John, the CRT TV image you used for the 4:3 frame is exactly my first TV from back in the day. It's wild to see this again (it was sent to the farm last year. RIP)
Excellent explanation! I can't believe we're still dealing with aspect ratio confusion in the 2020s. This has been a bugaboo of mine since the 80s VHS days, with letterboxing and pan & scan. It was especially bad in the early days of 16:9 TVs and DVD players- everywhere you went, everything was either stretched wide or letterboxed AND pillarboxed. Why does this still trip people up, especially people who are actually in industry?!
Did you know that it's mostly *good* games that supported 16:9? ie: very popular games... so knowledge of it shouldn't be low. Banjo-Tooie Donkey Kong 64 Jet Force Gemini Mickey's Speedway USA Starshot: Space Circus Fever Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
@@heavenseyes2253 You might want to read the other comments. Under "Is this fixed yet?" even the creator of this video replies back, "Yeah, it's been fixed."
On original N64 hardware, the letterbox way of widescreen produces a very low-res picture. You loose both horizontal and vertical resolution and have to stretch it to a full 16:9 screen. Also, you need to set your 16:9 TV to zoom. With the anamorphic widescreen (goldeneye, mission impossible), you only lose horizontal resolution. Anyway, widescreen on real N64 hardware will always look worse than 4:3. I think even with Gamecube and Wii, this is the same.
Except they are a part of the image. It's letterboxed. That's how it was done on real hardware. It's meant to be cropped or matted (to use an old film projector term) into 16:9 by setting your display to zoom in.
@@chrisfratz but I did played that particular game in m64 plus fz and N64 emulator for Android. The black bar gone perfectly because it's not part of the game.
@@davidariyan7915 Except it is a part of the game because it shows up on the real hardware (As demonstrated in the video).. A lot of N64 emulators use Glide 64, which is less accurate than the real deal. It also has a feature that lets the emulator expand the game to fit the screen you're playing on, so you probably had that turned on. I know this because I use it to play Tetris Sphere in Ultra Wide on my 21:9 monitor on my PC using the PC version of Mupen.
The N64 did not support outputting a widescreen frame of any kind. If you wanted a widescreen on the system, you either had to do letter boxing, which meant baking black bars into the 4x3 video, or use anamorphic widescreen, which meant squishing a widescreen image into 4:3 where your display or software in this case would un-squish it back to the right shape.
Yeah I checked it out. The characters are the same size but you get a wider view of the world... I wonder if surround sound and widescreen works on Wii U and Wii virtual console.
@@NinWRTV And now with Perfect Dark on NSO they brought back the same issue funnily enough. Also there's widescreen in Excitebike 64 too, but it's completely broken in that game, makes the image smaller lol
What do you expect, since the majority of people just stretch everything, even 2D 4:3 games like Super Mario World in the example, because they don’t know any better and think it looks normal, or because they absolutely need to fill the entirety of the screen because they are afraid of the scary black bars.
John, the CRT TV image you used for the 4:3 frame is exactly my first TV from back in the day. It's wild to see this again (it was sent to the farm last year. RIP)
John, the CRT TV image you used for the 4:3 frame is exactly my first TV from back in the day. It's wild to see this again (it was sent to the farm last year. RIP)
Excellent explanation! I can't believe we're still dealing with aspect ratio confusion in the 2020s. This has been a bugaboo of mine since the 80s VHS days, with letterboxing and pan & scan. It was especially bad in the early days of 16:9 TVs and DVD players- everywhere you went, everything was either stretched wide or letterboxed AND pillarboxed. Why does this still trip people up, especially people who are actually in industry?!
Well they finally fixed it. Not sure the timeline, but sometimes between now and 2 months ago judging by the time you made left this comment.
who knew a technically advance N64 game would be a huge hassle on NSO N64, an app that is common for 4:3 games.
OH NINTENDO YOU FUNNY COMPANY
Did you know that it's mostly *good* games that supported 16:9? ie: very popular games... so knowledge of it shouldn't be low.
Banjo-Tooie
Donkey Kong 64
Jet Force Gemini
Mickey's Speedway USA
Starshot: Space Circus Fever
Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
2:10 what game is this?
if i'm not mistaken, that's Sin and Punishment
They fixed it! I'm not sure when it happened, but they fixed the widescreen mode.
no they didnt
@@heavenseyes2253 You might want to read the other comments. Under "Is this fixed yet?" even the creator of this video replies back, "Yeah, it's been fixed."
On original N64 hardware, the letterbox way of widescreen produces a very low-res picture. You loose both horizontal and vertical resolution and have to stretch it to a full 16:9 screen. Also, you need to set your 16:9 TV to zoom. With the anamorphic widescreen (goldeneye, mission impossible), you only lose horizontal resolution. Anyway, widescreen on real N64 hardware will always look worse than 4:3. I think even with Gamecube and Wii, this is the same.
Has anyone found the best controller settings for this game?
I always used normal, but the aiming is hard on switch, especially on the joycon.
The black bars was never supposed to be part of the image. Just play the original game on emulator you wouldn't experience this.
Except they are a part of the image. It's letterboxed. That's how it was done on real hardware. It's meant to be cropped or matted (to use an old film projector term) into 16:9 by setting your display to zoom in.
@@chrisfratz but I did played that particular game in m64 plus fz and N64 emulator for Android. The black bar gone perfectly because it's not part of the game.
@@chrisfratz I even played the game in super wide 19:9 as my screen.
@@davidariyan7915 Except it is a part of the game because it shows up on the real hardware (As demonstrated in the video).. A lot of N64 emulators use Glide 64, which is less accurate than the real deal. It also has a feature that lets the emulator expand the game to fit the screen you're playing on, so you probably had that turned on. I know this because I use it to play Tetris Sphere in Ultra Wide on my 21:9 monitor on my PC using the PC version of Mupen.
The N64 did not support outputting a widescreen frame of any kind. If you wanted a widescreen on the system, you either had to do letter boxing, which meant baking black bars into the 4x3 video, or use anamorphic widescreen, which meant squishing a widescreen image into 4:3 where your display or software in this case would un-squish it back to the right shape.
Was this ever fixed?
It was fixed as of today's patch actually
@@NinWRTV woah! Great timing!! 😆 tysm for your response
Yeah I checked it out. The characters are the same size but you get a wider view of the world... I wonder if surround sound and widescreen works on Wii U and Wii virtual console.
@@NinWRTV And now with Perfect Dark on NSO they brought back the same issue funnily enough. Also there's widescreen in Excitebike 64 too, but it's completely broken in that game, makes the image smaller lol
I'm very surprised that so many people don't know about this. Is this not common knowledge any more?
What do you expect, since the majority of people just stretch everything, even 2D 4:3 games like Super Mario World in the example, because they don’t know any better and think it looks normal, or because they absolutely need to fill the entirety of the screen because they are afraid of the scary black bars.
John, the CRT TV image you used for the 4:3 frame is exactly my first TV from back in the day. It's wild to see this again (it was sent to the farm last year. RIP)