Any game of that era is rendered at 320x400 and displayed at 4:3, not 16:10. There were no widescreen games in 1995!
Elite / Frontier Frontier: First Encounters - or: how I learned to stop worrying and shove the Mouse
- Thread starter Arioch
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Any game of that era is rendered at 320x400 and displayed at 4:3, not 16:10. There were no widescreen games in 1995!
Some games back then did indeed render at 320x400, but most VGA games were 320x200x256 colours.
I suppose I could try pinging David Braben to see what he says, but I doubt we’d get an answer
Perhaps @AndyJ could chime in next time he’s on the forum? He knows the guts of the game like few others, and I’m always up for learning something new about the Frontier Elite games 
Interesting to see the screenshots on the back of the game box, although they are clipped a little bit:
I’ve taken a screenshot of similar screen to the lower right, and cropped it to display the same bits. When comparing the ratio of the two:
Almost an exact match, I’d say
All rendered at 320x400, because VGA CRTs couldn't sync anything else. However only a few used all 400 lines individually, most were just doubling 200 lines, especially multi-platform ports. Regardless at the end the 0,8 render got squeezed back to 1,33.
Well the 3D engine clearly compensates, as ships and orbs look correct at 1,33. Line art (cross-hairs, fonts etc.) on the other hand has no option than just use one pixel horizontally and two vertically (at 200 lines doubled to 400).I suppose I could try pinging David Braben to see what he says, but I doubt we’d get an answer
Interesting to see the screenshots on the back of the game box, although they are clipped a little bit:
View attachment 266067
I’ve taken a screenshot of similar screen to the lower right, and cropped it to display the same bits. When comparing the ratio of the two:
View attachment 266068View attachment 266069
Almost an exact match, I’d say
The box art screenshots weren't real screen shots (pointing a photo camera on a screen, they almost never were) they are memory dumps. For the lady it's extremely obvious, she looks much healthier on screen than on the screenshot (people weren't as widescreen in real life in 1995):
Interesting as well: The game title at the top of the back of the box appeared squeezed vertically to half inside the game.
Doing graphics programming myself during that era I don't remember 16:10 being a thing. This wasn't even on our radar, that widescreen games will become a thing on PC mid 2000s. When early LCDs with square pixels appeared, they got swiveled upright to get more code on screen (768x1024), or already came with almost square screen aspect ratio (1280x1024) already.
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Well thank you for an interesting reply, but if you think:
…then I’ll politely disagree. I’ll stick with the round planets on my Android, as opposed to the vertical ellipse style planets you’ve shown in the altered screenshot
They are not "altered" in any form, just rendered at the correct game aspect ratio. This is how it look like on a correctly set up 1995 CRT.…then I’ll politely disagree. I’ll stick with the round planets on my Android, as opposed to the vertical ellipse style planets you’ve shown in the altered screenshot
If you say so - I honestly can’t remember ellipse planets back then.
Here’s a direct screenshot (1920x1200) of Earth from my Android:
If you want to squish that to a 4:3 ratio and tell me that...
...then, well, like I said before - I'll politely disagree and stick with the round planets on my Android, and all the little skybox square stars that aren't rectangles, and the correctly proportioned laser/heading reticles etc. etc.
Hope you enjoy my further adventures on the way to Elite - I'm still getting the occasional run that springs up some interesting emergent gameplay, plus the odd thing I've never noticed before. Next report tomorrow
View attachment 266143
Going off at a slight tangent, this lady never appeared in-game; the video wasn't even included on the CD.
Perhaps her acting skills were not of the required standard
False advertising on the box?
Some games back then did indeed render at 320x400, but most VGA games were 320x200x256 colours.
