Question about SNES classic

[AAA177]

I was playing the SNES classic last night and have a question about pixelation. I am not familiar with SNES that much -- I had the NES, but not the SNES -- and have only been exposed to a few games.

 

I was playing Donkey Kong Country and noticed the intro -- with the old, bearded Kong member -- seemed very pixelated to me (to ensure I am using the right term, I mean I could see actual square blocks making up the character, thus making him, for lack of a better term, blurry, inchoate). I also noticed the graphics for the gameplay itself just didn't seem that great for a title that was praised for its look.

 

I noticed some pixelation on the Super Ghouls and Ghosts title as well during the intro, and on Super Metroid. I checked some video of the titles, and I think I'm okay, but it is still hard to tell. I am asking this because I want to make sure neither my television nor the SNES unit is malfunctioning.

 

Thanks...

[MrBeefy]

I was playing the SNES classic last night and have a question about pixelation. I am not familiar with SNES that much -- I had the NES, but not the SNES -- and have only been exposed to a few games.

 

I was playing Donkey Kong Country and noticed the intro -- with the old, bearded Kong member -- seemed very pixelated to me (to ensure I am using the right term, I mean I could see actual square blocks making up the character, thus making him, for lack of a better term, blurry, inchoate). I also noticed the graphics for the gameplay itself just didn't seem that great for a title that was praised for its look.

 

I noticed some pixelation on the Super Ghouls and Ghosts title as well during the intro, and on Super Metroid. I checked some video of the titles, and I think I'm okay, but it is still hard to tell. I am asking this because I want to make sure neither my television nor the SNES unit is malfunctioning.

 

Thanks...

Could you take a picture? I might try and fire it up on my original snes on my big flatscreen and compare. What ive noticed is that any original 3d games like from n64 or psx do not hold up well on flatscreens and fake 3d might be same way

[Osgeld]

Yea tv's from the era hide a lot of sins dk country no and games made of 3d rendered sprites tend to be grainy

[AAA177]

Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately I cannot take a photo (don't have any digital cameras or cellphones that have that capability, or hookups for that; I'm a bit of a Luddite in terms of tech). If somehow I am able to with the help of a friend, I will do so.

[Tanooki]

Like Osgeld said, DKC and others using that tech Nintendo went with suffer it badly. DKC1 2 and 3, also Killer Instinct and a few others not even by Nintendo used ACM (Advanced Computer Modeling?) graphics or a similar technique to make a more colorful, smoother, softer, animated character and/or backgrounds. Part of that relied on the vaseline blur style of a low res CRT TV to give it that nice sheen. When thrown up against a sharp LCD of any decent quality or better it comes off blocky, squarey, just not as smooth. The animation fluidity will stand but the visuals lose the intended effect to a degree. Some correction could be applied on the TV depending how each unit processes the video feed and any clean up the set does on its own depending how it handles Game Mode or other factors.

 

Basically it looks correct, and it's just you not liking it, because it's how it was made and was made for another time. It's kind of like how first generation 3D systems tend to look overly chunky, blocky, jaggy, muddy, lighting is broken or off, and other odd funk because they relied on CRT capabilities to do some of the work to look better and that's now gone on non-CRT panels.

[Osgeld]

yea btw in my post I just now noticed my phone changed KI to no, I hate phones, but yea there was a number of games on all the systems of the era doing that including 2d 32 bit titles

 

model it render it, then squash it and dither it all in a computer, looks fine on a 1986 zenith, not so much on a HDTV, traditionally hand drawn sprites suffer it a little bit but the processing methods of the "simpler" artwork hold up much better than a 3d model crunched with batch files

Edited November 2, 2017 by Osgeld

[Flojomojo]

DKC was from the "who needs a new system" era of Nintendo marketing. I distinctly remember this defensive-sounding tag line, but can't find an example. Anyone have one?

 

As everyone else said, they used 3D rendered sprites, so the characters would LOOK more like Toy Story (the visual benchmark at the time). Unfortunately this style of graphic doesn't blow up well. What was OK on a blurry CRT looks like butt on a big HD display.

 

It did look good for the time.

 

 

"the first fully rendered game EVER"

"NOT on SEGA"

"NOT on 32X adaptors"

"NOT on CD-ROM"