Sir Abacus
Member
Bring down console, r_texturemode gl_nearest
Or just force 16x anisotropic filtering in the driver for it.
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High Image Quality and Resolution makes (some) old games look horrible
- Thread starter sn00zer
- Start date
Bring down console, r_texturemode gl_nearest
Or just force 16x anisotropic filtering in the driver for it.
7DollarHagane
Banned
I like quake at high resolution, but with texture filtering off, so you get those nice chunky pixely textures. Either that or get a HD texture mod.
lightchris
Member
Depends on what you mean with "actual detail". What I'm talking about here are details like screws, nails, or other pixel-wide line where the edges between those objects and different parts of the texture are literally represented by the tiny difference in the pixel positions, which we use to interpret what we're looking at. The filtering process rather blends the information between those pixels, which in turn obfuscates the intended (conjecture as it might be on my part) result of the art. I think this comparison of Metal Gear Solid 1 very aptly illustrates this (unless the PC version for some reason has even lower res textures than the PS1 version resulting in even more blur than usual. I really don't know).
I have to agree you have a point in some instances. When a single one-pixel line is actually meant to be hard a single one-pixel line, texture filtering can make it look worse (as in non-intended).
This may apply to PS1 and other old 3D games with seriously low texture resolutions (other parts of the same games will look better with texture filtering though, so it's a tradeoff).
I still think that it doesn't apply to newer games since at least the PS2 era. There may still be parts that look out-of-place at high resolutions, but it isn't down to texture filtering in these cases anymore. Many parts that look bad at high resolutions will still look bad at low resolutions. The main reason it looked better at the time is that we use sharper and much larger displays nowadays, making the flaws much more obvious.
I use Retroarch with the CRT Royale shader and it looks so damn good on PS1 games at their original resolution.
You were right, I tested a new version of PGXP, it looks noticeably nicer.
I still would prefer running these games in low-res though, there's something about it that looks off.
Well yes, I completely agree on that. I don't think anyone in this thread ever argued for that though. Main point here is that filtered and unfiltered textures call for different approaches in art creation and usage/implementation. The earliest 3D games with texture mapping tended to rely on more frequent tiling of textures and thus presented them all in a very uniform fidelity. As filtering became more common, the industry started adapting and used textures differently (and likewise, even later when specular/bump/normal mapping was standardized, they also stopped baking shading/lighting detail into textures).
The N64 provides a very starch contrast from that era, and most games (Doom 64 not included) made for that platform would probably look significantly worse without any texture filtering, since environment textures are usually heavily stretched out across the surfaces like for grass fields or large rocky walls, etc.
visiblemode
Member
Um...this whole thing has me scratching my head. I paid $400, in large part specifically, to play GLQuake back in the day.
Do you have any idea how many 3DFX cards your "after" image moved off the shelf?
Do you have any idea how many 3DFX cards your "after" image moved off the shelf?
Toadthemushroom
Member
Yup, I agree, a lot of games of their era tend to target particular specifications (resolution, CPU/GPU) and have their assets made to look great on those specifications. As such they look best when played just as they would be from the period.
Of course, there are games which have assets made to a higher quality than the resolution that displays them, which still look great when scaled up, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
Older titles in general tend to look more like low-res textures pasted on top of flat polygons when rendered in far higher resolutions than the designers were creating for. Xenoblade is an example of this, its low-poly environments look great in 480p, but not so hot in HD, even with the HD texture pack.
Of course, there are games which have assets made to a higher quality than the resolution that displays them, which still look great when scaled up, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
Older titles in general tend to look more like low-res textures pasted on top of flat polygons when rendered in far higher resolutions than the designers were creating for. Xenoblade is an example of this, its low-poly environments look great in 480p, but not so hot in HD, even with the HD texture pack.
DarkestHour
Banned
Yeah and texture sizes would have been huge uf they were! Games were mere megabytes in size back in the day because the audio/visual assetts were such low quality compared to today's.
EatinOlives
Member
Agreed, op, every time I play Doom/Doom II I either use Chocolate Doom or straight up DosBox. All the source ports pushing native-resolution graphics and texture filtering make the games look like hot garbage. Neither game's textures or sprites were ever intended to be viewed in modern high resolutions and it very much shows.
mattwhite924
Member
I played through Quake last year, and when I first started I couldn't stand how blurry it was. I ended up downloading a source port that simulated unfiltered textures (I think they are technically still filtered, or else the textures in the background would be a mess), and I thought it looked a ton better.
I'm not sure if it's quite what you're looking for, but this at least gives you an idea of what a game you mentioned looks like without texture blurring at high resolutions.