I suppose I could try pinging David Braben to see what he says, but I doubt we’d get an answer
I’ve taken a screenshot of similar screen to the lower right, and cropped it to display the same bits. When comparing the ratio of the two:
View attachment 266068View attachment 266069
Almost an exact match, I’d say
FFE renders its screen at 320x200 (VGA) and also has memory reserved for a front + back buffer that it can switch between for rendering the upper area. In fact, the issue with the missing videos in GLFFE (and originally FFED3D) is because in FFE their pixels are copied directly to an area of the buffer just before it is displayed, and with the enhanced engines taking over drawing the backgrounds and objects themselves, the videos were left drawing to the buffers and so never seen.
Honestly not sure how the video card / CRT behaves when it displays the output, but the screen is 320 x 200 pixels.
I'm not sure I understand the comment about the 3D engine vs the line art. The images used in FFE are very low resolution and colour depth (an adaptive palette is used for the upper area IIRC)
Here's the cockpit image for example:
Other images are at a similar size - so they don't scale up very well.... (hence an AI upscale of them in my current build for a 'retro' graphics mode)
The 3D objects in-game are positioned in space very much like a modern 3D game. GLFFE / FFED3D use their original calculated positions and scaling to reproduce their own object meshes which results in an upscaled, more finely detailed object being drawn due to the higher resolution and increased colour depth.
I agree, wide-screen certainly wasn't a thing in the '90s, and 3D acceleration wasn't yet a thing when FFE was released either. The game was designed for 320x200 pixels displayed at the 4:3 ratio that TVs and monitors were back then. There is evidence however to suggest that SVGA modes were being looked at - perhaps the game's early release cost us that?
While FFED3D/GLFFE does allow for 'wide-screen' resolutions, this does result in distortion because the 'camera view' itself doesn't change...
That is - although the image has been made wider, the angle of the camera's Field of View remains the same - so things get stretched...
I'm not entirely sure what value it is in FFE, but in FFED3D the camera has a FoV of around 34 degrees. If we widen the display, then really we should also expand the FoV to compensate for this to keep things 'square' and to allow more of the scene to be .. seen. (Yes Steve, I have just had a quick experiment
)[edit] forgot to mention - there definitely are ellipsoidal gas giants and stars to look out for, even in FFE!
Regarding the box art shot vs the in game photo - tbh the photo looks pretty accurate colour-wise to me, although it's a bit bright compared to the cockpit image I've posted.
If you look at the box art - well, it's very muddy and brown - check out the text that should be white, and the cockpit that should be silver!
I'd also suggest it's either a mock-up or an in-development screenshot (the * character on the number pad generated these in FFE) as one telling discrepancy - there are no values beneath the video image showing available cargo/cabin capacity or the player's credit balance!
Hope this helps - safe travels, Commanders!
o7
AndyJ
[edit] It seems to have eaten the quoted screenshots, I don't know why - they are there in the BB code <shrug>
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That…that would be quite an unachievementPerhaps her acting skills were not of the required standard
———
@AndyJ - many thanks for the detailed reply, always interesting to ‘see behind the curtain’ of the game
I was wondering about the FFE intro planets - the gas giant looks chubby but the Earth-like moon seen just after the fly-by is circular, so I suppose it’s one of these:
I know David Braben is big into his astronomy, so I’m not surprised to see these are in the game - fast rotating gas giants. I know they’re in Elite Dangerous, but it’s fairly impressive that they are in the old games too.
———
My very slow trek to Elite continues - I hope I’ve just missed the most recent RoC in the comms message clutter because it seems an awfully long time since the last one
My most recent Anarchy trade run threw up some of the emergent gameplay that I really like about the Frontier games - a pair of encounters with pirate wings (and their missile swarms) left me with only my main Fore/Aft drives and the Left thruster. Autopilot and Manual Control are useless without the manoeuvring thrusters, so I had to do the remaining 2AU transit in Engines Off mode, using my Fore/Aft engines to keep my heading indicator at my target planet.
