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1/In the #SAMURAISHODOWN Neo Geo collection, we have another cool trick up our sleeves: HD Zoom. The native resolution of the Neo Geo is 320x224. Sprite scaling consists of dropping pixels when scaling sprites down so that any amount of zoom-out causes pixels to be skipped over.
2/By rendering the Neo Geo over 2x, doubling scanlines and doubling horizontal pixels, we generate a larger image where scaled-down sprites don't drop pixel data. All source pixels are seen on screen, and the process also makes camera zooms much smoother.
3/This doesn't require any modification to the games, and makes them look the best that they've ever looked. See the images below: Old vs. New.
4/I had an epiphany about this process early on in the project when playing the games. Since then, a similar process has been used in other emulation projects online - taking a bit of the wind out of my sails.
5/And credit goes ultimately to Dan Filner who brilliantly ran with the idea and improved it and made it look better than I imagined it could look.
6/Ultimately, every project we work on we strive to do something new that maintains the artistic integrity of the original games but presents them in the best possible light. Our next projects are going even further with ideas like this, and I can't wait to share them.
7/We also strive to make sure that everything we do is valuable to the fans, because they have so many options to play these games, we want to be the best option.
8/Important note: This method does require a lot of pixel processing, something modern consoles weren't built for. Especially the Switch. It will not use this method. If you play on the Switch internal screen, you really don't need it anyway. The games look beautiful on it.
9/Also to be noted, these screens are from an early build and might be 4x resolution, final shipping resolution was 3x (Due to processing requirements). The overall effect is pretty much the same for the purposes of explaining this here.
