I usually play SNES games with square pixels because displaying a 256x224 image with 8:7 pixels usually requires non-integer scaling, which is way uglier than the slight distortion you'll get by playing at the wrong aspect ratio. The ratios are pretty close anyway. It's not as bad as playing a 4:3 movie at 16:9.
On a "4K" (2160p) monitor there's actually enough room to draw the screen at 2048x1568, making every SNES pixel 8x7 without any weird compromises*. I actually have such a monitor and I was initially excited to try it out, but bsnes-plus nor higan will actually allow me to make the image that size, so I've been living the square pixel life anyway. Truly an endless source of mild irritation.
*you still need to make some weird compromises for games that use the SNES high-res mode, but the SNES high-res mode itself is a weird compromise so whatever
It's honestly pretty annoying that the hardware doesn't produce square pixels. Most games are designed as if they were square and I can't blame them. You'll occasionally find an exception (I noticed that Tales of Phantasia has some effects that draw a slightly tall ellipse, probably so the aspect ratio will turn them into a circle), but I feel like the work people put in to account for the aspect ratio is mostly a reminder that the world can be a complicated place with difficult problems rather than a big improvement to their games. Romhacks maybe ought to be designed as if they were square because so few people are going to be playing them on the combination of real hardware + CRT screen that will result in the original non-square pixels.
I want to make a thread to talk about the SNES' actual aspect ratio, as I've never seen a thread talking about this in SMWCentral before.
To clarify, I'm not talking about BSNES-HD or any other widescreen emulator solution. I am talking in terms of the real SNES hardware.
Graphical SMW hacking tools like Lunar Magic currently do not have the option to use 8:7 rectangular pixels, which are the pixels that NTSC SNESes actually output.
Thus, if you play an SMW hack on a real NTSC SNES, the graphics are going to look a bit stretched, though this stretch is slight enough for me to be able to get used to it.
Now sure, Nintendo's own SNES games do not take the actual NTSC console's aspect ratio stretch into account. But this means the actual TVs, by default, showed the game stretched to an aspect ratio it was not designed for, since it's the console hardware that stretches the pixels to 8:7 each in the 1st place.
I know that different TVs have different geometry, and some have the option to tweak the proportions(none of mine do), but I don't think NTSC people back in the day generally squished their SNES games on the TV to an 8:7 aspect ratio.
So anyways, I want to know what you people think about the NTSC SNES' actual 64:49 output aspect ratio.
YouTube
To clarify, I'm not talking about BSNES-HD or any other widescreen emulator solution. I am talking in terms of the real SNES hardware.
Graphical SMW hacking tools like Lunar Magic currently do not have the option to use 8:7 rectangular pixels, which are the pixels that NTSC SNESes actually output.
Thus, if you play an SMW hack on a real NTSC SNES, the graphics are going to look a bit stretched, though this stretch is slight enough for me to be able to get used to it.
Now sure, Nintendo's own SNES games do not take the actual NTSC console's aspect ratio stretch into account. But this means the actual TVs, by default, showed the game stretched to an aspect ratio it was not designed for, since it's the console hardware that stretches the pixels to 8:7 each in the 1st place.
I know that different TVs have different geometry, and some have the option to tweak the proportions(none of mine do), but I don't think NTSC people back in the day generally squished their SNES games on the TV to an 8:7 aspect ratio.
So anyways, I want to know what you people think about the NTSC SNES' actual 64:49 output aspect ratio.
YouTube