Hard Light Productions Forums

General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: ARSPR on January 01, 2008, 03:17:26 pm

Title: Some info about playing FS2 on widescreen monitors
Post by: ARSPR on January 01, 2008, 03:17:26 pm

Hi, this is a post that can help some people while playing on widescreen panels.

• Freespace 2 (and FS2_Open) is designed to play in 4:3 ratio. So unless you select 1600 x 1200, 1280 x 960, 1024 x 768, ... you will get an horizontally stretched image. You can find an example here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,32427.msg1035767.html#msg1035767) in the attached screenshots (1920x1200 16:10 ratio).
• Even when playing in a 4:3 resolution, there's a known and not solved issue (http://scp.indiegames.us/mantis/view.php?id=83) that causes missalignments in hud between 3D objects (shown ship models) and 2D elements (as example the targeting reticle). You can experiment with -fov launcher flag (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Command-Line_Reference#-fov) till you get the best results.
• Original FS2 supported just 1024x768 and 640x480 resolutions. With FSOpen you can select available greater resolutions but take in mind that:
  • Mainhall and any other 2D interface window will render slightly blurred. This happens because the game interpolates the pixels from 1024 x 768 screens.
  • Because of that interpolation you can get noticeable boxes around the text letters.
  • In-game 2D HUD elements are also affected by this interpolation.
  • In-game 3D ships and elements are NOT affected. The bigger resolution the better looking.
• If you play a with a 4:3 resolution slower than your widescreen monitor, I recommend you that in the display driver properties you select NO SCALING. If you don't do this you will likely get an stretched screen interpolated by the LCD or the GPU. Navigate through your Catalyst or ForceWare settings till you find it.
• I have a 1680 x 1050 LCD panel. With this monitor the biggest standard 4:3 resolution is 1280 x 960. But I've used RivaTuner utility to set a custom 1400 x 1050 x 32bit x 60 Hz mode which is 4:3 and allows me to use my full LCD height capabilities while avoiding the 1400 to 1680 horizontal deformation. I've got a nVidia 8800 GTX GPU and this small hack works flawlessly in FS2.

I hope this brief info could be useful  :P