Just tested some games. Darkstalkers and 3rd Strike are fullscreen through composite video on my old tube television.
Using the VGA cable, I can only get them to go fullscreen at 640x480 resolution.
Anything higher than that, and they go into 16:9 mode.
That really sucks because I like to use 1024x768 on this monitor.
VF2 is letterboxed even on the old TV.
Composite video on the PS3 version.
It wouldn’t do 4:3 in HD because HD is in of itself a 16:9 only resolution. Yeah it has the “4:3 mode” thing where there is bars on the sides,but that’s only to simulate the 4:3 look as if the tv isn’t widescreen. If you try to put widescreen video that’s SD onto an HD res screen then you will get the black bars/pillar box look like you might have seen on some youtube videos before. Now if you were to play the game through composite cables on your HDTV it would do the opposite. The TV would now be displaying in SD 640x480i stretched out and the game would appear in a full no black bars widescreen when really it’s just stretching the 4:3 image because you’re only giving it a 4:3 canvas to display on so to speak.
Anything above 720P is considered an HD resolution. So this would make 1024x768P fall into that category. While 640x480 works fine for 4:3 because that’s the most basic of resolutions for SD monitors and TVs. Most things that are designed to be 4:3 will work the best at 480.
Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection has stretch (16:9) and arcade (semi 4:3) support options on both consoles.
Plenty of other games display in full 4:3 resolution even at HD resolutions, though. The console itself has an aspect ratio setting. It’s up to devlopers to properly use it. There’s no reason other than developer apathy that explains why HD remix and SF4 support full 4:3 aspect at high resolutions while 3rd Strike doesn’t. It can clearly be done, but it’s just not a high priority, apparently.
So what you’re telling me is that Third Strike online doesn’t have a “4:3 mode” in HD when it clearly does?
That’s about as 4:3 as you’re gonna get at 720P. Also keep in mind that you’re trying to make the game display on higher than 720P by instead doing 768P. Of course the game isn’t going to be framed right if you’re displaying it on a resolution that’s higher than the source (The game only runs at 720P max as do all if not most ps3/360 games). Same exact deal that can cause black bars and pillar boxing like I mentioned above.
It doesn’t have a FULL SCREEN 4:3 mode at XGA resolution.
Many other games do.
I’m not talking about 720p.
The game itself is 720. XGA res displays more horizontal pixels. 768 > 720.
If there’s any reason your aspect ratio is looking weird it’s because of that. The game’s highest amount of horizontal pixels is always gonna be 720. So basically: Don’t use XGA resolution. It’s not made for it.
EDIT: One reason some other games might work with it is because they might be displayed as a closer more suitable resolution. I can see other resolutions scaling better. Keep in mind that sf4 and hdr were made from the ground up for this gen. 3SO is a port of one of the old console versions. 3SO doesn’t even display in 720 properly while in widescreen mode. It’s only going to look most normal at 480 or less.
I’ll use the resolution my monitor supports, if it’s all the same to you. There’s a reason why the XBOX 360 enables these resolutions when using a VGA cable.
You’re ignoring the fact that plenty of other games support this resolution with no letterboxing or distortion whatsoever. Street Fighter 4 scales fine even at SXGA (1280x1024) resolution, and displays more of the background than it does at any other setting (you can actually see Cody’y knife in every stage, even when both characters are jumping).
The way the XBOX scaler works, it can interpolate the render window to any resolution that it can create a raster output at.
Anyway, that’s beside the point. We’re trying to compile a list of games with proper 4:3 support. It’s obvious that some work at SD resolutions but not higher resolutions, while others support both.
There is actually a workaround to get the squished, letterboxed games like 3rd strike and Virtua Fighter 2 to display in fullscreen at high 4:3 resolutions, but it’s kind of a pain in the ass. If you set the aspect ratio to 16:9, they’ll stretch to take up the whole screen, but obviously every other game will look distorted, so you have to switch aspect ratios all the time.
Okay that comes back to a point I was trying to make in my last edit but I’m not gonna continue with it. But you’re right this is a compilation list not a discussion.