Game resolution

[Coren]

What resolutions do you guys normally use? I think 800x600 is pretty alright, right? O:

[Anna]

As long as it scales well, I don't see why you can't use 1280x720 at the very least. 800x600 looks like a post-stamp on my 1920x1080 monitor >_<;.

[Ziassan]

Some people still use 800x600, probably (no offense) like some heritage from the old time, but it's becoming really outdated, honnestly.
Personnaly I see low-res as a bad point, as a reader. In windows mode it's too small to enjoy, in fullscreen it looks pixelated.
Some said that with heavy animations and such, a too large resolution was making things laggy, in that case ok.. but I seriously doubt it's really the issue (I ran such a game on a terribly old computer with chipset videocard etc. and no problems, a Visual Novel is something really light after all).

Even speaking of filesize, pictures aren't the heaviest thing, music/sounds are. And going from 800x600 to some slighty higher resolution will not suddendly double the filesize. Working on good compression however, can reduce it.

Like a nice guy said some times ago, "Is everyone secretly using 15″ flatscreens from 2001 or something? Even netbooks are at least 1024×600 nowadays."

[nyaatrap]

You can hardly find free backgrounds over 800x600. That'll be the reason why many people still stick with making 800x600 games.

[Anna]

Edit : Ah I thought about a point in favor of not using too large res, downscaling is more destructive than upscaling, so I guess going too big can be somewhat not that good. But at least a bit more than 800x600... Like 1024x768 or 1280x720

How can it be more destructive? I never had problems with it, even with a 1920x1080 VN.

[Ziassan]

Also something that could help some game creators (maybe) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_re ... r_monitors

People having less than 1024x768 are under 5%, and only 1% use 800x600. That's speaking of internet users.
Stats on Steam users (more towarded to games, so) are probably more accurate : 0,5% under 1024x768, ~6% under 1280x800/720

Anna > Hmm after some checks, it's true that it's not that conclusive, I'll remove that part from my post.

[Endorphin]

I use 1600x900. But that's because I'm a strange individual. v_v"
I used 1280x800 before, but... nah.

But really, like Anna said--at least 1280x720 would be nice.
It's pretty and not extremly big. =o

- R.

[Greeny]

My current project uses 800x600 but that's because it was started a couple years ago and was left unattended for a bit. After that I'm doing HD widescreen, if I can help it.

We're living in a new decade people! Get with the times.

[KomiTsuku]

Every time anyone posts something in 800x600, another high rez kitten dies. My poor 1920x1080 monitor begs you to stop, it is getting harder and harder to read it.

Either 1280x960 or 1280x720. I'm happy with setting the new standard to either of them. I used 960 in the past, but I'm having fun playing with the 16:9 ratio lately. It lets me get more characters on screen.

Edit: It means this doesn't look like this... I like that little extra distance to prevent a cluttered feeling.

[Blane Doyle]

As a player who has an unfortunate laptop screen size of 1366x768... I think an optimal size up from 800x600 is roughly 1280x960ish. It's not so small that HUGE monitors show a teeny window with no full screen available, but not so big that computers like mine can't display it properly in a window... or in full screen. 800x600 is good, but it's very very common and a tad small.

Then again, apparently almost 20% of net users also have a 1024x768 monitor which is horrifying to imagine. Another almost 20% share my resolution, so you have at least 35% of net users have a res of less than 1440x900. That's... unfortunate.

Than again, I just really prefer 16:9 over 4:3 and prefer to play all games in window mode and enjoy slightly smaller windows o my screen so I am weird.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

Every time anyone posts something in 800x600, another high rez kitten dies. My poor 1920x1080 monitor begs you to stop, it is getting harder and harder to read it.

Either 1280x960 or 1280x720. I'm happy with setting the new standard to either of them. I used 960 in the past, but I'm having fun playing with the 16:9 ratio lately. It lets me get more characters on screen.

Every time you create a game in 800x600 resolution a person's eyes bleed and die. My 1920x1080 monitor also begs people to stop doing this. LCD monitors only do display well in their native resolution, so unless I want your game to look like a pixelated mess covered in Vaseline, I can't fullscreen your tiny game. I must play it in a window. A window that looks like this:


And yes, lets use some widescreen ratios! Widescreen is perfect for VNs! You have room for a big text box in the center and can show all your character sprites on each side without covering them up. It also allows for more natural use of perspective for backgrounds, and plenty of room for a GUI without obscuring art.

People having less than 1024x768 are under 5%, and only 1% use 800x600. That's speaking of internet users.
Stats on Steam users (more towarded to games, so) are probably more accurate : 0,5% under 1024x768, ~6% under 1280x800/720

This! This! Market research! Please stop copying Japanese VN resolutions from a decade ago!

[nyaatrap]

1366x768 will be the the most popular resolution soon (and It's already the top resolution in Japanese PC shops).
BTW, 16:9 is said to be wider than natural human's vision (16:10). So I think it'll look natural to make blank spaces (I mean, background) on each edges of wide CGs, but most of them are filling up their width while cutting their top and bottom sides (that makes less background space and less painting time) - I'm not happy with those CGs.

[ShippoK]

All these humungous resolution sizes, this is scary.

I have a 1600x900 screen display and I keep it at 1280x720 because of how tiny everything tends to be. Having to look so close into a 1600x900 monitored to see what the heck I'm looking at isn't to healthy either- (Why are you so tiny YouTube video)!

I love 800x600 still, even in Full Screen mode! I really hope it doesn't die out 'too soon' because of all these abnormally big resolutions people have now of days.

[HumbertTheHorse]

I'd say 800 x 600 because that will save some valuable time in the image creation/editing department. Just take masking for instance. I can fidwinkle a mask out of any 800 by 600 image. 1920 by 1080 is less indie friendly.

[Carassaurat]

Mind, it's not all about using a lot of space just because you can. Especially in a VN, there's an argument to be made that it's nice to see both the text and the sprites at once instead of having to move your eyes back and forth between the two.