In the modern era of computing and gaming, resolutions meant for fixed pixel displays
naturally expect square pixels.
In the era of CRTs, however, screens didn’t use pixels.
The horizontal resolution was made up of a number of samples per line rather than a strict
horizontal pixel count.
In our previous videos on aspect ratio, we saw that while the common resolution of 256x224
for the Super Nintendo did not appear to achieve a 4:3 aspect ratio on paper, it was nevertheless
displayed in a 4:3 aspect ratio when shown on a CRT TV.
256 samples were provided to the CRT to draw a horizontal line.
This same resolution is used in a few games on the Sega Genesis.
We also examined this in a previous video.
The majority of Genesis games use a square pixel-friendly horizontal resolution of 320,
but some games use a lower resolution of 256.
Others still would switch modes on the fly.
The attract mode of Golden Axe provides a great example of this as the Title screen
uses 256 pixels for width, gameplay uses 320, and the character bio screens return to 256.
The CRT doesn’t care – it just displays what it is given.
Arcade developers had some degree of freedom when it came to video resolution
when pairing their hardware and software.
They didn’t stick to a small selection of resolutions, either.
Bubble Bobble uses 256 pixels on the horizontal.
Shinobi uses 320.
Street Fighter II The World Warrior used…
384.
All three games had the same vertical resolution of 224 and were displayed on a 4:3 aspect
ratio CRT screen.
If you viewed each one using square pixels, Bubble Bobble would appear taller than 4:3,
Shinobi would appear to fit 4:3 quite well, and Street Fighter II would appear wider than
4:3.
This seemingly odd choice for horizontal resolution might be a reason for some to question why
Capcom elected to use 384 pixels – but that question most likely originates in the modern
era where fixed pixel displays are the norm.
As far as Capcom was concerned, their hardware could pump out 384 samples per line and they
used that for extra graphical detail during development.
Prior to creating the CPS1 system, Capcom used a plethora of resolutions on both their
vertically and horizontally oriented games.
When CPS1 was developed to use a system board that could take interchangeable roms, the
resolution for the hardware was decided to be 384x224.
Quite a few games were made using the CPS1 or CPS2 systems and their 384 pixel resolution.
A so-called perfect pixel emulation of this would cause these games to appear to be made
for a widescreen aspect ratio, and this is incorrect.
These games were designed for a 4:3 aspect ratio.
Let’s examine a few CPS1 and CPS2 games and compare the 4:3 look from the arcade to a
square pixel rendition.
Despite the fact I don’t believe circle checks should be the defacto methodology for
aspect ratio, we’ll include this in our analysis.
MAMEUI64 defaults to enforcing aspect ratio, and the CPS1 and 2 games are therefore 4:3.
We’ll toggle this setting to take a look at a few games in both 12:7 and 4:3.
A few notes for the captures here - I disabled bilinear filtering, disabled unevenstretching,
and slightly reduced the gamma setting.
With our preferences set, we can make a few observations.
U.N. Squadron’s anti-drug screen shows a seal that is intended to be round and appears
as such in 4:3.
The 12:7 rendition is more like an oval.
The character bio screens appear more normal in 4:3, and this is a bit more obvious on
the portrait and plane screen.
The F-20 Tigershark is a slender plane and appears as such in the graphics.
Stretching the image out to widescreen distorts the plane and puts quite a noticeable stretch
on the pilot’s portrait.
Nemo has a couple of quick examples.
The hot air balloons in the background as well as perhaps much more notably – the
train’s wheels look like proper circles in 4:3!
The first large circle in Captain Commando looks good in 4:3 as well.
You get the idea.
OK.
Let’s move to the main event and focus on Street Fighter II.
SF2 is quite popular and has received numerous ports to home consoles and computers over
the years.
This helps us make some rather interesting observations!
Those 384 pixels of horizontal resolution exceed the 4:3-friendly, square pixel count
of 320 by 20% and naturally allow for more detail.
In my opinion, the extra resolution greatly benefits the backgrounds as they scroll left
and right during gameplay.
Scrolling across the longer of the two dimensions of the monitor is, of course, quite common
for many games.
And having that added detail to pull across the screen really adds to their pop.
As for aspect ratio, the most notable, and in my opinion glaring difference between the
adjusted 4:3 aspect ratio and a square pixel rendition is the proportions of the people.
Regardless of if you are viewing playable characters or people in the background, the
would-be 12:7 aspect ratio image produces people that look rather squat.
They appear wider and shorter than normal.
Focusing on a traditional aspect ratio argument – circles – the circles I that examined
appeared to be even when the image was scaled for 4:3.
We’ll take a look at two sets of graphics.
The first are the bicycle sprites from Chun-Li’s stage.
They appear correct when scaled to 4:3 and are therefore naturally a bit wider in square
pixel mode.
