Mortal Kombat Arcade Collection Arriving Summer 2011

smoke.tetsu said:
I was just saying it's more of an approximation because on an arcade monitor the game did not stretch or upscale or anything it displayed it a the same resolution it was rendered at (512x384). SD content tends to look better on SD monitors as well.

On a higher resolution monitor you will either get pixelation if you use nearest neighbor sampling (basically no bilnear so pixelated.. or as you say.. pixel for pixel) or more blurry if you are using bilinear\trilinear. Either way it has to be scaled up it just depends on the filter used when scaling it that determines how it looks.

The way you say "pixel for pixel" sounds like you prefer nearest neighbor with all the pixelation it entails but at the arcade the RGB monitors didn't display things that way they had lots of blurring going on but the resolution they ran at combined with at least some level of blurring and a high contrast gave the illusion of detail. This is especially true once those monitors got broken in... many arcade monitors had notorious levels of color bleeding\blurring... although they always had brigher colors than home TVs. Yes, nearest neighbor is sharp but it's too sharp... it wasn't that sharp at the arcade. But if that's what you like fine.

The RGB monitors they used at the arcade made a huge difference that is hard to replicate at home.

The SNES versions are blurry crap no matter what because they lowered the resolution of all the artwork in general. There's just no comparison. If you played the SNES version in emulation and did nearest neighbor like how you seem to prefer with the arcade versions it would look even more chunky\pixelated... or again blurry if you are displaying it on a TV especially a CRT.

With LCD screens using scanlines\or some other overlay on MAME it approximates how it looked on an older monitor closer (but not perfect I admit.. you aren't going to get it looking exactly the same as the arcade unless you built a MAME cabinet with a real RGB monitor) sure some of those settings are more exaggerated but you just need to choose the right one with the right settings that looks right on the kind of screen you have and looks fine to you. sdlmame has some really good png based overlays like scanlines or trinitron or other variations. But again this depends on how your LCD displays things and whether or not it processes the image beyond what is done by the computer\game. CRTs especially non-HD ones tend to have at least some level of scanlines going on whether you paid much attention to them or not.

Also this mostly applies to LCD monitors... CRT monitors more closely approximate what was in the arcade for MK but still not exactly. It depends on your monitor and how much color bleeding it does. But TVs just don't do the same sort of display that the old arcade monitors did with their RGB connections and the way overscanning worked making the character look bigger than they really where, etc.


That's not a good example because those games are 3D and work entirely different than the 2D mortal kombat games. It's much easier to upscale those because in 3D resolution is more independent of the game. That's an apples to oranges comparison. All 3D games need to "upscale" is to increase the frame buffer resolution.

They are probably just adding bilinear filtering. But on the small pictures of the character select screens it doesn't look all that different to how it's supposed to look.

I too have been playing MK since it first came out btw...
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Thanks for taking the time to respond. I stand on sonic adventures on being a good example. The graphics are crisp and bright no lines are blurred.

It would be nice if the new MKAK would up the rez so it didnt look so blurry.
 
hydro5135 said:
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I stand on sonic adventures on being a good example. The graphics are crisp and bright no lines are blurred.
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Again apples to oranges. You have to understand that 3D games and 2D games are completely different. What happens is the 3D polygons get rendered at a higher resolution thus looking sharper (while unless they redo the textures those get more blurry). But no matter what 2D sprites have to be scaled so they then look either more pixelated or blurry depending on filter used. Again all you have to do with sonic adventure is increase the frame buffer and the game scales along with it... 2D is a different beast altogether. So no.... NOT a good example. That's also why for example all the 3D Mortal Kombat games will always be more scalable than the 2D ones.

In order to have the same kind of scalability as a 3D game a 2D game would need to have assets\sprites higher than the resolution it's being displayed at so it doesn't get pixelated\blurry when blown up. That's why OS icons now come in larger and larger sizes. Although again with 3D games higher resolution textures still is a benefit when going to higher resolutions.

It would be nice if the new MKAK would up the rez so it didnt look so blurry.
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Then you may have to stick to MAME with bilinear off if you want the pixelated (sharp) look that you apparently like. That's a personal preference and not exactly how it looked at the arcade you also have to realize.
 
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MK Arcade Collection...
MK Arcade Collection...
MK Arcade Collection...

And where is the HD? The new actors and all that stuff?
I've been playing these game for almost 20 years and I don't have a reason to buy this :P

To the new fans, specially whom introduced MK with the new game (MK 2011) would be a great buy. ;D
 
so basically if your TV is from the mid-90's it will look great...if you have one of these amazing HDTV's of today...expect it to look like crap
 
Nice. I already own MK II for PS3 but I'll totally re-up just for the chance to own arcade perfect editions of MK and UMK3.
 
@smoke.tetsu I brought the same issues up already on page 2, and there are actually filters that simulate analog signals already, with the necessary color bleed etc. They're so well made that they're identical to the real thing (check out Kega; looks exactly like a true Genesis signal). I've got a 27" running at 2560x1440 and those filters do wonders for old games on it. Would be an amazing addition to this MK release - and it'd preserve its original, intended look.
 
The Pit said:
so basically if your TV is from the mid-90's it will look great...if you have one of these amazing HDTV's of today...expect it to look like crap
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LOL they should have it come with a 90s TV included, I can see it now,
MK Arcade Collection + 90s MK TV pre-order now =D
 
The promo would include Raiden teleporting himself from the past and seeing a Gamer with his PS3/Xbox consol connected to an HDTV.
He'd be like "by the Gods what is this tablet put sideways doing here?" and he'd uppercut the HDTV making a old TV appear instead XD
 
No HD = no sale.

