Widescreen Gaming Forum

Where do you think that information comes from? We don't have a magic ball that tells us the answers. It's WSGF users like yourself who provide this information.

Well how does the information get passed to you? Surely some WSGF user booted up COD6 on launch day, figured out what it does, and came here and talked about it. Did they not submit the information by some formal means? I'm under the impression the information was always there, but because of the official policy of requiring screenshots (that end up not being taken for months, if ever) the information gets buried somewhere in the forums.

That's more or less what the policy is. The first two Quake games have no widescreen support at all. The original versions aren't listed first simply because there's nothing to say about them. If you want to play them in widescreen, you need a source port.

Conversely, Deus Ex in its original form *does* support widescreen. There's a DX10 port that supports widescreen better, and it's mentioned in the DR thread, but the original comes, as you say, first and foremost.

Nothing to say about them? "Lacking widescreen support" IS information, like how it is for several other games in the list that say "None".

Again it's an issue of clarity. Apparently users are just supposed to know that if a source port is there, it's because the original has zero widescreen support. That was my GUESS, but there's nothing confirming that one way or another. Off to make a thread again, because the basic information is lacking on the main list.

It should be much clearer, in some way. Like "none" under widescreen support - then a separate link to "we recommend" source port information on attaining widescreen.

Maybe you'd like to build us a robust database web application and a robust search engine with auto-alphabetical formatted output. As it stands, the lists have to be manually maintained, and they got cluttered to the point where doing this was unwieldy. Getting rid of the old and unpopular games seemed like the best solution, and one community member had the bright idea of moving them to a secondary list right below the main ones.

Yeah, people complained about it then too. But not one complainer expressed any desire to pitch in and help with the job.

I'm not familiar with website coding, but it seemed to me that even if entries were done by hand, I imagined it'd be something like editing a columned list on wikipedia, which isn't very difficult at all. So unless it is a far more daunting task to move existing entries up or down than I'm thinking, surely those doing it could take care to ensure alphabetical order is maintained.

Otherwise we have that unwieldy mess you speak of. Which I think having a 2nd list for every letter ends up contributing to anyways - there should be a better solution of dealing with "too many entries" for a given letter. Or users are forced to look through 2 lists instead of one.

Then again, I'm not convinced there were too many entries per letter in the first place. ~65 under S-St, and I wouldn't have an issue scrolling a couple clicks to make it through 100 on a single page.

Just do what many other sites do, limit to X entries per page, and have a "next" button and page numbers at the bottom right.

Well how does the information get passed to you?

There are two message boards that are used exclusively for reporting this information. I read every topic on both of them.

It should be much clearer, in some way. Like "none" under widescreen support - then a separate link to "we recommend" source port information on attaining widescreen.

I see no value in doing that. It means higher maintenance, more clutter, and it doesn't even convey immediately useful information - the first thing any widescreen user should know about Quake is that we recommend using DarkPlaces to play it. Having a separate record for what happens in Quake when you don't use a source port seems about as having a separate record for what happens in Quake III when you don't edit the config file.

I'm not familiar with website coding, but it seemed to me that even if entries were done by hand, I imagined it'd be something like editing a columned list on wikipedia, which isn't very difficult at all.

When this list consists of more than 700 entries, keeping it maintained and making sure the information on it is totally accurate with our records every single time someone posts a new DR is a maintenance nightmare. Trimming it down from time to time makes this much more manageable.

Which I think having a 2nd list for every letter ends up contributing to anyways - there should be a better solution of dealing with "too many entries" for a given letter. Or users are forced to look through 2 lists instead of one.

The majority of the users only need to look through the one on the top. I think we have been pretty careful about only "retiring" games that few visitors would ever be interested in to look up.

Just do what many other sites do, limit to X entries per page, and have a "next" button and page numbers at the bottom right.

As a user of these sites, I *hate* having to guess what number represents the "page" of the game I'm looking for. More importantly, that does nothing to make maintenance easier. It just means that if a DR gets added, a new record gets created on letter A, page 1, which means the bottom most record must be cut and pasted onto the top of letter A, page 2, and so on.

