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[FoxEye]

You're kidding right? That's what we were arguing about, you said 21:9 made the vertical gaming space smaller than 16:9 and it wans't any use for RTS/etc, myself and others corrected you.

No, I didn't. Perhaps read what I've said again? If you look at what I've been saying I've been talking about ratio, not resolution. I know that you can't make statements like "vertical height is smaller" unless you're talking about resolution. So why would I do that?

21:9 doesn't tell you how much vertical height you have. Neither does 16:9. You can have screens that confirm to those ratios in any height you wish.

Please stop conflating resolution with ratio. And stop putting words in my mouth that I never said.

Yes it does, hence why many SC2 players have campaigned against adding 21:9 support to that game because they consider it an unfair advantage. Other RTS players are just happy to have a better gaming experience than they did in the 16:9 days.

Tell me then, how SC2 scales - I haven't played it. We will talk about resolution here because it's easier.

Comparing an ultra-wide 1080p screen (2560x1080) with a 1440p screen (2560x1440).

Does the 1440p screen show more vertical information, or does SC2 show the same amount of vertical information on both? If it's the latter I'd say that's an unfortunate way to handle scaling with a top-down RTS game.

However it is up to each developer to determine how they support various resolutions. If devs insist on locking vertical information and varying horizontal information displayed then that's pretty sad, because it stops people with large 16:9 resolutions using them to their fullest. There is no reason why a specific 21:9 resolution should show more information than a bigger 16:9 resolution. It is just the way some devs have chosen to go.

What you should be able to do is tell the game to show more in both axis when using a larger resolution. Whereas in a FPS this might give you "fish eye" syndrome, in a top-down RTS there is no such thing.

Not every game, just every game that supports it, if a game is old and so locked to 4:3 or 16:9 then it will look stretched (unless it adds black bars to the sides like SC2). However if the game supports 21:9 then pretty much every one looks/plays better in 21:9, FPS, Racing, RTS, MMORPG, MOBA, etc.

They look better, especially 2D sidescrollers/Metroidvanias because you can see further to the sides.

Why would you want to see more to the sides in a side-scrolling 2D game with a lot of vertical movement? Or to put it another way, why wouldn't you want to see more to the sides and more on the top and bottom?

Again for an isometric top-down strategy game, where FOV is not a thing, you want to see as much of the area of play as possible. If the area play is square, then having a view onto that area of play which is ultra-wide doesn't really help.

Having a bigger 16:9 screen and being able to adjust the game's viewing area (dot pitch) would allow you see more in both axis, not just one.

If the game insists on showing the same vertical information regardless of resolution that is again unfortunate. It should be that the more pixels you have the more you see. Otherwise those pixels just get you more detail but the same viewing window.

Except playing a game on a 9:21 screen would be really weird and bad (excluding maybe Tetris or Space Invaders).

In many games being able to see more to the sides is not inherently an advantage, vs being able to see more in both axis (ie, just having a bigger screen).

Perhaps you play a lot of games where the resolution has no bearing on the amount of the play area you can see (the viewing window).

If someone offered you the chance to see more in both axis, vs just seeing more horizontally, why would you choose to just see more horizontal?

Perhaps your answer to that will give me some idea where you're coming from.

I suspect the problem is the number of games that fix the viewing window, and display the same information say at 1920x1080 as they do at 2560x1440 (same ratio). The 1440p screen should be able to show more in both axis, instead of the the same viewing window but more detailed.

As a quick example, look at the Infinity Engine mods to allow higher resolutions.

When those games were released they were locked at 800x600 I believe. Mods allowed resolutions above this, like 1024x768 and 1280x960. At the higher resolutions you could see more of the viewing area in both axis.

This is how games should be. Instead of locking the viewing area and dictating that higher resolutions must have the same viewing area, you should be able to increase your viewing area. Of course if you didn't increase your screen size you'd have the effect of being zoomed out. But with a 34"+ 16:9 screen you aboslutely should have the choice of having a larger viewing window in both axis compared to a 19" 16:9 screen. Don't you agree?

The idea that the larger resolution should just show more detailed models is a choice that gaming devs have almost unanimously made, but to me it doesn't make much sense for RTS, RPG, etc. Going from a smaller 16:9 res to a larger 16:9 res should give the option of allowing you to see more in both directions.

 

[FoxEye]

I can't think of a single rts or tbs that I've played on my ultra wide monitor that restricts the player to a square map?

We're talking about the map, most of which is off-screen at any one time.

We're not talking about the viewing window, aka the area of the map that is on-screen.

I've played plenty of TBS where the map is taller than wide. You honestly haven't come across any like that?

I've also played plenty of Metroidvanias where the overall game map is square.

My point is that if the game map is squarish, then there is no reason to want a viewing window that is an elongated rectangle.

 

[ubersonic]

No, I didn't.

Oh.. My.. God..

Are you actually serious with this level of straw? Of course you did, this is the exact thing everyone's been correcting you over for the past X pages:

RTS doesn't benefit at all from utlra-wide.

there is little benefit to being able to see much further in the x axis than the y axis.

there is no benefit to having 1.5x width and 1x height, for RTS etc.

"Being able to see more of the screen at the same zoom level" is actually the opposite of what happens

a long, thin screen is not inherently better than a more square screen for RTS, RPG, etc. There is little reason to want to see more horizontally than vertically in such genres.

All things you said, all proven/demonstrated to be wrong.​

Tell me then, how SC2 scales - I haven't played it.

When set to 21:9 it maintains the game in 16:9 and adds black bars to the side to fill the additional space. This is because many hardcore players claimed that supporting 21:9 like other RTS games would be an unfair advantage as it enhances the amount that can be seen horizontally with no vertical penalty, despite what you tink.

Comparing an ultra-wide 1080p screen (2560x1080) with a 1440p screen (2560x1440).

Does the 1440p screen show more vertical information, or does SC2 show the same amount of vertical information on both?

Because of the aforementioned black bars on 21:9 screens they show the exact same amount of information as SC2 adds . Most RTS games however use the latter method.

If it's the latter I'd say that's an unfortunate way to handle scaling with a top-down RTS game.

It's called modern technology, 21:9 shows more than 16:9 which shows more than 16:10 which shows more than 4:3. It's always been this way.

If devs insist on locking vertical information and varying horizontal information displayed then that's pretty sad, because it stops people with large 16:9 resolutions using them to their fullest.

No it doesn't, they can still use them to their fullest just like they always have.

There is no reason why a specific 21:9 resolution should show more information than a bigger 16:9 resolution.

Of course there is, because it's a wider aspect, the amount of pixels in play don't affect the aspect. A 2560x1080 21:9 screen will show more of the gaming area than a 3840x2160 16:9 screen, just like a 1280x720 16:9 screen showed more than a 1600x1200 4:3 screen.

What you should be able to do is tell the game to show more in both axis when using a larger resolution.

That's called zooming, available in many RTS games but also banned in SC2 lol.

If the game insists on showing the same vertical information regardless of resolution that is again unfortunate.

This is how it's worked since like forever, even back in the DOS days (640x400 is a 16:10 resolution), hell 20 years ago you used to get competitive FPS players running 16:10 on 5:4 CRT screens with black bars top/bottom so they could see more of the gaming area.

I think the issue you're having is because you didn't understand the way this stuff works you're seeing something that's always been "the way" as something new/scary and trying tot oppose it. Even though many of us have tried explaining it.

 

[FoxEye]

You'll be happy to know I'm not going to continue this discussion. We really are getting nowhere. I've made my points as best I can and there's no reason to keep treading the same water.

I would say you have a pretty bad case of tunnel vision, ubersonic. That there is "the way it's done" and this must be the "only way".

The fact that you insist that a 2560x1080 screen must always show more of the game area than a 2560x1440 screen is frankly bizarre. It doesn't work like this on your Windows desktop, and there is no reason it has to work like that in games, esp 2D games with no FOV.

The fact that some games don't use horiz+ but instead use vert- should make this blindingly obvious. I believe I'm correct in saying that WoW used to use vert- for widescreen until they patched it to use horiz+. But before they did, widescreen monitors showed less than 4:3.

The ability to think outside the box, or to see beyond one specific implementation is something more than a few seem to be lacking these days.

My final word on the subject will be this:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1225236

The first couple pages are almost 100% people piling on to ridicule the OP. By the end of the thread some people demonstrated an ability to think for themselves, and were in fact defending his arguments.

That said, I'm done - I've already hijacked the thread enough and the mods have been insanely tolerant to let it continue.

