Superauthenticity: NES aspect ratios

Early NES box art had square-ish pixels

Unlike the Atari 2600, the Famicon/NES had a standard resolution enforced by the video display processor; 256 pixels per scanline, and 224 active scanlines per frame (240 for the PAL versions which we won't be discussing here).

For a long time, NES emulators would draw square pixels, and that's just not authentic! Many give the option to scale the raw image to a TV-matching 4:3, and for many this is preferred, but that isn't actually authentic either, for two reasons.

The first, more nitpicky one, is pixel aspect ratio, which was subject to an analog variance that most emulators don't account for (and would you want them to?), but would always be slightly wider than tall. Without going too deep into the electronics, an ideal NES pixel length is about 1.14 times wider than the scanline height, or a PAR of 8:7. Which is potentially confusing because 8:7 is also the resolution ratio, but these numbers are completely unrelated. In any event, if an NES screen is drawn with perfect 8:7 pixels, the display aspect ratio is about 1.306:1, which is very close to a television aspect ratio but not quite 100%. Most emulators don't even account for this and just give you a 4:3 scaling option. Close enough, honestly.

The second reason is overscan.

240p test suite

 

On a real analog television, you'd lose significant portions of the picture on all four sides, and it's impossible to emulate this 100% accurately because the amount lost would vary. And you probably don't want this eliminated, because games often rendered artifacts in the overscan areas, which would be hidden under normal conditions, but distracting on an emulator that just shows everything. Emulators do account for this, but there's no perfect setting that gives optimal results for all games.

The overscan issue is less of a concern among the earliest, single-screen NES games, where the lack of scrolling means no loading seam, and for this set of comparisons I'll just use the default FCEUX overscan settings which use lines 8-231 for NTSC games and don't perform any horizontal edge cropping. But it is something that superauthenticity needs to consider.

Donkey Kong

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

 

Oh my. With wider pixels, Donkey Kong ought to be called Chunky Kong!

Let's look at the vertically-oriented arcade version for comparison.

Scaling:	1x 2x
DAR:	Raw 3:4

These are the same sprites! The colors are a bit different and the hammers are redrawn, but apart from that, the sprites have the same pixel layouts. Nintendo did account for horizontal orientation by redesigning the stages for the NES conversion, but they apparently did not account for a wider PAR.

Verdict: Square pixels. These sprites were originally composed of tall pixels, not wide pixels. Authentically wide pixels do not improve the look or align with Nintendo's artistic direction.

Mario Bros

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Subjectively, wide pixels just don't look as good as square ones, once again. Let's pull up the arcade version again for comparison.

Scaling:	1x 2x
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Resolution and orientation is the same here, but the sprites and tiles are not the same. Overall, I think the arcade version looks better at 4:3 than the NES version does, but square pixels look more consistently good on either platform; the font in particular looks distorted at 4:3 and I have a hard time getting over the non-square platform tiles.

Verdict: Square pixels.

 

Let's look at some Famicom originals.

Baseball

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Ok, so the perspective here makes no sense. The lines at home base make a perfect right angle, as they should from an overhead perspective, but the players' orientations suggest an oblique perspective. But the lines just aren't obeying any sort of consistent geometric laws.

Subjectively, I think 8:7 PAR looks best overall, but not so clearly that I can be sure this was the intention.

Verdict: 8:7 PAR 

 

Tennis

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

A regulation doubles tennis court viewed at a 52° overhead angle looks like this:

If anything, square pixels on the NES make it slightly too wide!

Verdict: Square pixels

 

Duck Hunt

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Despite the large sprites, this looks right at any aspect ratio. The dog and ducks just get longer. I guess the font looks better with square pixels.

Verdict: Square pixels

 

Excitebike

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

At 8:7 PAR, the wheels are about as perfectly round as it's possible for them to be at this resolution, even when you're doing flips. At square pixels they're just a smidgen too narrow.

Verdict: 8:7 PAR

 

Balloon Fight

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Balloons are oblong, not spherical!

Verdict: Square pixels

 

Ice Climber

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

Low detail makes these visuals resilient to distortion, but I think the sprites' chubbier, rounder look with 8:7 PAR is more in line with Nintendo's artistic intentions.

Verdict: 8:7 PAR 

 

Super Mario Bros.

Scaling:	1x 2x
PAR:	Square 8:7
DAR:	Raw 4:3

And here it is, Nintendo's ultimate 40KB showcase! And what's the story? Honestly, wide pixels might be more authentic, but they don't do Mario's highly geometric world or his figure any favors. A few visual elements, like the clouds, look better stretched, but most don't.

Verdict: Square pixels

My conclusion? There's enough examples of 8:7 PAR looking better that I think we can conclude some of Nintendo's artists were thinking about pixel aspect ratio, but for the most part, these games look better with non-authentic square pixels. I expect the artists just found it easier to plot sprites on square graph paper and were not overly worried about a level of video precision that the televisions of the day weren't equipped with. If Mario is 14% too fat, oh well, hitting the deadline matters more!

For these games, a square pixel aspect ratio (which is what 8:7 will actually mean most of the time in the real world!) can, I think, better preserve the visuals as the artists envisioned them and achieve superauthenticity, but not always! 8:7 PAR is never going to be wrong; this is what players experienced back in the day, but 8:7 DAR can be wrong sometimes, even if it's usually an improvement.

I will probably play most first-party NES games with square pixels for this reason, but 4:3 will always be there if things look a little too thin.