The Widescreen Thread

[PiscesToAquaria]

You should get the game now anyways   I played the entire game on my widescreen TV, at 1366x768 (you can edit a file to get any resolution you want).  Yeah, it was stretched a bit, but it still looked amazing.

My native res is the same, but I used 4:3 mode, which in effect makes the PC display 1024x768 native.  I absolutely hate horizontal stretching.  It has become ubiquitous in widescreen-TV viewing habits.  You can't go anywhere without seeing stretched scenes and faces, and some TV stations have started to broadcast 4:3 content stretched out into HD, so that the TV owner doesn't even have the option to view the correct aspect ratio.  This mass stupidity has hyper-sensitized me to aspect anomalies.  I do not tolerate them. [/rant]

[Cliftor]

Well, it may sound arbitrary, selfish, and maybe even a little bit silly, but I'm gonna wait to buy until the widescreen patch comes out.  It's just that this game is so visually stunning I'm compelled to play the whole thing that way.  This game looks really fun.

Speaking of which, where should I go if I want to ask curiosity questions about the technology behind this game?  I'm especially interested in the graphics.

Oh, btw, hi everyone.

[Alphasoldier]

What do you want to know about the graphics?

So far as I know Derek has done all the graphics, no clue how he did it, propably a tablet or just paper and scanner.

Further this game uses VSync which makes it look better and the rest are just pictures on multiple layers in the game.

[ryos]

You should get the game now anyways   I played the entire game on my widescreen TV, at 1366x768 (you can edit a file to get any resolution you want).  Yeah, it was stretched a bit, but it still looked amazing.

My native res is the same, but I used 4:3 mode, which in effect makes the PC display 1024x768 native.  I absolutely hate horizontal stretching.  It has become ubiquitous in widescreen-TV viewing habits.  You can't go anywhere without seeing stretched scenes and faces, and some TV stations have started to broadcast 4:3 content stretched out into HD, so that the TV owner doesn't even have the option to view the correct aspect ratio.  This mass stupidity has hyper-sensitized me to aspect anomalies.  I do not tolerate them. [/rant]

100 times agreed. It always bothers me when games don't have the option to render in widescreen, or even pillarboxing at the very least. I typically don't buy such games; I can't play the game with the stretching getting in the way.

("How hard could it be to draw in a differently-sized rectangle?" I tell myself. It must be harder than it looks or more game developers would do it...no, actually, I just don't see it. Apathy is the only explanation that makes sense. For instance, whenever I suggest to my family that we switch the TV away from horrid stretchovision, they just look at me like I'm crazy and ask, "How can you tell it's stretched?"

Are you kidding me? But, I suppose, if you don't even notice when video is horizontally stretched, you won't place a high priority on writing your game engine to render flexibly.)

[Alec]

("How hard could it be to draw in a differently-sized rectangle?" I tell myself. It must be harder than it looks or more game developers would do it...no, actually, I just don't see it. Apathy is the only explanation that makes sense. For instance, whenever I suggest to my family that we switch the TV away from horrid stretchovision, they just look at me like I'm crazy and ask, "How can you tell it's stretched?"

Are you kidding me? But, I suppose, if you don't even notice when video is horizontally stretched, you won't place a high priority on writing your game engine to render flexibly.)

In my case, my video card / LCD aren't crap; so I can actually play the game as centered 4:3. So it never seemed like a big deal to me.

While widescreen now works visually, it still messes with the game design in ways that have yet to be fixed.

[Alec]

Speaking of which, where should I go if I want to ask curiosity questions about the technology behind this game?  I'm especially interested in the graphics.

OpenGL is used to employ 3D acceleration for 2D graphics.

[ryos]

In my case, my video card / LCD aren't crap; so I can actually play the game as centered 4:3. So it never seemed like a big deal to me.

While widescreen now works visually, it still messes with the game design in ways that have yet to be fixed.

Hmm...tell me more about this "not crap" video card and LCD. My interest is piqued.