 

[LoadsaMoney]

These will be flying out on Monday, along with the 1080s.

 

[Rroff]

Both of you are wrong as much as right anyhow - ultra wide support has grown considerably but there are still a fair few titles that use vert- the truth is somewhere between the two viewpoints.

Given as I have a Dell U2913WM and S2716DG on my desk I think I should know

 

[Rannoch]

These will be flying out on Monday, along with the 1080s.

Haha

 

[ubersonic]

Both of you are wrong as much as right anyhow - ultra wide support has grown considerably but there are still a fair few titles that use vert- the truth is somewhere between the two viewpoints.

Don't mean to be rude but this wasn't a case of viewpoints, it was a case of some of us trying to explain to him how aspect ratios work in games and him refusing to believe it because he feels it would make more sense to do it differently.

 

[FoxEye]

Both of you are wrong as much as right anyhow - ultra wide support has grown considerably but there are still a fair few titles that use vert- the truth is somewhere between the two viewpoints.

Given as I have a Dell U2913WM and S2716DG on my desk I think I should know

Must... not... respond.... Hah.

 

[Rroff]

Don't mean to be rude but this wasn't a case of viewpoints, it was a case of some of us trying to explain to him how aspect ratios work in games and him refusing to believe it.

Yeah but there are still a lot of games that don't handle aspect ratios properly (even with widescreen fixes, etc.) despite the much increased support for it and a lot more games doing it right.

 

[ubersonic]

Yeah but there are still a lot of games that don't handle aspect ratios properly (even with widescreen fixes, etc.) despite the much increased support for it and a lot more games doing it right.

Oh of course, but it was him claiming that wider aspects have no use in most types of games (including some types where it's so useful it's banned in some of the games) that we took issue with.

 

[FoxEye]

Yeah but there are still a lot of games that don't handle aspect ratios properly (even with widescreen fixes, etc.) despite the much increased support for it and a lot more games doing it right.

I think what uber missed (don't both responding uber - you're on ignore)... is that I was trying to separate aspect ratio from resolution and implementation (eg horiz+ and vert- are both game-specific implementations).

I was making a much more abstract and generalised point. In that if you are a RTS/ RPG/ metroidvania/ space sim aficionado, you have little reason to want a viewing window that is miles wider than it is tall. There is no inherent benefit, as can be seen if you consider having a screen that is much taller than it is wide (uber himself said that would be "weird").

For those kinds of games I would want a more balanced viewing window, and for me the ideal was 16:10. I already disklike 16:9 for being a bit wider than I need. Sure it's great for films, FPS, racing... and I do acknowledge that 21:9 is even better for those.

Sadly my attempts to just debate the merits of aspect ratio/viewing window ratio, detached entirely from resolution and game-specific implementations such as horiz+/vert- were completely ignored/misunderstood/whatever. Even every time he quoted me he failed to understand what the bits he quoted were actually saying.

To understand my argument you can even completely disregard which ratio shows more information in today's games. Because that is dependent on implementation. I simply don't see the need to have a very wide display. Give me a 16:10 display and let me choose my own viewing window. If I've got a massive 34" 16:10 - with the same dot pitch as a smaller 19" 16:10, but a much higher resolution - give me the option of seeing more of the game area - but with a ratio I much prefer over ultra-wide.

Sadly (most) games don't offer this option. If you have a small 16:9 you'll see the same amount of information as a massive ultra-high-res 16:9. Which is weird. Because unlike TVs, you don't by a bigger monitor to sit further away from it. You buy a bigger monitor to have more screen real estate. The exact way your Windows desktop works. But games seem to think we buy bigger monitors in order to see the exact same viewing window, just bigger and at higher definition.

And frankly that's nonsense in games like RTS and RPG, where it would be miles better to just be able to see more in both axis. You shouldn't *need* to buy a widescreen monitor too see more information in those games.

Sadly I suspect competitive play is the main reason this isn't happening. People complaining that a bigger monitor/higher res would give an "unfair" advantage. Which is nuts.

 

[ubersonic]

don't both responding uber - you're on ignore

I actually cannot believe that in 2017 someone ignored a bunch of people (or maybe he just ignored me specifically) for daring to debunk their "alt facts" on a technical forum...

I hope this isn't an indication of where things are going...

 

[FoxEye]

Sorry uber I can't hear you It's better for both of us that way