Do widescreen ratios give a better FOV over normal ratios ?

I guess one could test it but I'm pretty sure MW2 SD and HD will have the same FOV, otherwise wide screeners would have an unfair advantage.
 
Iirc, Bioshock allowed a wider FOV, but that's the only game I can think of from this gen that does.
 
Skyfall said:
otherwise wide screeners would have an unfair advantage.
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One party will always have an ''unfair advantage'' ( hardly unfair though, anyone can buy a new monitor ??).

Widescreen either cuts the vertical field of view for ws users ( giving them a disadvantage over 4:3) , or expands the horizontal ( giving them an advantage), there is no other way except anamorphic( which gives the same FoV for all users but black bars for ''non standard'' aspect ratio's, usually anyone except 16:9, see Mirror's Edge or Assassins Creed, even 16:10 users have small black bars). Or stretching. Or, for top view games, pixel based where every larger resolution gives a larger FoV regardless of Aspect Ratio.

So the choice is:
Advantage for the one or the other for either aspect ratio's.
Black bars.
Stretching.
Higher res= higher FoV ( Pixel based FoV).

As for the original question, most games are indeed Hor +, and give widescreen users a wider FoV than non WS, even 16:9 has a larger FoV than 16:10.

Just to name a few:
Bioshock ( only after patch 1.1, before than it was vert - actually and cutting the FoV for WS iirc)
Battlefield games ( once patched, bf2 needs v1.5)
Call Of Duty 4
Crysis
CSS/source games
GTA Games.
Doom 3.
Unreal Tourney 2k4.


But afaik it's actually frowned on for games to cut the FoV for WS users and expansing the FoV for ws users is usually accepted as the best solution.


EDIT: AAARGH I didn't notice this was the console forum ( I clicked on new posts), I have no clue about the console versions, but in theory it should be the same as on pc:

Fov expansion or cutting for WS.
Black Bars.
Stretching.
Pixel based ( for Red Alert for example).
 
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Skyfall said:
I guess one could test it but I'm pretty sure MW2 SD and HD will have the same FOV, otherwise wide screeners would have an unfair advantage.
Click to expand...

Surely it's not physically possible though, as snowfall has said, unless one version just has streched graphics, which it doesnt.
 
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But afaik it's actually frowned on for games to cut the FoV for WS users and expansing the FoV for ws users is usually accepted as the best solution.
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iirc this is exactly what happened with Bioshock till enough people complained.
 
When I used to play The Hidden quite a bit (stil play a bit now) I had a 19" 4:3 monitor. I then had a 20" 16:10 monitor. I knew the game maps quite well and there were quite a few places where widescreen gave you the advantage. One being if you backed yourself into a corner where two corriders joined at 90°, with the 16:10 I could see down both corriders at the same time, with the 4:3 I couldn't.....
 
Players get very annoyed when games don't take full advantage of their screen real-estate. I know of games that have been killed off because of this, particularly when large screens were expensive and it was deemed unfair for rich players to have an advantage.

So there are tradeoffs. I think if a game can be scaled to fit your screen, then that's what happens. But I imagine someone with a wide aspect ratio would have to see more horizontally than those with non-wide.
 
yes

but i dont see how its an unfair advantage. surely the people on a 4:3 tv can still set it too a widescreen res but have the black bars at bottom/top ?
 
"andy" said:
yes

but i dont see how its an unfair advantage. surely the people on a 4:3 tv can still set it too a widescreen res but have the black bars at bottom/top ?
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Good point , but if I remember correctly on my terrible 4:3 TV with a 360 set to widescreen , it just cuts the left and right side off :(. I'll check again later though :)
 
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