So now AtGames is teasing a PINBALL machine.

[Sumez | 2,933]

Well, the problem is that if you scale it up to a different resolution, you'll get either unevenly stretched pixels, or blurry sampling. This isn't a thing for old LCD screens, it's a thing for every LCD screen, and it's very obvious with 2D graphics that are supposed to be crisp.

You could show a 320x240 image on a 960x720 monitor with no issues, because you just duplicate every pixel 3 times in each direction, but what can you do when the picture doesn't scale cleanly? That's the issue everyone re-releasing old 2D games faces, and some solutions have been better than others.

[ErickRPG | 42]

are you talking about bezels or the game itself?  The cabinet has a scanline option, which I intend to use.  Of course it's not as good as a good quality CRT but we are way past that at this point.  Of all the youtube videos I haven't really seen anyone show the scanline option, so I intend to show that off.

[Tanooki | 4,930]

Over at AtariAge there is a dedicated space to atgames/dedicated game systems and within there there's a guy named Bill who is daily active. He works for atgames and drops all sorts of questions to answers, anything he's legally allowed to.  Might be worth skimming the thread on this cabinet here as your answer may be there already.

[ErickRPG | 42]

Thanks man, I already know everything I need to right now.  All I have to do is wait.  But I'll keep that in mind if I need it.

[ErickRPG | 42]

OMG I just got notified that my cabinet shipped.  It was supposed to be on or around Jan 31st.  Man I can't wait!  I'm sure half of the roms I loaded won't work at first, but I'm hyped beyond belief.  An arcade cabinet to play mame on is something I've always wanted.

[Link | 2,708]

17 hours ago, Sumez said:

Well, the problem is that if you scale it up to a different resolution, you'll get either unevenly stretched pixels, or blurry sampling. This isn't a thing for old LCD screens, it's a thing for every LCD screen, and it's very obvious with 2D graphics that are supposed to be crisp.

You could show a 320x240 image on a 960x720 monitor with no issues, because you just duplicate every pixel 3 times in each direction, but what can you do when the picture doesn't scale cleanly? That's the issue everyone re-releasing old 2D games faces, and some solutions have been better than others.

I understand various scaling methods, stretching, aliasing, pillarboxing, letterboxing, et cetera. 

I’ve seen unevenly stretched pixels aka incorrect aspect ratio and other bad methods many times in the past ten years.  In the same period, image smaller than the screen around all four edges? aka accurate presentation of content but not maximizing screen usage? Not at all. Well, except in OTA broadcast SD letterboxed to a hi-def TV, but that’s quite a different animal from computer display. Either way, it’s a really poor experience to do that with built-in content to your built-in display. Even if they can crop up in random, unpredictable combinations the hobbyist scene may be susceptible to, such variables should not appear in a mass market solution like this. But if they do? Really not disproving my feeling that the screen is junk and too small. 

[Sumez | 2,933]

23 minutes ago, Link said:

accurate presentation of content but not maximizing screen usage? Not at all.

I don't know where you've been looking, but most proper re-releases of old 240p games will have an integer scaling mode that does this.

Of course, shitty blurry upscaling does tend to be the default setting in a lot of them.

Edited January 24, 2020 by Sumez

[Link | 2,708]

I suppose I haven’t been looking anywhere. All I’m saying is, if the picture on this thing doesn’t always touch two opposite edges of the already small screen, then, it’s even smaller.

[ErickRPG | 42]

bumping with update NEW NEWS!!  PINBALLLLLLLLZzzz. . .