Some video-related and controller issues I have with v5.2

Firstly, I want to say thank you all for not only keeping this game alive for all these years even after Sega's takedown, but also providing bugfixes and updates to the game. The new widescreen option is great and the game looks even better than ever. That said I have some issues I want to point with the new update and some lingering XInput related issues with the game.

For some reason, I'm not sure if it's because I'm on Windows 10, but no matter what I try, V-sync just doesn't want to work if I play the game in exclusive or borderless fullscreen modes (both BORDERLESS and BORDERLESS_SYNC options in the game's system.txt file), not even trying to force it from my GPU's control panel it doesn't want to work or compatibility modes/running as admin. The only time it seems to work is when playing in a windowed display, which brings me to my next issue. I'm grateful that this game now supports widescreen, but I can't help but notice the game is 10 pixels short of being properly displaying in 16:9; I've seen Doom modders pointed out that a resolution 426x240 scales up to higher resolutions evenly for 16:9 resolutions when modding some of the art assets for the classic Doom games on DOS with source ports and the official Unity port, but the problem with Streets of Rage Remake v5.2 is that its windowed mode displays the game at a resolution of 416x240 in widescreen mode. Because of the V-sync problem, this is where I'd normally turn to a programs like Lossless Scaling to upscale the game in windowed mode, but because of the game's widescreen resolution running at 416x240 in windowed mode, there's a bit of unused space on the sides with the configuration I'm using on Lossless Scaling to upscale games to the aspect-ratio instead of the pixel-perfect method.

The other issue I still have with the game in regards to XInput controllers is that the game still won't recognize the analog triggers (Left and Right Triggers). I'm not sure if this is an SDL-related problem, but this could be a problem for certain controllers. I've seen someone mention on PC Gaming Wiki that this game apparently doesn't work at all with Retro-Bit's Sega Genesis controller in DirectInput mode (sadly I don't have one to confirm this), and for some reason the game thinks the Z and C buttons when in XInput mode are the analog Left and Right Triggers, but because of the game not registering those triggers, the Z and C buttons are rendered useless for the game with that controller. Is there any possibility these issues can be looked into for a future update?

Windows 10 has generally passable to outright shit compatibility with Windows XP era games. There's a lot of older games where it's far easier just to keep Windows 7 (Microsoft's best OS ever made) installed in order to play games like this. For anyone having difficulties with anything other than a game made within the past 2 years, it's always safe to assume any issues are Windows 10 related and will require playing extensively with Compatibility Mode settings or hoping for a patch.

That being said, both these issues you're describing appear easily fixable:

• Having V-Sync off is generally preferable because many Windows applications struggle to implement V-Sync in a way that doesn't add frames of input lag. There isn't that much constant scrolling in SoRR, so having V-Sync off shouldn't be noticeable on modern displays and is actually the recommended setting to maximize game response time. SoRR has always behaved oddly for me with V-Sync On in terms of framerate so I don't even know if its V-Sync is implemented in a way that'll work for most systems, and at any rate it plays better off. It's not an autoscrolling game like a shmup, so screen tearing is minimal and not intrusive at all. V-Sync Off is best.

• Many older games do not handle analog triggers correctly. In some cases they don't see it at all as mappable when the game expects a digital button input, and in some cases it sees it as one single axis, a Z axis, so pressing both at the same time is impossible because the game thinks it's a neutral input. Fortunately there's an easy fix for many games where the game plays well with keyboard input or where the game can accept both controller and keyboard inputs at the same time:

https://joytokey.net/en/

Use JoyToKey to map your controls to the keyboard, and then map the keyboard in the game accordingly. Your triggers will work correctly being registered as keyboard presses. I don't remember if SoRR accepts keyboard and gamepad inputs together, but since it has no analog controls everything on the controller can be mapped to keyboard if you want to use the trigger buttons.