Battle of the Ports

[Asura]

It was actually really nice to turn on the widescreen setting on the Xbox, and see most games use it (PS2 games didn't until quite late in the machine's life). I think the Xbox version of Soul Calibur 2 was the best for this reason; set to widescreen it backed up the camera slightly to give a wider view.

[Team Andromeda]

It was actually really nice to turn on the widescreen setting on the Xbox, and see most games use it (PS2 games didn't until quite late in the machine's life). I think the Xbox version of Soul Calibur 2 was the best for this reason; set to widescreen it backed up the camera slightly to give a wider view.

I remember SEGA GT 2002 even having a new title screen if played in Widescreen .

[Leon Retro]

It was actually really nice to turn on the widescreen setting on the Xbox, and see most games use it

It was nice when developers started to take advantage of 16:9. Ferrari F355 on the Dreamcast offered a widescreen option before most people had widescreens, so it was nice to have that option when I upgraded to a 32" widescreen in 2001.

[Team Andromeda]

It was nice when developers started to take advantage of 16:9. Ferrari F355 on the Dreamcast offered a widescreen option before most people had widescreens, so it was nice to have that option when I upgraded to a 32" widescreen in 2001.

The 1st games I remember was Panzer Dragoon Zwei and NIGHTS seeing a wide option and also quite N64 games supported true widescreen modes

[nakamura]

It was actually really nice to turn on the widescreen setting on the Xbox, and see most games use it (PS2 games didn't until quite late in the machine's life). I think the Xbox version of Soul Calibur 2 was the best for this reason; set to widescreen it backed up the camera slightly to give a wider view.

Quite a few early PS2 games had wide support. Later PS1 games had it too. Wipeout 3 being a key one.

The thing with a lot of early wide games is proper wide-screen vs a lot of faked zoom wide settings.
GT3 has real wide-screen. Jak and Daxter has a zoom wide mode. Cheating.

[Leon Retro]

The thing with a lot of early wide games is proper wide-screen vs a lot of faked zoom wide settings.
GT3 has real wide-screen. Jak and Daxter has a zoom wide mode. Cheating.

I think the graphics don't look as sharp when the widescreen mode is faked. I seem to remember that true 16:9 games looked really nice. You could tell when it wasn't true 16:9, as it was similar to 4:3 being stretched, in the way the graphics didn't have that nice sharp look you expect with genuine 16:9.

[Asura]

I think the graphics don't look as sharp when the widescreen mode is faked. I seem to remember that true 16:9 games looked really nice. You could tell when it wasn't true 16:9, as it was similar to 4:3 being stretched, in the way the graphics didn't have that nice sharp look you expect with genuine 16:9.

From a developer's perspective you can see why, on consoles like the PS2 where performance was always at a premium.

If you render the extra bits to go on the sides for Widescreen, you're effectively rendering a larger resolution (not sure what proportion higher it is, but maybe 25%?).

If you crop & magnify, you're rendering less so performance is actually higher.

[nakamura]

Not really sure performance is the issue. After all games like Gran Turismo 3/4 and Final Fantasy XII had true 16/9 and they were not exactly games that skimped on visuals etc.

I'd say it's more the fact it was the birth of wide-screen in general. Was it worth using extra effort or resources for something that wasn't standard in 2001. Even games like Resident Evil 4 wasn't true wide-screen on the GameCube.

Only a wiki but if you look here plenty of Xbox games didn't have 16/9.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_games_with_HD_support

There were games that were 50hz only too despite the console having a 60hz mode.

[Leon Retro]

If you crop & magnify, you're rendering less so performance is actually higher.

I have no idea if 16:9 puts more stress on the hardware. I will guess, like you have, that it probably does add a bit of stress. Then again, I wouldn't be suprised if it doesn't really burden the hardware significantly. If it does, I would think it's negligible.

I'd say it's more the fact it was the birth of wide-screen in general. Was it worth using extra effort or resources for something that wasn't standard in 2001. Even games like Resident Evil 4 wasn't true wide-screen on the GameCube.

.

When I started collecting PS2 & Xbox games a few years ago, I was shocked to find that a lot of games didn't run in 16:9. I had assumed, back in the day, that 16:9 was the standard for most games.

Even Halo on the Xbox isn't widescreen. I'm now embarassed to admit that I thought it was 16:9 back in the day and played it in widescreen. A game like that being 4:3 shows how widescreen wasn't seen as a 'must-have' feature by a lot of devs.

I actually play most PS2, GameCube and Xbox games in 4:3, simply because the low resolution looks better in that aspect. Games from that gen tend to look soft/blurry in widescreen. Of course, when a game was developed especially for 16:9, it can look nice and sharp. Sadly, not many games from that gen look really sharp.

[samanosuke]

Halo must be, surely, as when you play it two-player it splits the screen vertically. In 4:3 mode it splits it horizontally.

[Asura]

Halo must be, surely, as when you play it two-player it splits the screen vertically. In 4:3 mode it splits it horizontally.

Yes, vertically - also known as the correct way (I'm looking at you, Gears of War). Then each player gets a pretty-much square screen. I can't believe some games are persisting in using a horizontal split in the era of widescreen.

I have no idea if 16:9 puts more stress on the hardware. I will guess, like you have, that it probably does add a bit of stress. Then again, I wouldn't be suprised if it doesn't really burden the hardware significantly. If it does, I would think it's negligible.

You've misunderstood - I'm saying you either crop and magnify (rendering an overall lower resolution) or simply render the extra 20% of the screen. The first is always going to have better performance.

[Leon Retro]

Halo must be, surely, as when you play it two-player it splits the screen vertically. In 4:3 mode it splits it horizontally.

Halo is listed as being a 4:3 game. It is interesting that it splits the screen differently depending on how the Xbox output is set. I guess when you set the machine to 16:9 it just upscales the 4:3 image to a fake 16:9.

You've misunderstood - I'm saying you either crop and magnify (rendering an overall lower resolution) or simply render the extra 20% of the screen. The first is always going to have better performance.

I was just saying that a true 16:9 image probably does put a bit of extra stress on the hardware, but maybe not too much. But if you take a 4:3 image, crop it to make a fake 16:9 look, then of course, that's not going to affect performance.

Like DVDs with a cropped 16:9 image, games with a fake 16:9 image don't look as sharp. It was always nice when you got a true 16:9 image, as it looked far sharper than cropped and stretched.

[Team Andromeda]

From a developer's perspective you can see why, on consoles like the PS2 where performance was always at a premium.

PS2 was a bit of a joke at times, hell loads of its games couldn't even handle a 640x480 display . I have to say that while the graphics weren't that great Spikeout was pretty amwesome in widescreen .

[Leon Retro]

Spikeout was pretty amwesome in widescreen .

I haven't played it for a long time, but I remember it looked really nice and sharp. You get a nice clarity with proper 16:9 games.

[Team Andromeda]

I haven't played it for a long time, but I remember it looked really nice and sharp. You get a nice clarity with proper 16:9 games.

You just had great view with no clipping and the draw distance went on for miles . I have to say that for me the N64 really got the ball rolling in 16.9 and also dolby suround sound.