Dealing with Aspect Ratios
Hey Folks,
I'm busy working through some stuff with zX making sure that we always have nice pixel perfect interpolations no matter what the monitor.
One of my issues is that I can't seem to find a decent resource that lists common resolutions and aspect ratio.
Like know 16:9, 16:10, 4:3, and 5:4 but it's quite possible that there are other resolutions for PC gaming that I'm not aware of.
So any resources on monitors, resolutions and aspect ratios that you would recommend?
I'm busy working through some stuff with zX making sure that we always have nice pixel perfect interpolations no matter what the monitor.
One of my issues is that I can't seem to find a decent resource that lists common resolutions and aspect ratio.
Like know 16:9, 16:10, 4:3, and 5:4 but it's quite possible that there are other resolutions for PC gaming that I'm not aware of.
So any resources on monitors, resolutions and aspect ratios that you would recommend?
Comments
Based on the results on that page, 33.4% of Steam gamers use 1920x1080, and 26.2% use 1366x768. Both are 16:9, so just optimizing for that will get you just under 60% of the desktop market (all platforms).
Since I'm specifically looking for information on aspect ratios the steam hardware survey isn't really that useful unless I'm using it as data to compile information, which again is a bit of a problem since there are some really REALLY REALLY weird resolutions which I have no way of testing. So there is still a need to filter and work through the results to actually have clear information.
@farsicon that if you can, is kinda a big point. I'm working on a number of options that will be in the game to deal with this, but I'd really like most people to be able to play the game fullscreen, without black bars, and have pixel perfect interpolation.
http://imgur.com/FJPXX88
The list goes up to 236. The point is you're never going to win by trying to cater for every aspect ratio ever. If you need pixel perfect scaling, find the best fit. Get rid of black bars for most users. And then if anybody has anything truly weird they get black bars based on the nearest fit. As a dev black bars are annoying, but as a player if you get absorbed in the game you'll never notice beyond the first minute.
So seems like I'll be catering for 16:10, 16:9, 5:4, 4:3 aspect ratios and 1366x768 resolution (which lacks an actual aspect ratio :$)
An aspect ratio is just a ratio of the width-to-height of a display resolution. 1x1 has an aspect ratio of 1:1. 640x480 has an aspect ratio of 640:480, but you can divide that down to the lowest decimals, getting you 4:3. The 16:9 aspect ratio has 17 common resolutions, of which 1366x768 is one.
The 2 major resolutions that comprise that 16:9 block are 1920x1080 (at 33.4% of the entire set) and 1366x768 (at 26.18% of the entire set). For purposes of that chart, I considered 1366x768 as a 16:9 resolution, but it turns out it's not a perfect 16:9. The closest resolution to that, which is a perfect 16:9, turns out to be 1360x765 - a difference of -6,-3 pixels. Despite that discrepancy, 1366x768 is still apparently considered, "very nearly", for all practical purposes, 16:9. I'm guessing there's some sort of manufacturing reason for that.
tl;dr The Steam HW survey results give you the same list of aspect ratios to cater for as the data @TheFuntastic posted. Since two disparate sets resulted in the same conclusions, this is probably gonna be the most definitive answer you get.
Really wouldn't have predicted 4:3 have such a small part of it o_o