Widescreen Gaming Forum

[quote][quote]Hey guys, is the 2K forum always this full of database errors, or have you all caused a bandwidth use surge? :P

I think the later. :lol:

Im with steef... there was a smiley I could use but I might get banned for it :P
Yes, you would. PS would pound you in to the ground for weeks. :wink: :lol:

:D HAHAHA

Also, this post made me chuckle:

Originally Posted by ChainsawBunny View Post
Bioshok is marketed under the games for windows logo.

Part of the games for windows requirements with Microsoft, is that the game offers proper-widescreen formats (16:10 & 16:9).

Microsoft should not allow 2k to use this marketing unless they sort the issue before release or it makes a the game for windows a joke and a waste of time.

It could fall under 'false marketing' being under the games for windows logo and not supporting proper widescreen resolution.

Was that one of you guys? :lol: I wonder if this will make them hurry up with a fix. Imagine how embarrassing it must be to release a patch in the first few days of release! Of course, they may take longer than that!

45000 views of this thread here. I guess people do care.

Almost 50,000 now.

I could not help but think about the fact that I am not buying the game until the developer fixes this. Now, probably not accurate, but let's assume for a second that these 50,000 views are widescreen owners finding out about this issue with the game... (not probable, but not exactly impossible, either...)

Can you imagine if ALL of them decided to boycott the game until it is fixed?

Perhaps the developer knowing and understand that the MSRP of $50 (last I knew) multiplied by 50,000 widescreen owners equals....

$2,500,000!!!

Yes, 2.5 MILLION in sales...

Unfortunately, I am not 100% confident it will be fixed. Because if it is so simple a fix for them to do, why on Earth did it ship this way?

Sorry for the rant, but this game is different. It seems every MP game that has this V- issue is rationalized away as saying it would give WS gamers an edge in MP if they have H+...

But AFAIK Bioshock is an SP game, and only an SP game? an opponent with a 4:3 screen isn't disadvantaged...

And who knows what FOV the AI in Bioshock can see you at? Isn't playing with a hampered FOV in Bioshock now a disadvantage, assuming the AI is programmed to have a FOV greater than what yours now is?

Hmph, devs can't have it both ways. They can argue H+ is a further advantage to a player, but V- is a disadvantage though, too...


Maybe I should just say this: If furthering your FOV for proper support is seen as an advantage to devs, why not let the PLAYER decide their own FOV? You can still get the same FOV with a 4:1, 16:9, 16:10, or 4:3 display... It'll just get squished...

If you don't have the hardware to let you unsquish (de-squish?) your image, well, that's your problem, unfortunately...

But now no one is at a disadvantage as far as FOVs go...

Eh, if the mods are upset by this post, I apologize. But I bought a 37" Westinghouse 1080p monitor when I realized it was MORE cost-effective than putting more money into a 21" CRT... 21" CRTs still cost $600 (last I checked), and I got my W for about $1,200 with a 5-yr warranty... And I know the 21" CRT will NOT keep the same image quality for five years as I will get out of the W... By the time I buy even two CRTs in that time, the W would cost the same, if not less...

Plus, 37">21"... (and it's not a CRT....)


I hope I've given enough rational information here that not properly supporting FOV at the development level is something that is just unacceptable...

:cry: I am so sorry for the rant... Understand I was excited about the prospects of finally playing this game for quite some time, until about the last 12 hours of reality happened...

(lastly, remember the dev did say it would be properly supported!)

Just doing my bit Paddy.. for the cause you know... I brought to the attention of a games reviewer who did say he would mention it in his review...



http://forums.dearwandy.com/viewtopic.php?id=23527


Page 3 near the bottom. My comments and the replies...

Note that every time I hit refresh it counts as another view so... basically there probably isn't even close to 2.5mil in sales... maybe 100,000 max...

wow, posting here because the 2k activation email is taking foreverrrrrr.

had i not already paid and preloaded the game i would have waited for a fix for this issue. i just recently spent 4k (of my hard earned money, not my mom's) on a new pc complete with widescreen monitor. last night after playing the demo i was a little confused with what i saw. when i looked at screen shots i saw more arm than i did when i was playing. it was very in your face and un natural. i thought maybe it was just the demo but you guys say its in final release too. (i have the game preloaded on steam but cannot play it for another 2 hours. wtf is up with that, i could have gone to the store and played it this morning ffs)

regardless of your monitor, what your views are concerning FOV and standard vs widescreen, this game is under the games for windows label, and also the developers themselves have stated that widescreen users will see more not less. this is not the case, and so im pretty pissed off, and rightly so. i was impressed with the 2k thread until the kiddies began to call people who feel lied to, whiners, and injecting their opinions and trying to pass them off as valid points. the facts are very simple. those of us with widescreens are not getting what we were told we would be getting. we have been essentially lied to. is it an honest mistake, id like to think so, but i dont see how you could make this mistake while telling everyone you will not be making this mistake. i will be playing this game still, but i wont be enjoying it nearly as much as i would be if i knew i was getting what i paid for, and what i was promised.

please someone paste this for me in the 2k forums as i cannot activate my account and am tired of waiting for the email.

