[Mr_Blastman]

Or have I?

I just got a 27-inch 1920x1080 widescreen 2ms LG flatpanel and after a few days, decided to fire up Freespace 2, 3.6.10 + all the media VP's etc (was playing on a 17-inch fresnel display before), plugged in my HOTAS and pedals, turned on my Track IR, cranked it up to 1920x1080 and...

I shat my pants!

Where has this been all these years? (the widescreen)  This is how Freespace was meant to be played!!!!!!!!! (aside from a Imax Projector ).

Am I crazy?  Am I nuts?  As far as I can tell FS 2 supports widescreen aspect ratios natively (except the HUD, but who cares about that, right?).

[Mongoose]

I won't argue that the game itself probably looks fantastic on that setup, but I will take exception to that last point.  Based on the screenshots I've seen, having the HUD ridiculously stretched out would irritate me to no end. But hey, if you can live with that, more power to you.

[The E]

Am I crazy?  Am I nuts?  As far as I can tell FS 2 supports widescreen aspect ratios natively (except the HUD, but who cares about that, right?).

No. FS2 only supports 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768. FS2Open, on the other hand, has no such restrictions.

[Terra-jin]

Ohhh man that does sound tasty!! Playing Freespace on such a big screen... do you have a surround sound set, too?

[da1edwin]

Wow, I'm jealous.

Now get a 2560x1600  30" monitor with 7.1 surround sound.

[Spoon]

I know the feeling
Going from 17inch crt to 22inch eizo widescreen was quite an eyeopener.
Too bad this screen has a relative bad case of 'the input lag'. But I kinda knew that when I bought it.

[Mr_Blastman]

Ohhh man that does sound tasty!! Playing Freespace on such a big screen... do you have a surround sound set, too?

I have an older 4.1 Klipsch setup which sounds really awesome.  I'm running them through a SB X-Fi Platinum, though I usually play with my headphones on.  The great thing about the X-Fi is it has 9-directional audio through headphones, don't ask me how they do it, but it really works and you feel totally surrounded by the audio.

The 2ms response rate of the screen is awesome so I don't get the lag that you normally get with flat panels.

[Droid803]

Playing FreeSpace on widescreen will never be feasible for me until the fix the HUD stretching. :/ It's horable! It ruins the view completely and makes it look worse than standard.

[Commander Zane]

Agreed.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

...having the HUD ridiculously stretched out would irritate me to no end.

I dislike stretched HUDs too. My accuracy is so bad that I need the lead indicator even when shooting bombs. A stretched HUD causes that indicator to become inaccurate (or so I think).

[colecampbell666]

It magnifies the fact that the reticle is off-centre.

[Droid803]

Now, if someone devised a fix that would simply move the HUD elements on the side to the sides leaving the middle thing in the middle (without stretching at all), then it would be wonderful.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

It won't be easy. FS2 was coded in an era where the only aspect ratio used is 4:3. It was never originally designed to accommodate screens with any other aspect ratio.

[sigtau]

It magnifies the fact that the reticle is off-centre.

By like, one pixel.  Yet it's still irritating, isn't it?

[Androgeos Exeunt]

It doesn't look like one pixel, sigtau.

[Droid803]

Even if it was only off by one pixel, the more it is stretched, the more relevant one pixel becomes. Doesn't change anything.

[azile0]

You could just disable your HUD if it's that bad. You do run certain risks, ie not knowing your hull or shield, but your accuracy will increase rather quickly. Use the force!

[stuart133]

You could just disable your HUD if it's that bad. You do run certain risks, ie not knowing your hull or shield, but your accuracy will increase rather quickly. Use the force!

Well either that or you will die very quickly. But on the other hand you will be able to admire your nice death on your shiny new screen