Super Mario World widescreen mod available now

122607515-0e8d4600-d051-11eb-900b-1b072f5bbbad.png

Vitor Vilela, a Brazilian Super Nintendo hacker also known for his FastROM projects that speed up classic Super Nintendo titles, has officially released a widescreen hack for the landmark Super Nintendo title Super Mario World. This hack renders the entire game as it should look normally, but expanded to fit the widescreen resolution that's standard today. Currently, it only supports 16:9 and 16:10 monitor resolutions, but more additions are planned, such as support for 2:1 or the 21:9 ultrawide aspect ratios. As of right now, a patched ROM will only be compatible with the bsnes-hd emulator.

Twitter user @fraencko shared some images of the game running on a widescreen monitor that can be seen below.

E4O0XIFWEAArTtu.jpeg E4O0XIIX0AYCTlV.jpeg
You can download the Super Mario World widescreen hack and get patching instructions at Vitela's GitHub page here.
 

Hanafuda

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
4,452
Trophies
2
XP
6,872
Country
United States
If there's a criticism to be lodged against this, it would be that it gives the player sight of things the original developers intended to be off screen. Lurking surprise obstacles and enemies may be revealed sooner than intended, and desirable items may like be shown sooner than they should. But really, who gives a fuck? If this gives you a more satisfying SMW experience (with an asterisk, since it is a mod), then go for it.

Personally if I'm playing older games on a HDTV, I prefer 4:3 with the black bars. That still looks 'right' to me.
 

mat128

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Apr 3, 2011
Messages
112
Trophies
1
XP
987
Country
Canada
This plays like a dream, hoping that more games will get the widescreen treatment. Widescreen DKC would be fantastic.
 

FAST6191

Techromancer
Editorial Team
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
36,798
Trophies
3
XP
28,284
Country
United Kingdom
Very shiny.
I would also ponder the "game devs knew the draw distance and acted accordingly" thing (very much a valid concern) but actually would be more interested in whether we could take some lessons from things like https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iNSQIyNpVGHeak6isbP6AHdHD50gs8MNXF1GCf08efg/pub?embedded=true and improve the game further.

I hope this can be applied to rom hacks someday like the Sonic 1 and 2 widescreen patches.
I have not looked into what goes for this (if this was based on source code or a proper disassembly, which mario games often have, it could get fun) but if it is as I imagine and a hack on the game's own internal logic to cope with the larger render distance (given most graphics on 2d consoles are rather fixated on the screen location/revolve around screen location*, hence the relative scarcity of true** widescreen 2d game/console hacks compared to 3d where you can do it sometimes trivially for any random game as an emulator function and even sometimes in otherwise very limited hardware that only has compatibility by dint of being basically the same hardware as the "backwards compatible" device it is pretending to be) then you can probably still have a lot of level edits, graphics tweaks, music tweaks and more work if not out of the box then with a fairly simple porting effort once you find the new locations if such data is relocated.

*I am bored right now so won't go linking the various "how video works on this console" for all the 2d consoles I can think of and instead just go with GBA http://www.coranac.com/tonc/text/video.htm (and the chapter following it) and say pretty much that for everything that has a serious 2d core at its heart, indeed I will be impressed if you can find something that isn't mainly considered a 3d console or PC that has abstract (as opposed to similar to above but maybe a different resolution) 2d capabilities.

**I find the "pause each frame and change location before stitching together" and "hope the little extras that the game keeps in VRAM for when you move for real" wonderfully creative means of trying to eek out a bit more from a device but ultimately unsatisfactory, the game specific emulator stuff like we see for more conventional graphics filters not that much better.
 

AmandaRose

Do what I do. Hold tight and pretend it’s a plan
Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2015
Messages
10,171
Trophies
1
Location
Glasgow
Website
www.rockstarnorth.com
XP
16,081
Country
United Kingdom

Vitor Vitela, a Brazilian Super Nintendo hacker also known for his FastROM projects that speed up classic Super Nintendo titles, has officially released a widescreen hack for the landmark Super Nintendo title Super Mario World. This hack renders the entire game as it should look normally, but expanded to fit the widescreen resolution that's standard today. Currently, it only supports 16:9 and 16:10 monitor resolutions, but more additions are planned, such as support for 2:1 or the 21:9 ultrawide aspect ratios. As of right now, a patched ROM will only be compatible with the bsnes-hd emulator.