A few more combat encounters later, I made it to my target Station:
A reasonable docking, but I almost scraped a bit of paint off at the end
Passing through a nearby system recently, I spotted this interesting world:
Thatcher situated on Heath’s Grave? A little bit of 70’s Tory politics for you there! /BenElton
After looking at the box screenshots yesterday and Steve’s post above, I had a quick look at the thumbnails for all the CD-ROM videos and realised I haven’t seen loads of them. As much as I enjoy the chap who greets me with, “What did you come to this hell-hole for, you must be nuts, I’d go somewhere less filthy if I were you” - in the Independent systems I’m in, I think it’s time to move into Imperial space and see what acting treats I get there
What was I just saying?My very slow trek to Elite continues - I hope I’ve just missed the most recent RoC in the comms message clutter because it seems an awfully long time since the last one
The last RoC that I managed to screenshot was in May 3259 - over a year previous. Seeing as I was getting the required 256 kills roughly every six months then I think it means I've missed one of the notifications.
Nine-ish more to go!
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After jumping into Pollux today I was greeted by a serendipitous sight: ellipsoidal stars and gas giants, as mentioned earlier by @AndyJ -
...but I was slightly confused when I opened the System Map and a round star was shown:
A quick flick of the mouse and I was thinking, "now that's pretty cool, Mr Braben"
Source: https://youtu.be/P6ST7UZhkkI
...but I was slightly confused when I opened the System Map and a round star was shown:
A quick flick of the mouse and I was thinking, "now that's pretty cool, Mr Braben"
My circular trek from Alliance space down to the Empire has been on the fringes of human space - and I’ve encountered a couple of System types I’ve never seen before:
Has someone been working the BGS in my game or something?
There was also this:
…which didn’t block me from jumping to or fine me after arriving - but they did take a very dim view of me dumping my spent fuel containers by my WitchSpace exit tunnel. Immediate fine (those guys must have superb telescopes) and eventual interceptions by Police Vipers once I got close to my destination planet:
Thankfully after paying my initial c600 fine for shooting at them the cops didn’t mind me blasting every Viper they sent, and there were no issues with docking permission once I reached the Station. Cheers guys!
I’ve also had another wonderful bit of emergent gameplay - after one spicy encounter I was left without two very important thrusters:
No reverse thruster meant I’d have to do an Engines Off Rear View system transit using just the main drive (which isn’t too difficult - as always, the autopilot and Engines On are useless when thrusters are out of action), but the Bottom thruster (Matron!) was a problem; the only ports in the System were planetary and I didn’t have enough fuel to jump to a neighbouring System. Thankfully my target planet had very low gravity, so once I’d got into rough position above the dock I positioned the external camera directly above my ship and commenced manoeuvring that drew on my (slightly rusty) skills developed playing Asteroids and Thrust
Level with the horizon, I used short bursts and quick 180 spins to keep myself over the landing area while on descent. When I was within 100m of the deck, I quickly did a nose-up and brief burn which reduced my vertical speed, then nose-down to horizontal just before my wheels touched down. On the third attempt, that is
I’ve managed to loop around to The Old Worlds, completely misjudging the Empire’s direction, so I’ve stopped off for a bit of bounty hunting and picked up my next:
Eight-ish more to go!
Has someone been working the BGS in my game or something?
There was also this:
…which didn’t block me from jumping to or fine me after arriving - but they did take a very dim view of me dumping my spent fuel containers by my WitchSpace exit tunnel. Immediate fine (those guys must have superb telescopes) and eventual interceptions by Police Vipers once I got close to my destination planet:
Thankfully after paying my initial c600 fine for shooting at them the cops didn’t mind me blasting every Viper they sent, and there were no issues with docking permission once I reached the Station. Cheers guys!
