Widescreen Gaming Forum

Grade: C+

Vert - is a consequential flaw.

CCE: 100%

I played around with the game "optionsCustom.txt"

First & Foremost once you put an optionsCustom.txt with some values in it, the game will save those settings in options.txt (at least until you modify something else within the game). This means that deleting optionsCustom.txt is not enough to get back original camera.

Since 2000 seemed almost like cheating to me, I tried to find how to get nearly "horizontal+" view.

math follows :
given the original settings which are :
camera.cam1_trackdist_max = 850
camera.cam2_trackdist_max = 850
camera.dng1_trackdist_max = 710
camera.dng2_trackdist_max = 710

those were designed with 1280x1024 in mind

and we're searching for the camera value for 1680x1050

850 / (1280/1024) = Y / (1680/1050)
Y = 850 / (1280/1024) * (1680/1050)
Y = 850 / (5/4) * (16/10)
Y = 1088

so the closest camera distance for horizontal+ gameplay at 1680x1050 would be 1088 for exteriors

so now let's move on to screenshots:
1280x1024 with default exterior 850 zoom


1680x1050 with default exterior 850 zoom (vert-)


1680x1050 with modified 1088 zoom (approx hor+)


As you can see there's a slight difference between real horizontal+ gameplay and what we get here which is a camera going backward (which modifies the way we see the scene a bit more than what would do real horizontal+, unavoidable as far as my current knowledge of the game goes though but shouldn't be a problem since the camera is freely moveable.)

Now, let's move on to values for each resolution :
for 16/10 resolutions:
camera.cam1_trackdist_max = 1088
camera.cam2_trackdist_max = 1088
camera.dng1_trackdist_max = 909
camera.dng2_trackdist_max = 909

for 16/9 resolutions:
camera.cam1_trackdist_max = 1209
camera.cam2_trackdist_max = 1209
camera.dng1_trackdist_max = 1010
camera.dng2_trackdist_max = 1010

for 5040x1050 :
camera.cam1_trackdist_max = 3264
camera.cam2_trackdist_max = 3264
camera.dng1_trackdist_max = 2726
camera.dng2_trackdist_max = 2726

Conclusion :
for triplehead users, 2000 was probably way too low BUT I don't have the hardware to test it out ...
for the others it was probably a bit too high.

Great stuff ! 8) My loathing math certainly couldn't help me achieve a very accurate solution. Ideally we'd need to calculate the dolly curve + camera angle and adapt it to every ws/TH AR for real Hor+... All that's really needed for satisfying gameplay in Surround was a higher max camera distance though, bearing in mind that 2500+ values kinda ruin the visuals - most textures get heavily degraded, loads of fog flooding the scene and so on. :(

cranky, I'll try and update my ws section ASAP (maybe tomorrow).

Ho I see... too bad about textures & fog ... glad that I could help though 8)

I made the calculations for the main ratio available that cover a majority of resolutions. Though, it's not that difficult to adapt for non standard resolutions or to further tweak resolutions where the ratio is actually a bit off.
(I'm thinking about 1360x768 where the ratio is 1.770833333 ...
whereas a true 16/9 ratio is 1.777777777 ... )

However if anyone wants additional ratio/resolutions calculations done, I'll help as soon as I see it :wink:

cranky, I'll try and update my ws section ASAP

We should still consider this game to be native vert -. The option of pulling the camera back further can be mentioned, but since it's not the same as zooming out, it shouldn't be part of our official solution.

Makes sense (and spares me some effort).
whismerhill, good job all the same :cheers

Thanks for the fix guys, it does seem to work just fine, just one thing, although outside everything works perfectly when I try and say enter a dungeon my programme just hangs and I have to restart the game.

Any similar issues for you guys?!

Nope, and I playtested this stuff a lot at the time of writing (v.1.40). I'll reinstall the game soon though (waiting for my copy of Ice & Blood!) so I'll have a better answer soon. Unfortunately this resource-hungry game can crash for numerous reasons, so you'll have to investigate the issue a bit further on your own.

Are you positively sure it doesn't happen with the stock settings ?
Did you use a funky value for any camera.dngx setting ?
Does it happen in every and all dungeons, and dungeons only ?
Did you try entering dungeons with different camera setups : Free / Fixed, close / far... ?

Thanks for the fix guys, it does seem to work just fine, just one thing, although outside everything works perfectly when I try and say enter a dungeon my programme just hangs and I have to restart the game.

Any similar issues for you guys?!

although I am only level 20 or so, at 16/10 ratio I didn't notice any sort of problem like that