Borderlands

[Tanuki]

Widescreen Grade: C
Ultra-Widescreen Grade: Incomplete
Multi-monitor Grade: C
4k Grade: Incomplete

Read Full Detailed Report - Borderlands

Borderlands is a pseudo-open world shooting games with RPG elements from Gearbox Software, makers of the Brothers in Arms games and the original Halo's PC port. Borderlands is best described as Diablo reinvented as a first-person shooter and has a unique graphical style somewhere between cell-shading and concept art.

4:3

16:10

16:9

3x1

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[Tanuki]

Looking at these something may be amiss with the weapons in 4:3 but I can't be bothered to check it out. Maybe something to keep in mind if anyone does a DR.

[dopefish]

Vert+! :P 16:9 native.

4:3 is probably cropped just because of a cropped horizontal view for the 360.

I find a lot of 360 games ported to the PC often support 16:9 and 4:3 correctly, but exhibit odd behavior in 16:10 and others.

Afterall, the 360 developer documents say that all games must be developed for 16:9. 4:3 support is completely optional, and if the developer chooses not to support 4:3, then the 360 will automatically downscale and add black bars to the 4:3 picture (which >75% of 360 games do).

[Tanuki]

4:3 is probably cropped just because of a cropped horizontal view for the 360.

The weapon is still cropped vertically some. It might just be bob though.

Afterall, the 360 developer documents say that all games must be developed for 16:9. 4:3 support is completely optional, and if the developer chooses not to support 4:3, then the 360 will automatically downscale and add black bars to the 4:3 picture (which >75% of 360 games do).

Does Borderlands do this on the 360?

[dopefish]

I don't have Borderlands for the 360, but seeing how they handle 4:3 on the PC, it likely behaves the same way on the 360... but I can't say for sure.

Every Unreal Engine 3 game is really different in the way it's done.

Most 360 UE3 games are simply 16:9, and they let the 360 itself handle the downsampling to 4:3 with black bars. There are a couple that implement a proper 4:3 view, but it's really not that common.

[ViciousXUSMC]

Borderlands is Vert- default but if you bind a higher FOV to a key you can make it Hor+

Still after going back and forth from the hacked FOV+ to a single screen I decided overall that Hor+ is not worth it.

FOV is good but when you run it changes the FOV and creates a fisheye effect, the higher the FOV the worse the effect. When you get in a car the FOV will revert to default again.

when you zoom with a weapon the zoom uses the native FOV so you get super zoom making close range weapons really hard to use, and the way the game uses HOR+ it makes enemies and things appear to be very far away from you. So you think your in good sniper distance but in reality your like at handgun distance and the enemy sees you and attacks.

Weapons get cut off badly in TH resolutions and the main menu (esc key) is cropped/zoomed, but the tab menu works perfectly even in TH.

This is a game I would really like to lobby for proper TH support on, but I dont know how much of it can be fixed with how the game was designed.

[StingingVelvet]

There is supposedly a massive Borderlands PC patch coming, but who knows what it will fix. The default FOV is about normal now-a-days anyway, you either get used to it or hack every game, which seems to be the way things are. Everything is designed around sitting much further away with an HDTV.

[The_cranky_hermit]

if you bind a higher FOV to a key you can make it Hor+

I'd like to see screenshots demonstrating this. Would you mind posting some, and instructions on how to reproduce your results?

[ViciousXUSMC]

if you bind a higher FOV to a key you can make it Hor+

I'd like to see screenshots demonstrating this. Would you mind posting some, and instructions on how to reproduce your results?

I suppose so, but all the information is here in our forums on some of the other borderlands threads as that is where I learned how to do it.

Default FOV is like 75 or so.

Here are some comparison shots

FOV 90 1920x1200


FOV 140 1920x1200


FOV 90 5760x1200


FOV 140 5760x1200


ESC Key main menu zoomed/cropped


Tab menu OK


I found that 90-100FOV was the best to settle with, 140ish that you would normally use for TH resolutions would actually make the screen invert when you run due to the FOV boost and made those negative fov effects I talked about much worse.

I did a double binding, used my forward key to set say FOV 100 and then my shift key to set FOV 90 so when I run the FOV would stay about the same.

Still no matter what I think its too much trouble and too broken for TH, but the 90-100FOV range is good for a single screen.

[MobsterOO7]

Is it just me or does the weapon remain unaffected by the FOV change in the triplehead shots. This is very disappointing as I was hoping to get this game over the holidays.

