Widescreen Gaming Forum

Bioshock 2 in 16:9 with an FOV of 75 is exactly how the developers want you to play the game.

75 degrees horizontal or 75 degrees vertical?

Here is something I found just now. The original BioShock was designed as an XBox 360 game, and therefore, supporting 16:9 is a requirement. The HUD is optimized for 16:9, the cut-scenes are forced 16:9, the developers claimed it was designed for 16:9, etc. But is the baseline FOV actually 16:9? Note when I say "FOV," I actually mean the entire field of view - not just a value representing one of its angles.

Anyway, before the patch, "baseline" 16:9 looked like this:


And the "vert +" 4:3 looked like this:


Then they added a patch that disables the hor + lock. Now it is hor + instead, and looks like this:




Compare the old 4:3 and the new 4:3. They are the exact same thing! Clearly, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the baseline FOV is 4:3, and the game was originally programmed in a way so that 16:9 subtracts from the baseline. With the patch, it instead adds to the baseline.

Ibrin feels this should be highlighted in the DR, but I'm not sure enough users go that deep or realise a game's baseline is just as important to know these days before going about looking for a Hor+ change. I didn't, until recently.

If users don't care enough to read through a Detailed Report (and that is not meant to be derogative, just simply to highlight they don't have the interest), then do you think they will care enough as to what the baseline was intended to be?

The people who are raising hell now are Surround/Eyefinity gamers. Those people will care enough to read the DR, and will concede that the 16:9 baseline may be the intended FOV. But, no matter what baseline was intended, a Vert- implementation will screw them. Hor+ is the the one way to ensure people get what was intended (possibly with anamorphic below 16:9, as is done on the Xbox360).

Compare the old 4:3 and the new 4:3. They are the exact same thing! Clearly, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the baseline FOV is 4:3, and the game was originally programmed in a way so that 16:9 subtracts from the baseline. With the patch, it instead adds to the baseline.

I honestly don't see how that data proves that position at all. No one ever claimed other than what you are showing, it was Vert- before and now it is Hor+. The point is they designed the game around what you end up seeing at 16:9, no matter how they chose to get there.

Bioshock 2 in 16:9 with an FOV of 75 is exactly how the developers want you to play the game.

75 degrees horizontal or 75 degrees vertical?

Vertical according to dopefish, I don't know personally, the tech guy never posted which he meant.

I can tell you setting F11 to make the FOV 90 results in a sizeable bump, so I know the 16:9 default FOV is surely no larger than 75. It feels like 65 to be honest.

The point is they designed the game around what you end up seeing at 16:9, no matter how they chose to get there.

Around what you end up seeing pre-patch, or post-patch? If they had truly designed it around a 16:9 FOV, there wouldn't be a discrepancy like this. Such a huge change in the FOV could not have gone unnoticed if it were all that important to the designers.

The data also shows that they *had* to program 4:3 support. They started with it. Making 16:9 work wasn't possible without making 4:3 work first, because they "got there" by starting with 4:3 and then cutting the top and bottom off. If 4:3 is not the baseline, why explicitly design an FOV for it, and only it?

The point is they designed the game around what you end up seeing at 16:9, no matter how they chose to get there.

Around what you end up seeing pre-patch, or post-patch? If they had truly designed it around a 16:9 FOV, there wouldn't be a discrepancy like this. Such a huge change in the FOV could not have gone unnoticed if it were all that important to the designers.

The data also shows that they *had* to program 4:3 support. They started with it. Making 16:9 work wasn't possible without making 4:3 work first, because they "got there" by starting with 4:3 and then cutting the top and bottom off. If 4:3 is not the baseline, why explicitly design an FOV for it, and only it?

Maybe instead of coming to the conclusion that 4:3 was the SUPER SECRET TRUE REAL BASELINE FOV,

you could come to the conclusion that they were sick of all the backlash of misinformed widescreen owners, and simply caved and alowed users to change the game so that more FOV was added to anything wider than 4:3.

giving users the option is not an admittance of anything new or a revelation that 4:3 was baseline. For all we know they simply shrugged, said "hey it's already correct looking at 16:9, but they're bitching so here's the option to change it"

you could come to the conclusion that they were sick of all the backlash of misinformed widescreen owners, and simply caved and alowed users to change the game so that more FOV was added to anything wider than 4:3.

What you mean is that when the AR is wider than 4:3, FOV is added to 4:3. That's pretty much what the definition of a baseline is.

"pretty much"

because that definition doesn't include what we often use it for - in that it's also the designed or intended AR/FOV.

We assume that the intended AR/FOV is the one that also doesn't change or shouldn't change, even when the game's widescreen behaviour does.

but they're not, when you get down to it, the same thing.


We now talk of baselines on this site because they are helpful in determining the ACTUALLY important thing we're after - the intended AR/FOV. Usually/traditionally they're the same thing, which is why in our posts we substitute the former term for the latter.


With the case of Bioshock, just because 4:3 stayed the same before and after the patch, that might make it the new baseline, HOWEVER it doesn't necessarily make it the new intended AR/FOV.

That's my entire point.

For all we know, 16:9 pre-patch option was perfect as intended, and all they did was give users a way to change it away from that (for whatever reason). They didn't correct the 16:9 FOV, or necessarily change the intended AR/FOV.



Extending back out from this example, surely there are numerous games these days with intended ARs/FOVs of 16:9, and thus no altering of the game should be done by 16:9 users, REGARDLESS OF WIDESCREEN BEHAVIOUR. And if the game is Vert -, nothing should be done for <16:9 users, as they're already seeing at least everything that's intended to be seen.

Game behaviour is only half the story; just as important these days is knowing what the baseline/intended AR/FOV is. The days past of assuming or working from it always being 4:3 and what FOV we had by default at 4:3, are over.

because that definition doesn't include what we often use it for - in that it's also the designed or intended AR/FOV.

Why would the baseline NOT be the intended AR/FOV? Someone explicitly programmed a 4:3 aspect ratio. The code would have looked something like this:
V-FOV = 75
H-FOV = 90
If AR > 4/3 then reduce V-FOV accordingly

And post-patch, the only thing that changed was the last line, to this:
If AR > 4/3 then increase H-FOV accordingly

If we assume that the original 16:9 behavior was correct, that means the default V-FOV value is deliberately too high. Why would anyone program it that way? It doesn't make any sense, and it isn't intuitive.

With the case of Bioshock, just because 4:3 stayed the same before and after the patch, that might make it the new baseline, HOWEVER it doesn't necessarily make it the new intended AR/FOV.

It's just about the only solid evidence we've got as to the intended AR/FOV. As you say, they are usually/traditionally the same thing. As I say, it doesn't make any sense for these things to be different.