(POLL) Enforcing low-res gameplay

[Appels]

Allright JCF, gimme some of your opinions on this, I heavily encourage you to reply to this thread to tell me/us why you voted for Yes/No.

Allright theres 2 options, you use strawpoll and remain anonymous, or you use the poll above, I encourage you to vote on both. :P
"Is enforcing low-res gameplay a crime?"
http://strawpoll.me/5117208


Old thread:

Hello JCF, what are your opinions regarding enforcing a (in my case 400x300) resolution in JJ2 levels?

My reason for making this thread is because I simply am against forcing the player/user to do a certain thing in games and software, but on the other hand a lower resolution captures the player into the game much more easily, simply because they can see less tiles, and thus with less information traveling to the player's brain, they get more eye for details, which eventually leads to a gameplay which is more intense

Long story short:
Pros (imo):
- More intense gameplay
- Bigger Rabbit

Cons:
- the player's freedom is taken away by those ugly bars around the screen, should this even be allowed in a free country like America?



I might update the pros/cons list if any of you mention them

Edit: this is my first serious post/thread on this forum, I'll try to be more 'to the point' next time.

[Slaz]

I don't think it's anything as serious as a crime. Yet there's no need to enforce it in JJ2. If you make an SP level/pack with 320x200 in mind that only looks and plays well in that resolution, best you can do is recommending it in the download description and/or readme.

For MP, there's no need for lower resolutions and using higher ones is considered cheating.

[Appels]

I don't think it's anything as serious as a crime. Yet there's no need to enforce it in JJ2. If you make an SP level/pack with 320x200 in mind that only looks and plays well in that resolution, best you can do is recommending it in the download description and/or readme.

For MP, there's no need for lower resolutions and using higher ones is considered cheating.

Yes I am thinking about this, I am creating a SP / Coop level pack that will play at its best at 400x300, I will recommend it, but not totally enforce it.

Theres one more thing to this then though: I think I am still going to make a very small border around the screen to limit the viewing distance, then again it might still be kind of a stupid thing to do.

[Treylina]

Oh, it's DennizKainz v2.

People don't like small resolutions because it becomes a blind run/jump fest, so then you have to slow down if you don't want to ""accidently"" get hurt, thus defeating the point of a fast paced game.

It's not really a crime but it's not desired. In modern days, 2D sidescrollers don't have low resolutions (and only do so out of limitations, like mobile games which aren't considered anything exceptional), and are well enjoyed.

The sprite doesn't become bigger. It's one big fat illusion.

[Appels]

Oh, it's DennizKainz v2.

People don't like small resolutions because it becomes a blind run/jump fest, so then you have to slow down if you don't want to ""accidently"" get hurt, thus defeating the point of a fast paced game.

It's not really a crime but it's not desired. In modern days, 2D sidescrollers don't have low resolutions (and only do so out of limitations, like mobile games which aren't considered anything exceptional), and are well enjoyed.

The sprite doesn't become bigger. It's one big fat illusion.

- I completely agree with you on your first point;
- The sprite doesn't get bigger... at all in fact, the screen just gets scaled up:
http://i.imgur.com/73ArFou.png 640x480
http://i.imgur.com/gvcJdxM.jpg 400x300






PS:
Oh-wowwowowwow, did you just say that I am http://www.jazz2online.com/pictures/1525/tarzan-the-lord-of-apes/fullsize-Gus-Tarzan.jpg that guy?
Mod! Admin! I am being bullied here, please help me!

Allright last edit: That guy has got nipples, damn

[cooba]

Enforcing anything is awful design, no matter the game, the platform, or the medium

[Appels]

Enforcing anything is awful design, no matter the game, the platform, or the medium

Also forcing someone to use Java 7 instead of 8 due to crashes that occur? :rolleyes:
Oh, and hacking shields.

[Stijn]

I don't understand the question.

[Appels]

I don't understand the question.

The question? I am simply looking for the community's opinions on this subject. I want to know what the community thinks about enforcing lower resolutions in levels

[Stijn]

If the level is designed specifically for that resolution, it would be nice to initially set the resolution to whatever the designer has in mind (via scripting, once that is possible). Beyond that, I don't see why you'd want to restrict it to anything lower than JJ2's default (or even something like 800x600).

[Treylina]

- snip-

...But it looks blurry scaled up.

I mean, the whole comparison is that he is obsessed with enforcing small resolutions on other players, and disliked that you could play in 640x480.

[Appels]

Allright, I will use Stijn his method (whenever this feature is added), and I will also encourage setting the resolution to 400x300 in the ReadMe.txt (which is ironic because noone except people like me will ever read that from my experience), and on the download page.

Thanks for helping me out folks.

