I’m trying to decide on a resolution and graphic style for my game. It’s a side-view 2d terrain-based game. The options are either to go with 1920x1080 res or half that - 960x540. So the pixels would be 1x1 or 2x2.
With the 1x1 pixel size, because the graphics are more detailed it calls for:
a) all sprites etc have to be twice the resolution - 4 times the pixels, more time to create tec
b) various cpu-driven functionalities in the game could take 4x times as long to process
c) framerate goes from ~800fps down to ~200fps on a fast machine, maybe 120fps to 60fps on slower.
d) The 1x1 size, stylistically, seems to call for more realistic looking graphics style
e) May not be suitable for slower computers and could narrow the audience
f) individual pixels are quite tiny unless you have a big screen
With a 2x2 pixel size:
a) sprites are quarter the number of pixels and have more of a retro-ish pixellated look
b) terrain etc looks much more jagged and blocky which gives it a pixellated style but not sure if this is good or bad
c) everything runs much faster with much better support for slower computers
d) individual pixels are easier to see
e) the graphics style looks like it should lean toward more approximated/deliberately pixellated rather than realistic
f) may not push faster computer hardware to use its resources fully
I’m undecided which is better. Early comparison screenshots below. I may do away with the texturing if I go with 2x2, it seems more ‘realistic’ looking and suited better to 1x1. Which do you prefer? I’m sort of leaning toward 1x1 when I think I like quality, but leaning toward 2x2 when I think how much time is this going to take to create all these graphics. I think overall if I go with 2x2 then it kind of requires the style to be more deliberately pixellated/retro/limited palette looking, versus 1x1 being more colorful/detailed/realistic.
On my cell phone the only difference I see is on the outside edge of the 2x2 shape where green meets black and even then it is difficult to see and could easily be antialiased with a dark green around the edge.
I’d go with the 2x2 because it means the graphics assets are taking up 1/4 the space and about 4 times more speed is available for whatever you want to do. And difference in the final display is likely to be minimal. You can create the graphics faster. Maybe the better question is why use the 1x1? What benefits does it bring other than being slightly smoother on the edges?
That’s a good point. On my phone I can hardly see a difference. However I’m not sure this game would be playable on a phone, probably better suited to iPad and desktop.
I am on my laptop now. 17" display. Click on the photo to zoom it up to full size. Honestly, it looks so close to the other I would just use it. The only different is a bit of jaggies on the edges primarily where the brighter colors (green and yellow) meet the black background. Certainly it is nothing to be concerned about in my opinion. And if you want to just smooth it out with a dark green and dark yellow intermediate colors.
Thanks for the feedback. I’m inclined to agree. I think also to run fast enough on an ipad it would almost definitely need to be the 2x2 version… I’m uploading texture data every frame.
I’m on my iPad, the difference is noticeable where there is a big difference in the colours (green to black), on the rest it is only noticeable if you go looking for it. That said tho, it isn’t incredibly jarring unless you are going for a realistic look, minimising the instance if those big colour changes without blending will reduce it.
How about this comparison… this is untextured… if I were to do the 2x2 i might not have such heavy texturing, and a limited color palette… seems a lot more noticeable. But i’m not really asking if the resolution is noticeable, I want to know if it fits with an appropriate graphical artistic style. Does the 2x2 look cool, trendy, retro? Does the 1x1 suggest realism? etc There’s something about the 2x2 which looks a lot crisper/rugged, whereas the 1x1 is a lot smoother.
I’m kind of forming the impression that the 1x1 is too high a resolution… for manipulating individual pixels… that you wouldn’t really notice the extra detail because it’s too small.
The first looks very cartoony & the 2nd looks more gamey to me if that is what you are after? For me retro is even more pixelated tho (being a child of the 70’s)
In this image it looks a lot better at higher resolution. The bottom image just looks like a lower quality picture. It really depends on the style of your game whether you should use high or low resolution. E.g. If you want a pixelated map, your edges shouldn’t have so much curve, they should be intentionally flatter.
If you are going for a retro look drop down to 4x4 and don’t obsess over blockiness. Blockiness is a big part of the retro aesthetic. It depends on what you mean by retro. True retro is low resolution and a limited number of colors on screen at one time chosen from an often relatively low number of total available colors. A Genesis gives you a total palette of 512 colors with about 64 on screen at one time. An NES gives you a total palette of 52 colors with around 18 on screen at one time (on average). For a modern retro look you could use an NES or Genesis resolution combined with the full palette available at all times. The res and colors give you the retro look while having access to the full palette modernizes it. Of course N64, PS1 and even many PS2 games would fit “retro” too.
Then the question is, whether to go textured or not. 2x2 untextured seems more retro but it really shows up the jaggies. I’m starting to lean toward the 2x2 textured - the texturing really hides the resolution well. I think the untextured maybe looks better in the 1x1 smoothness.
But besides which looks better, I’m trying to decide on an art style. I guess the toss-up is between a retro-ish chunk pixel reduced palette look, or a more colorful textured look.
It’s also a bit of a tossup with resolution… trying to support the same res and look good on ipad versus a 27" desktop. ipad won’t benefit much from jumping to 2048x1536, but then on a 27" desktop the 2x2 becomes quite a bit more noticeable. I guess I shoot for something kind of in-between looking right, like on a 19-21" monitor?
Also for speed reasons I think the ipad can’t handle the 1x1 at a good enough speed, given what I plan to do… which pretty much decided on the 2x2 res. Probably will go with the textured 2x2 but with a more limited palette - the palette will be 256 colors and with some restriction on color accuracy. Also thinking to bump it up to 4x4 on ipad so the details aren’t too small, or maybe add a zoom?
