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24khz: Yay or Nay?

Started by SuperDeadite, September 07, 2015, 07:23:50 PM

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SuperDeadite

Every once in a while I get an X68000 owner asking me, ''Is 24khz worth it?''
This is an interesting question, and the answer is going to vary from person to person.
So here are the facts:

24khz is only used by a small number of games, and all but 2 of them I know of support and default to 31khz.

However most games that do support 24khz are in fact 24khz native. 
Meaning all the graphics were originally drawn with the intent of being displayed in 24khz.
Companies like Elf simply ported their games from the PC-88/98 originals to the X68K and therefore it
probably wasn't worth the time/money to properly redraw their games to use all the extra pixels.

What this means is when playing these games in 31khz, the graphics are not redrawn with more pixels. 
Instead these games add a big black border around everything.  Making the game look like it's
running in a window.  With everything shrunken down.  If you are using a smaller monitor, things
start to look very tiny.  As opposed to the full screen beauty when using the 24khz mode.

Most gamers will probably be perfectly happy without 24khz, but if you are into the following games,
and can display 24khz, you will be very pleased with the results.

From the top of my head:

24khz native (31khz support):

Marble Madness
Fantasy Zone
Xak II
Carat
Dragon Knight 3
Dragon Knight 4
Wordsworth

(Most of the later Elf games should support 24khz, but the above are the only one's I've personally confirmed.
Their older games like Dragon Knight 1 and 2 sadly have no 24khz option, meaning you are stuck in the border/window mode)

24khz Required

True Ys 1
True Ys 2

(True Ys are doujin ports of the original NEC versions meant to be 100% accurate.  So its 24khz or nothing.)

There are other games which support 24khz, such as Scorpius, but a lot of these only include the option for experimental use and are not really meant to be played in that mode.

famiac

I didn't even know the True Ys games existed!
Are they publicly available?

I imported an original monitor for the sake of completion, but having a 31/15khz display really should be fine for people whose goal is primarily to play.

Neshek

I think i saw these True Ys games in the TOSEC..
Well, they looked quite PC-88ish to me :)

SuperDeadite

Quote from: famiac on September 09, 2015, 12:07:51 AM
I didn't even know the True Ys games existed!
Are they publicly available?

I imported an original monitor for the sake of completion, but having a 31/15khz display really should be fine for people whose goal is primarily to play.

I believe they are included in the ''mini-image.''