Widescreen Gaming Forum

I was making a joke. Hence the smileys. ;)

There are three schools of thought for this problem... the first is that it isn't worth it for the devs to code widescreen support in, as not enough people use it, or it gets scrapped due to time constraints. The second is that it is worth it, especially since the new consoles are using 720p/1080i or whatever, and are therefore widescreen. So they are increasing their market. The third is a subdivision of the second, where the mentality is, "In the grand scheme of development, it ain't that hard to code support for widescreen res's in..." :)

The first school of thought is the one which gives us games that have patches that are hundreds of megs big - and available on the day of release. :lol:

Anyway, one way or another, I doubt widescreen support (proper widescreen support) will be in the addon...

It never ceases to amaze how there is so little time to do it right the first time yet lots of time to fix it.

just an afterthought - One of my gaming buddies mentioned to me that the "Special Forces" add-on to BF 2 will coming out of a different branch of DICE, not the original bunch who developed it (in sweden, i think?). This add-on is supposed to be developed by DICE Canada.

RE: "It never ceases to amaze how there is so little time to do it right the first time yet lots of time to fix it."

Not to mention the mess ups with many sequel games.

Like Deus Ex then Deus Ex: Invisible War. Lord did they massacre that one!!

I hope the BF2 Special Forces stays true to the franchise.

Just a little note off forum topic here...I wonder how they plan to handle the ranking system with BF2 players migrating to BF2 Special Forces. I read that it will have a ranking system similar to BF2 but I concluded from the article that all will begin from scratch, not necessarily a bad or good thing.

Bad news for the Special Forces (SF) expansion, not only does it still not work correctly with WS resolutions, when joining an online game server, the game will exit and re-open itself and force a 4:3 resolution.

I started my initial app using the command-line hack and was viewing the menu in my pristine and sharp 2560x1600 and after selecting an online server to join, it exitted then proceeded to restart at the highest 4:3 resolution it detected at a paltry 1024x768.

My only solution for now has been to add a custom resolution of 2048x1536 and turn on letterboxing with centered output and then BF2 now detects this correctly and gives an option for 2048x1536 in the Video options.

So when the app restarts to join a server, it correctly uses the resolution I chose in the options. However, I have not figured out a way to force it to restart in my desired WS resolution :(

Here's my e-mail to them!

WS FTW! :D
________________________

Hey Dice!

Bf2 rocked, and Special Forces rocks EVER HARDER! I LOVE the grapple and zip line.

You reckon you could support proper Widescreen though?
Not just 16:9 but also 16:10!

The gameplay advantage in FOV will be minimal! And it would look so much better on our expensive LCDs!

Thanx Dice!

- Jake XOXOX
________________________

lol LiQUiD

Small world aint it ? :P

Ask them to support 3 monitors too for me will ya ?

I have posted on the EA forums and went a step further and called EA tech support. My cell phone went dead halfway through the call, but they followed up via email rather fast.

When I finally got a human on the phone it was obvious that he didn't know an aspect ratio from a cow, since he kept trying to tell me to go to my Special Forces options and change the resolution to what I wanted. He didn't understand that what I wanted, 1920 X 1200 wasn't listed. The phone went dead and here are the emails I got from EA.

TO EA:

> I have an ATI X850XT Platinum Edition and a Dell UltraSharp 2405FPW
> 24-inch Wide Aspect Flat Panel LCD. The native resolution of the Dell
> 24" Monitor is 1920 X 1200. I was able to get Battlefield 2 to run at
> that resolution by modifying the properties of the desktop shortcut.
> I added '+szx 1920 +szy 1200' to the existing path and BF2 runs at
> 1920 X 1200, but at the incorrect FOV. When I try to run Battlefield 2
> Special Forces I cannot get the game to run at 1920 X 1200. I want to
> know how I can enable widescreen resolution support at the correct FOV
> in BOTH games. I know it is possible, I just don't know how to do
> it. I would like to point out that the screenshots on the back of the
> Special Forces CD case are in a widescreen format indicating that
> there is support for what I am asking. All of my other games will run
> at 1920 X 1200 either because the game natively supports it or I am
> able to modify an INI file. What do I have to do to run BF2 and BF2
> Special Forces at 1920 X 1200, or when are you planning on supporting
> that resolution in-game? Thank you....


Hello,

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.

I’m sorry for the difficulty that you are having with Battlefield 2.

Unfortunately the game doesnt support widescreen resolutions so forcing the resolution may result with a stretch image of the game, however this is an issue that has been requested by a huge portion of the community, so DICE is evaluating it for an update. Unfortunately there is no certainty right now when it will be solved, sorry.

Should you require further assistance about this or any Electronic Arts games in the future please visit our website and review our extensive Self Help knowledgebase (http://support.ea.com)

Marc C.
Electronic Arts
Technical Support


My reply :

> If the game does not support widescreen resolutions WHY are there
> widescreen screenshots on the product boxes? You guys need to step up
> and demand Widescreen support from DICE. I am going to send copies of
> this correspondence to Dell, the manufacturer of my monitor. They
> also show Battlefield 2 running on their widescreen products.
>

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.

I’m sorry for the difficulty that you are having with the game Battlefield 2.

Unfortunately there is no available information on why the developers decided not to include the support for widescreen. This is mainly on the developers call if this will be supported or not, sorry for any inconvenience that this issue might have caused.

Should you require further assistance about this or any Electronic Arts games in the future please visit our website and review our extensive Self Help knowledgebase (http://support.ea.com)

Marc C.
Electronic Arts
Technical Support

If you look at the box art on BF2 and BF2 SF, you will notice that some of the screenshots are in widescreen format. Whether or not thay are cropped images is anyones guess. All it would take for DICE to enable Widescreen format is for them to use the same resolutions that are in windows, but they do not.

If we don't get a quick fix on this I suggest we start asking for our money back.

*bump*

Email to Dice sent!

It would be great to be able to play BF2 in widescreen on my Acer Ferrari.

Cheers,

-Paul