Games that fully use Widescreen options?

[sam1981]

Stretching the image in any way should be forbidden! ft: I hate it when you're playing a game/watching a film on someone's telly and they have everything stretched.

If it's made in 4:3, watch it in 4:3.
If it's made in 14:9, watch it in 14:9.
If it's made in 16:9, watch it in 16:9!!!!!!!!!!

So far it seems very little to none EA games use widescreen options.

I'm pretty sure FIFA2003 on Xbox did.

[Ratso]

SW:Kotor - yes

Unless I've missed something really obvious, SW:KotOR (sadly) does not support 16:9.

I always boot my Xbox in widescreen, and this is one of those where the ratio switches back to 4:3 when the game loads. If you put the TV to 16:9 everyone looks short and fat.

[Space Monkey]

So are true widescreen games actually outputting at a higher resolution? If so what is it?

[rharnwel]

So are true widescreen games actually outputting at a higher resolution? If so what is it?

No - the same number of pixels are just made to stretch further!

[sam1981]

So are true widescreen games actually outputting at a higher resolution? If so what is it?

No - the same number of pixels are just made to stretch further!

The horizontal resolution on an anamorphic widescreen image is higher than the horizontal resolution on a 4:3 image.

Vertically it's the same.

[Space Monkey]

The horizontal resolution on an anamorphic widescreen image is higher than the horizontal resolution on a 4:3 image.

Vertically it's the same.

Thats what I thought, do you know what the horizontal resolution is?

[sam1981]

The horizontal resolution on an anamorphic widescreen image is higher than the horizontal resolution on a 4:3 image.

Vertically it's the same.

Thats what I thought, do you know what the horizontal resolution is?

Not really sure.

Something floating round my head tells me it's 33% more, but that's just a guess. Feel free to shoot me down in flames.

[demon9k]

So normal TV is 833 x 625

4:3

833/4=208.25
625/3=208.33

So its as close as.

So to make it 16:9

The 625 doesn't change.

625/9=70 basically

70*16=1120.

So I think its 1120*625

[demon9k]

After reading up I find that:

833*625 isn't infact the PAL one that this website told me but the maths should still work

Anyone know the exact lines on a PAL TV both horizontal and vertical?

[Space Monkey]

Nice one demon, I`ve been wondering about that for ages!

[lucanvortex]

After reading up I find that:

833*625 isn't infact the PAL one that this website told me but the maths should still work

Anyone know the exact lines on a PAL TV both horizontal and vertical?

768 x 576, i think

[rharnwel]

I'm getting very confused here.

I may well have this wrong. If so I'd be grateful if someone could explain where my misundertanding is.

I was pretty certain that 4:3 and 16:9 anamorphic are exactly the resolution in both directions. This is how I thought it all worked:

Anamorphic refers to the process of "squashing" a widescreen image into a 4x3 frame at the creation stage and then "stretching" it at the display stage. PAL & NTSC TV systems are still very much (forgetting HDTV) built around the concept of 4x3. We have widescreen broadcasts & TVs because of the way we do this squashing/stretching.

When a console is outputing video frames, they can be displayed in a 4x3 frame or 16x9, and most displays will allow you to manually switch between these, while some will use an extra signal to do the switching automaticaly. Some games will have been coded so that things look correct when they are displayed in the standard 4x3 frame, some will have been coded so they only look OK after being stretched, but surely there are the same number of pixels making up a horizontal line? When I hit the "4x3" or "anamorphic 16x9" buttons on my display device, the source device doesn't know anything about it, and is still sending exactly the same resolution image. When I select "16x9 or 4x3" in a game, it isn't changing the resolution that the video chip sends out (though it might turn on/off the widescreen signal sent through a SCART plug). It will just adjust the horizontal scaling, so that an alien is, say, 100 pixels wide in widescreen, but only 80 in 4x3 mode.

Where am I going wrong in my understanding?

[demon9k]

When I select "16x9 or 4x3" in a game, it isn't changing the resolution that the video chip sends out (though it might turn on/off the widescreen signal sent through a SCART plug). It will just adjust the horizontal scaling, so that an alien is, say, 100 pixels wide in widescreen, but only 80 in 4x3 mode.

Where am I going wrong in my understanding?

The game console will send out a letterbox picture which is the same width but a shorter height and then the TV stretches the top of the picture to the top of the screen, the bottom of the picture to the bottom of the screen and so on.

So basically you are getting all the pixels and lines used on your TV. You are right though inside the GC and the cable the picture is just a letterbox 4:3 picture which your TV scretches to widescreen but the general trend is to talk about widescreen pictures actually on the TV screen so we all say the picture is 1120*625 but the signal is not. The reason it works to stretch it is because the aspect ratio should be the same. i.e. a widescreen picture on 4:3 TV should be 625 lines with black borders at the top and bottom, I could figure out the exact number of lines with that ratio maths but I can't be bothered, and then it should be the full width of a 4:3. Therefore stretching it will give you the same aspect ratio because of the black borders on the 4:3 picture.

I am pretty sure thats the answer.

[sam1981]

Not if the GC is sending an anamorphic widescreen picture though.

There is a massive difference between a letterbox picture and an anamorphic widescreen one.

A letterbox picture on a widescreen TV would only fill up the middle part of the TV (borders all round). You'd have to 'stretch' it or 'zoom' in for the picture to fill the whole screen, this it would look pixelated and not very good.

An anamorphic picture would use the full resolution of the TV.

[demon9k]

Ah yes.

Check this out people...

The Ultimate Guide to Anamorphic Widescreen DVD (.pdf version)
anamorphic.zip - download size: 5 mb

That should clear anything up about anamorphic widescreen. If it ain't anamorphic widescreen then its what I said before. The letterbox picture is stretched.