800x600?

[chronoluminaire]

Heh. So I was trying to explain the "party line" in my last post. Personally, I'm not one of those who's too bothered about every last megabyte, and personally, I'd really like it if Ren'Py supported multiple different resource sets for different resolutions, and/or some form of automatic scaling.

[Leaden]

Idea about scaling. If we scale graphics from 800x600 to 640x480 result will be definitely terrible. But if we scale graphics from bigger resolution (1600x1200, for example), the result will be nice enought (and perfect after small sharpening). Big resolution don't mean big amount of detail. But i'm not programmer, i don't know how realize such rescaling in Ren'Py.

[Sin]

I've only played a handful of VN games in 1024x768 but they were gorgeous! It's a shame there's so few of them. I've always assumed it was an issue of art vs. filesize.

I believe we'll see less games in 800x600 in the future and more in 1024x768 (or higher), which is why I made sure to make my own engine resolution agnostic.

[PyTom]

Well, there are 63% more pixels being moved around at 1024x768, versus 800x600. So that does affect the performance a little, although probably not nearly as much as when I first posted this thread four years ago. It still affects the complexity of making the game, as it requires more work to make art that looks good at 1024x768 than at 800x600.

I'd actually be interested in finding out what the resolution of modern Japanese games is.

Hm...

I looked the recent Japanese games listed on http://vndb.org ("Dokidoki Rooming", "Goshoujin-Sama Daisuki", "Volume 7", and "AliveZ"). All supported 800x600, save for "Volume 7", which seems to support 800x450. So recent commercial games are still sticking with the middle resolution.

Of course, an engine should support any resolution the creator chooses.

[yummy]

I lurked for a while on erogamescape and found out that there are still a lot of games that are made on a 800x600 resolution.

Well, my post is somehow rather subjective so it might not be really the case, but for 10+ companies or doujin (GIGA, Key Visual Art's, MBS Truth, la'cryma, Fuguriya, Lump of Sugar...) their last releases were on this resolution.

Most games that run on 640x480 were those that could also run on Win95/98/Me.
Maybe that's just because they don't want to support deprecated OS (I don't mean it in the bad way).

[N0UGHTS]

I wonder... If game development is going to take a long time, then by the time a game is done better technology would be more widespread, unless there's a zombie apocalypse or et cetera. So, is it better for a new, time-consuming project to have 1024 x 768, or 800 x 600 resolution? Or should the resolution be larger than 800 x 600, yet smaller than 1024 x 768, like 890 x 680?

On one hand, technology is always improving. On the other hand, that doesn't mean every ADV/VN/RPG gamer (that's who we're aiming for, right?) will have big monitors by the time of the game's release. Especially if the global economy worsens after 2008 (though I guess I'm probably going overboard/overthinking this). And, aside from the economy, there are people who like to multi-task. Large resolutions may annoy a few players.

So, four years after this thread was started, what is the optimal resolution an ADV/VN/RPG/whatever should be made for? 1024 x 768? 800 x 600? Or something in between those resolutions? Or should people release versions of the game for different resolutions? That is, 1024 x 768 and 800 x 600?

[Wintermoon]

I don't see this as a technological issue at all. If you use 800x600, it will run on all computers that matter. If you use 1024x768, it will run on all computers that matter. If you use 1280x960, it will run on all computers that matter. If you use 320x200, it will run on all computers that matter. It's mostly a question of style, file size, and personal preference.

But then, I categorically always run in full-screen mode. I don't care how much space the game takes up in windowed mode, because I never use it.

[N0UGHTS]

I guess for the smaller games, 1024 x 768 isn't asking too much from a computer. But I'm wondering if it's sensible to have a more expansive game run in 1024 x 768 resolution. Most people will probably be able to handle it if they aren't multi-tasking fiends (I guess I'll have to work hard to play a game in that resolution :laughs:), but I'm worried about the other side of the demographic. You know, the people with older, less powerful computers. Should a game developer release a lower resolution version of their game just to accommodate those people? Or should they focus on higher resolution games, resting on the hopes that by the time their game is done everyone they're aiming for is able to handle it?

[DaFool]

I lurked for a while on erogamescape and found out that there are still a lot of games that are made on a 800x600 resolution.

Well, my post is somehow rather subjective so it might not be really the case, but for 10+ companies or doujin (GIGA, Key Visual Art's, MBS Truth, la'cryma, Fuguriya, Lump of Sugar...) their last releases were on this resolution.

Most games that run on 640x480 were those that could also run on Win95/98/Me.
Maybe that's just because they don't want to support deprecated OS (I don't mean it in the bad way).

I was playing the demo of Aoshiro and it was a 2008 game that supported 640x480! When they started using zooming techniques in fullscreen it was evident that the resolution they used was too low. But otherwise, it was a high-tech game: constant panning/dissolve sequences, blinking eyes and lipflaps timed to the voiced dialogues.

Does our current Ren'Py still support Win98/Me? It seems so, then 640x480 resolution can be taken as symbolic as "Yes, still supported!" But when the version of python used no longer supports non-NT based old Microsoft OS's, then it can be mandated that everyone use 800x600 and up! Just kidding.

