Screen Sizes - continuation of discussion in the News sticky thread

[exogenesis]

As a reply to Ecthelion from
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 96#2282152
(New post cos I thought it was getting a bit off-topic for the News thread)

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 82#2014682
Those pictures are all weird aspect ratios though. Can you show us some 16:9 and 16:10 screenshots that show stretching? It might be that it only looks right at "normal" aspect ratios.

Your 1680 x 1050 screen has an aspect ratio of 1.60, it not so different to the 'older standard' aspect of 1.33
when compared with 'dual' or 'triple' screen.

The stretching at the periphery is definately fish-eye effect, not a general screen-stretch
(as Nanook has pointed out).

These pictures have been scaled to the same height for easier comparison
(click on any one, if you want to see the full-sized original images):

'standard' aspect 1.33 (eg 1152 x 864)
[ external image ]

'wide' aspect 1.60 (eg 1680 x 1050), similar to 1.58 (eg 1900 x 1200)
[ external image ]

'dual screen' aspect 2.66 (eg 2304 x 864)
[ external image ]

'triple screen' aspect 3.56 (eg 2176 x 612)
[ external image ]

The FOV is properly scaled as the aspect ratio changes

This is controlled by setting the proper DX3D parameters used when rendering.
eg for D3DXMatrixPerspectiveFovLH(), where you get to define the 'projection' maths,
among the parameters are the FOV as an angle (eg 50 degrees), and a width:height ratio of your window.
Hence it allows you to keep the same degree of 'fish-eye' at various window resolutions (or specifically at various aspect ratios).

The top image above could be superimposed over the centre of the bottom image above, and you'd see no change.
(except there are slight differences in that the above are screen shots, I just had slightly different ship-guns firing to prove I wasn't cheating).

[And parameter, if you're reading this, there's no symbolism here, they're just pretty colours, OK? ]

[esd]

This has also been brought up in Devnet, I remember posting a request there for variable FOV myself! It was even hinted at as a feature for X³, but was one of those that didn't make it

(Edit: Found it!

To my mind, the unusually wide FOV is responsible for everything feeling so small. Tighten up the FOV and you increase apparent scale - make those capital ships look truly collossus.

[The_Abyss]

Variable FOV was IIRC present in early beta versions but had to be dropped.

[exogenesis]

That's a shame,
then again I don't know how many players
use really wide aspect screen setups anyway.

[esd]

That's a shame,
then again I don't know how many players
use really wide aspect screen setups anyway.

I don't use one, but the variable FOV is very desirable to me. Check the devnet post I linked to see why

[exogenesis]

That link
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=83768
goes to 'no such topic'.
Perhaps I'm not registered correctly to see DevNet posts?

[esd]

Indeed, you need L3 access.

As some people won't have it, it's not NDA material and there's no point people signing up to click one thread...

One of the key failings in the X games is the lack of a visual sense of scale. Fly up to an Osprey in a Pegasus and the Osprey does not appear very large, yet when you switch to an exterior camera it's obviously a lot bigger. Get in your spacesuit and the comparison is even bigger. This is even more prevalant on capital ships and TLs.

When a planet approaches the edge of the screen, it warps slightly. This is because X currently uses a wide-angle lense. This is what's responsible for the lack of visual scale in the X universe too.

I'd like to see the FOV much tighter, so objects have a discernable sense of scale as you approach them. Make a kilometer-long ship actually look like it's a kilometer long!

Some people, however, may actually like the current Field Of View, so I propose that an adjustable FOV camera be introduced, much like most flight sims allow. This way we get the best of both worlds, and those worlds don't distort at the edge of the screen!

[exogenesis]

Ah, yes I forgot to do L3 registration,
I think I completely agree, user FOV would be excellent.

Can't rememer if XBTF & Xtension had such a wide FOV angle,
seemed to me that space felt bigger then, but maybe that was because
there were no jump drives.

I wonder why variable FOV was dropped from the beta versions?

[jlehtone]

The "Advanced Satellite Video feed". Really bad place for fish-eyes. Orthographic projection would make much more sense there, or at least near-ortho FOV (with adjustment of camera position).

[Poobah]

Seeing all those big numbers makes my 1024x768 feel so tiny!

[CBJ]

That's called pixel envy.

Seriously though, choosing an FOV for the game is a tricky process. Too small and your in-game view is too restricted making combat more difficult, too large and the distortion increases especially in multi-monitor views where the ratio of the number of pixels horizontally to vertically is so extreme. As various people have explained, this is the fish-eye effect rather than pixel-stretching, and there's nothing that can be done about it.

I have to say that I agree that it would be nice for this to be user-configurable, though.

[esd]

Can't rememer if XBTF & Xtension had such a wide FOV angle,

Yes they did, I'm pretty sure.

I wonder why variable FOV was dropped from the beta versions?

I'd imagine it'd be the normal reasons for a feature being dropped from a product during development - either the drawbacks were too great to warrant the feature at the time (eg, a more serious bug was stealing tester time) or the age-old reason of time... it's not exactly a critical feature and as such would be first on the chopping block come crunch-time.

[CBJ]

Yes they did, I'm pretty sure.

Definitely. I remember noticing the fish-eye distortion in X-BTF. In fact it was even more noticeable there because it was combined with some weird "popping" of the object detail levels as things moved nearer the edge of the screen (for those who are interested, I think this was caused by detail level changes being determined by z-distance rather than absolute distance).

[fud]

I want a rainbow shark...

[esd]

I want a rainbow shark...

*sigh*

Here ya go:
[ external image ]

[parameter]

I want a rainbow shark...

*sigh*
Here ya go:
[ external image ]

Erm? Oh! I see! Its supposed to be frightening? Menacing? Why on earth, or anywhere else for that matter, would someone want one of them? Go play with a Boron Orca.

[fud]

A rainbow trout would be more fitting....


I don't suppose there's any way to fiddle with FOV in the game's current state is there (such as in an INI/etc)?

The fisheye thing has always bothered me a bit. It makes it really hard to make a 360° panaramic shot anyway. I don't have a wide screen monitor, but it's still there to the extent I think I need glasses while playing.

[CBJ]

I don't suppose there's any way to fiddle with FOV in the game's current state is there (such as in an INI/etc)?

Nope.

The fisheye thing has always bothered me a bit. It makes it really hard to make a 360° panaramic shot anyway. I don't have a wide screen monitor, but it's still there to the extent I think I need glasses while playing.

You get the same thing with photos taken using a wide-angle lens on a camera. There's nothing you can do about it when stitching them together to make a panoramic view other than cropping the images so that you only use the central section of each one.

[fud]

Yeah. I gave up trying due to the amount of fiddling and headaches I got trying to make a panoramic.

Patience isn't a virtue of mine.

[Ecthelion]

Seeing all those big numbers makes my 1024x768 feel so tiny!

Don't feel bad - I was running 1024x768 for years before I got a widescreen monitor. If it makes you feel better, my widescreen monitor is cheap, and I'm sure hardcore widescreeners would find all sorts of problems with it if they saw it. It works for me though. It's really cool to see games that take advantage of widescreen (like X3). Unfortunately, I have a lot of non-widescreen games, and I end up having to play them in a window (if they support it) since my monitor doesn't support anything besides a fixed aspect ratio for non-widescreen resolutions. In that respect, you'd have a lot fewer headaches by keeping a 4:3 monitor.

I have to say that I agree that it would be nice for this to be user-configurable, though.

Something for X4.