Moon[Drunk]s Quake Graphics

Charset guide:

How to get charsets to look good ingame

1. Check resolution ratio

By 'resolution ratio' we mean the ratio between the video resolution and the console resolution which is of great importance if you want to get a charset to look good. The ratio should preferable be whole numbers i.e. 1, 2, 3 or 4 and should be the same for height and width.

Example
A video resolution of 1024x768 (height/width) works best with console resolution:

1024x768 (ratio=1)
512x384 (ratio=2)

2. Select a appropriate charset

The resolution ratio points out which charset sizes suits us best.

Ratio=1 -> 128x128 (best choice) or 256x256 charsets
Ratio=2 -> 256x256 (best choice) or 512x512 charsets
Ratio=3 -> 384x384 (best choice) or 512x512 charsets
Ratio=4 -> 512x512 (best choice) or 1024x1024 charsets

Example
When we have a ratio=2 scenario every character in the charset will be shown on screen as 16x16 pixels. A character in a 256x256 charset is also 16x16 pixels so it will be shown as is (no scaling) which should make for best possible viewing experience. In a 512x512 charset every character is 32x32 pixels so in a ratio=2 scenario it will therefore be scaled down to half its size which isn't perfect but is still ok in most cases.

3. Check console variables

There are some variables that affect the look of charsets:

Gl_smoothfont
Setting this variable to '1' might be useful to smoothen things out if you for example are not using ratio of whole numbers. For some, mostly 'wide' character charsets gl_smoothfont 1 doesn't work so well.

Gl_alphafont
This variable enables the support for 256 levels of transparency for charsets. Not all charsets are made to take advantage of this feature.

For a more in-depth article about how to get your charset to look good read Fuh's Charset guide.

Numbers guide:

Numbers are in general a little more forgiving when it comes to looking good in resolution ratios it is not designed for compared to charsets (see charset guide above). This is mostly due to the fact that numbers can never be displayed smaller than 24x24 pixels on screen but charsets can go as low as 8x8 pixels i.e. their respective original size in Quake. For example is a set of numbers that are 96x96 pixels and thus designed for a ratio=4 scenario still often acceptable down to a ratio=2 or sometime even ratio=1 scenario.

Example
When we have a ratio=2 scenario every character in a set will be shown on screen as 48x48 pixels. A character in a 96x96 set will therefore be scaled down to half its size.

Note! Not all characters in a number set have their width=height. Num_colon and num_slash have width x 1.5=height.