Twitter user @fraencko shared some images of the game running on a widescreen monitor that can be seen below.

You can download the Super Mario World widescreen hack and get patching instructions at Vitela's GitHub page here.
Hey your news story made it onto my phones News and Weather app. I have only ever seen one other gbatemp story ever appear on it over the ten years I have been using it lol.

Screenshot_20210619-233904_News & Weather.jpg
 
Last edited by AmandaRose,

FAST6191

Techromancer
Editorial Team
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
36,798
Trophies
3
XP
28,284
Country
United Kingdom

regnad

Button Masher
Member
Joined
May 19, 2008
Messages
2,512
Trophies
1
Age
53
XP
3,657
Country
Japan
I can't for the life of me get this to work, either with standalone BSNES HD or Retroarch. Obviously I'm just a noob idiot, but can someone help me?

I applied the patch with flip, which patched it successfully. Then I copied and pasted the text for the bso to a text editor and named it the same as the patched sfc file except with a bso extension, and put it in the same folder as the sfc.

is there something else I need to do?
 
Last edited by regnad,

godreborn

Welcome to the Machine
Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2009
Messages
38,471
Trophies
3
XP
29,105
Country
United States
I can't for the life of me get this to work, either with standalone BSNES HD or Retroarch. Obviously I'm just a noob idiot, but can someone help me?

I applied the patch with flip, which patched it successfully. Then I copied and pasted the text for the bso to a text editor and named it the same as the patched sfc file except with a bso extension, and put it in the same folder as the sfc.

is there something else I need to do?

I think you need to use the stretch command as well. the original rom will not stretch with that command, but the widescreen one will. here's what mine looks like:

upload_2021-6-19_18-43-19.png


--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

that's if you want it full screen. otherwise, it should fill the box. the original rom won't fill the box either (just checked). the patched rom does:

upload_2021-6-19_18-46-8.png
 
Last edited by godreborn,

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    I guess Ancientboi would be Peter
    +2
  • SylverReZ @ SylverReZ:
    Loooooool :rofl2:
  • SylverReZ @ SylverReZ:
    So true
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    @K3Nv2 Snow Day is pretty fun. My only bitch would be the camera controls, when you move around, say down, you have to move the right stick left or right to get camera to turn and get your view, other than that I like it so far.
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    From what people say pvp isn't even worth it
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    I just been playing offline, and they give you a few bots here n there on your team to help battle. I don't think it's as funny as the other games tho, more battle oriented than humor, which kinda sucks, but I'm still early in it
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    @BigOnYa, doesnt the game have a campaign mode?
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    Yea, and co-op, but you can also start a pvp session and battle just with friends. You get special skill cards (powers) the more you play. And higher value cards, but you can only enable so many cards at a time.
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    If you can find enough for it
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    Toilet paper is considered the money, you collect and buy stuff with TP, kinda funny. Graphics are def better than the other games tho, I think they used Unity 5 engine.
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Look if I zoom in enough I can see the herpes!!!
    +1
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    In fact I'm gonna go make a drink, roll a fatty n play some, good night to all!
    +2
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    I bet most people at the time still watched it in black and white
  • SylverReZ @ SylverReZ:
    @Xdqwerty, Many of them did before colour television was common.
  • SylverReZ @ SylverReZ:
    Likely because black and white TV was in-expensive.
    +1
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    It certainly wasn't inexpensive it cost the same as a new car back then
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    How much did a 1965 color TV cost?

    For example, a 21-inch (diagonal) GE color television in 1965 had an advertised price of $499, which is equal to $4,724 in today's dollars, according to the federal government's inflation calculator.
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    @K3Nv2, take into consideration how economy was back then
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Yeah that's why they listed inflation rates
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    Sorry didnt read that part
  • BakerMan @ BakerMan:
    @LeoTCK don't worry i knew he was joking
    +1
    BakerMan @ BakerMan: @LeoTCK don't worry i knew he was joking +1