Left 4 Dead 2

[The_cranky_hermit]

The wider the aspect ratio gets, the bigger they get.

That's not what vert - means. Nothing's being subtracted from the vertical here. What it looks like is that the larger the horizontal resolution, the bigger the HUD. I don't think we can objectively call this a WS blemish - the important thing is that the HUD stays in correct proportions.

[Leapo]

Those elements look pretty vert- to me (is it confusing you that only parts of the 2D HUD are vert- rather than the whole game?). When the game is running at 48:10, the floating pointers and the cross-hair are the correct size for this aspect ratio:



These HUD elements are scaled with a fixed aspect ratio, expanding in accordance with the width of the screen, but ignoring the height. With a wide enough setup, even the points of the crosshair would start getting cropped off the top and bottom of the screen.

I can fake a setup that wide with SoftTH if you want me to demonstrate the cropping, but even at this size, the 3x-too-large bits make the game a bit annoying to play.


Edit: This should make it even clearer, I've overlayed the 16:10 screenshot on top of the the 48:10 one. As you can see, same size icons and crosshair.

Some of the HUD elements are being blown up to a massive 16:10 box that the 48:10 game fits inside of, then cropped to fit.

[The_cranky_hermit]

You're misusing the term "vert -". Nothing is getting cropped off the top or bottom of anything. Here's what a vert - HUD looks like:

Full HUD:


Vert - HUD:

[Leapo]

Huh? That just looks stretched too wide...

I'm sticking with vert-. Certain parts of the HUD is being vertically cropped from 16:10 to 48:10.

In any case, the effects are obvious. Parts of the game expanding to 3 times their normal size in triple-head is not perfect support...

[The_cranky_hermit]

Certain parts of the HUD is being vertically cropped from 16:10 to 48:10.

Where? I can not see a single pixel of the HUD that has been discarded in the transition.

[Leapo]

Certain parts of the HUD is being vertically cropped from 16:10 to 48:10.

Where? I can not see a single pixel of the HUD that has been discarded in the transition.

As I said, if I enable an even wider resolution with SoftTH, the cross-hair will eventually start going off the top and bottom of the screen.

Basically, everything in the two big black bars on this shot is lost on these particular parts of the HUD:



Edit: This might make it more clear. Now, keep in mind this only effects the cross-hair and the floating weapon indicators in this screenshot. When these particular elements end up in the red boxes, they're off-screen in triplehead.

[The_cranky_hermit]

As I said, if I enable an even wider resolution with SoftTH, the cross-hair will eventually start going off the top and bottom of the screen.

Just how wide is "eventually?"

When these particular elements end up in the red boxes, they're off-screen in triplehead.

The icons don't get cropped like the term "vert -" implies. They just move down a bit and arrows appeard that point upwards or downwards.

[Leapo]

As I said, if I enable an even wider resolution with SoftTH, the cross-hair will eventually start going off the top and bottom of the screen.

Just how wide is "eventually?"

8192x1050 (SoftTH's maximum width) will get some cross-hairs (such as the shutgun) to go large enough. Eyefinity with 5 monitors would be 8400x1050, so it is possible to go that wide.

I don't know why you're defending the game so adamantly. The fact that HUD elements are blowing up to 3 times (or more) their normal size should be more than enough to show something isn't right with the HUD in triplehead.

I'm going to dig around the hud config files to see if I can find a solution for this. These parts of the HUD should not be scaling like this. They appear to be scaling based on horizontal resolution alone, assuming a 16:10 aspect ratio at all times, which is why they don't just stretch 3 times too wide, but also expand vertically when they shouldn't.

[The_cranky_hermit]

8192x1050 (SoftTH's maximum width) will get some cross-hairs (such as the shutgun) to go large enough. Eyefinity with 5 monitors would be 8400x1050, so it is possible to go that wide.

Ok, I'll grant you that the crosshair is vert -, but only for quintuplehead users.

I don't know why you're defending the game so adamantly.

I insist on as much accuracy as is possible when documenting games. L4D2 isn't anything special in that regard.

The fact that HUD elements are blowing up to 3 times (or more) their normal size should be more than enough to show something isn't right with the HUD in triplehead.

Whether this is or is not a fault in TH, a game can get certified with TH-specific blemishes. And it's never been considered a problem for WS games to have enlarged HUDs.

They appear to be scaling based on horizontal resolution alone, assuming a 16:10 aspect ratio at all times, which is why they don't just stretch 3 times too wide, but also expand vertically when they shouldn't.

Actually, if the HUD is going to expand its horizontal dimension 300%, then it *should* expand the vertical equally. Otherwise the proportions are off, and this is recognized as a blemish.