I’ve also had another wonderful bit of emergent gameplay - after one spicy encounter I was left without two very important thrusters:
No reverse thruster meant I’d have to do an Engines Off Rear View system transit using just the main drive (which isn’t too difficult - as always, the autopilot and Engines On are useless when thrusters are out of action), but the Bottom thruster (Matron!) was a problem; the only ports in the System were planetary and I didn’t have enough fuel to jump to a neighbouring System. Thankfully my target planet had very low gravity, so once I’d got into rough position above the dock I positioned the external camera directly above my ship and commenced manoeuvring that drew on my (slightly rusty) skills developed playing Asteroids and Thrust
Level with the horizon, I used short bursts and quick 180 spins to keep myself over the landing area while on descent. When I was within 100m of the deck, I quickly did a nose-up and brief burn which reduced my vertical speed, then nose-down to horizontal just before my wheels touched down. On the third attempt, that is
I’ve managed to loop around to The Old Worlds, completely misjudging the Empire’s direction, so I’ve stopped off for a bit of bounty hunting and picked up my next:
Eight-ish more to go!
I’ve had a quick jaunt into Imperial space but haven’t had any luck seeing new FMV - just the ones I’ve seen before with the usual actors wearing different hats. Took a mission to Zaonce and decided to continue on to Riedquat, where I surprisingly picked up my next:
…which is just shy of four (in-game) months since my last one - probably my quickest yet. I don’t know what I’ve been doing differently, but I’ll be happy if I can keep it going!
Seven-ish now
…which is just shy of four (in-game) months since my last one - probably my quickest yet. I don’t know what I’ve been doing differently, but I’ll be happy if I can keep it going!
Seven-ish now
Rack up two more!
At this rate I’m beginning to think it’ll all be over in time for Christmas
I’m still occasionally getting blasted to smithereens by pirate wings (it’s the small, nimble ships like Vipers and Sakers with plenty of missiles that tend to overwhelm me) and I even had a shameful 100km/s lithobraking manoeuvre in Orerve, but the kill-count is ticking ever upwards.
That should put me safely over halfway between Deadly and Elite
At this rate I’m beginning to think it’ll all be over in time for Christmas
I’m still occasionally getting blasted to smithereens by pirate wings (it’s the small, nimble ships like Vipers and Sakers with plenty of missiles that tend to overwhelm me) and I even had a shameful 100km/s lithobraking manoeuvre in Orerve, but the kill-count is ticking ever upwards.
That should put me safely over halfway between Deadly and Elite
I’ve found two Anarchic systems fairly close to each other in Alliance space, so I’ve been racking up plenty of bounties:
…and having an eye-widening encounter after I jettisoned some cargo just a bit too close to the authorities. Let’s say the Space Po-Po response was a touch robust for such a minor crime:
It took me three attempts, but I finally managed to survive to pay off my littering fine. The encounter was roughly 5 minutes of continuous ECM and full-thrust burn manoeuvring while the Vipers expended their missiles, then another 5 minutes of dancing around beam lasers as I slowly whittled down the cloud of ships. It certainly helped me along the way to:
…which, if I’ve been counting correctly (not guaranteed), means I should see one more ROC before reaching my goal
A cool little detail I noticed when taking the last screenshot - the fighter craft has a visible HUD!
…and having an eye-widening encounter after I jettisoned some cargo just a bit too close to the authorities. Let’s say the Space Po-Po response was a touch robust for such a minor crime:
It took me three attempts, but I finally managed to survive to pay off my littering fine. The encounter was roughly 5 minutes of continuous ECM and full-thrust burn manoeuvring while the Vipers expended their missiles, then another 5 minutes of dancing around beam lasers as I slowly whittled down the cloud of ships. It certainly helped me along the way to:…which, if I’ve been counting correctly (not guaranteed), means I should see one more ROC before reaching my goal
A cool little detail I noticed when taking the last screenshot - the fighter craft has a visible HUD!
Is it Phekda and some other, or two some others?
The two-some-others option
I’m using Exqurge (-4,2) as my main base and jumping to several nearby Anarchy systems, though Milati usually spawns a good number of pirates - but has the downside of no in-system stations or bases. Makes things a bit interesting if I jump back to Exqurge with ship damage!
I had Panther Clipper on FFE Thats was OP ship...Looked like huge van, and packed a lots of firepower.
Thats was OP ship...Looked like huge van, and packed a lots of firepower.