Battlefield 2 Widescreen - Definitive Discussion Thread

X-ray Doc · Post by **X-ray Doc** » 14 Sep 2005, 20:06

I play BF2 on a 110" diagonal 16:9 ratio projector screen. I've chosen to just display the game at its native 4:3 ratio and have vertical black bars on each side. That way I see the entire game world with no distortion and the image is plenty large.

However, it is truly glorious playing other games that support 16:9 FOVs and completely fill the screen side to side and top to bottom. The games I currently enjoy that have this support are Half-Life 2, Doom 3, Painkiller, UT2004 and the single player version of Call of Duty.

TheRealOmegaMan · Post by **TheRealOmegaMan** » 14 Sep 2005, 20:15

I am a vet of HL2, DOOM3 and Painkiller as well. HL2 being the true winner here with very friendly interface with settings. Anything having me to change command lines and .ini's drives me batty. EA...Hello Hello.

1080p_gaming · Post by **1080p_gaming** » 14 Sep 2005, 20:42

One Positive Aspect of the 16:9 cropping

If I choose 4:3, I get 1440:1080 with black bars. But if I choose 1920x1080 I get the same FOV horizonal and a cropped FOV vertical.

But if I look at that same 1440x1080 section of pixels on my screen in 1920 mode...I'm looking at a higher resolution version of the what would have been the center of a 1920x1440 screen. So actually what was 1080x810 on the 4:3 mode is now 1440x1080 in center of the 1920 mode. If your following me that means the view is zoomed, and has a subsequent increase in detail.

Because of that, I can see detail in the center as if I had a 1920x1440 monitor.
Compared to a 1024x768 average player I have nearly twice the resolution. Almost 3 times the resolution of a 800x600 player.

So what who cares? Well I discovered that the anti-tank weapon can be guided by the operator and has a very long range, I know it can be fired at least as far as I can see. example from the demo:
I can hit individual troops at any flag site from the top of the crane. (except the river site because my view is partially blocked). The anti-tank (personel) weapon is deadly acurate if the tarket doesn't move around to much. The travel time on the rocket is about 10 seconds and they don't know it's coming. That's hitting people... tanks or even hovering choppers are a piece of cake. If I have a buddy with ammo boxes for me, I can fire continously. If I'm laying down snipers have to get very far away to get a clean shot and their accuracy is low at that range. My Ammo buddy is covering the stairs with his SAW.

Talk about an unfair advantage.

X-ray Doc · Post by **X-ray Doc** » 14 Sep 2005, 20:57

Confusing, but I think I followed you. Basically you're saying you like the added detail of having 1920 pixels display the same horizontal FOV as 1440 pixels would normally, correct? Ideally, you could enjoy the same increase in resolution by just displaying the 4:3 ratio image at 1920 x 1440 without the cropping. But that would be a pretty weird resolution for most displays.

So does the extra 480 horizontal pixels really make that anti tank weapon that much easier to use? If so, I think you have truly found the only possible reason to crop.

Personally, I think I would be more concerned about not seeing a plane or helicopter above because of the cropped vertical FOV. 8)

1080p_gaming · Post by **1080p_gaming** » 14 Sep 2005, 21:44

So does the extra 480 horizontal pixels really make that anti tank weapon that much easier to use? If so, I think you have truly found the only possible reason to crop.

Yeah it does, I get 16 pixels for every 9 pixels (square) in 1440:1080 mode. I read that IBM makes the T221 monitor with 3840 x 2400 resolution, does anyone have one of those? That would double the resolution beyond mine. Or the Apple 30 inch display with 2560 x 1600, that would be be a 33% improvement over my display. However I think my x850 card would melt trying to drive either one of those.

That IBM monitor would have nearly 25 pixels for every one pixel on a 800x600 display. Probably 100 pixels for every one pixel on your NTSC xbox.

TheRealOmegaMan · Post by **TheRealOmegaMan** » 14 Sep 2005, 22:02

read that IBM makes the T221 monitor with 3840 x 2400 resolution

Even if the X850 could pull this off you would need a set of binaculars or a 40" or greater monitor just to see what the hell is going on.

