Do you find it easier to play with a larger screen or a smaller one?

[axman36]

So, I've been playing the Touhou series on fullscreen with a 1680 x 1050 sized monitor. Though, I wondered if by doing that I'm making it harder on myself. When I upload some of the playthroughs on youtube and rewatch them, the new size that it's uploading in makes it seem easier, but at the same time those are ones I already did so I wouldn't be too sure.

When the screen is smaller it looks like I can see the bullets coming at me a lot easier and rely less on my peripheral vision which ends up tricking me half the time on bullets that either aren't really there. But at the same time putting it at a smaller size makes seeing the gaps between bullets and areas I can pass through harder which could lead into even more deaths. I've had mix results trying both ways and I stuck with full screen to prevent myself from getting confused between the two.

So yes, do you think it's better to play with a larger screen, a smaller screen, or do you feel like there really is no difference between the two? Do you have any preferred size?

If it really is easier overall to play with a smaller screen, then I feel like I've just made my last few playthroughs of EoSD much more harder than they needed to be.

And sorry if this is the wrong place to discuss this type of thing as it is somewhat about hardware.

[Zengeku]

About hardware yes but still discussion about playing style. I play with a 15'' screen on a laptop and yeah, i personally find it easier to read ahead on a smaller screen although gaps gets harder to spot.

[SupahVee1234]

I play with my widescreen monitor 1680x1050 tilted vertically. It's better for micrododging, but sometimes I turn it back horizontally  when I don't feel like playing vertically.

[AM]

I have noticed that micrododging is easier on bigger screens. I've made some of my best IN runs on 4x3 meters silver screen, but getting so close that you have turn your head will have negative effect.

[orinrin]

I prefer large screens.

It gets harder on smaller screens when the bullets become really dense.

[Tapsa]

Moving a little bit farther from your monitor when full screen might help with seeing all the bullets.

[Alfred F. Jones]

Larger screen. Small screens just plain bother my eyes.

[Bias Bus]

Smaller screens, being larger ones completely jizz up whatever FPS I have. But if the FPS is fine either way, I'll choose which ever one I feel like dealing with.

I'm not all that picky, honestly.

[Tengukami]

I use a small screen for every Touhou game except Shoot the Bullet, and even then I get this moderate horizontal stretch (my laptop screen is 1280x800). I wish I knew how to rectify that stretch. It would make the game far more enjoyable.

[Sapz]

I play full screen with a 1440 x 900 monitor for all Touhou games. I'm used to the stretch to the point that I stop playing as well if I force an aspect ratio with the UFO rotation patch. :V I don't really encounter any problems with seeing bullets from a distance, though I used to quite a while back... I guess I got used to it after a while.

[Captain Arepa]

I have a 19" screen, and I play it windowed at 800*600 or 1024*768 (vpatch), but once in a while I set the resolution to 640*480 or 800*600 to play full screen... depends mainly on the hour of the day and my mood XD

[Tengukami]

Huh. It has never occured to me to change my screen resolution itself in order to avoid the stretch of fullscreen. Durrr. I'm going to have to try this.

Edit: HOLY CRAP THIS IS AMAZING!!! Just tried StB and UFO fullscreen, with my resolution set to 640x480 (just two mouse clicks on my apps menu). The stretch was totally gone, and the games look amazing.

On the other hand, UFO now runs at 72 FPS. I can't tell yet if the increase in speed negates any advantage fullscreen would give me. But it sure is nice to have the graphics pretty while running fullscreen. Will have to test the other games.

Man I can really miss the most obvious, simply solution sometimes. Heh.

[DracoOmega]

I always play fullscreen. My monitor has a button on it that switches aspect ratios from widescreen to 4:3, so I can just press it and remove all the stretching that normally happens when playing fullscreen. I very much missed this button when I was trying to play on someone else's computer. Until that point, I'd actually thought this was a relatively standard feature.

[Aisha]

The simplest solution to get rid of horizontal stretching in full screen mode on a widescreen monitor would be to enable fixed aspect ratio scaling (or 1:1 scaling; whatever it's called) on your graphics card control panel or monitor.

Anyway, I played Touhou on a 17" CRT for many years and suddenly switched to a 24" widescreen LCD a while ago. No difference. The LCD sits back farther than the CRT did, so I can still capture the whole screen in my field of vision.

[Tengukami]

The simplest solution to get rid of horizontal stretching in full screen mode on a widescreen monitor would be to enable fixed aspect ratio scaling (or 1:1 scaling; whatever it's called) on your graphics card control panel or monitor.

OK, I just tried this, running nvidia-settings in Terminal, clicking DFP-0 in the lefthand side, and then selecting Aspect Ratio Scaled. It does work.

The difference I noticed is, while setting my screen resolution to 640x480 and then playing made the game fill the entire screen, the fixed aspect ratio made the game only fill the screen from top to bottom - on either side, there were large black margins. The panel, too, was completely visible.

So I guess it's a trade off between either true full screen but having to make a few clicks, or saving some time but not really getting fullscreen.

