Myst ME and in-game aspect ratio

[vanfanel]

Hi there,

On Myst ME, I have notice that videos are, in fact, 4:3.
But gameplay seems to be something like 16:10, which doesn't seem logical for a game released in 1999...
The "aspec ratio correction" option can't be activated when editing the game's option on Scummvm menu, so... what's with this game's aspect ratio?
Anybody knows?

Thanks!

[rootfather]

In-game, Myst uses a pretty non-standard resolution of 544x332. This explains why the game appears to be in something like 16:10.

Back in the old days, the game had very large black bars around the images, so it wasn't even capable of using a standard resolution like 640x480.

The aspect ratio correction is mostly meant for fixing up usual resolutions like 640x400 -> 640x480 and 320x200 -> 320x240. In Myst, the screen is always showing up in the correct aspect ration, just with less borders around it when you play it on a widescreen display.

[vanfanel]

In-game, Myst uses a pretty non-standard resolution of 544x332. This explains why the game appears to be in something like 16:10.

Back in the old days, the game had very large black bars around the images, so it wasn't even capable of using a standard resolution like 640x480.

The aspect ratio correction is mostly meant for fixing up usual resolutions like 640x400 -> 640x480 and 320x200 -> 320x240. In Myst, the screen is always showing up in the correct aspect ration, just with less borders around it when you play it on a widescreen display.

Thanks for such a great explanation!

So, in the old days, the game had upper/lower and left/right black bars, or only upper/lower bars?

I can't find any pictures of how it actually looked like originally...

[rootfather]

Yes, Myst had a black board around all four sides of the images.

I quickly fired up Myst ME in a Windows XP VM - this is how it looks like on a simulated 640x480 screen and the original aspect ratio. Note that the game always sets the window size to 640x480, so even if you had a widescreen display back then, you wouldn't get around the black bars.

The same applies to the original Myst edition, but I currently don't have an emulated system that can run the game. That version runs at the exact same window dimensions, but with a decreased color depth.

[vanfanel]

@rootfather

Thanks a lot for the image! Now I see it clearly!


Mistery solved (for me at least.. it seems you knew already).