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PSA: Nintendo still hasn't given us an option to turn off the disgusting borders on any of the NSO apps

What do you love most about the NSO borders?

  • Their distracting allure

    Votes: 15 5.2%

  • Their ugly gradient aesthetic

    Votes: 44 15.2%

  • They remind me that mediocrity can be rewarded with financial gain

    Votes: 68 23.5%

  • Screen burn-in

    Votes: 115 39.8%

  • The lack of options for any design other than the fucking gradient

    Votes: 47 16.3%
  • Total voters
    289
Solid SOAP

Solid SOAP

One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 27, 2017
8,306
your mom's house
The Nintendo Switch Online app is one that surprised me. There may be a slow rolling out of games, but I actually use the app quite a bit. It's a great way to experience classics that I never would've taken the time and/or money to buy through the eshop, or find a way to play through other methods. The emulation is mostly all solid now, and the games play as remembered.

So why the fuck is this ugly ass distracting border still here?

N5B76Cf.jpeg


It's on every game, looking the fucking same each time. It stares back at me to remind me that yes, someone was paid not only to create this ugly ass gradient, but to not even allow me the option to turn it off. Or to change it to some other design that might even be equally or more ugly!

There was a brief glimmer of hope when I played Goldeneye on the app, as there was a widescreen option there. But nah, only available for that game, nothing else.

The big excuse is "oh, I'm sure its primary function is advertising so whenever you take a screenshot, everyone knows it's from the NSO app." Ok, but the Switch allows for developers to apply a watermark to their games!!! Nintendo couldve done the same here!!!

Shit drives me crazy, and I will never not bitch about it. Maybe they'll fix it when I'm dead. But for now, I am living in hell.
 
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entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
Member
Oct 26, 2017
60,465
It's not happening, bud.

Same with button mapping. Nintendo is stubborn AF.

I want button mapping badly. Y/B is superior to B/A for NES and GB/GBA.
 
Garou

Garou

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,638
Easy, just press the Zoom-button on your TV-remote and stretch the game to 16:9 đź‘Ť
 
Extra Sauce

Extra Sauce

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,942
I don't actually mind the gradient, I find it tasteful and sober.

however the avatar with photon white outline is very distracting. *hyperbole alert* it feels like a violation of my retina.
 
Bard

Bard

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
12,535
Genuinely don't care about the borders, though I guess I don't use the app all that much either way.
 
wamoss

wamoss

Member
Aug 11, 2022
1,169
It's such a huge bungle that you can't even edit controls either. Big reason why I hate playing gba or n64 games on the thing.
 
dstarMDA

dstarMDA

Member
Dec 22, 2017
4,312
You'd get screen burn-in (actually, some kind of reverse burn in) even if you got black bars instead. Theoritically.
 
pete_clarf

pete_clarf

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,730
They are always the exact same size so make two beautiful drawings and tape them to your TV. Or, better yet, commission a local artist to make two beautiful drawings and tape those to your TV.

Edit: you can also do this in handheld mode. Just gotta make the beautiful drawings smaller.
 
fiendcode

fiendcode

Member
Oct 26, 2017
24,943
It's dumb but the gradient is one the least offensive official borders I've seen. It could definitely be worse.

The player icon is bad though and should probably only be there when playing multiplayer/online.
 
AkimbOb-omb

AkimbOb-omb

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,495
Garou said:
Easy, just press the Zoom-button on your TV-remote and stretch the game to 16:9 đź‘Ť
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Disgusting...

pete_clarf said:
They are always the exact same size so make two beautiful drawings and tape them to your TV. Or, better yet, commission a local artist to make two beautiful drawings and tape those to your TV.

Edit: you can also do this in handheld mode. Just gotta make the beautiful drawings smaller.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

OLED burn in on my Switch and C1 is the real concern. I'm not bothered by the icon/frame at all when playing games.
 
oni-link

oni-link

tag reference no one gets
Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,073
UK
pete_clarf said:
They are always the exact same size so make two beautiful drawings and tape them to your TV. Or, better yet, commission a local artist to make two beautiful drawings and tape those to your TV.

Edit: you can also do this in handheld mode. Just gotta make the beautiful drawings smaller.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Brb, I'm off to commission an artist to draw me two beautiful black bars
 
FTF

FTF

Member
Oct 28, 2017
28,570
New York
Yup, I hate it OP. And the main reason I don't play more classic games on switch.

Let us get rid of the freakin player icon in the top left Nintendo!!
 
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New002

New002

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,716
GenericGhost said:
Do I wish we had different options? Yes.
Are they as bad as you say? No.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This. The Gradient is fine imo and at least it's done in a clean way that increases contrast (as opposed to a different border method that would make it worse/super distracting).