[Appels]

...But it looks blurry scaled up.

I mean, the whole comparison is that he is obsessed with enforcing small resolutions on other players, and disliked that you could play in 640x480.

Hold on, blurry?

[Slaz]

Blurry as in less pixels (lower res) appearing bigger as they're stretched over the same amount of screen surface.

[Appels]

Blurry as in less pixels (lower res) appearing bigger as they're stretched over the same amount of screen surface.

I understand it, she means interpolation

[cooba]

I understand it, she means interpolationCome on, bicubic interpolation is blurry shit and you know it.

[Appels]

Come on, bicubic interpolation is blurry shit and you know it.

Don't judge me! Okay you are right, I am sorry, it's just that monitors don't like scaling without interpolation, meaning that 1366x768 on a 1080p monitor looks worse than 1366x768 on a 1366x768 monitor

[Slaz]

It's always been like that since LCD monitors are mainstream. Anything but the native resolution will look somewhat blurry. If you have an ATI or NVidia adapter you can force the driver to do all the scaling, which to me looks slightly better in JJ2's fullscreen mode than if my monitor does it.

I remember the days of CRT screens where you actually could lower the resolution to make things appear bigger without blur, since those screens didn't have pixels.

[Appels]

It's always been like that since LCD monitors are mainstream. Anything but the native resolution will look somewhat blurry. If you have an ATI or NVidia adapter you can force the driver to do all the scaling, which to me looks slightly better in JJ2's fullscreen mode than if my monitor does it.

I remember the days of CRT screens where you actually could lower the resolution to make things appear bigger without blur, since those screens didn't have pixels.

Allright I am now trying to force my NVIDIA card to do this, I don't think I'll be lucky with this today

[SAMI]

It's not necessarily a crime, but it's going to reduce the level of interest. Especially for fullscreen users. Since in Windows 7, there's no way to have fullscreen resolution below 640x480.

So, if you limit the screen resolution to 400x300 [Just an example], then the game will be letter boxed or whatever it is called, since the game will still render at 640x480p and because of the way this game works- it won't scale the screen. It will have black box and the screen will become small.

So, yeah. Forcing won't do anything good. Best thing to do is to recommend the screen resolution in readme file.

Also, the LCD sucks in scaling non native resolutions. Only way to have clear screen is if it's dividable by 2.

For example, in my 1440x900 monitor:

1200x900 will look good, if I maintain the aspect ratio and have black bars at the sides of screen.

600x450 will look good, if I maintain the aspect ratio aswell. [Which is 4:3]

720x450 will work without any tweaks in aspect ratio. Since it's a 16:10 res [Which is the aspect ratio of my monitor]

1440x810 will look good, if I have black bars on top/bottom [16:9]

720x405 will be fine too.

Other resolutions will look ugly as shit in this monitor. Unless if you have big ugly black bars around it and make it small.

[Violet CLM]

Since in Windows 7, there's no way to have fullscreen resolution below 640x480.This has not been my experience.

[SAMI]

This has not been my experience.

I couldn't have fullscreen with either of my Pc.

Does it have to do with the GPU? I think not. Because when I had Windows Xp,
I could have fullscreen resolution of 320x240 without any problems. But since I've changed to Windows 7- I can't go below 640x480. No matter what drivers I use. Even installed the same GPU driver and Dx version I had in win Xp. But no luck.

Didn't work on my Desktop [980 Ti]

Or the laptop that I'm using [Mobility Radeon Hd 3400]

Or with the notebook.

It's not a problem with monitor either. Because the same monitor could give 320x240 in win xp.

How you managed to have 320x240? Do you have Amd or Nvidia Gpu?

[Violet CLM]

Intel something or other. I can click "320x240 Direct Draw" (or whichever) from the dropdown menu and it works right as rain. Always has. Mind you I'd never do that because that is just too few pixels to display fullscreen.

[Darkhog]

You can't go for anything lower than 640x480 on Win7... via change resolution control panel applet.

You can still go lower than that by setting resolution via WinAPI. It's only not displayed in Win7's resolution list, not unavailable.

Probably because no sane person would set anything that low for their desktop (if it can run Win7, it probably can handle higher resolutions than that) and API access was left for times where it does make sense such as games.

[Jelly Jam]

Now that this thread's been revived anyway, I think that forcing smaller resolutions next to simply using the highest one availible is totally ridiculous. Why the hell would I play a game where it's about speed if I can run into something at any time? Even walking can sometimes be unsafe in 320x200, though the original SP levels were designed for that resolution AFAIK.

[SAMI]

The problem is, if you force 320x200, the resolution wont chanfe automatically. So 320x200 will be shown letterboxed on 800x450 or whatever you use. Thus looking ugly.