[Familiar]

Hi to all.

This is my very first post on Hard Light, so ... may be it should go to other section or ...
Anyway, I'll start with offtopic as any newbie should:

[off]
First of all, I would like to say "Thank you guys and keep up doing this great stuff to Freespace"
Thanks to all coders modders actors. Somehow I missed whole Freespace universe and FCP based games.
This is actualy very strange, because I'm long time fan of X3, Tarr: Cronicles, Homeworld 1|2, Nexus Jupiter Accident, ot of 4X games
Started with Elite on ZX Spectum, I'm addicted to space games.
Honestly I came here with a little help of WCS (missed that whole WC universe too...  )
May be it because I never had a joystick and never look closely into spacesim with intense dogfighting.
But now I'm a happy owner of HOTAS kit (Cobra M5 + Gametrix Engine Control System) and it's time to fly space.
Now finished Wing Commander Saga (Great stuff except mission design flaw 25-45 minutes without checkpoints is really awful because I have real life as well. With all respect to hardcore gaming I cannnot invest so lot of time in gaming, so I played at easy, on some missions very easy - not satisfying my ego  )
Just finished FSport with MediaVPS 2014, and aiming for Silent Treat : Reborn

In general it's amazing how much love and tenderness was put into this game by community. I thought X Universe community is most dedicated but, now I see...   
So again, thank you thank you. So long Freespace Source Project is best space dogfighting game. And looks like it will be further, despite the fact Star Citizen (I'm pretty sceptical about it honestly - too much bla bla and fan hype around it; yet to respect their ability to sell pixels) is coming and Elite: Dangerous (Alpha dogfight looks very intersteng, and I want to beleive that legendary Elite will be cool).
[/off]

I have not found any suggestions topic to engine features, so :
Would be great to have all this animated hangars, briefings unstreched on 16:9 monitors.
Widescreen became a standart in monitor long time ago, so this feature will be apreciated by a lot people.
All this wonderful art (menus, briefing) doesn't looks so cool streched.
I'm not sure about how hard to implement, but I suggest option in launcher:

- preserve 4:3 aspect ratio in menus, techroom, campaign

as result, istead of ugly streched

will be nice pic with aspect ratio maintened


And different mod could use different wallpapers for behind (took some random stars just for example)
Again, I have only WCS on my  laptop, so post just it  for example.

As result Freespace game will get nice and modern look.
Apreciate your opinion on that.

[niffiwan]

Yeah, it would be awesome to change the mainhalls so that 4:3 is not stretched, and to also support 16:9 (and other aspect ratios) in the mainhall.  All we need is a coder with some spare time and the drive to implement it

[zookeeper]

For what it's worth, I've tried to look into it a couple of times and the problem as far as I've been able to tell is that the stretching happens at a really low level in the graphics pipeline. I didn't figure out any convenient way to make the interfaces draw themselves to only part of the screen, so I'm afraid it'll need some serious work in order to fix.

I've actually written a de-stretching script which works... except for model renderings (tech room, loadout, etc) which get completely screwed up.

[LogicalMadness]

I completely agree with this. While I must say "Hats off" to the moders that fixed the HUD stretching issue for those of us on triple monitors, trying to navigate the in the lobby and tech rooms on nvidia surround 5760x1080 is down right terrifying and almost impossible. Instead of fixing the stretching at a low coding level, might it be possible to simply have two resolutions (loby and in-ship) and have the game trigger between the two when needed?

[totiselles]

No sugestion...

just a prairie

please,please a mod with hangars and rooms adapted to triple screens  res (example 3840 x 1028)

[Bryan See]

I'm still experiencing this lately. We should probably have to revamp the interface code which we are looking to it right now. This includes making the interface adaptable to every resolution, the Interface.tbl table, the use of SWF menus and other eye-candy found in modern computer and video games, and extensive keyboard/gamepad support.

[The E]

I'm still experiencing this lately. We should probably have to revamp the interface code which we are looking to it right now. This includes making the interface adaptable to every resolution, the Interface.tbl table, the use of SWF menus and other eye-candy found in modern computer and video games, and extensive keyboard/gamepad support.

Who's "we"? Are you a coder now?

[niffiwan]

... the use of SWF menus ....

nooooooooooooooooooooooo! We're constantly patching that damn software at work to fix its multitude of security flaws, and its Linux support is subpar

[Goober5000]

This behavior should be easily chosen from your graphics control panel.  Attached is a screenshot of how to do it with NVIDIA.  Notice the black bars to the left and right of the thumbnail.

[attachment deleted by an evil time traveler]

[Yarn]

This behavior should be easily chosen from your graphics control panel.  Attached is a screenshot of how to do it with NVIDIA.  Notice the black bars to the left and right of the thumbnail.

...which does not work in this case because the game is stretching the interface to a widescreen resolution. The black bars need to be added by FSO, not the graphics driver.

[Goober5000]

Well, I left out a step: when launching FSO, set the resolution to the largest 4:3 ratio that will fit within the widescreen resolution.

It does work; I've used the same technique myself.

[Yarn]

Well, I left out a step: when launching FSO, set the resolution to the largest 4:3 ratio that will fit within the widescreen resolution.

It does work; I've used the same technique myself.

True, it does work if you play in a 4:3 ratio. I thought you were referring to playing in a widescreen resolution; that's what this thread is about, after all.

[Goober5000]

...Ok.  I misinterpreted it as wanting to play with a 4:3 ratio while on a widescreen monitor.  Yes, if you want to use 4:3 in the menus and widescreen in the mission, there is currently no solution.

[Dragon]

Would that be possible to at least allow different variants of the interface art to be loaded depending on resolution? You could have dedicated 4:3, 16:9 and 16:10 graphics and ship them with the mod. That would probably bloat the VPs quite a bit, and require quite a bit of work on the mod's side, but it's a better solution than what we have now. Extreme and unusual aspects would still have a problem, but that would fix it for the majority. The code could probably be based on current mission-based mainhall switching.

[niffiwan]

The code could probably be based on current mission-based mainhall switching.

Err... not really.  The mainhall switching code is separate to the code that manages the two supported interface resolutions (640x480 & 1024x768).

[Bryan See]

I am a coder, and "we" refers to the SCP team. I think the interface code should be rewritten to allow support for non-4:3 resolutions and interface.tbl.

[The E]

I am a coder, and "we" refers to the SCP team. I think the interface code should be rewritten to allow support for non-4:3 resolutions and interface.tbl.

Great! Looking forward to your patches then. (Friendly tip though: You should only use "we" when talking about a group you actually are a member of. You're not a member of the SCP, and posting as you did may confuse people regarding what they can expect)

[Familiar]

I am a coder, and "we" refers to the SCP team. I think the interface code should be rewritten to allow support for non-4:3 resolutions and interface.tbl.

Heh, looks like Bryan See is the boss of SCP team 
At least his posts all look like.... 

[Bryan See]

Actually, I am looking into the problem. I'd like a solution. Others may think of others if you wish.

[The E]

May I ask, what is your experience with C/C++?