Widescreen Gaming Forum

Granted I think the FOV in bioshock is a bit low and dizzyness inducing, but all this nonsense about 4:3 cropping is just silly.

If you've thought the FOV was 'low and dizzyness inducing (to use your misspelling) then you're just as affected by this whole cropping mess as those who actually acknowledge it as a problem. :)

I won't even comment about the rest of the post...

aggies > in your HL2 (or hypothetical) example you are forgetting that at both WS and 4:3 (which you say does the same as Bioshock but the other way around - or something) the FOV is changed to ensure it's not unnaturally zoomed in.

They call them 'FIRST PERSON SHOOTERS' not 'First person but with the head of the first person 2 feet from his body shooters'. Developers kinda made an unnoficial 'standard' of correct field of views in 3D games years ago, it was made because it aproximated the actual human field of view within limited means.

If you read a book on 3D game engine coding it will explain all this to you and it really is accepted as 'conventional wisdom'. It wasn't invented to straight jacket games to not be different, it was arrived at as a way to best immerse the player while *not* causing motion sickness and other issues that some people get with playing 3D games. Whether it was 90degrees or higher (or whatever) is not the point, the 4:3 in bioshock as a very nice FOV (nothing to do with what its showing on screen top and bottom, it could show you a 200 x 200 pixel window in the middle with the rest of the visuals intentionall blocked out but if it retained a natural FOV then it would still feel ok (just look crap and not show much).

WS gamers are not wanting MORE, the 'more' just comes from using a widescreen as its intended. We don't even care about the missing VERTICAL that the 4:3 users get (if that is a design choice)... but what we do care about is the fact they went way below 'conventional standards' on field of view for widescreen and we have this situation now where you feel disembodied (maybe some people don't realise it or feel it, but it's NOT our faults if we do feel it) and where all the info on the screen in this zoomed in field of view is telling your brain to back off your viewing or refocus or whatever, but you *can't* do that because it's not real life, you can't simply move back, or refocus because in this game that zoomed in viewpoint follows you around everywhere.

If we could get past the 'they just want to see extra for their WS money' put downs and concentrate on the screwed up field of view it would make a nice change.

I think I have the perfect solution to this whole VERT+ mess...

Play with your head tilted sideways.

Then your peripheral vision is more "in-line" with developers FOV sensibilities.

Problem solved!


Now lets all go get drunk!

Do developers have to give everyone what is known as true widescreen support? No. Would it reflect better upon them to have done so, seeing as it is not rocket science? Yes. I am still using a 4:3 monitor (yes, even though I post here quite a bit), as I haven't got around to deciding on a widescreen monitor. I played the demo on my 19 inch CRT, and it is perfectly fine (as are all my FPS games), but it would be nice to know that once I do have my widescreen, that I will see the benefit of it. As has been pointed out countless times, allowing 16:10 and 16:9 options does not affect how 4:3 looks. It will only affect those with widescreen. Half Life 2 did this three years ago, and people praise them here for their forward thinking.

P.S I am thinking about running the Bioshock demo in windowed widescreen mode at 1920x1200 or 1920x1440 (using the widescreen fix you guys made), while my CRT is set to 2048x1536, just for a laugh. Reckon it will work?

[quote]Just played through the demo. The mouse feels lest fubar with my settings :). Thx for the hack :D .

I hope there will be tweaks to fix fps a bit more. I drop to 30fps in firefights, I don't like that :P. (8800gtx )

I have an 8800 gts and the frame rate is silky smooth (1680x1050 all settings maxed except aa). Athlon 64 single core 4000, 2 megs 3200 ram ... What system do you have?

Dude you got it running on 2megs of ram?

Wow, all I have got is 512 Kilobytes. :D

P.S I am thinking about running the Bioshock demo in windowed widescreen mode at 1920x1200 or 1920x1440 (using the widescreen fix you guys made), while my CRT is set to 2048x1536, just for a laugh. Reckon it will work?

Sounds like a laugh. Do it. ;)

...

Interestingly, Bioshock has another issue - whether disc or Steam, it can only be activated twice. Seems even the Steam version has SecuROM protection build in. Man, do 2K Games not trust us, or what? (Google 'bioshock activation' for more links than I care to count...)

Now lets all go get drunk!

Best idea all day ... :D

I am soooo fed up with this whole thing .... and I no longer care ... I with Racer_S's help have a fix to play in TripleHead ... that's what matters to me ... :mrgreen:

And ... I hope along the way a few will enjoy the hack and TRUE widescreen

Hic ... that beer is Kicking in ...

Wait a second, did I just put 1920x1440. Doh, that's 4:3 isn't it? 1920x1080 is the other option. :oops:

aggies > in your HL2 (or hypothetical) example you are forgetting that at both WS and 4:3 (which you say does the same as Bioshock but the other way around - or something) the FOV is changed to ensure it's not unnaturally zoomed in.

They call them 'FIRST PERSON SHOOTERS' not 'First person but with the head of the first person 2 feet from his body shooters'. Developers kinda made an unnoficial 'standard' of correct field of views in 3D games years ago, it was made because it aproximated the actual human field of view within limited means.

If you read a book on 3D game engine coding it will explain all this to you and it really is accepted as 'conventional wisdom'. It wasn't invented to straight jacket games to not be different, it was arrived at as a way to best immerse the player while *not* causing motion sickness and other issues that some people get with playing 3D games. Whether it was 90degrees or higher (or whatever) is not the point, the 4:3 in bioshock as a very nice FOV (nothing to do with what its showing on screen top and bottom, it could show you a 200 x 200 pixel window in the middle with the rest of the visuals intentionall blocked out but if it retained a natural FOV then it would still feel ok (just look crap and not show much).

WS gamers are not wanting MORE, the 'more' just comes from using a widescreen as its intended. We don't even care about the missing VERTICAL that the 4:3 users get (if that is a design choice)... but what we do care about is the fact they went way below 'conventional standards' on field of view for widescreen and we have this situation now where you feel disembodied (maybe some people don't realise it or feel it, but it's NOT our faults if we do feel it) and where all the info on the screen in this zoomed in field of view is telling your brain to back off your viewing or refocus or whatever, but you *can't* do that because it's not real life, you can't simply move back, or refocus because in this game that zoomed in viewpoint follows you around everywhere.

If we could get past the 'they just want to see extra for their WS money' put downs and concentrate on the screwed up field of view it would make a nice change.

Exactly. 2K is keeping the horizontal FOV the same for both 16:9 and 4:3 modes, and changing the vertical FOV. This is commonly called cropping.

HL2 correctly supports 16:9 and 4:3 resolutions by using different horizontal FOV's for each mode.