Vic 20 emulator screen captures

Post by **Jeff-20** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 6:11 pm

Every screenshot from VIC emulation seems very horizontal-elongated. The screen images in the back of the Digital Press Guide would have the next generation of gamers thinking that the vic was a wide screen letter box computer!

Why is the image distorted (stretched)? And how would one manipulate the image in, say photoshop, to make it more authentic to a real vic screen?

Schema · Post by **Schema** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:01 pm

I've noticed this too. In fact, it's extra annoying with the 80-column PET emulators as the "screen" is 2.5 times wider than the height, whereas on the real thing the screen is square.

It's not too hard to fix in screenshots though. i.e. with the freebie Irfanview (see link below):

0. Load the screenshot
1. Go to Image->Resize/Resample
2. Uncheck "Preserve Aspect Ratio"
3. Change the Width&Height to match as a rough start, the values may need some tweaking to get it to look "right".

http://www.irfanview.com/

Post by **Jeff-20** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 1:23 am

I can also resize in photoshop. I guess I'll just play around to approximate the correct proportions. I had hoped there would be some clear reason so I could resize it with the use of a clear formula (for example, there might be a 25% vertical compression)

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 2:33 am

On my PAL TV set, the pixels are roughly 1.6 to 1.7 times wider than they are tall; the ratio 5:3 was the best approximation I could find in small numbers. Currently in VICE all pixels are doubled horizontally. At the moment you could try with a reduction factor of 83% horizontally, leaving the vertical size as is.

I took the opportunity to write the VICE team an e-mail with a suggestion how to enhance the VIC display.

Greetings,

Michael

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 5:21 am

I believe from a programming point of view, representing pixels as 2:1 is easier than 1.7:1 or something. The latter would involve a lot of shading and probably a 24-bit colour display to look anything good, and still the screenshot from the emulator would not be authentic.

Also, the ratio you get from your VIC depends a lot how to tune your monitor or TV. As discussed before, in the thread about Boray's Plus/4, one could get very interesting results by changing the display height and width if the monitor supports it. I'm sure at some point, one can get a ratio that is beyond 2:1 when using it with VIC-20, or on the other hand, it might be possible to get 1.3:1 or even less as well.

Post by **Jeff-20** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 3:58 pm

Carlsson, did you get my PM? I have a fun project in mind; that's why I am trying to figure out how to better capture vic screens.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 6:15 am

Yep. A few of the pics are already online, the other are on my hard drive.