Question about Magic Engine and aspect changes

[LucasBarton]

Ok, I asked this over at the Magic Engine forums and it's dead over there, no activity whatsoever, so I thought I'd ask it here. As I've mentioned before, I use a widescreen TV but try to keep my games at the original aspect. I've played a ton of games using Magic Engine, standard TG16, Supergrafx, and CD, and they all work great. However, there are a some games, Dai Makamura/Ghouls N Ghosts and Forgotten Worlds in particular, that will not keep original aspect ratio. It has nothing to do with being a Supergrafx game or CD game because other Supergrafx and CD games keep aspect ratio. So, my question is, why do these games do this? Perhaps a special resolution setting is used in these games that Magic Engine automatically stretches or something? I have no idea what it is.

[Brian Hoffman]

Ok, I asked this over at the Magic Engine forums and it's dead over there, no activity whatsoever, so I thought I'd ask it here. As I've mentioned before, I use a widescreen TV but try to keep my games at the original aspect. I've played a ton of games using Magic Engine, standard TG16, Supergrafx, and CD, and they all work great. However, there are a some games, Dai Makamura/Ghouls N Ghosts and Forgotten Worlds in particular, that will not keep original aspect ratio. It has nothing to do with being a Supergrafx game or CD game because other Supergrafx and CD games keep aspect ratio. So, my question is, why do these games do this? Perhaps a special resolution setting is used in these games that Magic Engine automatically stretches or something? I have no idea what it is.

Hmm, may be a bit of a stretch but.... In mame there is a default.cfg and when you run each game it creates a gamename.cfg, individual configs will override default configs. Sooooo..... Perhaps there is a config these two games are using that override the default.

[LucasBarton]

Hmm, may be a bit of a stretch but.... In mame there is a default.cfg and when you run each game it creates a gamename.cfg, individual configs will override default configs. Sooooo..... Perhaps there is a config these two games are using that override the default.

Good idea, but Magic Engine doesn't create individual cfg files for each game. It's weird because I can play Aldynes, 1941, Battle Ace, Madou Gran Zort, all of which are SGX games, and they keep the aspect ratio. Then I play Dai Makamura/Ghouls N Ghosts and it stretches it. Then I go back to Aldynes and it keeps the normal aspect ratio. Same with Forgotten Worlds. I can play Dracula X, Sapphire, Gate of Thunder, and all keep the aspect ratio. Play Forgotten Worlds and it's stretched. Go back to Dracula X and it's back to normal aspect ratio. Must be an emulation bug or something.

[se_lees]

Usually emulators allow per-game resolution and aspect values, though this one apparently doesn't. I can't imagine what, but perhaps something in the signal for these games is causing the TV to upscale the image?

[LucasBarton]

I just got done playing through Gate of Thunder and the game kept the normal aspect ratio until the end credits, which were stretched to fill the whole screen. After the credits were over and the title screen reappeared, it was back to normal. So, apparently it's just an emulation bug. There must be something in the way some PC Engine titles are programmed that ME doesn't handle right. So, I think I've found the answer to my question.