[HN Gopher] Your Mac Game Is Probably Rendering Blurry
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Your Mac Game Is Probably Rendering Blurry
        
       Author : bangonkeyboard
       Score  : 36 points
       Date   : 2025-08-14 22:11 UTC (48 minutes ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.colincornaby.me)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.colincornaby.me)
        
       | reactordev wrote:
       | Oh it's not just Apple...
       | 
       | This was an issue I also discovered on Xbox 360 in 2008. TV's
       | have overscan and depending on that setting, your resolutions
       | will be off.
       | 
       | However, at the time, we couldn't create render targets that
       | matched the overscan safe area. XNA added a Screen SafeArea rect
       | to help guide people but it was still an issue that you had to
       | consciously develop for.
       | 
       | Now, we can create any back buffer size we want. It's best to
       | create one 1:1 or use DLSS with a target of 1:1 _to the safe
       | area_ for best results. I'm glad the author went and reported it
       | but ultimately it's up to developers to know Screen Resolution !=
       | Render Resolution.
       | 
       | Anyone using wgpu/vulkan/AppKit/SDL/glfw/etc need to know this.
        
       | AndriyKunitsyn wrote:
       | Which says more about the volume of the market of gaming on Mac.
       | It's small and unfortunate.
        
         | diath wrote:
         | It's actually really small, according to Steam Hardware Survey,
         | Macs are only 1.88% of the Steam users, which is less than that
         | of Linux, which is probably why most developers don't care.
        
       | zamadatix wrote:
       | Also consider setting NSPrefersDisplaySafeAreaCompatibilityMode
       | and just leave self letterboxing control to a toggle in the
       | settings (with whatever default you prefer).
        
       | mushufasa wrote:
       | interesting -- I ran into this recently playing baldur gate 3 and
       | was curious the technical details why. my fix was that I had an
       | external monitor and I just reset the resolution to the external
       | monitor. (by default, though, the monitor was showing up blurry
       | though; with the wrong aspect ratio.)
        
       | andrewmcwatters wrote:
       | Yes!
       | 
       | I remember first implementing this in Planimeter Game Engine 2D,
       | we got a massive resolution list from SDL (through LOVE, which is
       | what we're built on).
       | 
       | If I remember correctly, we filtered the list ourselves by
       | allowing users to explicitly select supported display ratios
       | first, then showing the narrowed list from there. Not great.
       | Technically there's a 683:384 ratio in there.[1]
       | 
       | But it did enough of the job that users who knew what resolution
       | they wanted to pick in the first place didn't have to scroll a
       | gargantuan list!
       | 
       | [1]: https://github.com/Planimeter/game-
       | engine-2d/blob/v9.0.1/eng...
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2025-08-14 23:00 UTC)