gc-forever - Gamecube/Wii Forums

I've been scratching my head over a way to hopefully have a Widescreen option for the Resident Evil games (CV not included since that one does have proper 3D models for environments too), and thought about this:

Seeing how Capcom attacked the 4:3 to 16:9 issue for the Resident Evil Remake-Remastered version, it made me think of perhaps a possible solution for the old school RE games (Zero, Remake, 2 and 3) for proper 16:9 support.
Perhaps we could stretch the 4:3 image to a 16:12 image to keep the ratio as the original (4:3 x 4 = 16:12).

That's one option.

I don't know if the TV will simply not take the other 3 height units into consideration or not, if the TV DOES NOT take them into consideration, then we might have a proper 16:9 image of the game by keeping the backgrounds like they are as well as the 3D models intact and without any misplacement.

Although, at the cost of 1.5 height units at the bottom and upper parts of the whole 4:3 image, but I don't think that would be bothersome at all. If the TV does take the whole image into consideration, then another optiono could be to remove 1.5 from the top and bottom parts of the video output leaving it as a 16:9.

I am just talking about purely theoretical stuff, I don't even know if it could be implemented or not as a cheat code or any other way to do it.

Something like this:

4:3


16:9 (Top and bottom portions of the original 4:3 image cropped)


And just for better reference, the menu would look like this:

Spoiler

Show

Could something like that be possible with Cheat codes?

Your "16:9" images need more vertical cropping, they're only 16:10.

tueidj wrote:Your "16:9" images need more vertical cropping, they're only 16:10.

Whooopss...
I think I forgot to crop them a little bit more.

We'll at least they give the idea of how the game would look like with the 16:9 cropped image.

GC native is 640*528, the closet 16:9 resolution is 640*360 lower than NTSC 4:3 640x480p, PAL 4:3 576p being 540*576, PAL 16:9 is 720*576 and NTSC is 720*480.

The only way to gain 16:9 with correct aspect ratio on a gc is to run it letterboxed fake 16:9 like re4 aka
16:6, PAL 720x384 or NTSC 720x320, I doubt it even does 720 horizontal resolution and just stretches
PAL 540x384 or NTSC 640x320.

q8v08 wrote:GC native is 640*528, the closet 16:9 resolution is 640*360 lower than NTSC 4:3 640x480p, PAL 4:3 576p being 540*576, PAL 16:9 is 720*576 and NTSC is 720*480.

The only way to gain 16:9 with correct aspect ratio on a gc is to run it letterboxed fake 16:9 like re4 aka
16:6, PAL 720x384 or NTSC 720x320, I doubt it even does 720 horizontal resolution and just stretches
PAL 540x384 or NTSC 640x320.

Would 16:6 be something like this pic from RE4?


That one is 640x480.
So you mean trying to squezee the image first at 16:6 inside a 640x480p then stretching it to fit 16:9?
I got a little confused there.

I don't know why he's mentioning RE4 when it's a 16:9 game to begin with. Nor why specific numbers are being thrown around when there's no standard resolution used by GC games.

There's basically three ways to make 4:3 games appear with the correct aspect ratio on a 16:9 display:
- Increase the horizontal field of view (what most widescreen patches do)
- Enlarge the image vertically and crop the top+bottom (your proposal)
- Reduce the image horizontally and add pillarboxing (what the wiiu does for most VC titles)
The only method guaranteed to work without issues and/or losing details is the last, and it's only possible due to special hardware support.

tueidj wrote:There's basically three ways to make 4:3 games appear with the correct aspect ratio on a 16:9 display:
- Increase the horizontal field of view (what most widescreen patches do)
- Enlarge the image vertically and crop the top+bottom (your proposal)
- Reduce the image horizontally and add pillarboxing (what the wiiu does for most VC titles)
The only method guaranteed to work without issues and/or losing details is the last, and it's only possible due to special hardware support.

#1 would not be a suitable option for the RE games, since doing that simply enlarges the Background images, giving an odd offset between the character models/items and the background.

#3 my guess is that it would be something like this?
https://mupen64plus.googlecode.com/issu ... 3&inline=1

Would #3 have black bars on the side? I kind of get that idea from "pillarboxing".

And my question for my proposal would be if there is a certain way of accomplishing that by using some sort of cheat code (AR/WiiRD), or would that have to be coded into the interpreter/emulator?

It makes no sense to me to create such 16:9 aspect ratio codes for RE0-RE3, because almost all widescreen TVs (incl. older CRTs) offer some kind of zoom mode, which gives the same effect as a 16:9 crop & zoom code.