See, some games don't let you select non-stretched resolutions. I would happily play any game in centered 4:3, if it would let me. In such cases, the only recourse is to play in a window. I never thought to blame my video card/LCD for this; the system will let me select these resolutions, and my video card and LCD render them just fine, so what's stopping games from using them?

[Alec]

Actually, the game didn't let you select widescreen resolutions, for the reason that resolutions other than 4:3 were not yet supported. (and that is also made clear on the config app)

They are supported now, but the patch hasn't been released yet.

Depending on your video card and LCD monitor combination, you can set an option in your video card settings to preserve the 4:3 resolution in full screen. (by adding black boxes on the side)

e.g. my Mac Book Pro running boot camp can do this. I've used other computers that also can do this, although I forget the exact specs.

[Alec]

I managed to obtain a rare photograph of this setting in its natural habitat:

[Molbork]

well what do you know, like the people that followed me above horizontal stretch-o-vision disturbs me.  I have no problems with black bars since I've been watching widescreen movies on my old TV for long enough. 

hmmm, I must find and test this on my nvidia card! and at the same time slowly reach towards my credit card! bbl

[Alec]

well what do you know, like the people that followed me above horizontal stretch-o-vision disturbs me.  I have no problems with black bars since I've been watching widescreen movies on my old TV for long enough. 

hmmm, I must find and test this on my nvidia card! and at the same time slowly reach towards my credit card! bbl

FYI, if centering doesn't work, proper widescreen support is on the way.

Visually it works now, but I have to fix a few game play things.

(mouse controls were based on the center of the screen, so if the screen now locks further out, naija won't be centered and things will get confusing for the player. also have to add built-in black bars to certain cut scenes that were only built to support 4:3. also have to do a full play-through to check for any unexpected weirdness.)

[Hiro]

Ehhh....if you play games in stretched at first, then you wont notice that it is stretched since you wont know what it's supposed to look like.
I just played it windowed, no biggie anyway. I'm looking forward to the widescreen, but its not a game killer.

[inkblob]

were the levels and layouts designed for a certain screen width? what I'm meaning is if you are in an area and see something far off in the distance due to having a super widescreen, will that in any way skew the intended story line? there were a few areas where I had to middle click to see and you got a tantalizing look at a treasure or an obstacle that you couldn't get to at that current point ( energy temple Krotite armor corridor and Mithalis stuffy come to mind right away )   I have a mammoth 21" CRT ( by choice, for real, don't care much for flatscreens ) so it dosn't make that much difference to me unless I got another monitor for dual purposes. mostly curious if this impacts the overall game design?

[Alec]

were the levels and layouts designed for a certain screen width? what I'm meaning is if you are in an area and see something far off in the distance due to having a super widescreen, will that in any way skew the intended story line?
mostly curious if this impacts the overall game design?

This'll probably affect the way the level design is perceived, yeah. I'm not sure to what extent yet... I have to replay the whole game and see.

I could also try limiting the "look" function on the x-axis when in widescreen to try to compensate, if it becomes a problem.

[ryos]

I guess I should have clarified from the beginning that I'm a Mac user, waiting for the Mac version of Aquaria. I tried the demo in Boot Camp, but didn't play very far for fear of getting hooked and just buying the Windows version (besides the plus of not having to boot into Windows, I want to support Mac native game development wherever it happens).

Here's a fine specimen of an options dialog, captured in far-away Maclandia:


(you've probably already seen it; don't you have a summer house in Maclandia or something?) The resolutions that don't have (stretched) next to them appear in centered 4:3 mode. BUT...many games on the Mac have a predefined subset of resolutions they allow, and they often don't include the non-stretched versions.

Ideally, all games that don't support rendering to anything but 4:3 would include the ability to pillarbox the output. Ahh, dreams of an ideal world...

I've only just started to get into Windows gaming, so I don't really know what the situation there is like. Are you telling me that I can set an option in my video card driver utility and all games will respect it? Interesting...