[The_cranky_hermit]

Could you give me two more shots? One at 4:3 with the default FOV of 75 degrees, and another at 16:10 at 85 degrees.

[ViciousXUSMC]

Could you give me two more shots? One at 4:3 with the default FOV of 75 degrees, and another at 16:10 at 85 degrees.

Not off hand, I had those shots uploaded from long ago I didnt just take them.

Now that I put Win 7 on both my laptop & desktop I do not even have the game installed right now.

[ViciousXUSMC]

Is it just me or does the weapon remain unaffected by the FOV change in the triplehead shots. This is very disappointing as I was hoping to get this game over the holidays.

FOV wont change weapon but resolution will, wider res = more zoom and less of the weapon model can be seen.

What FOV does do is make things appear really far away from you but when you use weapon zoom it zooms to default.

All screen shots above were the same exact spot, but look how much father away things look @ higher FOV. This game does not work well with a high FOV at all, gives a horrible sense of distance.

[dopefish]

Weapons are handled differently than the FOV. This is why weapons typically get cut off (for higher than 16:9) or grow in height (for lower than 16:9). The FOV is simply controlling placement of the camera within the world.

UE3 games that expand horizontally leave the weapons okay, but those that are Vert+ (16:10, 4:3, 5:4), or Vert- (Higher than 16:9) will affect how the weapon looks. This cannot be corrected with the FOV. With memory editing, you could probably shift the location of the gun, but since it's UE3, I know that I would have a problem with trying to work with it.

[The_cranky_hermit]

All screen shots above were the same exact spot, but look how much father away things look @ higher FOV. This game does not work well with a high FOV at all, gives a horrible sense of distance.

That's probably because you used too much FOV. If you look at the first set of shots, where the FOV is constant, things look closer the wider the AR. A properly calculated FOV should make things just enough "farther away" to counter-act this.

[ViciousXUSMC]

All screen shots above were the same exact spot, but look how much father away things look @ higher FOV. This game does not work well with a high FOV at all, gives a horrible sense of distance.

That's probably because you used too much FOV. If you look at the first set of shots, where the FOV is constant, things look closer the wider the AR. A properly calculated FOV should make things just enough "farther away" to counter-act this.

Not from what I can tell, just the game hates high FOV. Look at the Eyefinity shot of 90 vs 140 thats a big difference if you want to use a proper ~140 fov it looks like your 30x farther away from things than the stock ~75 FOV even if that FOV was on a single screen.

The reason I did 16:10 vs eyefinity is so you can see the resolution has no effect on the distance only the FOV.

Even at 110 FOV what I settled with it still made things look too far away to play the game the same was as you would with the default. Other games I have do not exibit the same distance issue when increasing the FOV for me, unless I somehow managed to not notice it.

[dopefish]

If I pick this game up for the PC I'll take a look at it.

There might be some kind of curve or multiplier on the higher FOVs.

This way when you sprint or run, it zooms out to a higher FOV that kind of warps the screen a bit and gives you the appearance of moving faster.

[The_cranky_hermit]

Look at the Eyefinity shot of 90 vs 140 thats a big difference

Compare this 90 FOV shot:


to this 140 FOV shot:


Ignoring the gun vert -'ness, these are actually pretty close. In fact, in the single-screen shot, things are slightly farther away.

if you want to use a proper ~140 fov it looks like your 30x farther away from things than the stock ~75 FOV even if that FOV was on a single screen.

Actually, I bet that if you took two shots, one at 75 degrees on a single 4:3 screen (it NEEDS to be 4:3), and another at 140 degrees on a 48:10 TH setup, the distance would be about equal.

The reason I did 16:10 vs eyefinity is so you can see the resolution has no effect on the distance only the FOV.

FOV and aspect ratio *both* have an effect on the distance. Look at the first set of shots in the thread - all pictures have the same FOV, but different aspect ratios, and different distances.

[dopefish]

If 75 is default for 16:9, then you should be using 128.469 for 3x16:10, and 59.84 for 4:3.

[ViciousXUSMC]

If I pick this game up for the PC I'll take a look at it.

There might be some kind of curve or multiplier on the higher FOVs.

This way when you sprint or run, it zooms out to a higher FOV that kind of warps the screen a bit and gives you the appearance of moving faster.

Yes there is, when you run you get an extra 20FOV or so and a fish eye effect. The Effect is minor at lower FOV and gets dramatically worse in higher FOV. If you go as high as 138+ or so and run the extra FOV will actually cause the screen to totally invert when you run.