Simple question about screen resolution, on hardware

Ask anything your want about Megadrive/Genesis programming.

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HCKTROX
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Simple question about screen resolution, on hardware

Post by HCKTROX » Mon Feb 16, 2015 11:20 pm

EDIT: Seems like a new forum has been introduced, and I should have posted this thread there. I'm sorry! *facepalm*

As for NTSC hardware, as far as I know, adapter renders four border to screen's four edges, while the "graphical" part is stored at the center...

now my question is, are those borders "thick" enough to keep everything on CRT screen's "Action-safe" area? or there's still some stuff in the edges that gets hidden, out of frame?
If so... how many pixels, approximately?

Thank you!
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twosixonetwo
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Post by twosixonetwo » Tue Feb 17, 2015 4:38 pm

I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly, but maybe this thread answers your question?
IIRC the action safe area is slightly smaller than the actually rendered image, so if the TV you are using is only showing the action safe image, it will crop the borders completely but this depends on the TVs settings.

HCKTROX
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Post by HCKTROX » Tue Feb 17, 2015 4:50 pm

Sure. My question is, how much of the image is cropped in such case?

I wanna be sure if I can draw the HUD for my game and put it at the very bottom of the screen with no problems... :P
(as stupid as this question sounds XD)
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twosixonetwo
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Post by twosixonetwo » Tue Feb 17, 2015 7:32 pm

I'm not sure if there even is an official guideline for that. Wikipedia says The
NTSC and PAL analog television standards do not specify official overscan amounts, and producers of television programming use their own guidelines.
while the emulator Exodus shows about 4 pixels of the left bottom and right and 1 pixel of the top area of the rendered image as out of the action safe area. I guess not putting essential information in the outer 8pixels should make it safe for the vast majority of TVs.

HCKTROX
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Post by HCKTROX » Tue Feb 17, 2015 7:43 pm

Thanks a lot! =D
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