Regarding N0UGHTS's concern, I am using a 7-year old computer for development, and am already maxing out my system on the current project. Higher resolutions would require raw art in the 4000 x 3000 range, which I definitely cannot handle. Once I finish the game, then I'll upgrade my system, (but I can't be bothered upgrading and transferring / reinstalling while I'm still in production)

Remember, VN requirements are still one generation or more behind the current system requirements for modern mainstream games. Typically, they're still the PIII / 600Mhz / 256 RAM / 32MB video card era. The specs that enable you to watch DVD-res video on your PC. Once you start making games more fancy than EF than that's when more powerful systems are required. But it seems more and more people are sticking it out with their 1GHz+ PCs because many people aren't hardcore gamers and only need their computers for websurfing, office productivity, watching videos, and playing casual games (which VNs are if you ignore the Japanophile aspect of it). As mentioned elsewhere, there is no big must-have requirement / application that requires more than a 1Ghz computer (unnecessary 'forced' upgrades like Vista or HD resolutions notwithstanding)

[Wintermoon]

I don't think I've ever played a 800x600 visual novel and wished it had a higher art resolution. The typical visual novel's art could be improved in any number of ways, all of which involve more time/skill/talent from the artist but few of which require a higher resolution. There simply isn't any point in a higher resolution without a drastic change in art style.

Occasionally I wish the text had a higher resolution when I encounter a particularly complicated kanji. Never the art.

[PyTom]

Occasionally I wish the text had a higher resolution when I encounter a particularly complicated kanji. Never the art.

In English, I think there's a similar effect at 640x480. At that low resolution, the letter shapes aren't perfect, and so text is harder to read. For most fonts, that problem goes away by 800x600, and the text is easy to read.

Again, while I think engines should (and Ren'Py does) support resolutions of more than 800x600, I'm not sure if the advantages of going to 1024x768 outweigh the increased game development effort.

[Sin]

I don't really see where that increased game development would come from. Even artistically it's not that big of a leap from 800x600 to 1024x768. I'm surpriced widescreen formats hasn't come up yet.

I guess it depends on what you're going for. If your VN is mainly about text and delivering a story it doesn't benefit as much from higher resolutions. But if you want to create a more visual cinematic experience then the benefits should be obvious.

[Jake]

I don't really see where that increased game development would come from. Even artistically it's not that big of a leap from 800x600 to 1024x768.

It's not that big a leap, but fundamentally you're still drawing 164% as many pixels - two thirds again as many. I don't know about you, but I tend to find it quicker to draw smaller things, and when I work at higher resolutions it takes me longer.

One of the reasons Renaissance looked better than MorningStar is undoubtedly that I had a year in which to practice and improve between the two games, but another reason is that I was working at 2x resolution for MorningStar, and thus the sprites and backgrounds took longer, but I did all of Renaissance's graphics at display res, and thus had more time to work on totally different sprites for each character, more background detail and so on.

I'm not sure if the advantages of going to 1024x768 outweigh the increased game development effort.

And that's a thing to consider - a lot of artists work at a resolution higher than the display res anyway, for one reason or another. Displaying the original pre-downsampling images for a higher resolution won't look so good as the downsampled ones at the smaller resolution, but if you're talking about fullscreen, for example, then some people would undoubtedly prefer to see the original-resolution images instead of having the whole game look pixellated.

[Sin]

It's not that big a leap, but fundamentally you're still drawing 164% as many pixels - two thirds again as many. I don't know about you, but I tend to find it quicker to draw smaller things, and when I work at higher resolutions it takes me longer.

I disagree with the notion that more pixels = more work. If that's the case then you're doing it wrong.

For instance I would never draw anything that small because it limits the amount of detail I can put in such a small window. When I draw it's usually in resolutions of the magnitude of 2000 pixels or higher. That way I can fit any detail I might want, it'll look better and nothing is keeing me from scaling or cropping the drawing afterwards, for whatever purpose.

It's just a different scale. A brush stroke at a higher scale would cover more pixels so there's no extra work, just a higher level of detail.

[Jake]

I disagree with the notion that more pixels = more work. If that's the case then you're doing it wrong.

There is no such thing as "wrong", in this context, and frankly it's hard to believe anyone sensible could possibly believe there is. For example, NaNo has a really short deadline if you want to do any amount of art, so it's objectively better for a NaNo game with a lot of art requirements to do quick art than spectacularly good art.

For instance I would never draw anything that small because it limits the amount of detail I can put in such a small window. When I draw it's usually in resolutions of the magnitude of 2000 pixels or higher.

Fine, good for you. But equally, when you're drawing at high resolutions:

* You can put in more detail, which takes more time to draw; drawing smaller means less detail, which means it's quicker.
* You still need to be accurate colouring up to edges and so on, which means you're doing careful colouring around a larger perimeter, which means it takes longer. Draw smaller, the perimeters are shorter, thus it's quicker. A pixel is still a pixel no matter how proportionally large it is compared to the overall canvas.

Essentially, your "more pixels doesn't equal more work" assertion is only valid if you base it on the assumption that whatever display size you end up with, you're going to start out with a similar document size, which frankly isn't the case all the time. Painting programs (with the exception of oddball stuff like Satori) are still pixel-based and it's not actually possible to paint in an entirely resolution-independent manner yet, unfortunately.