Unfortunately, LCD's usually look worse unless the application is running at the monitor's native res.  As such, scaling up is usually the best alternative in that situation.

Ultimately, tho, you should program options in for the end user to decide.  This way a user can decide for themselves what looks best on their monitor, rather than your game guessing for them.

What I'd really like to see in GM is some method of supporting AA so scaling doesn't look as bad as it does on some displays.

~Brandon

You have a point there. I don't have an LCD on my game computer, so I don't think about it much, but the few times I've run resolution-changing GM games on this computer (which doea have an LCD), it doesn't look so great.

@lcd monitors.

you suck!

:P

not only do you look crappy on rez-changing games, some of you even stretch the mess out of the imagery to fit your dimensions if you're widescreen.  and!  and!  and!  you make it a pain in the booty, jump-through-hoops, near-impossible affair to rectify that sloppy feature!  and, your after imagery (blur) on fast-moving graphics also drives me nuts!

i can't wait until tech evolves beyond lcd.  not too much longer to wait, thankfully...

I still use CRT, I don't like LCD monitors. CRTs have much more vivid color, and they don't have that weird delay which causes a blur/afterimage (try moving a bright white dot around on a black background on an LCD or a CRT monitor and you'll see the difference).

As for the original post, I agree with it, except that I don't really recommend an option to change monitor refresh rate, especially for casual games. I suggest just using the default refresh rate, as most players aren't technically savvy enough to know whether setting that would be a good idea or not. Heck, some people don't even know what change the resolution means. If if you do have these options, a 'for advanced users only' tag would be a good idea for some of them. The options to turn sounds and music off though, are very important; preferably there is also an option to change them separately (some people like sounds without music and vice versa), or, best, to change their volumes independently of one another.

While I'm on the topic of sound, one problem I found with most GM games is that they never use panning stereo for the left and right speakers, I think that's a bad idea. It gives a much more immersive experience, subconsciously, if sounds occurring on the left side of the monitor are louder in the left speaker and vice versa. Not a total 100% thing, but something like reducing the loudness of a sound by 25% from the left speaker if it's on the right side of the screen while keeping it at 100% loudness on the right speaker works wonders.

Come to think of it, it might be a good idea to make a whole list of things that make a game feel more polished that most GM games forget about. Another big one is screen fades, most games just instantly jump between one part of the game and another, rather than fading out to black and fading back in. It doesn't have to be fade to black of course, that's just the most common, Zelda 64 used fade to gray, but some type of room transitions (and not the standard GM room transitions which are pretty awful) helps a lot.

for surely.  i'm in the same camp as you are.

Very good idea. I'll definitely help whoever takes this up.

Not to be one of "supporting LCD's over CRT's" by any means, but have you guys used any newer LCD's lately?  I would give 'sharper/more vivid color' to the LCD over most CRT's (unless you aren't running the LCD in it's native res or got an uber CRT), and as for delay afterimage (ghosting), most newer LCD models sport refresh rates less then 2ms (even my 4ms display shows virtually no ghosting).

The only issue I have with LCD's as of current is the native res issue.  Running on any res outside the native one can do some odd scaling...luckily, I got a kickass video card that does high end scaling locally and then sends the resulting image to the LCD at it's native res.  but this doesn't help people who don't have this type of arrangement.

I never did like widescreen, which is why I had to settle for 5:4 when going for this LCD (apparently it's impossible to find good quality 4:3 LCD's)

~Brandon

i have a brand-new dual high-quality lcd setup at the studio - and both monitors pale in comparison to my crt at home.

I think a full list of options like that is only good for big games. I think a "Press Enter to Start" can work just as well in a smaller game.