Tips on deciding resolution?

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kibou-desuka
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Tips on deciding resolution?

#1 Post by kibou-desuka »


Hello!

As a few of you may know, I am working on a project called "The 7sin Contract", which is a short visual novel revolving around a girl falling in love with one of seven vampires, who are based on the 7 deadly sins: Sloth, Lust, Pride, Envy, Wrath, Greed and Gluttony.

I am still in the midst of deciding what the resolution of the game should be. I've seen and played games where they are 800*600, 1270*720, full-screen and some others. I am wondering how resolution is normally decided for a visual novel, such as which factors contribute to the decision?

Would a certain resolution make a player's experience better? It's sort of that gist. I appreciate any feedback and take all words to heart, so if you have any tips on how you decide resolution for your games, please give me a reply, short or long.

I apologize if this is a stupid question, but this is also my first visual novel and I would like to make it a game which readers will enjoy.
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LateWhiteRabbit
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Re: Tips on deciding resolution?

#2 Post by LateWhiteRabbit »

Well, I think the best way of deciding is to see what the majority of PC gamers are using. Luckily, Steam has been doing a survey that covers that very question for years now, and with a sample size in the millions, it is a very accurate tool. http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

As you can see, 1920x1080 is BY FAR the most used resolution (over 1/3rd of all PC gamers are running that resolution), followed pretty closely by 1366x768. Besides those two definitive numbers, a big take-away is that whatever resolution you use, it should be wide-screen.

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Re: Tips on deciding resolution?

#3 Post by SinaAzad »

LateWhiteRabbit wrote:Well, I think the best way of deciding is to see what the majority of PC gamers are using. Luckily, Steam has been doing a survey that covers that very question for years now, and with a sample size in the millions, it is a very accurate tool. http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

As you can see, 1920x1080 is BY FAR the most used resolution (over 1/3rd of all PC gamers are running that resolution), followed pretty closely by 1366x768. Besides those two definitive numbers, a big take-away is that whatever resolution you use, it should be wide-screen.
I think WhiteRabbit answered your question completely , But let me add one more thing , Consider using 1280x720 , as not all of the people have a Full HD Screen and a good number of the VN fans are actually using old systems/screens to play !
Would a certain resolution make a player's experience better?
Yes , If the player is using a 1080 screen , a 1080 resolution would make him happier , but if that person got a 720 screen , a game with 1366x768 size would become too big and a 1080 game would become unplayable !
I apologize if this is a stupid question, but this is also my first visual novel and I would like to make it a game which readers will enjoy.
This is Not a stupid question , in fact , It is great that you are gathering information before actually building stuff ! and I hope your story reaches to VN players/readers !
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Re: Tips on deciding resolution?

#4 Post by sharkmittens »

almost every notebook laptop/gaming laptop is 1366x768.
i have one; so do a lot of my friends, whereas gaming pcs
are usually a 1080 resolution. in reality, if you have good
artists who are willing to use a high DPI for their artwork (at LEAST
600 DPI on large canvas) then make a game that can fullscreen,
that's the better option. this is because the game can display
perfectly fine on any monitor, including those people who want
to hook it up to their television to play.

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Re: Tips on deciding resolution?

#5 Post by indoneko »

Instead of deciding the resolution by yourself, you could also let the reader choose their own by :
1. Provide multiple download files with different resolution suitable for their machines (kinda like windows 64bit vs 32 bit download thingies).... or
2. Make the game resolution switchable by in-game setting (either by scaling/resizing on the fly, or actually putting multiple version of each CG/sprites in your game build).

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Re: Tips on deciding resolution?

#6 Post by Imperf3kt »

SinaAzad wrote: Fri Sep 02, 2016 2:47 pm
LateWhiteRabbit wrote:Well, I think the best way of deciding is to see what the majority of PC gamers are using. Luckily, Steam has been doing a survey that covers that very question for years now, and with a sample size in the millions, it is a very accurate tool. http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

As you can see, 1920x1080 is BY FAR the most used resolution (over 1/3rd of all PC gamers are running that resolution), followed pretty closely by 1366x768. Besides those two definitive numbers, a big take-away is that whatever resolution you use, it should be wide-screen.
I think WhiteRabbit answered your question completely , But let me add one more thing , Consider using 1280x720 , as not all of the people have a Full HD Screen and a good number of the VN fans are actually using old systems/screens to play !
Would a certain resolution make a player's experience better?
Yes , If the player is using a 1080 screen , a 1080 resolution would make him happier , but if that person got a 720 screen , a game with 1366x768 size would become too big and a 1080 game would become unplayable !
I apologize if this is a stupid question, but this is also my first visual novel and I would like to make it a game which readers will enjoy.
This is Not a stupid question , in fact , It is great that you are gathering information before actually building stuff ! and I hope your story reaches to VN players/readers !
This is a misconception.
If you are playing a game which was created at 1920*1080 on a monitor like say 1024*768, then the game will scale down so the entire game fits in the screen. Nothing is cropped off.

There are two reasons to use 1280*720 instead of 1920*1080 (today)
Reason 1: smaller screens look better scaling from 720 than from 1080. If you scale from a high resolution, to a very low resolution, you may be crushing out fine details in the artwork. If the artwork has a smaller resolution to begin with, you do less damage, so to speak, by scaling down to the same resolution.

Reason two is more important: system specs.
My toaster can have a 1920*1080 screen, but yhat doesn't mean it will play 1920*1080 games perfectly. Infact, its a toaster. I doubt it plays any games.
Point being, a lot of people have 1920*1080 screens because thats the market. You don't have many other choices when buying a monitor. But having a high resolution screen does not mean you have a high power computer to go with it. Having a smaller resolution will still fill a 1920*1080 screen (it will upscale to fit), but will reduce the processing power required by the computer to display it correctly. The tradeoff is a slightly less sharp image, but you very likely won't notice. For instance, are you aware that most anime TV shows are created at 720p while the blurays are released as 1080p? It takes more time to process 1080p footage than 720p footage and time is money (to a company). Creating the show at a lower resolution and then bumping it to the target resolution is more cost effective than creating it at the target resolution to begin with.
Yet the image still looks great.

Or how about a DVD, with a resolution of 720*480i (NTSC) - 480i = 2 intetlaced fields (1 frame) at 240 scan lines, 1080p = 1 frame at 1080 scan lines. 4.5 times the resolution.
These still look great on a 1080p screen, despite being less than a quarter of the resolution.
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Re: Tips on deciding resolution?

#7 Post by illuminate001 »

Just to add onto what Imperfekt brings up, as an artist I’ve noticed that your visual game assets for 1080 get a lot larger (MB wise). The processing thing is true too, DSGR had a ton of animations that could cause the game to slow down at such a high resolution (asset wise). My pc is pretty decent though. I think that if you’re just popping sprites up here and there sans fancy transitions/anims would be free at 1080, but more = beware!

Personally though, I love to play VNs on my tv at 1920x1080, despite the possibilities of chugging. The art is so crisp and pretty when the original assets were made for the target resolution <3 plus lounging on my sofa playing a VN on my TV is my idea of enjoyment!
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