Shot97 wrote:This is called the 5/6 method. I want to talk about it just in case one of these people has something negative to say here. In this method you take your 320x200 1:1 distorted crap picture and you use your paint program of choice to enlarge the width of the pic by 5 and the height by 6. This makes it a 1600x1200 picture which is 4:3 - Due to that being incredibly large you can then take the picture and resize it to 640x480 or your 4:3 choice.
Shot97 wrote:The guy I based that post on is still wrong, but so was I. Meanwhile, Phil had it right! Turns out enlarging a 320x200 picture to 1600x1200 matches just about perfectly with my CRT picture from what I can see. However, Phil is also right when he says resizing that picture into a lower resolution does not make sense.
Hi, I'm "the guy" who wrote
the Gamasutra article where apparently you first saw the "5x6 method".
I'd just like to point out that you misread what I wrote.
The "5x6" 1600x1200 rescalled image is the most accurate we can get coming from 320x200 screenshots - I think we all agree on this now.
The "then resize it to 640x480" part is a whole separate issue. A 1600x1200 image is unpractical for most people, so some compromise must be made IF you need a smaller image. As I wrote in the article:
If you're working with print or video in mind, the increased resolution will be a nice bonus. However, most of the time you'll just want it for a website or monocled forum post ranting about the golden days, and 1600x1200 images aren't exactly web friendly...
Sadly, there's no perfect solution here; every way you approach this will result in some distortion.
When compromising this way, the best approach I found was suggested by a comment in the article: "Try nearest up to 640x1200 and then bilinear down to 640x480 for an even sharper image." This way the image remains perfectly sharp horizontally, with only a slight vertical blur:
Photographing a monitor might be the 100% historically accurate solution, but it's unrealistic to expect that when most people are still posting screenshots in the wrong aspect ratio or in blurry low-res .JPG. Plus, there would still be variations due to monitor brand & quality, user configurations, NTSC vs. PAL, etc.
Furthermore, one has to consider the purpose of the person using the images. Yes, the CRT picture will be historically accurate, but 99.99% of people playing a DOS game today will do it via DOSbox in a LCD monitor. So for someone saying "Hey kid, go play Monkey Island", I'd say the 1600x1200 screenshot (or even the compromised 640x480 one) is more relevant than a CRT photo.