Anyway, here is a "real" 16:9 aspect ratio code for the PAL version of Resident Evil Code Veronica X:

Ralf@gc-forever wrote:It makes no sense to me to create such 16:9 aspect ratio codes for RE0-RE3, because almost all widescreen TVs (incl. older CRTs) offer some kind of zoom mode, which gives the same effect as a 16:9 crop & zoom code.

Anyway, here is a "real" 16:9 aspect ratio code for the PAL version of Resident Evil Code Veronica X:

Code: Select all

16:9 Aspect Ratio (Widescreen) [Ralf]
RB4V-J4A5-4DBH3
768Y-21WU-2K33R

16:9 Aspect Ratio (Widescreen) [Ralf]
0448C730 3F666667

Oh damn I completely forgot about the TV Zoom feature.
I'll try it out.

Code Veronica shouldn't have any issues with Widescreen since that one has real 3D background, instead of pre-rendered backgrounds like its predecesors.
Thanks for the code.

ShadowOne333 wrote:

q8v08 wrote:GC native is 640*528, the closet 16:9 resolution is 640*360 lower than NTSC 4:3 640x480p, PAL 4:3 576p being 540*576, PAL 16:9 is 720*576 and NTSC is 720*480.

The only way to gain 16:9 with correct aspect ratio on a gc is to run it letterboxed fake 16:9 like re4 aka
16:6, PAL 720x384 or NTSC 720x320, I doubt it even does 720 horizontal resolution and just stretches
PAL 540x384 or NTSC 640x320.

Would 16:6 be something like this pic from RE4?


That one is 640x480.
So you mean trying to squezee the image first at 16:6 inside a 640x480p then stretching it to fit 16:9?
I got a little confused there.

Yes cropping out the useless black bars to make fill the fullscreen.
So RE4 is 4:3 640x480p same as RE3 on the Dreamcast, PC, Gamecube.
RE2 / RE1 are 320x240p, RE3 being the same on the ps1.
RE2 on the N64 has shitty upscaled 640x640 backgrounds which look worse than the ps1s
320x240.

Yup RE4 on the Gamecube is strange. It has black bars in a 4:3 space. No support for either full screen 4:3, or anamorphic 16:9.

Ralf@gc-forever wrote:It makes no sense to me to create such 16:9 aspect ratio codes for RE0-RE3, because almost all widescreen TVs (incl. older CRTs) offer some kind of zoom mode, which gives the same effect as a 16:9 crop & zoom code.

I have never seen a TV with an "unletterbox" option (zoom and crop vertically only), which is what the OP wants.

So I finally tried loading up RE2 with the 4:3 resolution in a widescreen TV, then zoomed the image.
Basically I had two options which zoomed the image quite ok:
1) Zoom (duh)
2) Cinema

Both had apparently similar results (I couldn't notice any big difference).
Although, the image was WAY more cropped vertically than I thought.

Just to give a reference, I wasn't able to see the "File-Map" part of the Menu, nor the "Yes-No" option when you grab an item.

Edit: Could someone that uses Swiss post a pic of these games being played with the Widescreen patch?

It still had the wrong aspect ratio though, didn't it? Zooming in both horizontally and vertically will not fix the distortion, it just makes everything bigger and you lose part of the picture.

tueidj wrote:It still had the wrong aspect ratio though, didn't it? Zooming in both horizontally and vertically will not fix the distortion, it just makes everything bigger and you lose part of the picture.

Yeah it still had an odd zooming.
Horizontally it wasn't that much, though.

I only wish I could set up the zoom in my TV by x1, x2, etc.
It only zooms at a predetermined ratio, cannot change it.

Here's some info about the different types of 4:3 zoom modes:

http://web.comhem.se/zacabeb/whims/tvtech/widescreen/

RetroArch for Android lets you set the zoom scaler, maybe it can be brought to GC/Wii version
if it isn't already.

q8v08 wrote:RetroArch for Android lets you set the zoom scaler, maybe it can be brought to GC/Wii version
if it isn't already.

your only joking right??

About what?
mednafen_psx_libretro_wii.dol
irc core options allows you to set the rendered native resolution, then under settings you can set a multiplier to scale it, so for the Wii you'd set it as 640x480 and then set the custom ratio to H1.1, V1.2 which would give you 704x576 just shy of 16:9 720x576 and better than 4:3 540x576.

Makes more sense to me, to attempt a similar hack within the game's engine. Than try to port over a feature from an emulator.