them a view area higher or equal to the original. Less than one third of all monitors can display Sonic 2 HD with a field of view equal or higher than the original.
Welcome to S2HD Mush Man. While I won't argue that resolution is an issue we face, at this point it isn't a critical one. If there is a serious outcry over the game being too hi-res, which is something I sincerely doubt, rest assured that will be taken into consideration. As for your comment that less than a third of all monitors can display the original, are you talking about the resolution of the Mega Drive? Last I checked, even monitors 10 years old were capable of displays substantially higher than that. Please don't take this as an attack, I'm simply curious on what basis your argument comes from.
I think he was talking about the native resolution of Sonic 2 HD, which is 1280x1024. Less than 1/3 of all monitors currently sold is capable of showing that resolution or higher.
I'm talking about the field of view of the original, and not the original itself. If Sonic 2 HD were to match the view area of the original, the minimum resolution required would be 1,280 by 896, as this is the original's resolution, 320 by 224, multiplied by 4. I'll see if I can mock-up an example to show you... And I wasn't at all going to take is as an attack.
Though this is true for the moment, in the coming 8-24 months... 1) The recession should be showing breaking up if this is the standard run-of-the-mill recession (but don't count on that) and... 2) People will be back to their buying ways. All new LCD monitors nowadays bought from Newegg are, at the bare mininum, 1366 x 768. If full screened, the loss would be 64 pixels top and 64 pixels bottom, which isn't enough to hinder gameplay. So, we should be preparing for the upcoming technologies, LCD displays and the like, which will be able to easily support these than worrying about ultra-legacy hardware which may not. I just bought a computer for my universities computer club for $720, complete with a $129 monitor (included with price) which easily handles this requirement. I think we'll be okay. P.S. A gaming rig. $720. Including Monitor. That's crazy. Back in my day...
Yes, but that doesn't mean that people are going to necessarily set the resolution that high. And a lot of people will not just go out and buy a new monitor just because S2HD cannot scale itself well. All high level demanding games that I have seen or played scale to at least five resolutions: 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x800, 1280x1024, and 1440x900. Note that this assumes the base gaming resolution of 640x480. If the base is 1024x768, then it would only scale higher, not lower. Face it, four times the resolution is great, and I personally do have a monitor that can be set that high. But I only have TWO that can. All the rest can only go up to 1152x864 if they are not widescreen, and I have one laptop that does 1440x900, and the rest go 1280x800. And we should absolutely not mess up their gaming experience on purpose just because they don't have a monitor that can go that high.
You know, I can remember earlier in the project when it was basically decided flatly the 4x resolution would be the answer, and 'proper' HD resolutions would be ignored to allow a greater target audience. I don't know why the outlook on this flip-flopped like it did.
I am sitting with a 4:3 monitor that can use the max resolution of 1600x1200. For me the perfect resolution for Sonic 2 HD would be 1280x960, which I used for the tech demo. But that resolution is only 4X the original resolution of Sonic 2. It is called Sonic 2 HD, and not Sonic 2 4X. Sonic 2 HD will be full HD. That means 16:9 in the resolution 1920x1080x60p. It means 12% + (7% for (240-224)*4) more visibility vertically, and 66% more visiblility horizontally compared to the original game. It is an added experience to see more where you are going. It doesn't give an advantage to speed runners since they already know where to run and don't need to look ahead of them, but for new gamers it will be a step up. Now read this with caution: There will be option(s) to run the game in 720p, but it will cost in performance. It's a monitor fix, you still need a super graphics card that can run 1080x60p, but you don't need a monitor that is full HD. Last of all, there will also be a low quality options for you who only care about the gameplay and not the graphics. That game will run on basically any 3D hardware that supports 32 bit alpha blending BASICALLY in the resolution of 480x270 but will be scaled up to HD resolutions if needed. (Lowest full screen resolution 640x480). It is just plain ugly though x.x I rather buy a full HD monitor than play that option. Which is the whole point. We are making a HD game. Read this with with even more caution: The staff is currently deciding whether or not to use only widescreen ingame. Benefits are less work and less bugs to take care of. It doesn't take care of the Aquatic Ruin boss problem though. Now with this said, there are still a few weeks before these words are final. Make your case (as you have already done before this post). If you want lower quality, or non HD support, vote the second option in the second poll in the render poll! That's what that poll is for. Oh, and about the 4X resolution. If I got to decide I would use it myself. And call it "HD", even when it will totally fail on Xbox 360 and PS3, and I would blame them for not including "my" resolution in their hardware specs. Good I am not in charge of this decision!
Gaming companies who think current-gen are left in the dust once their product finally comes out. Sure, most people won't be buying an LCD monitor next week, or next month, but if they're stuck in the CRT era still which some are, that monitor will soon die and will probably be replaced by the time Sonic 2 HD goes gold. And I don't expect people to buy new screens just for Sonic 2 HD, but as the internet's picture sizes steadily increase naturally and leave smaller resolution monitors in the dust, I expect to see people upgrading out of their ancient-tech 1024x768 ghetto monitor rigs just because they feel they should. I remember when that was the standard, back in early 2000, but it's nearly 2010 now and people should be struggling with their 1.2GHz AMD Athlon XP Socket-A single-core processors. Of course, if they don't use the internet, I really don't expect them playing Sonic 2 HD...