Bottom line WSGF could probably make very good use of a database based list

hum

Yes but as a community driven site you need to find someone whos willing to give up a large amount of there free time to setup the database. Now I'm good with html/php/mysql databases but I would rather spend my free time playing games then building something that has to fix into an already existing site. To create the sort of database you need for this you would need the following done:

Database Design (its not as simple as just dumping everything into one table)
Front End (would need to be created to be integrated into the existing site layout which can be allot of trouble)
Admin End (would ether need to be integrated into the forums user data or have a separate user table for itself)

The number of pages that would need to be coded would depend on the size of the final database design, the method(s) to access the data, and how the data should be displayed to the user, all of which would need to be decided in advance of any coding taking place. Also integration into an already existing site would ether need someone already familiar with the sites code to work on it, or someone else to learn how the site is already coded, or a collaboration between the two people which is more of a pain in the ass if they are both working in their free time.

_________________
: ) Skid : )
My Multi-Monitor Focused YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/c/SkidIncGaming
My Twitch channel which I've been known to stream on from time to time: http://www.twitch.tv/SkidInc
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality."

I thought as much.Unfortunately I don't have enough experience to undertake such a task yet, or I would at least try if given the opportunity ...

Just happened to stumble upon this page via a Google search for Tribes. Yes, it supports widescreen, thanks to the community(or what's left of it). See:

http://www.tribalwar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=577319

Okay, Rule #1 - All information has to be proven. Sorry you don't like that, but that's how it is. We've been down this road too many times on arguing what is accurate and what isn't - Warcraft 3, Guild Wars, Lego Star Wars 2, Supreme Commander, etc., etc. I get that information is lacking, but so are resources here at the WSGF. And let's not even get into the discussion on whether "Vert-" is "bad" if we can assume the game was coded with widescreen as its baseline.

The one thing worse than old information is bad information. People may realize things are outdated and come back later to check. If they realize your information is crap, you've lost them. I will not debate this point. It has been proven time and time again to me in my personal life, "day job" and the WSGF.

But leaving all these games off the list completely is not the best answer - we can do better than that. It makes it look incomplete and months behind, when the fix takes literally seconds or minutes for them all.

We? Really, we? Considering you're calling out the WSGF for being lax, I'll ask you to hold up a mirror. (BTW, I take most attacks on the WSGF personally, considering the workload, time and heartache invested, it's basically on point. Even if it's not 100% on me, it's all a reflection of me.)

I've looked through all of your posts. I don't see one confirmed solution or Detailed Report from you. Though I value your 160 some-odd posts, you have largely been a consumer of information - not a provider. You've been involved in a lot of discussions, and made a lot of great points. I value that in the community, but you haven't given any real input into the games "knowledge base."

Your point of "the fix takes literally seconds or minutes for them all", shows your gross ignorance on the subject. It takes a lot of time to do basically anything. I would put up an "incomplete" page in the Wiki, based on a methodology and a single set of comparison shots. However, you've never taken the time to do even that. If you've never contributed, how can you know how much time it takes?

The workload on the WSGF breaks down like this:
- Forum moderation: Admin & Mod Team
- DR Grading & MGL Updates: Cranky
- MGL (wiki) page entries: Ibrin
- All benchmarking: Ibrin
- Detailed Reports: Any user, though these days the vast majority come from Scavvenjahh, Tanuki & Cranky.
- FOV & Aspect Calc - Delphium
- OpenSearch Plugin & General Ap Coding - Delphium
- Hosting - Donated by CrackerJackMack

There are a ton of Wiki pages to be added, and that is on my shoulders to do. I spent the earlier parts of the year overhauling the monitor pages, doing all the Eyefinity testing and benchmarking (and I'm still doing that). I'm finally at a point where I can get to doing Wiki pages, and I need to get caught up before I get evaluation hardware from NVIDIA for NV3DS. You have no idea how long it takes to run benchmarks for one article.

If you really wanted to be part of the solution, you'd come up and say, "Hey, there's a lot of information missing, what can I do to help?" Those are the people I really listen to - the people that want to be part of the solution.

