Widescreen Gaming Forum

That might be true for FPSs but what about flight simulators?

Seeing the ceiling and floor of the cockpit isn't really useful either. And if you're weird and play your flight sims in chase cam mode, the sky and ground still isn't as important as the horizon.

Okay! I'm sure the majority of flight sim fans wouldn't mind seeing more in any direction, being able to see dash and roof controls by just moving your eyes instead of the mouse (camera) is an advantage.

I can't argue about the horizon being more important in a flight sim though....but what about a space sim? There is no up/down or left/right there.
In fact a space sim's ideal aspect would be almost square or circular (hemisphere?), and if possible slightly wrapping around you both to the sides and vertically.


I forgot to mention that with Aspect+ it forces developers to think more logical, you can't just "pop in" a NPC any more, you have to make use of the gameworlds geometry.

Amusingly enough Monolith's Alien vs Predator 2 does this (not so amusing is how messy it is to get widescreen and correct FOV),
the aliens there do not pop in, well they do but you can not see it as they pop in... into holes that are tiny tunnels or whatnot, if you cheat you can see that those holes extend inwards or twists up or to the left etc. So the alien AI actually has to crawl out of the hole and THEN ambush you from behind or the side.
So AvP2 is actually very widescreen (or Aspect+ even) friendly but ironically not supporting it :roll:

War shooters just need to begin popping in the enemy in foxholes or the other side of a door or behind a bush rather than right in front of the bush,
how many of you surround gaming nuts here have seen enemies pop in magically out the corner of your eye?
I'd say that would ruin the game a little. So a game that follows Aspect+ (or Anamorphic with toggleable masking) would probably behave more sane in that respect.

And I'm sure that at some point there might even be separate letterbox and pillarbox options Cranky, so you could play with letterboxing on if you really want. ;)

All I ask for is to consider adding... "or Anamorphic with toggle-able masking as a user option" to the WSGF Anamorphic criteria :)

Basically the WSGF Anamorphic criteria would then be the same as Aspect+ only WSGF uses implicit "must" instead of "should", so WSGF would be stricter than Aspect+ in that respect.

PS! I know this is the "Wide" Screen Gaming Forum, but that doesn't mean WSGF can't aspect agnostic games right?

After all WSGF certification criteria for "Pixel based" games actually matches Aspect+ already.

I like this Idea a lot. This might be getting off subject a little bit, but the only thing I can think to make this better is be able to place where the center camera will be compared to monitor.

Let's say a user is using a setup with an even number of monitors.

Have them be able to move the view to the middle of another monitor instead of being smack-dab in the middle of a bezel. This would actually make the 3x2, 2x1, or even 2x2 a viable solution for people.

It's just something I would like to see. I feel that if multi-monitor was even more accessible, that we would have a lot more interesting setups.

On thing else I'd like to put forward would be, having a mode if you will that would allow the FOV to be tweaked vertically and Horizontally to where the following could occur:

Let's take a 3x3 grid. Normally, you would see just as much as you do on a single monitor. But with this you could see what you would normally see on a single monitor on the middle monitor, then on the outer monitors the view would be extended.

The above would actually make it worth it to have a AxA setup, well to me anyway. Without any FOV increases, you might as well buy a TV and back up.

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@suiken_2mieu
Already possible thanks to AMD's SDK that exposes an API to their drivers.

http://sites.amd.com/us/underground/products/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity-sdk.aspx

With this developers can retrieve details like bezels and more.

I have no idea if Nvidia has something similar let's hope so..

It's a shame however that this stuff isn't part of the OS, maybe DirectX 12 will provide such,
that way developers only have to use a single API rather than two different ones.

I know, but what if the developer designed the game so that they have a 16:9 area where the focus is, but with a extended view area.

Then the frame composition would be compromised. The extra vertical view would distract from the focus.

The two shots you showed was done like that,

And as a result, the 4:3 shot is less effective. If we were meant to see that much vertical space, it would have been shot with *more* height, so that when cropped to 16:9 it would have that much height.

And please look at the Aspect+ description image again, do you see hat the 5:4 has about as much letterboxing as the 18:9 does?

What the 18:9 has is pillarboxing, actually. You're comparing horizontal FOV with vertical FOV. Extra H-FOV is good. Extra V-FOV is bad.

So do you intend to fault games that let you look up/down as well?

No. Looking up and down is controllable by the player, and isn't used nearly as much as turning, and doesn't actually expand the height of the frame.

And surround gaming let you see 3-4 or more in the width that the original design.

Extra H-FOV is good. It's like having peripheral vision - it doesn't distract from the focus like extra V-FOV does, it's just something extra.

Someone mentioned a overhead RTS, a RTS uses the extra space for the GUI.

GUI's can generally accommodate any screen size and shape just fine.

Remember, in the future there new "wide" might be 18:9 or even 1:2.40, wouldn't you want to enjoy the game on all of your old 16:9 screen?

I watch movies at these aspect ratios, letterboxed. I wouldn't want them to fill my widescreen (not even through open-matte). Nor would I want a hypothetical 2.40:1 game to fill my widescreen.