EDIT: Incidentally, I just finished trying all my Touhou games fullscreen (with the exception of PoFV, which doesn't run properly anyway, and IaMP, which I almost never touch), using both changed screen resolution and fixed ascpect ratio. I find changed screen resolution a more aesthetically pleasing result, and as it only takes a few clicks to set up and take down, not really that much effort is required.

However, in both cases, this is how my gameplay ran:

UFO and SA: Playing 72 FPS. Oh, did you want NORMAL MODE?

MoF and StB: No problems.

EoSD and PCB: Runs at 800 FPS. That's not an extra zero.

[Doomsday]

For me, I play much better on fullscreen, at least on my 20" monitor. If i was to say, pay Touhou using a projector instead, I'd have a much harder time that I would on a standard PC screen. I guess its down to what you're used to.

[Aisha]

OK, I just tried this, running nvidia-settings in Terminal, clicking DFP-0 in the lefthand side, and then selecting Aspect Ratio Scaled. It does work.

The difference I noticed is, while setting my screen resolution to 640x480 and then playing made the game fill the entire screen, the fixed aspect ratio made the game only fill the screen from top to bottom - on either side, there were large black margins. The panel, too, was completely visible.

So I guess it's a trade off between either true full screen but having to make a few clicks, or saving some time but not really getting fullscreen.

Yeah, it fills the screen vertically and then uses appropriately-sized black pillarboxes to adjust the aspect ratio of the entire game to (I think) 4:3. I tried experimenting with various solutions when I switched my monitors, but I concluded that fixed aspect-ratio scaling was the only solution which made the game feel right to me.

[axman36]

Alright, thanks everyone. Guess it was just my odd view of playing it.

Though I have to say I'm a victim of the stretching too. The FPS stretches passed my monitor for odd reasons unknown. Luckily I had FRAPS on to tell me what exactly my FPS was.

[JoonK]

I think in the beginning its better to play on a large screen, just cause you see openings better.

But later on when you have to examine entire patterns to do well, anything more than 21 inches seems difficult.

[Tengukami]

Imperishable Night looks pretty amazing in fullscreen. Probably looks the best of the series, I'd say.

[Whinette]

I have pretty decent runs on my neetbook (10"), even tho I usually play on a 27". I have better result on the neetbook strangely when speed is more important than precision (like last world spell 205 in IN).

[Sen]

I play with a 1366x768 monitor and I always play fullscreen. My GFX card automatically scales correctly, so I've never had any problems :V

UFO and SA: Playing 72 FPS. Oh, did you want NORMAL MODE?

MoF and StB: No problems.

EoSD and PCB: Runs at 800 FPS. That's not an extra zero.

Are you using VSync? Even with your screen resolution set to that, it should keep the games at 60FPS the whole time.

[Tengukami]

I don't even know what vsynch is. Is it Linux compatible?

[Sen]

I don't even know what vsynch is. Is it Linux compatible?

VSync is a tool that removes input lag in the games (incredibly useful for EoSD/PCB/IN) and keeps the game at a steady 60FPS the whole way through. You can download the patch for EoSD-SA here, and the UFO patch here.

Not sure about Linux compatibility though, but it couldn't hurt to give it a try. Just download the .RAR and follow the instructions in the readme.

[Paul Debrion]

I seem to do better if I can get the game screen to be slightly taller than the length of my hand. There's not much of a difference though.

[Barrakketh]

VSync is a tool that removes input lag in the games (incredibly useful for EoSD/PCB/IN) and keeps the game at a steady 60FPS the whole way through. You can download the patch for EoSD-SA here, and the UFO patch here.

Not sure about Linux compatibility though, but it couldn't hurt to give it a try. Just download the .RAR and follow the instructions in the readme.

The vpatch crashes.

[Tengukami]

VSync is a tool that removes input lag in the games (incredibly useful for EoSD/PCB/IN) and keeps the game at a steady 60FPS the whole way through. You can download the patch for EoSD-SA here, and the UFO patch here.

Not sure about Linux compatibility though, but it couldn't hurt to give it a try. Just download the .RAR and follow the instructions in the readme.

Wow, thanks! I'll be sure and

The vpatch crashes.

oh.

Well, can't hurt to give it a shot, anyway.

EDIT: Yeah, it crashes. Ah ben coudonc.

[Lloyd Dunamis]

Large screen at Fullscreen (always unstretched), with a 5-foot-or-so distance from it, just like how one watches or plays console games on TV, or so I think.

It gives me a dynamic choice of viewing the whole screen easily and focusing on one area of it.

... though that doesn't apply to our PC games right now.

[Aisha]

Do the games' config.exes have force 60 FPS or wait for vsync options? It might be helpful for those with framerate issues.

[fatfree]

Full screen all the way! It's much easier than playing with a tiny screen where hundreds of tiny dots are after your tiny dot.

The game also feels some what cheap if it's not on full screen. Think of some poor quality flash game.  :V