The player icon is what's most problematic imo (and the bottom bar but you can turn that off).

dstarMDA said:
You'd get screen burn-in (actually, some kind of reverse burn in) even if you got black bars instead. Theoritically.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Also kind of this, assuming OP is referencing OLED sets. Black bars will cause uneven wear on the panel since those pixels are all "off." Not sure how it is on more modern displays but on my old C6 it's very noticeable when I jump from say 4:3 to widescreen, or either to full screen content. You can see a hard line where the black bars were and any imagery in said areas is a slightly different... saturation I guess.
 
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Luneth

Luneth

Member
Aug 5, 2020
1,406
I can tolerate the side borders, after a while I don't even notice.

But the bottom one, that's awful, it gives a cheap aspect to the emulator imo. I'm glad we can at least turn that one off.
 
DarkChronic

DarkChronic

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,047
It's horrible. That and the lack of simple button remapping were some of the reasons I finally decided to pickup a Steam Deck and emulate that way. So much better.
 
bananab

bananab

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,869
I was thinking about this the other day, and my best guess as to why this persists is that Nintendo wants a constant visual reminder that you're in an app wrapper for some kind of usability reason. I don't really like it, but I could kinda see this being the case.

I intentionally set my avatar to be as dark and low-contrast as possible since that is the only thing I can even partially control here. I always look at the new avatars on offer to see if any are almost totally black or grey.
 
Axe

Axe

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,774
United Kingdom
It sucks, considering the 3DS has the option to play classic games without a border. And at least there you get the option of cute faux-handheld borders, instead of an ugly gradient.
 
RPG_Fanatic

RPG_Fanatic

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,666
Maybe I am weird, but I have never understood this turn off the borders. What does turn off the borders mean in this case? Stretching the screen?
 
Leeway

Leeway

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,416
Vancouver, BC
I hate it too. I would probably honestly play more games on NSO if it didn't have the borders, as silly as that sounds. I just prefer having black borders for 4:3 games in general.

RPG_Fanatic said:
Maybe I am weird, but I have never understood this turn off the borders. What does turn off the borders mean in this case? Stretching the screen?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It would mean turning off those greyscale borders on the left and right so it's just black on the sides, nothing else added.
 
Xwing

Xwing

This guy are sick of the unshakeable slayer
Member
Nov 11, 2017
9,922
It'd be wild if Switch just had a device that let you easily display the video feed somewhere else, like another screen of your choosing, some kind of docking system.

(I agree that forcing the icon to constantly display in the corner is dumb as hell, lmao)
 
refusi0n1

refusi0n1

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,941
Nintendo's attitude toward my top 3 nso app gripes

1. Release more games? Lol no
2. Turn off borders? Lol no
3. Organize and properly size our tiles? Lol no
 
Spacejaws

Spacejaws

"This guy are sick" of the One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,901
Scotland
It's awful and a major reason I play on Steam Deck instead. Some element of customisation should be cruicial to any emulator.
 
oakenhild

oakenhild

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,921
RPG_Fanatic said:
Maybe I am weird, but I have never understood this turn off the borders. What does turn off the borders mean in this case? Stretching the screen?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

On OLED specifically, if you just had true black there, you wouldn't have any brightness from the edges, the pixels would effectively be off. It would be such an improvement over having the gradient. Would also be much easier on the OLED itself, if you play for long sessions. So TV or the switch oled would benefit.

This is the annoying part about Nintendo. Small QOL changes would be great but they just get overlooked or ignored forever. There feels like there is no feedback loop from the customer to Nintendo at all.

Defending the gradient is silly too. You could have both.
 
CesareNorrez

CesareNorrez

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,533
oakenhild said:
On OLED specifically, if you just had true black there, you wouldn't have any brightness from the edges, the pixels would effectively be off. It would be such an improvement over having the gradient. Would also be much easier on the OLED itself, if you play for long sessions. So TV or the switch oled would benefit.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

No, you would want grey bars for an OLED. With black bars the pixels would effectively be off so they would not age along with the pixels in the middle causing brightness levels to differ. Solid Grey bars were an option on Plasma TVs back in the day when displaying 4:3 content and that was a good thing. This would require a ton of screen time with modern OLEDs though.
 
Mandos

Mandos

Member
Nov 27, 2017
31,175
refusi0n1 said:
Nintendo's attitude toward my top 3 nso app gripes

1. Release more games? Lol no
2. Turn off borders? Lol no
3. Organize and properly size our tiles? Lol no
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
On the first one at least, regarding N64, it actually takes a surprising amount of time to get games up to standards in the emulator, especially considering the online aspect, we've actually gotten some insight on that from when they working working with the throwback team. It's not plug n play
 
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