Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hello,

I didn't know exactly where to put this, so it can be moved as needed of course.
But there was something that has been annoying me for the last couple of years or so:


So you have the common and pretty much standard 16:9 aspect ratios, 1920x1080, etc.
However, there is also 19:10, like the monitor that I have here.

If you compare 16:9 and 16:10, just those values, it would imply that the horizontal measurement (value of 16) is the same in each a.r. right?
But the vertical measurement or value implies that the one in the 16:10-a.r. would be higher.
Physically, this is the case, when you compare my 16:10-monitor to a 16:9-monitor of the same width, mine is higher.

By now you might know where I'm going to with this and have your explanation ready. At least I hope so.
If not, here's what is strange to me:

When you compare 16:10 and 16:9 resolutions and you look at the screenshots,
often you will find there is more to see in width in 16:9 compared to 16:10.
Yet the horizontal value of "16" stays the same, although there is more horizontally.
Switching from 16:9 to 16:10 would actually mean that you cut away a certain amount (-:1) at the top and bottom of the image.

In this case of 16:9 only becoming wider and not removing anything vertically,
it would mean the a.r. would be something like 19:9 or 19:10, depending on what you would compare the vertical value to.
And also, "19" is just a guess, maybe it's more or something, I just mean to imply it would be higher as there is something added horizontally.

Why is this incorrect or why does it look incorrect? Or am I looking at it wrong?


Greetings.

I think the main confusion you have is in understanding what a ratio is. It defines a proportion rather than a size. They are called 16:9 and 16:10 simply because those are the lowest numbers possible when divided by a common factor. Just like what could be called a 16:12 ratio has been simplified to 4:3. However you wouldn't expect to see more horizontally in 16:12 than in 16:9 would you? If you did, this behaviour is what we call vert- : as the AR gets wider, more gets chopped off vertically. This produces horrendous results when multi-monitor configurations are used as the AR becomes extremely wide. Take a look at our FAQ: http://widescreengamingforum.com/article/aspect-ratio . You can see how dividing the horizontal resolution with the vertical produces your AR. For 16:9, you have the proportion of 1.77 horizontally to 1 vertically.

If you're thinking of scaling directly related to screen size, then pixel based is the closest behaviour to match this: http://widescreengamingforum.com/taxonomy/term/13

Hope this helps.

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Formerly eZ`

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Going by pure pixel real estate you can certainly see more on a 16:10 screen with a comparable resolution. When coding I prefer to have a 16:9 screen in portrait layout myself.

Aspect ratios on displayed, as eZ pointed out, is based on the number of pixels spread horizontally to the number of vertical pixels. 16:10 is therefore 1.6 horizontal pixels to 1 vertical pixel, and 16:9 is 1.78 horizontal pixels to 1 vertical pixel. It's why we call it "widescreen," otherwise we would call it "shortscreen." This is a concept developers need to get through their thick skulls... especially Epic.

I can see your confusion, though. If they actually simplified the ratio to 8:5 it would make more sense at first glance. The marketing though has 16:xx ratios defined as "high-definition" display.

To put what eZ said into some maths:

1920 x 1080 = 16 : 9
1920 / 16 = 120
120 * 9 = 1080

1680 x 1050 = 16 : 10
1680 / 16 = 105
105 * 10 = 1050

1024 x 768 = 4 : 3
1024 / 4 = 256
256 * 3 = 768

Its called the aspect ratio because its the ratio between the width and the height, in other words, in a monitor with an aspect ratio of 16:10, for every 16 pixel a wide it is, its 10 pixels high.

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: ) Skid : )
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"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality."

16:9 = 1.78
16:10 = 1.6

16:9 offers clearly a wider view. See also Cinemascope or Panascope (Both very common "aspect ratios" for movies) which are even wider (2.35 and 2.40).

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I have a very nice 16,9 eyefinity setup.
I keep thinking about switching my 3 monitors to 16,10 in the hope it lessens fov stretching on the sides.
Is it worth it?
Has anyone made the switch?

The fisheye problem is going to be present in ultra-wide resolutions no matter what the aspect ratio. It's just the way viewports are being rendered currently. I heard that OpenGL is adding implicit commands to render a different viewport to each screen to eliminate the problem, which means we should see it in DirectX in the near future. It's just a matter of the developers then to use it so we get proper field of view angles in the future. Considering the attitude developers have toward widescreen users, I wouldn't hold my breath.