I'm sorry but you just can't sweep all that rumor under the rug and release a normal arcade kollection :|
 
To be honest like I said even TVs from the 90's didn't display Mortal Kombat correctly as the RGB CRT monitors they used at the arcade displayed things differently\better than home TVs. Not only where the colors generally better but they did overscan differently which gave the illusion of larger than life characters that usually doesn't get simulated on any other kind of monitor.

You are simply not going to see MK arcade the way it was intended to be unless you have one of those cabinets with an RGB monitor. They don't do the type of artifacts that would come from an RF adaptor for example or from the tuner circuitry inside a TV. They would need to make a specific RGB analog signal filter to simulate what goes on with an arcade screen specifically rather than a 90's TV if you want it to be perfect... but it probably wont be anal perfect. It could also probably use a filter that changes the shape of the screen to be more rounded pillarbox image with the overscan I mentioned rather than a perfectly square one....

But in the end it's all down to personal preference and taste. The only thing is official collections don't tend to give you a choice as far as I can tell as to how you want it presented. As for me I'd be happy even with just some PNG overlay filters like in SDLMAME like the different types of scanlines with noise, trinitron, beehive, etc.

Another thing to think about is because of wear and tear and other factors including probably the way they where manufactured and setup the image quality wasn't uniform across all arcade machines.... some machines looked better than others. But still on a whole they looked better than anything you can get at home and are very difficult to replicate unless you use the exact kind of monitor they used with the same connections.
 
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I had the opportunity to play MK on the arcades when I was a kid so I saw it at full potential :P

Anyway I'm really curious to see how it will look, I mean ports from PS2 to ps3 for example are easier mainly cuz ps2 is not that old and releasing games with better resolution and stuff is easier to pull out.

But taking a game as old as MK1 and trying to strech it to fit a lets say 40 inch TV is something I doubt they'll succeed lol.
 
Well the major problem is displaying something on the monitor it was made for at its native resolution vs on a monitor it wasn't at a higher resolution so you always have to upscale and correct for aspect ratio and things like that. Like even just the shape of the tube affected how it was presented. It'll just never be the same plain and simple. This is more so with 2D rendered stuff like MK... like I said before 3D stuff is more scalable.
 
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This is what I kinda wish they'd do (SUPER ROUGH MOCK UP and yes I aped those life bars from someone else)

mk2hdconept.jpg


Just upscale the sprites, filter them, slightly touch them up (I barely did any of that which is why its so rough), and then have everything else in HD.

NRS, I don't mind if you guys double dip and re-release them in an updated form. Maybe a $60 bluray for next-gen systems which includes MK1-4. I'd also like to have an option for the Genesis soundtrack for MK1. I think *most* of the Genesis songs turned out better than the Arcade versions although there are a few here and there that are better on the Arcade version.
 
This application does something similar to what I was talking about with a simulated screen but of course with a different\older kind of screen:

http://osxdaily.com/2011/01/27/the-ultimate-retro-terminal-cathode/

Anyway about MK4.... that game would be a lot easier to update because it uses 3D graphics so they can redo the textures if they want (much like the high res packs for games like Duke Nukem 3D or Quake) but they can add in higher resolution settings like 1080p and not have to stretch everything because of the 3D nature of the thing. You might notice when playing 3D games in emulation that it's very easy for those games to have improved image quality such as for example playing wii games in dolphin.

It doesn't have as much to do with the age of the game more than it is whether the game is rendered in 2D vs 3D whether it is easily scalable or not without a lot of work. Of course with older 3D games they tend to have much lower resolution textures and models with less polygons but as you can see with the Quake link even just changing the textures and adding in better lighting and stuff like normal mapping can help an old 3D game a lot even with the same models\levels.

In Duke3D's case they replaced the sprites in the game with 3D models. But doing that to MK 1-3 would probably change it too much... although one company did do that with the iPhone UMK3. :P

For purities sake I think MK1-3 could do more with a simulated RGB screen filter with perspective correction\simulated overscan making the screen look kind of rounded. But obviously that's not what we are getting :P
 
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They better remaster the games in HD. It just seems weird for them not to when it's 2011 now. I don't care about new actors, any of that stuff. I want the game totally original but in HD.

But even if it isn't, this negates MK9 for me... The original MKs with online is infinitely better then MK9 in my opinion (don't hate!).
 
i don't need reshot actors....all i want is an upscaled version with the original sprites touched up, sharpened and the backgrounds the same...the fan made HD pictures that have been circulating around sites were perfect...that scorpion/shape Kahn still makes me giddy...too bad
 
The Pit said:
so basically if your TV is from the mid-90's it will look great...if you have one of these amazing HDTV's of today...expect it to look like crap
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lol
Oddly enough this is the case for gta4 on the ps3.

All this talk about 3d upscales better then 2d is total crap I have emulated nes,snes,genesis,turbografx,n64 and dreamcast on my pc and with the options in the emulator I can output 1080p hirez no filter straight to my 1080p lcd tv via dvi-d to hdmi and you know what all of them look just as good as they did on any crt no blurriness and actually they look better because of the pixel density.

Theres no reason MKAC should look blurry. For $10 I suppose they didn't consider putting the effort in.
 
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