AuthorTopic: Help with a science project  (Read 3222 times)

Offline rocksolid

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Help with a science project

on: February 08, 2016, 03:42:28 pm
I am helping my son with a science project and I thought since he like computer games that the topic of pixels would be good and he would learn something. I think we are looking to do a project that shoes how much better things are not vs the days of the Atari 2600 even though I still have mine and love it. Is there a website that can show the difference between a picture with low pixels and the same picture with high pixels? Also I would like to compare what it took to make the Atari 2600 run vs the more modern play station or x box of today. Are there other things we can do that would be cool or other websites where we can do research? Any help would be great.

Offline Gil

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Re: Help with a science project

Reply #1 on: February 08, 2016, 09:19:47 pm
I think your best bet is to look at "demakes". There are very few instances of games being remade with newer technology while keeping the overall look, demakes tend to be closer.


For example, here's a Bayonetta demake:



The Bayonetta screenshot is of course low resolution, I couldn't find a good screenshot, but you get my point.

Offline rocksolid

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Re: Help with a science project

Reply #2 on: February 09, 2016, 02:43:43 pm
Thanks for the response. I am not looking for a game or game that is old school. I am looking for info on Pixels and how games from the past differ from games of today. This is for a science project with my son and we wanted to do something on pixels and how far they have come through the years.

Offline yrizoud

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Re: Help with a science project

Reply #3 on: February 09, 2016, 03:16:25 pm
This older thread has lots of info, illustrations and present days re-creations that respect the original machine's constraints :
http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=13697.0

Offline MAVW

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Re: Help with a science project

Reply #4 on: February 10, 2016, 01:21:00 am
I feel like I've seen a few videos of youtubers explaining and going through the history of games with technical specs(talking about limitations and stuff).  This is a topic that is covered in books, articles, videos, podcasts... unfortunately I don't remember any specific one  :blind:
I'm sure that if you search for "atari history, pixel art, video game history" or any similar topics you'll find loads of information with very specific details for you  :y:

Offline Gil

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Re: Help with a science project

Reply #5 on: February 10, 2016, 10:40:31 am
In terms of pixels, nothing has changed. Pixels are still pixels, the average screen just has a bit more of em. Well, okay, maybe there's been two changes to pixels since the 70's:

1. Tube screens to flat screens. Tube screens tend to do a lot of things to pixels, especially when the cheaper models get old. All of these blooming effects, aberrations, etc, were influential to how pixels behaved.
2. High DPI screens. Recently, we've started to see the disappearance of the pixel as a visible unit. In a few years, there will be screens of a high enough DPI that working at the pixel level becomes essentially useless.

So yeah, not a lot happened to pixels over the years, sorry to say.

How did games change? Well, a lot, and not at all. Each year new techniques are discovered and games get slightly more powerful visually. This is a collection of thousands and thousands of innovations though, it's hard to compare on to the other. The best way is to compare screenshots, hence me giving you screenshots that compare old vs new. If that's not what you need, you need to be a little more clear.