I'm not sure if it's quite what you're looking for, but this at least gives you an idea of what a game you mentioned looks like without texture blurring at high resolutions.
So this is a thing that does not exist then?
EDIT: Also I do not even own Quake, was just using it as an example.
dr_rus
Member
So this is a thing that does not exist then?
EDIT: Also I do not even own Quake, was just using it as an example.
There are several tools which do this (DOSBox universally for all DOS games for example) but with Windows titles it can be tricky.
Is there reason this is not the way games are generally scaled? Dont that Im basically stuck with choosing 2K without dat blur.
dr_rus
Member
Upscaling is performed either by a monitor/TV or by a videocard. Both monitor/TV vendors and GPU vendors are oblivious to the problem and the only way to achieve an integer upscaling is to use 3rd party tools which aren't available for all games affected.
Is there a official Glauber in the steam version?
Turin Turambar
Member
Now that we are talking of Quake I in this thread I will use it to recommend Arcane Dimensions.
Well, what are you trying to play at 320x240?
boneyjangles
Member
I think what you are getting at is the allusion of detail, inspired in your mind, vs actual detail right in your face (or lack of, eg. that horrible boring smoothness).
I remember reading an art essay over a decade ago, about detail and the suggestion of detail and how it activated the brain, and how clinical precise smoothness was boring and did the opposite. Makes sense with trends of pointillism or visible brush strokes. I really wish I could remember the concept or who wrote it.
But in the last year in the news there was the story about how looking at a forest/trees is much more pleasant and relaxing for the brain than looking at the interior of an office or a building. Is it the suggestion of something with 'infinite detail' that the brain finds pleasing?
Anway, interesting thread, and for the record would love to see something like Uncharted 4 hooked up to a HD CRT via some crappy input method.
I remember reading an art essay over a decade ago, about detail and the suggestion of detail and how it activated the brain, and how clinical precise smoothness was boring and did the opposite. Makes sense with trends of pointillism or visible brush strokes. I really wish I could remember the concept or who wrote it.
But in the last year in the news there was the story about how looking at a forest/trees is much more pleasant and relaxing for the brain than looking at the interior of an office or a building. Is it the suggestion of something with 'infinite detail' that the brain finds pleasing?
Anway, interesting thread, and for the record would love to see something like Uncharted 4 hooked up to a HD CRT via some crappy input method.
boneyjangles
Member
Those checker-boarding pics are fascinating, thanks.
Funnily enough, this image shows beyond any doubt that the PS1 version loses detail in the upper left corner: there is supposed to be a line there, but on the PS1 image it's just a few floating pixels.Depends on what you mean with "actual detail". What I'm talking about here are details like screws, nails, or other pixel-wide line where the edges between those objects and different parts of the texture are literally represented by the tiny difference in the pixel positions, which we use to interpret what we're looking at. The filtering process rather blends the information between those pixels, which in turn obfuscates the intended (conjecture as it might be on my part) result of the art. I think this comparison of Metal Gear Solid 1 very aptly illustrates this (unless the PC version for some reason has even lower res textures than the PS1 version resulting in even more blur than usual. I really don't know).
So, if you want the sharp line in front but also accurate rendering in the back what you need is a high-resolution rendering with point sampling. Which should be easy enough to enforce.
Generally, the problem with low resolution rendering is spatial and temporal aliasing (flicker).
Our brains have evolved to detect patterns in our surroundings (particularly regarding facial recognition and such) and is a huge aspect in what makes us enjoy art. It's also why people keep seeing Jesus on a piece of toast or whatever.
Yeah, that's a given. But even in cases like that things may have been designed to be viewed from a distance at low resolution to obfuscate unintended things. Running Half-Life 1 at higher resolutions for example, I started noticing some very blatant Z-fighting on the rail in the intro that I'm pretty sure I didn't see back when I was playing it in 480p.
Trying to play PS360 era games at 1080p or 720p without the blurring effects of scaling. Currently playing games at 2K with insane IQ and some games have an odd mismatch look to it. ie. The view is SO clear that its revealing a lot of things generally hidden with lower resolutions.
EDIT: Basically I want to choose what resolution to play games at with no blurring and zero performance issues.
lightchris
Member
Impossible, unless you want to play with black bars on all sides. Upscaling always introduces some amount of blur unless the higher resolution is exactly divisble by the lower one.
Also, what resolution is "2K" supposed to be exactly?
meant 1440p
I hope you like playing in a window.
Just learn to accept those games as they are. All games are a product of their time.
You should, it's fun.
