Prince of Persia (2008)

[dopefish]

This is probably a result of the game being either 16:9 (primary) or 4:3 (secondary) for the 360.

Probably any aspect-ratio that is not 16:9 or 4:3 will exhibit some form of compression or stretching (for the interface).

The screenshots in the TH section seem to prove that, too.

[Sweetz]

Yes, we know the 4:3 and 16:9 HUD scales fine. It's 16:10 that does not.

Ack my bad, I missed that it was only 16:10 being referred to.

[moreno]

How do i get the game to run in windowed mode?


and, why does 16:9 show more HOR+ than 16:10 ? both are a width of 16...

shouldnt the 16:10 be just as wide as the 16:9 option, AND show more VERT+ .. because 10 more than 9.

[Tanuki]

How do i get the game to run in windowed mode?


and, why does 16:9 show more HOR+ than 16:10 ? both are a width of 16...

shouldnt the 16:10 be just as wide as the 16:9 option, AND show more VERT+ .. because 10 more than 9.

Vert should stay the same. So only horizontal changes. Since 16:9 is wider it will show more on the sides while keeping the top and bottom the same.

[The_cranky_hermit]

and, why does 16:9 show more HOR+ than 16:10 ? both are a width of 16...

There's no such thing as a "width of 16." You can't measure width in numbers.
You can have a width of 16 inches, a width of 16 hundred pixels, a width of 16 centimeters, or whatever, but the 16 in 16:9 doesn't mean any of these things. It just means "16," and you can never have a "width of 16."

[Mesh]

Good point, however doesn't comparing 16:9 to 16:10 put both in the context where 16 is the width and 9/10 are the height, henceforth the point is that an image of both next to one another should have the same width but 1 taller than the other?

[The_cranky_hermit]

however doesn't comparing 16:9 to 16:10 put both in the context where 16 is the width and 9/10 are the height

I just explained why "16 is the width" is a completely nonsensical statement. Showing two pictures can't create a context of "16 is the width" any more than it can create a context of "yellow is the smell."

[Mesh]

So you're unable to picture 2 rectangles, one 16 wide by 9 high and one 16 wide by 10 high?

Perhaps the unit is left undefined, but in such a case, it's irrelevant.

[The_cranky_hermit]

So you're unable to picture 2 rectangles, one 16 wide by 9 high and one 16 wide by 10 high?

Not without first conjuring up some arbitrary unit of measurement that the terms "16:9" and "16:10" never implied. Neither can you.

[Mesh]

Perhaps our minds work differently, I can picture them, the unit in which they are doesn't matter for the purpose that I use em.

[The_cranky_hermit]

Whether you realize it or not, if you're picturing them concretely enough that they have an exact width, you're inserting an arbitrary unit of measurement in there somewhere. It is impossible to imagine something that is "16 wide," much like it is impossible to imagine a duration of time that is "16 long."

If you're saying "the unit doesn't matter," that shows there *is* a unit involved in your thinking. You might not have a name for it, you might not know for sure what it is, it might not exist in the real world, but you are assuming a concrete unit of measurement exists in some metaphysical sort of way. The 16 in 16:9 does not mean "16 units of measurement that don't matter." There aren't any units of measurement at all. In fact, without the 9, the 16 doesn't even mean anything. 16:9 just means "you can divide 16 by 9 to get the ratio of width to height."

[moreno]

mkay

what i really want to know is:

Does anyone know how to get the game to run in windowed mode?

[Mesh]

Sorry moreno, I just love philosophical discussions with cranky, which by the way wouldn't happen to be a lawyer?

[yogibbear]

The reason for the way the site is formatting the images the way it does, in reference to the "why is 16 units high" etc., is that it goes for constant height in all images no matter their AR. Or at least that is my understanding, unless someone can correct me?

If you overlay them, with pixel to pixel constant for a 16:9 as to 16:10 comparsion then the question will be answered.

[lostn]

I will take a stab at answering Mesh's question.

Like hermit explained, without some actual dimensions, the '16' is meaningless. It's only sheer coincidence that the aspect ratios of 16:9 and 16:10 both share a 16. You could call one of those 32:20 and you would stop making the comparison. It is the actual ratio we are interested in, not the integer numbers. 16:9 is just a more exact and rounded way of saying 1.777777777778. It would be less misleading if we used the decimal instead of 16 and 9.

The only way to compare FOV between the two is if one dimension's FOV (either horizontal or vertical) was fixed and the other variable.

If you were to fix the width so that both 16:10 and 16:9 were equally wide, then 16:10 would have a greater height and therefore a greater overall FOV. Let's compare two resolutions: 16:9 at 1680x945 and 16:10 at 1680x1050. Without any borders, both would have the same width but the 16:10 resolution would have a greater height which means an overall greater FOV. But that isn't how things work. We don't fix width, we fix the height. After all 'WIDE' screen means horizontal width we are interested in. So the effect when we fix the height is that the 1680x945 has a wider view. In order to match the FOV of 1680x945 while keeping 1050 as the vertical resolution, we would need to run at a resolution of 1867x1050.

The reason 16:9 is a wider view than 16:10 is because when you take a decimal of the ratio, 16/9 = 1.78 while 16/10 = 1.6. 1.78 is wider than 1.6.

If we were to fix widths instead of height, then 4:3 and 5:4 would give an even greater FOV than 16:9! How do you decide what resolutions should increase FOV? The movie studios decided that FOV could only increase horizontally, and that's how we gamers expect things to happen with our widescreen games.

Imagine if a movie which is typically filmed at 1.78:1 or 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 was released in 4:3 on DVD with an INCREASED FOV... That would mean they'd need to add information at the top and bottom without losing any information on the sides. And that if you had a widescreen TV, in order to preserve the increased FOV, you would need to add borders to the side...

It's arbitrary whether information is added horizontally or vertically, but we settled on expecting Hor+. Any widescreen solution that reduces fov (such as Vert-) is frowned upon.

[P-Storm]

lostn, that is exactly the thing we work for. Nice 2nd post, keep that up :)

[infernus]

I think one of the problems is we have resolutions that match each other's width, even though that isn't what we're looking at (1280x720 vs. 1280x800, 1920x1080 vs. 1920x1200). Some people might look at that and think, one clearly has more pixels, even though we're looking at AR.

Back to the topic though, does anyone notice if some of the 'getting up' scenes felt kinda zoomed in, maybe screwed up fov? I'm gonna try a few more encounters but I think it felt messed up on 16:10 vs. 16:9. Maybe it's just me.

[MobsterOO7]

You mean the little scene that happens after you are saved by Elika? I didn't notice anything abnormal with those. I can't test right now because I am back home with family and I'm not able to test.

[infernus]

You mean the little scene that happens after you are saved by Elika? I didn't notice anything abnormal with those. I can't test right now because I am back home with family and I'm not able to test.

Sorry I wasn't too specific: I meant when you really smack around your opponent (get smacked by, I guess) and they have to get up. It turns into a mini-cutscene. I'm probably just nitpicking at this point, so don't mind this too much.

[Skid]

TH Resolutions available via Matrox SGU:

1680x1050


3840x960


5040x1050


Below are just some images at 5040x1050 to show how the game draws the menu and cutscreens at that ress: