Pixel Doubling to Run GZDoom at '320x240'?

[Average]

I know that GZDoom only goes as low as 640 as that is all modern GPUs support. I wonder if it would be possible to have some sort of pixel doubling option so that the engine could run at 320 on-screen? It's bit of a shame to have such a lovely engine that can't display the games original resolution.

[Graf Zahl]

No. I see no point investing any work there.

[edward850]

Besides, 320x240 does work on modern GPUs.


It also looks like garbage on any LCD. Always use your native LCD resolution, folks.

[NeuralStunner]

It's funny, the horrid technically-limited resolution is the thing I miss least about the old Doom engine. (If it wouldn't have run like a sedated tortoise, they would've been using 640x480 at the least.)

Also, if you really want the "original feel", you should be using the software renderer, [wiki=Command_line_parameters#Configuration_options]which does support pixel doubling[/wiki].

[Blzut3]

There might be reasonable nostalgia for running the software renderer in 320x200 (there's a pixel doubling option for the Direct3D backend), but seriously what's the point of running an OpenGL renderer at that resolution? It won't look like vanilla any way.

any LCD.

Unless you have a good 1600x1200 or 1920x1200. My 1600x1200 displays do 320x200 (or even 320x240 and 640x400) perfectly.

[Chris]

Unless you have a good 1600x1200 or 1920x1200. My 1600x1200 displays do 320x200 (or even 320x240 and 640x400) perfectly.

LCDs tend to blur and distort the image when using a non-native res. Since LCDs basically have a fixed physical resolution, running at a non-native resolution causes the LCD to upscale the incoming signal to fit. And even if you can set the monitor to use nearest filtering to keep sharp pixel edges, unless your monitor's native res is an exact multiple of your input res (e.g. 800x600 on a 1600x1200 monitor) or you apply letter boxing or pillar boxing, some pixels will be more represented than others (though granted, this is less noticeable if the set width/height is less than half the native width/height). A CRT could physically alter how fast scanlines are produced to retain "crisp" pixels at different resolutions, an LCD can't.

[Blzut3]

And you'll notice that 320x200 and 320x240 are perfect multiples of 1600x1200 (5:6 aspect correction). A good 1920x1200 would pillar box. (I miscalculated 640x400 in my head, but whatever.) The monitor I have does nearest scaling unless the resolution is not a multiple automatically. My point was edward850's statement is short sighted as there are many LCDs which do 320x200 properly and thus would not look like garbage (bathroom tile sized pixels aside).

[Caligari87]

In theory, how hard would it be to implement a scaling factor that allows the user to render at any "resolution" while still at their native resolution? Like how Chocolate Doom does it? Granted, it's a niche request at best, but sometimes it's fun to go "old school" but still be able to use modern mods that Chocolate doesn't support. I've been trying to tune a "GZDoom Classic" config that works like the orginal Doom, but still allowing me to do silly things like load up Brutal Doom or Droplets or TUTnT for kicks and giggles to see how it might have looked in 1993. Screen resolution is the last hurdle to making that "work".

[Graf Zahl]

You need to render to an offscreen framebuffer and then blit it to the screen. It's certainly doable but I really fail to see the point to invest work here.

[Nash]

I've seen modern games with "oldsk00l grafic's" shaders so yeah it's definitely do-able if someone cared enough to do it. Will GZDoom's planned user shader allow manipulating the screen?

[Graf Zahl]

Shaders are not the right place for this. And no, user shaders for manipulating the screen are not planned.

[300a]

The monitor I have does nearest scaling unless the resolution is not a multiple automatically.

Apologies for the irrelevant hijack, but Blzut3 I'm interested to know what monitor this is that you have. I'm looking for a 1920x1200 monitor which scales low res properly as you've described. Finding info on those that do so is very difficult. I'd greatly appreciate you sharing your make/model.

Cheers!