1080p_gaming · Post by **1080p_gaming** » 14 Sep 2005, 22:34

read that IBM makes the T221 monitor with 3840 x 2400 resolution

Even if the X850 could pull this off you would need a set of binaculars or a 40" or greater monitor just to see what the hell is going on.

The IBM 221 is a 22.1 inch display. It reaches the human resolution limit about 18 inches from the eye. Young people have no problem focusing closer than 10 inches, older people have no use for this monitor as they can't possibly take advantage of the added detail. The hit the market at $8,000. Tiger Direct sold them off for $2000 about a year ago. (It was killing me not to buy one..... it was worth it however, since a year later I spent the $2000 on a 37" westinghouse. (same Chi Mei LCD manufacture from China)

I guess you could accomplish the same thing if you could force the game to a LOWER FOV. Say 30-45 degrees. If Dice could hack the FOV for widescreen maybe the engine can he forced to a lower FOV. Has anyone tried renderer.xxxxfov 0.5? does that work?

1080p_gaming · Post by **1080p_gaming** » 15 Sep 2005, 06:08

So does the extra 480 horizontal pixels really make that anti tank weapon that much easier to use? If so, I think you have truly found the only possible reason to crop.

Playing the Demo:

About an hour ago, I picked a prone sniper off the roof of the hotel from the crane. (using the anti tank weapon. First Try. Just about 30 minutes before that I sat on the crane prone and let a guy by the hotel pool try to sniper me. He finally got me after about 9 richochettes or whizzing rounds. ( I was not even trying to hide, just prone looking at him)

Related info more relevent to this discussion forum:

I noticed when you use the site on the Anti Tank weapon, it acually zooms in about 30% or so. This means that the game engine does support some change of angular resolution............. I guess the sniper scope does too......even more.....if they can zoom positive can we zoom negative?

steamgoat · Post by **steamgoat** » 20 Sep 2005, 09:01

Hi folks!

I wrote a email to dice, maybe we should bombard them with emails about widescreengaming. I hope they answer me.

ramuman · Post by **ramuman** » 22 Sep 2005, 03:57

After following this thread, I'm really bummed to see there's no work around yet for me on my 6800GT and Apple 20". The game doesn't get past the load screen if I try the shortcut trick.

This ticks me off, I pay 40 bucks for a game that can't support any resolution on my monitor - forget 1680x1050, I'd settle for 1280x1024 or 1024x768 with bars.

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 22 Sep 2005, 11:24

ramuman,

I cleared up your double post. :)

Robert · Post by **Robert** » 04 Oct 2005, 17:35

Guys I don't mean to get your hopes up, but I've just installed the 1.3 patch and could choose something like 13XX*1024 in the res options. Now, I still have the 1680*1050 res in my exe file - so it was running at that, but look how much you get to see on the screen? It doesn't seem zoomed at ALL. I may have my hopes up and am probably wrong - but just incase.

It looks as though you get to see more of the gun? Or maybe my mind's playing tricks on me :lol:.

Alabaster Slim · Post by **Alabaster Slim** » 04 Oct 2005, 22:03

I didn't test anything either, but I could have sworn I saw more of my medic's arm playing at 1280x768 as well.

Post by **Paddy the Wak** » 04 Oct 2005, 22:07

After I applied the patch I found no change that helps widescreen users ... :(

Robert · Post by **Robert** » 04 Oct 2005, 22:28

Are you sure mate? I'm sure I can see more of my weapon/generally more.

Alabaster Slim · Post by **Alabaster Slim** » 04 Oct 2005, 22:29

I just checked. You can now see as much of your weapon as with a 4:3 resolution, but otherwise you get a cropped view of everything else. So improvement.

Robert · Post by **Robert** » 04 Oct 2005, 23:34

Well, as you say - it is an improvement.

Horizon · Post by **Horizon** » 05 Oct 2005, 01:37

Is this with keeping that shortcut mod on?

Post by **Paddy the Wak** » 05 Oct 2005, 08:09

You have always been able to see as much of your weapon as with a 4:3 resolution ... :?
I posted this back in June ... look here 4th post down ... http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/node/5709t=15

BrotherEstapol · Post by **BrotherEstapol** » 05 Oct 2005, 10:37

Hmm, well, I haven't tested it properly yet, but I'm sure that while I was flying the Chinese attack chopper, I could see more.(like the rotor-blades at the top of the screen)

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