And please note that the Aspect+ proposal states that games "must" support this aspect+ only behavior , but that they "should" support letterbox/pillarbox masking,

That would effectively de-certify every single game we have. There are no games that meet this requirement.

There is one thing you could do right now that would harm nothing, just slightly change the Anamorphic criteria for the WSGF certification to allow the masking to be user selectable.

We never penalize games for giving the user choice, as long as at least one of the choices meets the criteria, it seems redundant to specify that we're fine with offering the user other choices. There's only one game that lets you turn the letterboxing off anyway - FEAR 2 - which reverts to hor + behavior when you do so, and is therefore the recommended option for TH users.

being able to see dash and roof controls by just moving your eyes instead of the mouse (camera) is an advantage.

Then it doesn't make much sense for a flight sim to use a 16:9 baseline. The best baseline AR would be whatever shape rectangle lets you see all the controls, which probably isn't widescreen.

In fact a space sim's ideal aspect would be almost square or circular (hemisphere?), and if possible slightly wrapping around you both to the sides and vertically.

Could be. But again, that would make "aspect+" from 16:9 a poor design choice - everyone but 4:3 users would be seeing too little vertically.

I forgot to mention that with Aspect+ it forces developers to think more logical, you can't just "pop in" a NPC any more, you have to make use of the gameworlds geometry.

Why would developing with a 16:9 baseline that expands horizontally from there force developers to do this? Developing from a 4:3 baseline that expands horizontally from there doesn't.

All I ask for is to consider adding... "or Anamorphic with toggle-able masking as a user option" to the WSGF Anamorphic criteria

Giving the user the option to turn off letterboxing doesn't break any certification criteria. I don't see the need to explicitly say it doesn't in the criteria.

There is one thing you could do right now that would harm nothing, just slightly change the Anamorphic criteria for the WSGF certification to allow the masking to be user selectable.

We never penalize games for giving the user choice, as long as at least one of the choices meets the criteria, it seems redundant to specify that we're fine with offering the user other choices. There's only one game that lets you turn the letterboxing off anyway - FEAR 2 - which reverts to hor + behavior when you do so, and is therefore the recommended option for TH users.

Ah, FEAR 2, been a while since I've played that, didn't a patch add that option? In any case it seems that FEAR 2 meets the Aspect+ criteria and in addition to the WSGF criteria. I assume the game works great with Eyefinity and 2D Sur.. erm 3D Vision Surround too. (I really wish Nvidia would have picked a better brand name)

All I ask for is to consider adding... "or Anamorphic with toggle-able masking as a user option" to the WSGF Anamorphic criteria

Giving the user the option to turn off letterboxing doesn't break any certification criteria. I don't see the need to explicitly say it doesn't in the criteria.

Well it seems we disagree on several things, but we can at least agree on this.
I still want to see that text added to the criteria though as it would encourage the option to turn it off (for surround view) like you mentioned!

I see that FEAR 2 is listed as "Anamorphic / Hor +" which is almost exactly the same as Aspect+, boxing/masking is optional and on by default (artistic design). THe only difference is that "Anamorphic / Hor +" vs Aspect+ is that "Anamorphic / Hor +" (FEAR2 as example) is "Vert 0" rather than Vert+ on narrower aspects, but since Aspect+ has the optional masking, the WSGF criteria and Aspect+ actually overlap, so I'm happy with that rating for FEAR2.

Any chance of using FEAR 2 more prominently as a "exemplary" game if an example is needed for people on how a "proper" game should behave? I know Half-Life 2 has been a favorite in the past, but I feel FEAR2 is a step above that due to this. (best of both worlds, letting the player choose either artistic vision or utilizing the monitor setup fully)
As I really think as many games as possible should be "Anamorphic / Hor +", Monolith did a really cool thing supporting that.

Just a shame not more games use the FEAR2 engine. (casts a look of contempt at the majority of Unreal3 engine based games out there).

Kinda makes me want to play the game again just because of this. You don't have a symbolic "A+" rating you could give to FEAR2? ;P *laughs*

I still want to see that text added to the criteria though as it would encourage the option to turn it off (for surround view) like you mentioned!

Games *must* have the ability to turn it off for surround view in order to be certified. That much is specified in the certification requirements, using FEAR 2 as an example. So far, there are two anamorphic games that allow this - FEAR 2 (user toggleable), and The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (automatic hor + if AR > 1.77).

Any chance of using FEAR 2 more prominently as a "exemplary" game if an example is needed for people on how a "proper" game should behave?

IIRC, it was proposed we give it a special mention in the 2009 awards, but all that seems to be on indefinite hold - it all depends on whether Ibrin has time for it or not.

Honestly I don't see what wrong with adding more FOV to games. That's what we've always wanted anyway. Even if adding vertical FOV is a plus in several games. Death from above still happens.

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What we always wanted was for widescreen users to get extra H-FOV. If adding V-FOV is a plus, that means the game's FOV was too small in the first place.

I mean, you can *always* claim death from above as a possibility, until you have a ridiculous FOV like 180.