Question about Widescreen gaming

[lostn]

If a game supports widescreen, and you play in widescreen mode, does the number of pixels on the screen (i.e. resolution) increase, or is it the same number of pixels? Is widescreen a higher resolution (and thus requires more processing power), or are the pixels just getting stretched?

I am aware that you see more stuff on the screen in widescreen mode, and the characters and objects do not appear stretched, but they could be using up less pixels on your screen than they would be in 4:3 mode.

You actually can run 16:9 games on a 4:3 TV, and see the full image, which is squashed in a bit, however it's still taking up the same number of pixels right, since your TV doesn't have the extra pixels of a widescreen TV... so that makes me wonder, is the size of the pixels different when you play widescreen mode?

Reason I ask this is because I've tried hooking the console to a video capture card, and I can choose either 4:3 or 16:9 mode, and when I play in 16:9 I do notice the game looking more pixellated than it is in 4:3.

[guiddruid]

for standard definition tv, the number of lines & pixels is the same for 4:3 or 16:9 source. a video source (console in this case) will output a signal telling the tv whether the picture is 4:3 or 16:9.

display is another thing though:

when a 4:3 tv is given a 16:9 signal, it needs to squash the image vertically. the traditional way of doing this is just to change the waveform being used to scan the electron beam vertically. this has the effect of starting to scan some way down the screen & stepping on a bit less for each line. this generally gives a nice looking picture, with the resolution compressed into a smaller area... effectively increasing the resolution of the tv a bit. you get the same number of lines (600 or so) squashed into a smaller bit of the tube.

some more modern tellys with "digital" or "100Hz" marketing crap try to achieve this same effect by re-sampling the input image. they then display the image at the original display resolution (whatever that may be - they are often re-sampling all the images all the time). this looks crap as implementing video speed digital filtering properly is way too expensive for consumer gear, so the filtering is cheap and consequently low-quality ****. the other problem is that if the resolution the tv is displaying images at is 'standard definition' (i.e. the same as pal for us in the UK) then you are only getting say 600 possible lines on the screen, and when the image is digitally ruined it is then displayed in the middle 400 lines. so you get a poorly sized picture (hence the pixelated look) displayed at a lower total number of lines than the original.

moral of the story; don't buy a digital/100hz tv until you have looked at the picture and decided if you can live with it. i wouldn't buy one.

hth,
gd

[Bassman]

I have a 50 Hz 24" Sony Widescreen which I am very pleased with.

There is not a very noticeable degradation when viewing console games on a Widescreen TV in 16:9 mode. I was surprised that even zooming FF X-2 to fill the screen that the quality was not that bad.

[lostn]

So in other words, regardless of whether you set the game option to 4:3 or 16:9, the console is still outputting the same number of pixels to your display?

[charlesr]

I thought if the game has an anamorphic mode (like SSX Tricky on the GC), it outputs at 16x9 (Xscale) pixel resolution?

[guiddruid]

for standard definition tv, the number of lines & pixels is the same for 4:3 or 16:9 source.

So in other words, regardless of whether you set the game option to 4:3 or 16:9, the console is still outputting the same number of pixels to your display?

yes.

gd

[Super Stu]

So, let's say a widescreen TV is 100 pixels by width. Natasha graces us on BBC Breakfast time in the morning and we see the BBC clock at the extent of the screen (4:3 signal, it's via analogue aerial). Owner upgrades to Sky, suddenly it's all in widescreen. The BBC clock moves "in" to toward the centre of the image, as we're seeing "more" of the studio.

But the image is till 100 pixels across? So we're seeing more of the studio in slightly less definition?

Yes, I'm waffling and bored at work.

[hankwangford]

I have a 50 Hz 24" Sony Widescreen which I am very pleased with.

There is not a very noticeable degradation when viewing console games on a Widescreen TV in 16:9 mode. I was surprised that even zooming FF X-2 to fill the screen that the quality was not that bad.

On that really cool 32"/36" Toshiba lots of people seem to have here (including me) Squaresoft PAL games run beautifully in "Cinema" mode. Gets rid of those borders spot on.

[charlesr]

But are the games then a different shape? Or are you missing bits?

[Hitcher]

No, what he means is, because Square don't optimise PAL releases, on a 4:3 TV you get a letterbox effect, with a 16:9 TV you can select 'Cinema' mode which basically zooms the picture out to fill the screen.

The picture is the same letterboxed one but the top and bottom black parts disappear.

[lostn]

Is there a way in the PS2 dashboard settings to allow you to play 16:9 widescreen games on a 4:3 TV? I want the borders added to preverse aspect ratio, and not have the image squashed in vertically.

[Ciaran]

You should be able to change the aspect ratio to forced 16:9 on your TV. So just select 16:9 on the PS2 and you'll get the same effect.