Thread 12163339

Why didn't more GG ports use this approach? It may require some tweaks for fonts and other "delicate" visuals but it's still 100% better than the cropped-screen alternative that made games like Sonic 2 barely playable.

What did you just FUCKING call it???

>>12163341
Sorry, I have a natural brain defect that undermines memetic conditioning; it's sadly a crutch for successful 4channeling

>>12163339 (OP)
The Game Gear can’t use its extended 12-bit color palette when in SMS mode.

>>12163385
Sure, but very few of the dual SMS/GG releases actually took advantage of the extra color; they often used literally the same graphics with some tweaks to make the reduced screen not too much of a problem (and some times they barely did even that much).

>>12163339 (OP)
??? Explain further

>>12163451
A video mode that allows to render at the higher SMS resolution then downsample it to fit the GG screen.
It's used with the Master Gear adapter or some ports like OP's pic.

>>12163479
Not quite; the op image is the actual commercial release of Castle of Illusion for the GG. Some games were released this way early on to put out as much content as possible for the new system, including Olympic Gold, Prince of Persia and maybe a couple dozen others.

>>12163339 (OP)
The GG screen could actually perform subpixel rendering, so despite the limited native 1:1 resolution of its screen, it could actually render a fair approximation of a larger grid of pixels. While the general approach with dual SMS/GG releases was to develop for the former and then tweak it for the latter, technically they could simply dump literally the same ROM onto a GG cartridge, set a certain pin on the board to flag it as an "SMS mode" game, and the game would work. (Anybody can try that with an emulator if you rename a .sms rom as .gg)

Some optimization was usually welcome, but not even necessary. For Castle of Illusion they simply changed the font to look as legible as possible accounting for how the subpixel rendering would display it, and recolored a couple of sprites (the treasure chests at least iirc) to stand out more; but otherwise it's basically the exact same game.

>>12163525
Dang, the latter bit was meant as a reply for >>12163451

>>12163525
I never knew any of this stuff. Pretty cool.

>>12163479
My bad, I misread your reply; you do mention that the op image is the "port", not the SMS game using the Adapter

>>12163546
This image kills the sega system spammer.

>>12163525
>it's basically the exact same game
Ackthually they changed the controls so now you need to push jump twice to do the butt stomp instead of pushing 2+1; it's kind of annoying

>>12163546
>My bad, I misread your reply
Np, my wording wasn't the best.

It's really interesting to see how it works, and the subpixel rendering adds a lot of constraints on how you lay the pixels for fonts. Now I get why the GG Castle of Illusion font is ugly. The rest of the sprites work really fine.

Also, I remember playing California Games with a Master Gear and the font was nearly unreadable, with some yellow pixels on the edge of some glyphs that's due to the subpixel rendering. For example D, Q, and O looked nearly the same.