[Leapo]

8192x1050 (SoftTH's maximum width) will get some cross-hairs (such as the shutgun) to go large enough. Eyefinity with 5 monitors would be 8400x1050, so it is possible to go that wide.

Actually, if the HUD is going to expand its horizontal dimension 300%, then it *should* expand the vertical equally. Otherwise the proportions are off, and this is recognized as a blemish.

My point is, it shouldn't expand in any dimension. These elements should remain a constant size across all widths. I don't see why expanding only horizontally is considered a blemish, but expanding horizontally and vertically isn't being considered one at all. They're still the wrong size (the blurriness from the scaling should be enough to tell that).

These expanding bits have been game-breaking more than once already. I was totally lost because I couldn't figure out where one was trying to point me, it was so large it just seemed to dance around the screen pointing at nothing.

I've tried looking for a fix, but the relevant game files from L4D1 are not in L4D2...any ideas on where to start looking for the HUD configuration files?

[The_cranky_hermit]

I don't see why expanding only horizontally is considered a blemish, but expanding horizontally and vertically isn't being considered one at all.

Because distortion is a flaw, plain and simple. The HUD getting bigger as the resolution increases isn't necessarily so, especially in widescreen where it gets 33% bigger at most.

[Leapo]

Being the wrong size and blurry isn't distortion?

[The_cranky_hermit]

If a square remains a square, it's not being distorted.

Plenty of games feature HUDs that scale up as the resolution increases. We haven't documented this in the 450+ games that are on record. I'm not about to retroactively check each and every one of them, or de-certify whatever of the 74 certified games work this way. Doing this for any TH support at all is taking long enough as it is.

[X-Warrior]

From what I see/read, we're talking about a potentially game breaking glitch here. How can you certify that? True, it's only really game breaking for very very wide setups, but still it is a glitch. Icons should not be as big as they are on widescreens.

[DaFox]

From what I see/read, we're talking about a potentially game breaking glitch here. How can you certify that? True, it's only really game breaking for very very wide setups, but still it is a glitch. Icons should not be as big as they are on widescreens.

Game breaking is debatable. I will agree its definitely annoying for TH users, but so is say the health going on the far side monitors rather than the center. I do believe that they should fix it but its definitely not grounds for decertification. Oh and the feature can be disabled in the options menu.

Options > Multiplayer > Game Instructor

90%+ of people will want to have it disabled anyway especially those that have played the original L4D. It is very annoying even when playing 4:3. It's basically teaching newbs how to play an FPS game with popup messages like "You should press R to manually reload your weapon!" or "Press Crouch to duck!" or the one that we are talking about which is basically "hey dumbshit come pick up a weapon."

On:
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/9396/11212009084429.jpg
Off:
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/5600/11212009084453.jpg

As for the Crosshair try out
cl_crosshair_thickness 1 (def: 2)
cl_crosshair_dynamic 0 (def: 1)
in surround to see if that makes it any better.

[ViciousXUSMC]

I'll try the crosshair thing now, what file do I need to edit and where is it located?

[MobsterOO7]

I just tried those two things, and while they aren't nearly as good as cl_crosshairscale would have been; they are an improvement.

Also I had an idea for the screenshots of the overlays that are stretched. When a smoker gets you little water droplets get overlayed on the screen. Even if your screenshots don't match exactly it will show them being circular in one and ellipses in another.

[DaFox]

I just tried those two things, and while they aren't nearly as good as cl_crosshairscale would have been; they are an improvement.

Also I had an idea for the screenshots of the overlays that are stretched. When a smoker gets you little water droplets get overlayed on the screen. Even if your screenshots don't match exactly it will show them being circular in one and ellipses in another.

Yeah I'm guessing that those are 512x512 (they can only be perfectly square and a power of 2) images, so they are stretched on everything even 4:3. (though slightly). This is probably exhibited in L4D, Portal, TF2, HL2 (and Episodes), Zeno Clash, CS:S and DoD:S as well.

[ViciousXUSMC]

I just tried those two things, and while they aren't nearly as good as cl_crosshairscale would have been; they are an improvement.

Also I had an idea for the screenshots of the overlays that are stretched. When a smoker gets you little water droplets get overlayed on the screen. Even if your screenshots don't match exactly it will show them being circular in one and ellipses in another.

I made the edit to the steam/steamapps/common/left4dead2/left4dead2/cfg/config.cfg file and saw no change.

Granted it did an update to the game so maybe it wrote them back to stock, is there a different file I should be editing?

Edit: yeah they were wrote back to stock, i'll give it another shot and see if I see the changes now.

[DaFox]

Granted it did an update to the game so maybe it wrote them back to stock, is there a different file I should be editing?

autoexec.cfg is the one that you should be using. (you may have to create it)