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| Photo by redditor AKJVermont |
Early-to-golden-age arcade games, with bespoke video hardware and no real standards, pose some unique properties concerning aspect ratio and resolution. Among them are:
- Vertically-oriented monitors
- Vector monitors with point-plot resolution
- Non-standard monitor configurations
- Variable resolutions
Most of these games, even back then, were designed for a 15Khz 4:3 monitor. Even vertically-oriented arcade games would simply output a 90-degree rotated display and expect the monitor to be rotated likewise; MAME thankfully automates this for you by default. For the most part, you can achieve a reasonably authentic aspect ratio in MAME by simply letting it do its thing.
However, my superauthenticity theory speculates that some games simply didn't account for the distorting effect that non-square pixels would have on the final display, and if these games could be identified, then authentic aspect ratio is a flaw, and by using square pixels, instead of a corrected 4:3 aspect ratio, their presentation could be enhanced in a non-destructive manner.
I'm not even going to examine pixel aspect ratio here; it's too complicated to delve into that for such a wide variety of video display types, and arcade games generally had more precise video signals than console games of the day did, with much less overscan. I've already explained why it's bad to assume 4:3 DAR is authentic, but if I'm going to analyze arcade games, it's too much trouble not to.
Atari
Breakout
Data Driven Gamer's first ever whale defies resolution analysis. MAME considers the resolution to be 896x252, but a raw screenshot captures at 228x1440. In reality, the video hardware was analog and any resolution capture is just an approximation.
Just let MAME deal with it. It's fine.
Centipede
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At 240x256 resolution, raw pixels give Centipede a nearly square screen layout. A vertical layout with authentically thin pixels just looks better. Right down to the font.
Verdict: 3:4
Star Wars
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Internally, Star Wars has a 'tall' resolution of 502x562, but this is a horizontal game. But since it plays on a vector monitor, resolution doesn't work in a typical way; 502x562 is effectively a grid of positions from which lines segments may begin or end. The line segments themselves are not bound to this grid (no staircases! no aliasing!), and because of that, the game's effective resolution is limitless.
Incidentally, vector games are a situation where I feel pixel shaders are appropriate for screenshot documentation purposes. I never use them for screenshotting raster games, as they are destructive to the raw image data, but vector games don't have raw image data, at least not in any sense that would produce a pleasing visual.
As for the best aspect ratio, MAME does provide an option to play at a tall aspect ratio, and in some ways, this actually looks better than 4:3. Fonts and 2D screen elements seem more natural, and the iconic Star Wars text crawl looks better this way.
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But the Death Star is round in 4:3, and narrow in tallscreen, so it's clear that the artists gave some thought to the 4:3 aspect ratio. They just weren't consistent about it.
Verdict: 4:3
Marble Madness
Marble Madness runs slightly pillarboxed but has an output resolution of 336x240, which is extremely close to 4:3. I expect this was deliberate.
Paperboy
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Running on a high-for-its-time-resolution 25Khz monitor at 512x384, Paperboy was designed for square pixels, and there's no other option.
Gauntlet
Another 336x240 resolution Atari game.
I think we can conclude from this that arcade game manufacturers like Atari considered display aspect ratio pretty much from the beginning. Star Wars was the only time that there was any inconsistency - I guess vector math is hard enough without also having to worry about aspect ratio. But let's look at some more, by other companies.
Namco
Galaxian
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Galaxian is an odd case. The playfield, which is rendered by tile-mapping hardware, is 224x256, a 7:8 ratio. But the starfield behind it is generated independently of Galaxian's tile mapper.
Stars are not exactly pixels, but analog pulses of color on each scanline (which run vertically, not horizontally). Since each star is generated on a single scanline, a star's width is the same as a playfield pixel, but its height is smaller than one, and its vertical position can be anywhere.
MAME has to work with pixels, though, and simulates this by rendering 224 scanlines, but treats each one as being 768 pixels tall, and renders the 224x256 playfield with triple-tall pixels to fit. The simulated starfield is then 224x768, which provides a reasonable approximation of Galaxian's sub-pixel stars.
So in this case, the "raw" 224x768 resolution is definitely wrong and isn't intended to be right. Bringing the display in alignment with the playfield's 7:8 aspect ratio simply requires tripling the pixels horizontally. But an authentic 3:4 aspect ratio just looks more correct, I think.
Verdict: 3:4
Pac-Man
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At 224x288 resolution, Pac-Man is pretty close to a natural 3:4 aspect ratio, but different enough that some stretching occurs. But not so different, it seems, that Iwatani felt it necessary to account for this. Square pixels make Pac-Man perfectly round, the dots perfectly square, and the maze perfectly geometric.
Verdict: Square pixels
Dig Dug
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Another 224x288 game. Similarly, I think this looks just a bit more correct without the aspect ratio correction.
Verdict: Square pixels
Xevious
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Same resolution. Same thoughts.
Verdict: Square pixels
Pole Position
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Pole Position runs at 256x224 with fat pixels... but it just looks unnaturally stretched out that way.
Verdict: Square pixels
Overall, Namco seems less concerned with precise display aspect ratio than Atari did, but again, it's not consistent. Galaxian, one of their earliest games, looks better at an authentic 3:4 aspect ratio, and Pole Position, one of their most advanced of the era, looks better with square pixels, but the majority of their games ran at 288x224 where it doesn't make that much of a difference. I suspect that was a deliberate choice.
Midway
Wizard of Wor
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Wizard of Wor runs at 352x240 and does a similar thing as Galaxian where the starfield signal is independent of the playfield pixels, but MAME doesn't use any resolution tricks to simulate this.
An authentic 4:3 requires thin pixels, and I think this looks better.
Verdict: 4:3
Tapper
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Let's look the logo that Budweiser used in the early 80's:
Verdict: 4:3
Spy Hunter
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Spy Hunter's got an interesting resolution of 480x480, though this is one of those situations where the sprites are drawn at a higher resolution than the background layer and MAME just uses that as the overall canvas. Long story short, Spy Hunter only looks right with thin pixels.
Verdict: 3:4
Midway, it seems, was not afraid of experimenting with strange (and often high) resolutions, and understood how to use non-square pixels.
Konami
Super Cobra
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Super Cobra and Scramble run on the Galaxian board and have the same resolution oddities due to the starfield generator.
As with Galaxian, 3:4 looks better than triple-wide pixels.
Verdict: 3:4
Frogger
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We're still on Galaxian hardware, but this time the starfield generator doesn't do anything, and we're just looking at a 224x256 playfield where every pixel is tripled in height for no reason.
An authentic 3:4 once again looks the most natural.
Verdict: 3:4
Gyruss
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We're off Galaxian hardware, finally, and running at 224x256. This title screen, with the round earth, is the strongest evidence that Konami was taking non-square pixels into account.
Verdict: 3:4
Rush'n Attack
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So much for consistency! Rush'n Attack looks terrible at 4:3.
Verdict: Square pixels
Gradius
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Gradius has a bit more horizontal resolution than Rush'n Attack, and because of it, the 4:3 stretch isn't as pronounced, but I think this still looks better without it.
Verdict: Square pixels
Nintendo
Donkey Kong
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We've looked at this one before when analyzing NES games' aspect ratios, and concluded that more often than not, Nintendo didn't really account for pixel aspect ratio, but sometimes they did. Donkey Kong on NES was an example where they did not; the arcade game has thin pixels and a vertical orientation, the NES has fat pixels and a horizontal orientation, and while the NES version's layout was reworked to account for this, the sprites and tiles were not.
But with the arcade original, I think they did account for the thin pixels. The rolling barrel looks rounder that way, and DK himself looks more proportionate, as do Mario and Pauline.
Verdict: 3:4
Donkey Kong Junior
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Verdict: 3:4
Popeye
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Popeye is another one of those weird cases where the sprites are drawn with much smaller pixels than the playfield pixels are. MAME gives it a canvas of 512x448.
Honestly, I think this looks better without aspect ratio correction.
Verdict: Square pixels
Mario Bros.
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I noted before that both the arcade and NES versions of Mario Bros. seem better to me with square pixels. I still feel that way.
Verdict: Square pixels
Williams
Defender
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Defender runs at 292x240 resolution, which is pretty close to 4:3 but does stretch a bit to fit. The graphics are a bit abstract, but I don't really feel that the stretch is an improvement.
Verdict: Square pixels
Robotron: 2084
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Verdict: Square pixels
Joust
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Verdict: Square pixels
Sega
Zaxxon
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Sega's Zaxxon is, unambiguously, intended for thin pixels. It features a true isometric projection, but this needs the 3:4 aspect to be seen correctly.
Verdict: 3:4
Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom
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Buck Rogers involves some analog video processing and MAME simulates this by setting the canvas at 224 scanlines of 512 pixels each. A double scan results in a resolution of 512x448. To me, this looks better than an authentic 4:3, which looks a bit too stretched horizontally. Either is better than raw output, obviously.
Verdict: Double scan
Space Harrier
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Space Harrier runs at 320x224, which is the same resolution that a lot of Genesis games would eventually run at, and has thin pixels on a 4:3 monitor. It's slight, but it's better this way.
Verdict: 4:3
Capcom
1942
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This looks a touch better at the thinner 3:4, I think.
Verdict: 3:4
Commando
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Commando likewise looks better at 3:4.
Verdict: 3:4
Ghosts 'n Goblins
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But this one, which I did not and will not cover, looks better raw! 4:3 Arthur just seems a bit out of shape for this adventure.
Verdict: Square pixels
Before this dive, I had a theory that western developers were more inclined to take pixel aspect ratio into account. Based on this sample, I can't say my theory is substantiated. While there does seem to be some correlation between region and aspect ratio awareness, it's not a strong one. Every Japanese developer here had at least some games that looked better with an authentic aspect ratio, and all of Williams' games look better with square pixels.
But there is another divide which seems much stronger - vertical vs. horizontal.
Almost every vertically-oriented game I compared looked better with a correct 3:4 aspect ratio. The sole exceptions were three by Namco, which ran very close to 3:4 anyway.
The horizontal games, on the other hand, for the most part looked better with square pixels. All of the exceptions had some unusual pixel properties; Midway's games run at strange resolutions with pixels that are either thin or very fat. Space Harrier uses thin pixels. Star Wars doesn't use pixels at all. The rest of the horizontal games here all have pixels with a PAR between 1.09 and 1.25, and I find they all look nicer with a PAR of 1.
Maybe I just have a bias towards thin pixels? I think it will be interesting to revisit this topic in the future, as vertically-oriented arcade games start to become less common, outside of niche genres.
