Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!news
From: "Derek da Silva" <dasi@eidosnet.co.uk>
Newsgroups: scee.yaroze.freetalk.english
Subject: Vertical Borders
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 15:35:21 -0000
Organization: PlayStation Net Yaroze (SCEE)
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Hmmm . . .

I've been thinking about ways of freeing up more VRAM space in Xenon 2000 (a
vertically scrolling shoot-'em-up).  One idea I've been toying with is
vertical borders - since I'm running in 640x512 I could have a black 64
pixel border on each side of the screen giving me a viewable area of 512x512
and some extra VRAM space.  But why don't I just use the 512x512 screen mode
you ask?  Because it messes up the aspect ratio, which looks bad (worse than
having borders IMO).

Implementing them is a bit of a problem though.  It's easy to clip drawing
to a width of 512 with GsClip2D and shift the screen over 64 pixels with
GsDISPENV but on the right the bricks screen and part of my extra VRAM is
visible which looks real nasty.  Any ideas on how to do hide this or if it's
really a sensible idea?

Derek