Widescreen Gaming Forum

Letterboxing on 4:3 monitors won't make it any tinier than it already is, you know.

Letterboxing on 4:3 monitors won't make it any tinier than it already is, you know.

If the game did a Hor+ instead of a Ver- it would.
The size would be keyed to the vertical, much of which is cut off by the letterboxing, meaning the same image would be 1/2 to 2/3 of the height, and since aspect ratio would be kept, 1/2 to 2/3 the width.

This is probably a good part of WHY it's Ver-.

On a somewhat related note, I'd like to apologize for the tone of my previous message. While I do not withdraw the technical points I made, I let completely unrelated issues cause my post to be acerbic to a degree that was uncalled for. For this I am sorry.

If the game did a Hor+ instead of a Ver- it would.

If it were hor +, 4:3 would be unchanged, and widescreen would just have filler on the left and right. This is a perfectly acceptable mechanism for handling widescreen on 2D stuff.

The size would be keyed to the vertical, much of which is cut off by the letterboxing,

If they made it hor +, there wouldn't be any letterboxing, and the same image would have 100% of the height no matter what AR you use.

The size would be keyed to the vertical, much of which is cut off by the letterboxing,

If they made it hor +, there wouldn't be any letterboxing, and the same image would have 100% of the height no matter what AR you use.

I'm afraid you are missing the point. Fallout 3 offers people WITHOUT widescreen monitors (and people running Fallout 3 in windowed mode) widescreen resolutions that are letterboxed.
Someone with a "stock" monitor, which is presently about a 17" flat screen non widescreen that will run 1280x1024. They fear .ini files. They want more field of view. They switch it to 1280x800[Letterbox] in the options on the launcher.

The game does not CARE what size your monitor is, it scales to the resolution chosen. A menu that used to take up the full screen now takes up the full viewing area (about 80% as high). If it is Hor+, there is no vertical cropping, extra dead space is added, and the menu is as high as the viewing area... which is 80% as large as it was before picking the letterboxed resolution.

If it is Ver-, 10% of the menu frame is lost on the top and 10% of the menu frame is lost on the bottom. At extreme widescreen resolutions (which DO happen thanks to multi monitor configs) this becomes a problem, albeit one an .ini edit can fix.

I'm afraid you are missing the point. Fallout 3 offers people WITHOUT widescreen monitors (and people running Fallout 3 in windowed mode) widescreen resolutions that are letterboxed.

Then if 4:3 users won't get an expanded 16:9 frame as a result of the letterboxing, why have black bars at all? Why not just have 2D mode run in fullscreen, and let the black bars take over in hor + 3D mode where this actually results in a 16:9 frame?

I'm afraid you are missing the point. Fallout 3 offers people WITHOUT widescreen monitors (and people running Fallout 3 in windowed mode) widescreen resolutions that are letterboxed.

Then if 4:3 users won't get an expanded 16:9 frame as a result of the letterboxing, why have black bars at all? Why not just have 2D mode run in fullscreen, and let the black bars take over in hor + 3D mode where this actually results in a 16:9 frame?

Because for a menu you generally want to read it, and, frankly, there is not much extra to see.
For run and gun in first person, you want an expanded field of view.

Now ... there is the argument that you could go into the .ini file and adjust the field of view settings, but ...
a)some consider editing the .ini files in ways that give one a game advantage akin to cheating... and a wider FOV *IS* a game advantage. Having an option in resolutions that allows it explicitly demonstrates it is a regular game option, not a modding tweak or console command (keep in mind what else console commands do).

b)some don't know how to mess with .ini files and frankly would be a menace to their computer if they tried. On a similar note, scaling of both the ver- menus and the hor+ FOV can be done by said .ini file...

... so however you WANT the menus to crop or add, you can do so, whatever mode you are on, widescreen or otherwise. This means for power users, the argument has become a bit of a moot point, unless you change to resolutions with different aspect ratios regularly.

Edit:To have fullscreen for 2D menus and widescreen for the main game engine would involve switching resolutions on the fly every time you pick a lock, which would be a disaster... that or not actually rendering it in widescreen at all, just expanding the FOV and blacking out the top and bottom (which is significantly harder on a video card). Also, many monitors align differently in different resolutions and refresh rates, sometimes shifting the image edge off the screen several inches, as well as having a short time black between. This does not happen with all resolutions, but it happens enough to be an issue on enough systems. Trying to fast switch resolutions to show more dead space on menus is, regrettably, very technically messy.

The rules for certification have to be strict because it is a quantafiable method... we rate the games on criteria, and making it subjective makes every report a crap shoot.

I get what you mean about the things Fallout 3 was knocked for, but the standard formula has to be followed or else all is chaos. The important thing is that the detailed reports show exactly what kind of impact and behavior you can expect a widescreen display to have, and then the consumer makes a decision based on their priorities.

Because for a menu you generally want to read it, and, frankly, there is not much extra to see.

That doesn't answer my question. Why would you use this:


when you could use this?

For run and gun in first person, you want an expanded field of view.

I'm just talking about the 2D screens. We're all agreed that the way Fallout 3 handles 3D stuff is flawless. All I'm saying is that the 2D stuff could have been implemented better. Vertical scaling based on aspect ratio is never the right method.

Sorry if i missed something here but doesn't fallout work 5040x1050 natively now? Tried it the other night, fully patched retail and i had no problems.
Although didn't really test it.

so as so often happens, after reading 6 pages of arguments, I'm still not sure what I need to do to get the best widescreen experience on my 16:10 display.

just set the resolution in game and I'm golden? FOV is automatically corrected properly?