Aaaaand why shouldnt it be possible to play them full screen at a resolution other than native without being a blurry mess?
Reminds me of those Saturn hi-res pictures
Now instead of being able to see some rough edges, everything literally has rough edges.
You're crazy if you think that looks better than this:
Now instead of being able to see some rough edges, everything literally has rough edges.
You're crazy if you think that looks better than this:
City is not one of the games I have issue with which is why iI put "some" in the title. Some games just do not look good in 1440p when they were design for 720p and lower.
Dictator93
Member
Call me crazy, but this reads like "PC graphics are too sharp and angular".
A lower resolution on a fixed display will typically use the GPU linear scaling, making it a bit softer than a 1:1 mapped pixel display. Even then, I am not sure why you would want to do that on a 1:1 mapped pixel display with modern games (say, 1280X720) as you would still see tons of aliasing. I honestly think the art in modern games since the 360 era does not even hold up at their original native resolutions, so I am not sure why lowering res would help really. It would just exaccerbate other problems .
OP, I am not sure your request works so well for things that were not made pre-1995 and used point sampled textures. Technically you could use GeDoSaTo and use a resolution switch and configure the type of scaling to your desire (linear, lanczos, bicubic).
Why is this not a valid opinion to have? Why can't I say a game built to be played in 720p or 1080p with 2XAA looks bad in 1440p with 4XMSAA?
LabouredSubterfuge
Member
Hey you can say whatever you like bud. It's just extraordinarily hard to agree with in any way or form.
I guess I missed the part where you named some games, all I read was "PS360 era games at 1080p" and this was one such game I had installed.
Most people don't agree with it because it's incredibly silly.
Dishonored and Binary Domain were the ones that stuck out to me
NoFaceNico
Member
This isn't even that new of a problem, for a much older example, numerous games would use dithering to fake transparency or color gradient effects with checkerboarding, and the high level of signal loss from RF and composite connections would effectively blend that all together.
On early 3D systems, effectively anything pre-Xbox 360, a lot of similar shortcuts were taken, especially things like 2D assets used which looked 3D, to cheat at the lower (240p or 480p) resolutions those games were expected to run in, and attempting to run them at higher resolutions like 1080p effectively only increases the resolution of the 3D elements and doesn't magically improve the 2D assets or textures, so things look uneven and almost broken/unfinished.
Quoted for truth. RGB overhype is real.
Well shit, I don't have those installed. But when I do I'll play them with the highest IQ possible while still maintaining a smooth framerate. Just like I do with all of my games. Even going back to the original Half-Life.
Because they look better that way.
I honestly don't know what the hell you're talking about.
What 7th gen game looks worse above 720p? Please provide a single example/proof, because...
I just don't understand how you could think that.
I remember playing CoD2 on 360 which was 720p and looked amazing for it's time, then went over a friends house who had a beefy PC a while later and saw it at 1920×1200 and was utterly blown away. Exactly the same game, just higher resolution and AA.
Ocarina of Time is a good example, that HUD looks awful when it's upscaled. I think I'd rather just prefer to play the entire game at 320x240 (or what it was..)
EDIT: I realize OOT has many remakes, but still, you get my point.
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EDIT: I realize OOT has many remakes, but still, you get my point.
lightchris
Member
Because its literally physically impossible to do without a loss of detail. Just as a simplified example: Think about an 2 neighboring pixels of an image, let them be black and white. Now you want to upscale the image, so that the 2 original pixels need to fill a space of 3 pixels. Which colors would you assign the 3 pixels to?
Ocarina of Time is a good example, that HUD looks awful when it's upscaled. I think I'd rather just prefer to play the entire game at 320x240 (or what it was..)
EDIT: I realize OOT has many remakes, but still, you get my point.
This isn't really the same, though.
I'm sure there's an option to make it look nicer though.
Because you're stretching a 1080p image out onto a 1440p display. Mathematically that would mean that one pixel of that 1080p picture would have to occupy 1 and ⅓ of a pixel on your monitor which is impossible, so your GPU or monitor has to fudge it by scaling the image.
lightchris
Member
Ocarina of Time is a good example, that HUD looks awful when it's upscaled. I think I'd rather just prefer to play the entire game at 320x240 (or what it was..)
EDIT: I realize OOT has many remakes, but still, you get my point.
I agree that 2D elements can get ugly.
But your example isn't complete without showing what it would look like at 320x240 (upscaled for a fair comparison of course):
Looks pretty ugly too, right? That's just the way the game is.
Yeah, I might be weird for having this opinion, but I prefer the latter for some reason.
Consistency maybe?