Hi folks :D

Poking around MS' site, as I'm trying to discover exactly what they require for the "Games for Windows" stamp as far as widescreen goes...

Well, we have this:

The game must support at least the following aspect ratios and associated screen resolutions:

4:3 normal (800x600 or 1024x768)
16:9 widescreen (1280x720)
16:10 widescreen (1152x720 or 1680x1050 or 800x480)
For screen resolution configuration and detection, the game must adhere to the following rules:

The game uses the desktop resolution of the display device by default if it is a supported resolution. The desktop aspect ratio must be used as a search criterion if the game chooses a different default resolution.
The game must prompt the user to confirm new display settings when a change is made. If the user does not accept within 15 seconds, the display must revert to the previous setting.
The game must not stretch pixels or center a 4:3 render window to support widescreen aspect ratios. However, letterboxing is acceptable.

They don't appear to enforce anything re: HOR+ and VERT-, though there's some commentary about it here:

Aspect Ratio and Widescreen

Aspect ratio describes the width and height proportion of the display. Standard TV and computer monitor displays have an aspect ratio of 4:3 (meaning for every 4 pixels running along the width of the frame buffer there are 3 pixels along the height, sometimes also represented simply as 1.33).

With the advent of HDTV, an aspect ratio of 16:9 (a.k.a. widescreen) has become the standard for the future of TV. There are three EDTV/HDTV modes you're likely to encounter which will output to widescreen:

480p EDTV - 480 scan lines presented progressively. This mode can output either 4:3 (with a frame buffer resolution of 640x480) or 16:9 (720x480).
720p HDTV - 720 scan lines presented progressively. This mode is always 16:9 (1280x720).
1080i HDTV - 1080 scan lines presented interlaced. This mode is always 16:9 (1920x1080, or 1920x540 if rendering the interlace fields separately).

If your game is hard-coded to work on a 4:3 display, then a user who outputs your game to a 16:9 display will likely have three options to choose from, none of which are particularly satisfying:

Stretch - The 4:3 frame buffer is stretched to perfectly cover the 16:9 native resolution of the display, resulting in your scene objects appearing wider than desired. Some TV's offer additional stretch modes which attempt to preserve the aspect ratio near the center of the display and gradually increase the stretch at the image sides.
Centered - The 4:3 frame buffer is displayed undistorted in the center of the display, with solid color bars filling the remaining pixels on the sides.
Zoom - The 4:3 frame buffer is cropped to a 16:9 region, which then fills the native display resolution undistorted; note that the pixels above and below the clip rectangle are completely discarded, which are common regions for a game's UI elements.

A better approach is to add support for widescreen to your game. The most important change is to set the game camera's projection transform to use a 16:9 aspect ratio, which avoids the stretching distortion. Even if you leave the backbuffer at a 4:3 resolution, switching the projection transform to use 16:9 will greatly improve the perceived accuracy of the rendered image; of course the final image will undergo some filtering to upscale the 4:3 backbuffer resolution to meet the 16:9 native display resolution, but this is a less noticeable artifact than the stretch distortion caused by a mismatch of aspect ratios.

The cost of rendering the scene through 16:9 camera may be higher than a 4:3 camera (even at identical resolutions) because more scene objects will be visible in the wider view frustum. You should also be aware of how the enlarged viewable area may influence gameplay, as a game camera with a 16:9 ratio will reveal more of your game world than a 4:3 camera.

For the best results on a 16:9 display you should render to a 16:9 backbuffer, but this will obviously require filling more pixels. The difference between 640x480 and 720x480 is almost 38,400 pixels, a gain of 12.5%. If you can afford the extra fill cost this is strongly suggested.

(Bold highlighting is mine.)

So it seems that Microsoft "gets it"; but it doesn't seem that they enforce it in the spec. Wonder why not. :?

Yea the forum for 2k is really bogged down due to the fact that they have so many new users complaining and a ton of activity compared to what they usually have...

just reged and wanted to thank packerfan for helping me with the screen shots

my felling is the game is/was meant to be 16:9 as shown from the loading screen caps but some how the main game is now V- odd...

it also seems the real time intro on the plane is the same way ill have to take some more screen to be sure and ill post them here

Whoa, this got attention quick, nice. :)

Its on Kotaku for crying out loud, we may see a fix yet.... but can they fix the 360 version now... :shock:

Fingers crossed.