Bottom line - I hear you. Wiki information is sorely lacking. I wish we had more updates on games as they were released. If we got games from developers or publishers, I'd do the DRs myself. Considering we don't, I can't afford to pay for the games myself. That is where the community (you) come in.

I'm working to get the Wiki updated. I'm doing all that I can. The WSGF is a hobby. It's a really big f'ing hobby. It doesn't pay any bills in my house - it only eats up time. Take the first few years as a whole, and it broke even (not counting my time). I'm talking income vs. hosting costs. In 2009 it started losing money again as we lost an advertiser. It got back to making a few dollars each month in 2009 when we got our hosting donated. We've had more income this year with new partners and sponsors, but all that has been re-invested back into the site. In the 2nd half, I'll finally see some personal benefit.

I have a day job, which takes more than 40 hours per week. I also have a side business of web design and hosting that helps pay bills. I have a wife, a mortgage and three small kids. I don't get a shower every day. My days are packed and my life is busy. I do all that I can for the WSGF - it's my baby. I can't even get in every day to make the front page news posts each day on time - I often have to back or post date them to get everything to spread out evenly.

So, you'll please excuse me if I take your ill-informed assumptions a bit personally. There are two things you can do to help:
1) Buy a game on release day, post some info a single part of screenshots. And, advocate for people to use the "search" function.
2) Volunteer to update the wiki using the templates and tools we have available.

I wish the site was more, but until I'm independently wealth and can devote my whole life to it, I do what I can. We do a lot with the volunteers we have. Take a look again at the list above (not totally exhaustive, but a good representation). You'd be surprised how few people support a site that is #1 in it's field and averages 1.1M page views a month.

I had nothing to do this lunch time so I've been considering how you would construct a database for this site, atm just for Games List, and Detailed Report. Current design has a 3rd table for Tested Resolutions that also includes urls for screenshots so that the screenshots can be added outside of the DRs and then be included in the DR, Wiki, or a screenshots gallery. Current design doesn't take into account the Wiki.

Please note, base design was created from nothing more then my de-construction of my Blur DR, taking into considerations of being able to reform the page displaying the DR without needing to edit the DR itself. Information from the DR can be used in the Wiki however the Wiki currently contains information not directly written into a DR (example Condensed DR section). Design also doesn't contain field type or field descriptions, design also wasn't created using Normalization, if you don't know what that is look it up.



Edit:
Also if current DRs was to be put into the database they would probably have to be done by hand, via forms created, this would be an extremely lengthy task and without a full team of people willing to do it would ether take a very long time, or end up having all old reports outside of the database, making the database mostly useless. Same applies for Wiki pages unless there already in some form of database.

_________________
: ) Skid : )
My Multi-Monitor Focused YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/c/SkidIncGaming
My Twitch channel which I've been known to stream on from time to time: http://www.twitch.tv/SkidInc
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality."

Edit:
Also if current DRs was to be put into the database they would probably have to be done by hand, via forms created, this would be an extremely lengthy task and without a full team of people willing to do it would ether take a very long time, or end up having all old reports outside of the database, making the database mostly useless. Same applies for Wiki pages unless there already in some form of database.

Thanks for your thoughts on this. Your point above is really the kicker. If we had people willing to put in the time to migrate to a new system, that time could be put in to update the one we have and to do Confirmed Solutions and/or Detailed Reports on release day...

Having some sort of form to create DRs might get more people to create them, not that there is anything wrong with the current format but it does take a while to do. If it was just a form people wouldn't have to worry about the formatting so it would seem like less work since all they would be doing is data input. But I'm really not one to talk since as I mentioned earlier I would much rather play a game on release then spend an hour or so writing a report about it.

Allot of people would be more likely to do work if the amount of work they have to do isn't perceived to be that much, if you take my DR for example, it looks like there is allot there, but in reality most of it is just screen shots, there not a great deal of text.

_________________
: ) Skid : )
My Multi-Monitor Focused YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/c/SkidIncGaming
My Twitch channel which I've been known to stream on from time to time: http://www.twitch.tv/SkidInc
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality."