539 replies to this topic

[TheAdmiral]

Smoke_Tetsu, on September 25th 2009, 08:49 AM, said:

As far as I'm concerned it's UE2.5 with features equivalent to UE3 grafted on.

Bingo!

[teflon]

Rob Chahin, on September 25th 2009, 09:53 AM, said:

I wonder what we've been doing while they've been doing all that work  

Clearly you've all been sitting round drinking huge quantities of spirits the last few months, otherwise you'd be able to remember!  

[ltcommander.data]

Rob Chahin, on September 25th 2009, 04:53 AM, said:

I wonder what we've been doing while they've been doing all that work  

teflon, on September 25th 2009, 07:39 AM, said:

Clearly you've all been sitting round drinking huge quantities of spirits the last few months, otherwise you'd be able to remember!  

Just to be clear, it's not that I don't appreciate all the hard work that Feral does in porting games, because I do, I just wanted to express my appreciation for 2K Games allowing games and IP out of their own corporate clutches. I'd imagine the negotiation process can sometimes be more complex and difficult than doing the actual port. Perhaps as teflon said, an open bar can be a very useful negotiating tactic.

edddeduck, on September 25th 2009, 05:12 AM, said:

I will pass on the general feedback to 2K that people are very happy that Bioshock and other 2K games make it to the Mac.

Edwin

Thanks.

Oh, I just wanted to confirm that the Mac version will have full widescreen support. I remember some controversy when Bioshock was first released on Windows about poor widescreen support and full screen users actually seeing more of the game.

And for curiosity, seeing I have a spare older MacBook at home sadly with a GMA X3100, does Bioshock run at all on the GMA X3100 with the newer OpenGL 2.0 drivers in Snow Leopard, even if unsupported? I've read that it generally crashes in Windows, at least with older drivers. I'll be no doubt be using a newer Mac regardless.

[edddeduck]

ltcommander.data, on September 25th 2009, 05:32 AM, said:

Oh, I just wanted to confirm that the Mac version will have full widescreen support. I remember some controversy when Bioshock was first released on Windows about poor widescreen support and full screen users actually seeing more of the game.

Yes it does although I have to say this is a none issue and completely down to people not understanding the artistic and design decisions of the game. The game camera etc was designed for widescreen first and foremost. But some people have old TV's with 4:3 screens. To support the 4:3 they decided to allow the camera to see more of the game at the top and bottom of the game but keep the view angle the same for both 16:9 and 4:3 players to keep the tight atmosphere.

However most people think of widescreen from the movies or DVD's in these formats 4:3 gets the edges cut off and looks more zoomed in (you see less of the film) than the 16:9 version. As such they claimed that the widescreen was not supported and was wrong. In fact the game was designed visually for a certain view angle and by increasing the up down on the 4:3 view they kept the view angle constant and that allowed them to keep the style and how much is viewable down corridors etc the same on all TV's.

Some people kicked off so in the patch they allowed you an extra widescreen option to stretch the viewable angle on the 16:9 so like a DVD you see more of the game than the 4:3 version. This makes you feel like you are further away from the action (more zoomed out) and changed the feel of the game as you feel more detached from your character however it kept the complaints down from people who thought the 16:9 version was poor. It was designed that way and I seriously recommend you play with the tighter (original) FOV as it keeps the tight angle and closeness of the game which makes you have a much more intimate experience by zooming out the camera you actually made the atmosphere less and the game is slightly less dramatic. See my basic diagram below.

ltcommander.data, on September 25th 2009, 05:32 AM, said:

And for curiosity, seeing I have a spare older MacBook at home sadly with a GMA X3100, does Bioshock run at all on the GMA X3100 with the newer OpenGL 2.0 drivers in Snow Leopard, even if unsupported? I've read that it generally crashes in Windows, at least with older drivers. I'll be no doubt be using a newer Mac regardless.

X3100 will be blocked from even trying to start as will the GMA 950. The new GL support in the drivers might mean it can draw more stuff but it will not make it any faster. It should mean better support for older games like the legends series but getting unreal 2.5 / 3 engine games on the GMA cards is not really feasible right now. The reason we block it from even trying is the game could hang or crash your machine as it attempts to draw so instead of having angry people with crashed or hanging Mac's we just save you the pain and block it from launching.

Edwin

[dr.zeissler]

gma950 and x3100

what hardware was used to test and optimize bioshock  ?
has feral a demo quadcore-imac of the upcoming generation or are you testing with the actual models ?

i think my 2.93 dualcore with ati4850 will do the job as i expect the performance of mac-bioshock is near the windows-version
where i tested bioshock-steam-demo with my old imac (2600pro) and it runs ok in 1024x768 but full hd was not so fun.

Doc

[feral_thierry]

dr.zeissler, on September 25th 2009, 10:16 PM, said:

what hardware was used to test and optimize bioshock ?
has feral a demo quadcore-imac of the upcoming generation or are you testing with the actual models ?

Those of us who actually worked on Bioshock have pretty nice systems but I'm afraid we don't test on theoretical hardware

On a personal note, Bioshock is one hell of a game and that is only marginally due to the graphics (which btw are very good IMHO), for me what separates this game from the rest is the audio landscape it creates which is flat out scary/creepy.

Welcome to Rapture

[edddeduck]

dr.zeissler, on September 25th 2009, 01:16 PM, said:

what hardware was used to test and optimize bioshock  ?
has feral a demo quadcore-imac of the upcoming generation or are you testing with the actual models ?

We have used everything from some original Intel iMacs with a CoreDuo and a X1600 128MB card all the way through to an 8 Core MacPro with (thanks to the great people at ATI) a HD4870 card installed. Every card that was shipped on an Intel Mac was tested in at least one configuration i.e. If you test a NV9400 in a mini you don't need to test the same card in a MacBook. Every machine was tested and performance tweaked for that card if needed.

The main aim was to target good performance for all machines but with a sliding scale of graphics quality; better machines should be able to run with better settings but still have the same performance. Below I have some rough rules on what you should expect, the actually defaults are slightly more complex but this should give you an idea.

• 128 VRAM - Low Settings
  
• 256 VRAM - Medium Settings
  
• 512 VRAM - High Settings

These rules have a few exceptions (mostly the NV7000 series which is set to low because of the poor driver performance). I know the keen members among you can tweak the settings even more to your exact machine spec but the game will make a best guess on first run. High resolutions and shadows are the biggest hits but you can experiment with lower settings and higher resolutions or vice versa and we have a small guide on what we think will make the biggest effects on your machines performance in the FAQ on the game disk.

We don't get any access or knowledge about new models till the Apple keynotes just like all of you. We can however make sure Apple, NV and ATI have copies of the beta just in case they might test it on some hardware that does not officially exist even if they cannot tell us if they do.

Edwin

[Janichsan]

edddeduck, on September 25th 2009, 04:51 PM, said:

Yes it does although I have to say this is a none issue and completely down to people not understanding the artistic and design decisions of the game.

Nice way of saying "People are idiots".

[Smoke_Tetsu]

edddeduck, on September 25th 2009, 08:51 AM, said:

Yes it does although I have to say this is a none issue and completely down to people not understanding the artistic and design decisions of the game. The game camera etc was designed for widescreen first and foremost. But some people have old TV's with 4:3 screens. To support the 4:3 they decided to allow the camera to see more of the game at the top and bottom of the game but keep the view angle the same for both 16:9 and 4:3 players to keep the tight atmosphere.

However most people think of widescreen from the movies or DVD's in these formats 4:3 gets the edges cut off and looks more zoomed in (you see less of the film) than the 16:9 version. As such they claimed that the widescreen was not supported and was wrong. In fact the game was designed visually for a certain view angle and by increasing the up down on the 4:3 view they kept the view angle constant and that allowed them to keep the style and how much is viewable down corridors etc the same on all TV's.

Some people kicked off so in the patch they allowed you an extra widescreen option to stretch the viewable angle on the 16:9 so like a DVD you see more of the game than the 4:3 version. This makes you feel like you are further away from the action (more zoomed out) and changed the feel of the game as you feel more detached from your character however it kept the complaints down from people who thought the 16:9 version was poor. It was designed that way and I seriously recommend you play with the tighter (original) FOV as it keeps the tight angle and closeness of the game which makes you have a much more intimate experience by zooming out the camera you actually made the atmosphere less and the game is slightly less dramatic. See my basic diagram below.


X3100 will be blocked from even trying to start as will the GMA 950. The new GL support in the drivers might mean it can draw more stuff but it will not make it any faster. It should mean better support for older games like the legends series but getting unreal 2.5 / 3 engine games on the GMA cards is not really feasible right now. The reason we block it from even trying is the game could hang or crash your machine as it attempts to draw so instead of having angry people with crashed or hanging Mac's we just save you the pain and block it from launching.

Edwin

I understand and knew all of this already from reading about the PC version. However I'd still rather have a wider FOV than what is available in the 4:3 version. Although on the Mac we'd still have a taller picture since unless Apple's updated Macs have 16:9 like the rest of the PC world is moving towards all widescreen Macs have 16:10.

This past year I had been playing quite a few games on my families 32 inch 16:9 HDTV and I'd take a wider FOV on any game when playing at a widescreen resolution any day. Especially since in Bioshock the original way it was cutting off some of the top and bottom just to keep the width the same. Artistic or not I don't agree with it.... and enough other people didn't that they added an option. When I play a game this way I sit close and the extra FOV becomes my peripheral vision for the game unlike how some people especially on consoles play sitting further back seeing the whole screen at the same time.

Many of the people complaining where from the widescreen gaming forums. I don't think it's fair to call them stupid or misunderstanding. Many understood what you talked about here but wanted the option anyway and preferred how it looked with it. Some people play with mutli-monitor configurations and play at a crazy wide FOV.

But you are right that most people are confused when it comes to aspect ratios. A lot think that stretching a 4:3 video to 16:9 is a good way to see those videos. Then there are movies cropped to 16:9 which is still not as wide as at the theater. A certain relative of mine thought DVDs that where in the original theatrical aspect should be stretched rather than set to proportionally fill the screen. This meant the picture ended up being squashed in the middle of the screen with thick black bars rather than how it's supposed to look. Proportional with thin bars at the top and bottom. This stopped after we stopped using DVDs.

[nagromme]

I didn't know about the NV7000 drivers. I have a 7600GT iMac. It seems OK to me, but I hope Apple/NV improve things

(I hope 16:10 doesn't catch on as standard in PCs: it's too extreme for general-purpose computing! Most content we use, from Web to email to file lists, scrolls vertically. And video is often still 4:3. So 16:10 seems like a better size for most computers. I can see 16:9 in a laptop if it lets you shave off some physical size though.)

[Smoke_Tetsu]

nagromme, on September 28th 2009, 08:34 AM, said:

I hope 16:10 doesn't catch on as standard in PCs

Do you actually mean you hope 16:9 doesn't catch on as standard in PCs? Because I have noticed all the new monitors at places like best buy are practically all 16:9 now.... and many new laptops are coming 16:9. It seems like the Mac is one of the last companies shipping 16:10 monitors.

By the way most of my videos are either 16:9, or cinema format (forgot the aspect for that). A lot of shows (besides old shows and the news) are going 16:9 (like the simpsons did recently)... Properly formatted movies have always been wider than 16:9 and thus show a thin black bar on 16:9 screens.

Most DVDs have come in proper widescreen for many years. That is unless you always bought the "full screen" version or have a large collection of VHS tapes.

[edddeduck]

Smoke_Tetsu, on September 28th 2009, 04:34 AM, said:

I understand and knew all of this already from reading about the PC version. However I'd still rather have a wider FOV than what is available in the 4:3 version.

The FOV for the widescreen was designed to be as it is in the X-Box version, the 4:3 they just as I said dragged the up and down as for a game with tension and atmosphere the amount you can see to the left and right is very important so to give you the same close feeling without ruining the design the FOV is the same for both.

Smoke_Tetsu, on September 28th 2009, 04:34 AM, said:

Especially since in Bioshock the original way it was cutting off some of the top and bottom just to keep the width the same. Artistic or not I don't agree with it.... and enough other people didn't that they added an option.

You still don't seem to get the point I am trying to make, the game was designed for widescreen 16:9 with the POV the game originally shipped with. This is what the game should look like. After this was designed they needed to support 4:3 as well for the people with old TV's, they decided so the 4:3 people did not have an overly closed in POV (usual deal) they would lock the POV and make more visible up and down instead. This does not effect the POV and hence keeps the gameplay the same as seeing left and right makes more of an impact than up and down.

What you are saying (and all these widescreen gamers) is you think that Bioshock on the XBox, PS3 and PC (no patch) where all incorrect and that the original design and POV on all platforms was also incorrect and that they should have designed the game with a wider POV from the start making the game feel less closed in.

The point 2K designers made was that the widescreen mode was not compromised in any way it's the 4:3 mode that is compromised by showing TOO MUCH of the game not the 16:9 showing too little. Hence I stand by the fact the widescreen works perfectly and if you change the POV you are in fact looking at the game from the viewpoint that shows to much of the game at once; this is against the level design, artistic design and atmosphere of the game. Some people might want to be able to see more than you should be able to while playing but this desire does not mean that the original widescreen was not correct in every way.

2K more or less admitted in forums trying to explain that it is the 4:3 that is wrong and the POV was designed for 16:9 was impossible as everyone just either did not get the explanation or just said if it is widescreen "I want to see more I don't care how the game was designed". As such they gave in added the option just to shut everyone up if nothing else. (That is my paraphrasing of the situation).

Smoke_Tetsu, on September 28th 2009, 04:34 AM, said:

Many of the people complaining where from the widescreen gaming forums. I don't think it's fair to call them stupid or misunderstanding.


Many understood what you talked about here but wanted the option anyway and preferred how it looked with it. Some people play with mutli-monitor configurations and play at a crazy wide FOV.

I would not call them stupid however I would say they don't understand the issue if after reading the facts they still demand a POV that the game was not designed for. As 2K said it is the 4:3 that displays to much of the game on screen (so they could lock the POV) the widescreen is perfect because they is how they designed the game to be a 16:9 with the exact POV that the consoles have. If you want to mess about with fish eye view just hack some ini files.

Smoke_Tetsu, on September 28th 2009, 04:34 AM, said:

But you are right that most people are confused when it comes to aspect ratios. A lot think that stretching a 4:3 video to 16:9 is a good way to see those videos. Then there are movies cropped to 16:9 which is still not as wide as at the theater. A certain relative of mine thought DVDs that where in the original theatrical aspect should be stretched rather than set to proportionally fill the screen. This meant the picture ended up being squashed in the middle of the screen with thick black bars rather than how it's supposed to look. Proportional with thin bars at the top and bottom. This stopped after we stopped using DVDs.

I will make a final attempt at saying why people are wrong stating the game did not support widescreen correctly. If you increase the FOV you can now see more things at once than the designers intended. For example if the original FOV meant you could only look down one corridor at once it means you can get surprised by a splicer etc. If you decide to override the design decision and have an unnatural overly wide FOV you can see more on screen at once this means you can see the for example splicers coming making the tension of the game less.

This is just one example of how changing the FOV away from the recommend 16:9 FOV which the game was designed around to a wider one will lower the impact of the game and mean you are not playing it like the designers intended. People might feel better and think well "now I have proper widescreen" all they are doing is taking the game away from the FOV that the game was designed around and intended to be played at.

The widescreen argument made by the forums like widescreen gamer was flawed as it assumes that games are designed for 4:3 then "stretched" to support 16:9. if this was the case then they might have had a point (even though locked POV is a preferable solution as it means you have the same view point for all resolutions). However as the game was designed first and foremost to be a 16:9 game with a certain FOV and other ratios came second I think it is pretty clear the argument for a altered FOV as being correct is a wrong one.

People might want a bigger FOV and that is fine, but the facts are the game was designed around a 16:9 ratio with the original FOV so any deviation from that is by logic not the intended look and feel. Bioshock was very carefully designed and the wider FOV in the options by making the game more zoomed out effects everything from level design to atmosphere so if you want to experience the game (and you play on a wide screen monitor) play with the option off to have the experience that the game was designed to give. If you wish to have a slightly less atmospheric experience (and less scary) then by all means widen the FOV but just like when playing Quake 3 back in the day increasing the FOV means you can see more than you should and that is a form of cheating/unfair advantage.

Edwin

[nagromme]

Smoke_Tetsu, on September 28th 2009, 10:39 AM, said:

Do you actually mean you hope 16:9 doesn't catch on as standard in PCs? Because I have noticed all the new monitors at places like best buy are practically all 16:9 now.... and many new laptops are coming 16:9. It seems like the Mac is one of the last companies shipping 16:10 monitors.

Dell has no shortage of 16:10 displays and laptops--especially at the larger sizes. I don't think Apple is any kind of lone holdout here. But yes, if it does become more of a trend, it's a trend I hope fades. I wouldn't even mind 3:2.

And people watch a lot of video on their computers (as opposed to TVs) that is not a movie nor a recent TV show. 4:3 will remain common for home movies, YouTube, online news, Hulu's older library, etc.--which combined with scrolling text content (Web browsing) makes vertical height nice to have in a display. Widescreen video will get more common, but 4:3 won't be rare for a very long time.

Of course, a lot of monitors you buy at a big box store are meant to double as TVs, and I expect those will always be around. Many are 1366 x 768, which is awful for a desktop--the kind of screen that CAN be a primary computer monitor, but has huge pixels and is really best used as a cheap TV. (Fine for a small laptop though.)

[Smoke_Tetsu]

nagromme, on September 28th 2009, 10:17 AM, said:

Dell has no shortage of 16:10 displays and laptops--especially at the larger sizes. I don't think Apple is any kind of lone holdout here. But yes, if it does become more of a trend, it's a trend I hope fades. I wouldn't even mind 3:2.

And people watch a lot of video on their computers (as opposed to TVs) that is not a movie nor a recent TV show. 4:3 will remain common for home movies, YouTube, online news, Hulu's older library, etc.--which combined with scrolling text content (Web browsing) makes vertical height nice to have in a display. Widescreen video will get more common, but 4:3 won't be rare for a very long time.

Of course, a lot of monitors you buy at a big box store are meant to double as TVs, and I expect those will always be around. Many are 1366 x 768, which is awful for a desktop--the kind of screen that CAN be a primary computer monitor, but has huge pixels and is really best used as a cheap TV. (Fine for a small laptop though.)

For scrolling content perhaps I could see some people happier with 1920x1200 lines as opposed to 1080. Either way you are getting pillar boxing with 4:3 content. Unless you intend on sticking with 4:3 monitors (I've currently got a 5:4 monitor). So what's your point, that there's a lot of 4:3 content so 16:10 is better? Anyway, I was not talking about HDTVs that do 1366x768 I'm talking about all the computer monitors in the computer monitor section that lack a tuner. They are migrating to 16:9 on the PC.. I have gone to stores such as best buy and have seen it with my own eyes. A vast majority of what my best buy has as tunerless computer monitors do 1080p. Other companies just haven't caught up yet. This seems to be becoming an industry standard. Even Dell's newer monitors are 16:9. Of course that doesn't make all those already made 16:10 monitors vanish.

Apple seems to be one of the last holders on to resolutions such as 1920x1200..... we'll see how long that lasts as it is going to cost less to do the TV standard. That's why they are doing it in the first place... to cut manufacturing costs. I'd laugh if redesigned iMacs came out with 16:9 monitors.

[Smoke_Tetsu]

edddeduck, on September 28th 2009, 09:37 AM, said:

The point 2K designers made was that the widescreen mode was not compromised in any way it's the 4:3 mode that is compromised by showing TOO MUCH of the game not the 16:9 showing too little.

I don't agree with 4:3 being able to see more vertical space anymore than you agree with widescreen gamers being able to see more horizontal space. If the game was already perfectly designed then being able to see more vertical space is cheating by being able to see more of what's above and below you than intended. If you want to see it on a 4:3 screen and ruin the design go right ahead.

In other words I would consider both options a compromise. IF 4:3 gamers can get their wrong view I don't see why widescreen gamers can't get their own wrong view.... apparently others agreed. It's irrational's fault for making 4:3 the way they did.

Oh the quake 3 thing was because most others had 4:3 monitors.... and no I don't like things looking like fisheye... most of the time I increase the FOV only by 5 at 16:9 (100 instead of 90 for the FOV in Quake 3 engine games for example).

I personally don't like multi-monitor setups but I don't look down upon or condemn those who do. I've seen Bioshock running on a 3 monitor system... now that has a MUCH wider FOV.

[teflon]

When it comes to framing an image, the horizontal is generally far more important than the vertical (hence why we have widescreen in the first place).
That's why when viewing a film at home, Pan & Scan is truly evil, but Open Matte is OK-ish.
Take The Dark Knight as an example. It alternates between 2.35:1 and 16:9 through the film, but all the 16:9 shots are filmed in such a way that they can very simply be chopped at the top and bottom to achieve the 2.35:1 that you got in normal theatres and on the DVD.
By doing this you get essentially the same framing and perspective on the film wherever you went to see it, with a small amount of superfluous image at the top and bottom if you saw it in an IMAX.

The same ideas, then, need to be applied to the FOV of a video game. The intent of the directors (or developers, if you will) is that its a closed in, tight view. Dank, dark and uncomfortable, and this is achieved just as well in 16:9 and 4:3 because they have the same width to the image, with the height being of much less importance to how your brain sees things.

It also helps that with it being developed with consoles in mind, a lot of the gameplay is horizontal as opposed to vertical. So again there's no advantage gained from having the added height to the picture.

But all of this is of no real consequence. If you want to play the game as it was intended by the developers, who made it that way for a particular reason, but opened the matte for 4:3 screens, then do so. If you fancy going for the equivalent of kicking down Spielberg's door and demanding that he reshoot the entirety of Jaws with a wider viewing angle, and so losing a lot of the dramatic tension, then do that too.

[Smoke_Tetsu]

teflon, on September 28th 2009, 12:14 PM, said:

When it comes to framing an image, the horizontal is generally far more important than the vertical (hence why we have widescreen in the first place).
That's why when viewing a film at home, Pan & Scan is truly evil, but Open Matte is OK-ish.
Take The Dark Knight as an example. It alternates between 2.35:1 and 16:9 through the film, but all the 16:9 shots are filmed in such a way that they can very simply be chopped at the top and bottom to achieve the 2.35:1 that you got in normal theatres and on the DVD.
By doing this you get essentially the same framing and perspective on the film wherever you went to see it, with a small amount of superfluous image at the top and bottom if you saw it in an IMAX.

The same ideas, then, need to be applied to the FOV of a video game. The intent of the directors (or developers, if you will) is that its a closed in, tight view. Dank, dark and uncomfortable, and this is achieved just as well in 16:9 and 4:3 because they have the same width to the image, with the height being of much less importance to how your brain sees things.

It also helps that with it being developed with consoles in mind, a lot of the gameplay is horizontal as opposed to vertical. So again there's no advantage gained from having the added height to the picture.

But all of this is of no real consequence. If you want to play the game as it was intended by the developers, who made it that way for a particular reason, but opened the matte for 4:3 screens, then do so. If you fancy going for the equivalent of kicking down Spielberg's door and demanding that he reshoot the entirety of Jaws with a wider viewing angle, and so losing a lot of the dramatic tension, then do that too.

In my opinion games are not like movies as they are not prerendered and you don't have nearly as fixed a view of the game. Would one argue that stopping and really looking at things or looking into a corner or doing anything other than progressing forward  is not what the developers intended and thus taboo? Tell me should we all not watch 2001: A Space Odyssey because you can no longer get the original mega wide aspect ratio stanley kubrick shot it in? Certainly cropping it to standard cinema size has compromised that film.

By the way I'm not about to knock Steven Spieldbergs door down and demand a wider screen version of Jaws. But much of the tension of that movie was by not showing you what you are afraid of and this is the same whether you see it in widescreen or not or if it was a tad wider or even a lot wider considering the contents of that movie. Besides, directors are retrofitting their old movies with newer technology a lot now. In movies such as old horror staples are being remastered in 3D and dolby digital. Now whether or not that ruins those movies is up to individual interpretation. In fact I would not put it past the movie industry to try out wider screen movies to compete with home movies again some time. I did disagree with some of the changes George Lucas did to the original Star Wars trilogy though. But would going back and watching the unaltered original trilogy be going against what he intended?

BTW, on for example a 32 inch 16:9 monitor the extra space over a 4:3 is maybe 2 inches on either side at the most. This does not ruin the effect for me rather it enhances the immersion because I get a little more of the game into my peripheral vision. For the longest time we played FPS with monitors that where practically the equivalent of having horse blinders on... it's less so now. Many of us are playing those old games in widescreen which was not intended by the developers.

I just think if you are going to argue about what the makers intend the way a story to be experienced you are going against most ways of experiencing a story. Alan Moore only intends for you to experience The Watchmen in a comfy chair with hot coffee and a copy of the graphic novel. Movies are not intended to be watched at home and music albums are only intended for people to sit down and listen from the first track to the end in one sitting. Novels are not intended to be adapted to the movie screen.... neither are comic books. I would go out on a limb and say most movies aren't shot intended to be seen at the IMAX except for perhaps newer ones such as the dark knight.

There are ways of playing games in stereovision with nvidia cards on the PC. Should people not take advantage of this either? No game developer intended for their games to be seen in stereovision 3D after all. Surely being able to see more depth and dimension in the game goes against what the developer intended to be seen... they intended on a flat 2D view of the game.

What about interpreting plots and visuals differently than the developer\artist intended? What about looking and focusing on details the maker did not intend for you to focus on?

Let's say Spieldberg did come out with wider screen versions of all his movies but put the old option as the default. Would it be wrong for people to use the new option? Would seeing more ocean to the side of the shark make the shark have any less impact on the viewer? Debatable. The way you make it sound is like tighter views of things are better let's say you where in rapture in person. Would this be less scary than seeing it on a computer screen because you have much much bigger FOV in real life than you do in a game? Being able to see more makes things more immersive in my opinion... not less. Within reason... again I don't like a fish eye view.... but some people do.

BTW, having a slightly wider view doesn't suddenly make you able to see down two corridors at once.

One more example... the original command & conquer was meant to be played at 320x240. Would it be wrong to play the non-dos versions that had 640x480 and you could thusly see more of the map? What about playing Quake with OpenGL. It originally came with software rendering and OpenGL was grafted on later. Some people would argue that any game that originally came with software rendering should only be played with software rendering... grainy textures and all because that's what the developer intended. Obviously some have gone against this with applications such as Doom Legacy and doomsday.... including high resolution texture packs, etc. eDuke32 can do widescreen which wasn't intended originally in addition to OpenGL. The detractors argue that those things ruin the atmosphere of those old games. That's their opinion and they are entitled to it.

Lastly if there's no benefit to added height to the game why have it in the first place and cause this situation to begin with? Either way 4:3 players are playing it not as intended and the way they handled it caused widescreen gamers to ask for their own "incorrect" option. The customers spoke and the company listened... and this was not just at the widescreen gamers forum. Having the 4:3 gamers able to see the same amount of width in a game as widescreen gamers doesn't sit well with me. What if they did that with movies and thusly when you get a new widescreen TV you are cropping out the top and bottoms of your movies. Would people not complain? Or would they say having the same width no matter what screen it is on is the most important thing. If height doesn't matter why have IMAX?

They should have cropped Bioshock horizontally at 4:3... that would make it more claustrophobic and atmospheric for 4:3 players, no? Most games do this including ones that have been considered the best of all time and it was not considered a sin.

[Sneaky Snake]

What I believe that eddde is trying to say is that the viewing angle that Feral used was the one that the game was designed for, it makes the game better. Much like camera angles make a movie better.

And comparing an RTS to a creepy shooter/action game for what kind of viewing angle should be a loud is a pretty poor comparison.

[teflon]

When you're talking technical limitations rather than a deliberate decision, its perfectly fine to update a film or game or book to reflect various advances. Purists can always play/watch/read whatever version they want.

But again, as Edwin said above, the reason for having such a tight FOV and maintaining that tight FOV in 4:3 was to create a more claustrophobic atmosphere for the player. By opening the image up both horizontally and vertically you lessen quite a large part of the subconscious effects the game has. Arguably the 4:3 version would appear even more constricting to the player because you've got this extra space above and below but a more pronounced constriction of the horizontal.

Its like in Dead Space where you move slowly, and it takes a long time for the camera to rotate around your body. Its another layer to the mind games they're playing. The changes to Bioshock would be analogous to increasing the speed of the vertical camera pitch, but keeping the horizontal pitch the same. Not perfect, but it would at least keep the majority of the suspense created by hearing noises to the sides and behind you and not being able to turn around very quickly.

In both cases the developers are trying to create a better game through constricting the gamer and their perceptions within the game. And both are similar to films in how they try to create an particular experience. Jaws wouldn't have been half as scary if you'd been able to see the shark, no, so you wouldn't force Spielberg to try and change how he filmed it, why are you insisting on changing how developers make their games?

Oh, and with the advent of the home theatre and Blu Ray, watching films at home has never been more valid.

[Smoke_Tetsu]

I haven't changed the way developers made their games. Irrational games made their decision to add the feature in. No one actually twisted their arms they could have stuck to their guns and said no this is how it should be. But they didn't now did they?

And no I wasn't talking about seeing the shark more in Jaws at best having a wider screen in that movie would let you see more ocean or more people at the beach. It was the frequency of the viewing not the width of the viewing that made Jaws.

We're almost there with home theaters but not quite.. at least for the average Joe. Unless I missed the memo that people have screens measured in feet rather than inches and at least 12 speakers around them. Most film makers create their films with that type of environment in mind. Not with ones home screen which unless you are rich is not nearly as big as the theater and they have 7.1 speakers at the most with 12.1 systems being a niche that just came out. Even 1080p isn't as high resolution as film.

What about these ultra wide curved monitors certain companies have been coming out with should they be banned?