Another great example is the sun from E. Honda’s stage.
Spot on circle when viewed in 4:3.
Even if they appeared to be proper circles when using square pixels, I feel that the
scale of the characters in the image is a much more relevant example when it comes to
analysis.
So with a 4:3 aspect ratio locked in while using 384 samples on the horizontal, let’s
turn our attention back to pixels.
To port World Warrior to the Super Nintendo and Champion Edition to the PC Engine, Capcom
needed to reduce a 384 pixel width to 256 – they literally needed to trim the horizontal
resolution by a third.
Now performing a port from an arcade machine to a home console like this is a topic in
of itself, and I am bordering on opening a fresh can of worms as we speak… but let’s
stay focused on aspect ratio.
A few things happened during the porting process.
The vertical size of the playing area was reduced.
Here is a square pixel, 8:7 SNES aspect ratio superimposed over the arcade version.
If you take a look at the vertical sizing of the arcade version and the SNES overlay
prior to its 4:3 compensation, you can see that there is more ceiling available in the
frame in the arcade vs the SNES port.
While at a glance it might appear to be a simple crop, you can also see that the distance
between the ceiling and the painting is different between the two.
So it appears the vertical size has been reduced and some degree of artistic tweaking was applied
for the port.
This makes sense as you wouldn’t want to rely on an algorithm – be it early 1990s
or modern - to perform resize calculations on low resolution pixel art.
Of course our main point of focus is the change in horizontal resolution and how it alters
aspect ratio.
Let’s return to the arcade version with square pixels in order to perform a scaling
progression exercise of sorts.
This gives us a 12:7 aspect ratio image.
You’ve probably seen screenshots like this around the net.
They are incorrect.
We’re going to focus specifically on Chun-Li for this examination, so let’s zoom in quite
a bit.
So here she is with a 12:7 square pixel aspect ratio.
If we make adjustments to the aspect ratio and achieve 4:3, her horizontal size compresses,
and she achieves her appropriate proportions as displayed on an arcade machine’s CRT.
Now let’s superimpose a square pixel, 8:7, Super Nintendo Chun-Li over her arcade counterpart
and match the vertical size to fit the sprite in place.
You can see that the sprite has lost both vertical and horizontal resolution vs the
arcade but has undergone pixel art revision for aesthetic purposes.
You’ll also notice that the 8:7 proportions are a bit thin.
Let’s replace it with the 4:3 adjusted SNES sprite.
Ahh ha!
Interesting!
The arcade sprite adjusted for 4:3 is congruent with the Super Nintendo sprite adjusted for
4:3 when the two are lined up vertically!
This despite the fact the arcade board has taller pixels and the SNES has wider pixels.
This is NOT a coincidence.
This is an example of developers taking advantage of the extra horizontal resolution provided
by their arcade hardware AND being fully aware of the fact that home consoles using 256 pixels
of horizontal resolution are going to appear stretched when displayed on a TV.
All four examples appear incorrect when viewed using square pixels and then have matching
proportions when adjusted for a 4:3 CRT.
Would you like a bonus example?
The same sprite from Turbo HD Remix matches up as well.
The sad irony?
While the background art of the arcade takes the compression of 384 pixels into account
for the sun on E. Honda’s stage, the consoles with a 256 pixel stretch do not.
While many of you may not be aware of what arcade games used the CPS1 and CPS2 hardware,
you no doubt recognize a bulk of them as they were ported to home consoles, necessitating
some sort of alteration to the arcade-native 384 pixel width.
Although we scratched the surface of porting arcade games to consoles, our primary focus
is aspect ratio of Capcom CPS1 and CPS2 hardware, and the fact that they were displayed on your
standard CRT arcade monitor at 4:3.
I’ve seen discussions on this topic where the division of 384x224 is considered so close
to 16x9 that it somehow validates that the games were meant for widescreen – again,
this is a modern, fixed pixel panel analysis that is being misapplied to games from the
CRT era.
Perhaps some of you were unaware that these games were designed for 4:3.
I assume most emulators default to enforcing a 4:3 aspect ratio for the arcade boards,
so perhaps the discrepancy is not as widespread as it could be.
I am sure it doesn’t really matter to many of you when you game, but if you create content
or are interested in preserving history on websites, books, etc., please be aware of
the fact that pixels do not dictate aspect ratio in the CRT era – something that is
rather imprecise by nature, anyway.
I hope you enjoyed this glance at aspect ratio of Capcom CPS1 and CPS2 games.
My goal in creating videos like this one is to increase awareness of various technical
aspects as well as history of both software and hardware for the games we enjoy playing.
If this video interests you and you would like to see more like it, please consider
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Leave a comment telling me what CP System 1 or 2 games you enjoy playing.
Thanks for watching.