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Bioshock is CROPPED 4:3 and not TRUE Widescreen? what what in the?

The Faceless Master

The Faceless Master

Member
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11658

Fake Widescreen on both PC and 360!

I guess that explains the FOV questions people had!




Official Response

irrationallevine said:
Hey guys-

Sorry about all the conflict. IG development people (specifically Chris and Rowan who are both on vacation) were trying to take a day off today (we've been working about six months 6-7 days a week). I'm trying to see what everybody's concerns are and consult with the staff.

I know people are frustrated, but we are dealing with internet time here. It wasn't until 7 pm EST that I was able to even talk to anybody in our Australian studio, which is open today (9 AM their time).

I hear you that not everybody was thrilled with the PC launch. And I'm trying to collect information and see what the facts are. PC game development does not function in a matter of seconds or hours, especially when most of the team is on vacation. But I hear you, and we're looking into the issue. I'll only ask you have a bit of understanding as to the time scale that software development issues must occur in.

Best regards,

Ken Levine
Click to expand...




WSGF Thread: Racer_S of Widescreen Gaming Forum releases FOV fix for the Bioshock PC

Direct Link: Fix for the PC Version

Fix for the retail game coming soon. Heres an example by a WSGF member (click for larger pics):

4:3:


TripleHead (3 monitors)


And he also did a nice rundown of the various resolutions with the quick fix applied:







Official PR
Elizabeth @ 2K said:
THE TRUTH ABOUT WIDESCREEN
August 22, 2007

We understand there has been some concern about the implementation of widescreen mode in BioShock. Hopefully, we can clarify how we’ve chosen to do this.

The first thing we want to make clear is the mode we developed the game on and the optimal mode for playing the game is the widescreen mode. 90% of our development stations were widescreen displays: artists, programmers and designers.

- BioShock was primarily developed and tuned for widescreen mode. Artists and designers worked with widescreen displays and chose a field of view (FOV) that best reflected their intentions with respect to the way the world is perceived, the perceived speed of movement of the player relative to the world and the amount of the world they wanted to be viewed for the best game-play experience. We went through dozens of iterations and finally settled upon a widescreen aspect ratio that best suited the gameplay experience.

- When playing in widescreen modes the game makes use of the full screen resolution, and does not crop or stretch a lower resolution image into a wide screen one. For example, at 720p the game renders natively to the full 1280x720 resolution.

- Once this FOV was established, we chose to keep exactly the same horizontal FOV for standard def displays, so as not to in any way alter the gameplay experience.

- Instead of cropping the FOV for 4:3 displays and making all 4:3 owners mad in doing so, we slightly extended the vertical FOV for standard def mode: we never wanted to have black bars on people’s displays. (This way, everybody is happy…) This does mean that people playing on a standard def display see slightly more vertical space, but, this does not significantly affect the game-play experience and, we felt that it best served our goal of keeping the game experience as close as possible to the original design and art vision on both types of displays. Reports of the widescreen FOV being a crop of the 4:3 FOV are completely false.

One thing we can assure you that all these decisions were made with the best interests of the game in mind. We didn’t save any money or development time by choosing this set of parameters. We did what we thought was the best thing for the game: developing and optimizing it for widescreen displays, and making the decision not to do the usual crop for 4:3 displays. As a consumer, you certainly have the right to disagree.

We understand that not all users might not be happy with these choices and we will be looking into options for allowing users to adjust FOV settings manually. But as we mentioned earlier, changes to video game code do not happen in minutes or hours. We appreciate your understanding.

- Elizabeth
Click to expand...


Thx to Dot50Cal & Phoenix 2.0, and of course Racer_S, the WSGF and we can't forget Irrational Games!
 
P

pswii60

Member
This must have ruined the experience for all the reviewers who have reviewed the game so far.

Recall the reviews and get them to review it again in 4:3.


EDIT: The game isn't cropped. The game was developed to be in 16:9. When the game is running in 4:3 it is showing more that isn't supposed to be there. The game has been demonstrated by the developers themselves in 16:9 throughout the entire development process.
 
V

voltron

Member
OMG yorue fucking kidding me...

WHAT!!!


This was bad when Quake 4 did it at launch but Bioshock doing it NOW?? NO!
 
RubxQub

RubxQub

φίλω ἐξεχέγλουτον καί ψευδολόγον οὖκ εἰπόν
If this is confirmed on the release version of the game, if I get the game I will go for the 360 version. Looks like 2K Boston should be renamed to Noobs Boston.
Click to expand...
:lol :lol :lol

GOTY caliber game made by "Noobs Boston"!

That name wasn't witty in the least...
 
J

joshcryer

it's ok, you're all right now
WTF. It doesn't take much to actually support true wide screen. That's sucky to the extreme.
 
B

Brashnir

Member
There is no such thing as "true widescreen." you have a horizontal vision angle, which can be set however a developer likes without regard to the vertical height of the screen. In Bioshock, that angle is the same whether played widescreen in 4:3. Big deal.

"True Widescreen" whores are completely deluded and hopeless.
 
P

plagiarize

Banned
dark10x said:
You know what? Who cares? It looks and feels great in 16:9 as it is.
Click to expand...
exactly.

and who says they made it in 4:3 first and then cheaped the widescreen version. maybe they set the FOV they wanted in widescreen and left it the same in the 4:3 version.

it's not like all the videos they show off aren't in widescreen right?

if you watched Phantasm in 4:3 and then 16:9 you might claim that the 16:9 version was 'faked widescreen' but it was shot to be displayed in 16:9 and everything was framed accordingly.
 
B

BenjaminBirdie

Banned
Brashnir said:
There is no such thing as "true widescreen." you have a horizontal vision angle, which can be set however a developer likes without regard to the vertical height of the screen. In Bioshock, that angle is the same whether played widescreen in 4:3. Big deal.

"True Widescreen" whores are completely deluded and hopeless.
Click to expand...

Eff that. Anyone want to buy my LE?
 
P

pswii60

Member
Gattsu25 said:
The game was balanced for 16:9, no?
Click to expand...

I think so. I think 16:9 isn't cropped, it's just that 4:3 is adding more that isn't supposed to be there, if that makes sense.

I'm pretty sure the game will have been developed in 16:9, and that's how the game is intended to be played.
 
J

joshcryer

it's ok, you're all right now
Brashnir said:
There is no such thing as "true widescreen." you have a horizontal vision angle, which can be set however a developer likes without regard to the vertical height of the screen. In Bioshock, that angle is the same whether played widescreen in 4:3. Big deal.

"True Widescreen" whores are completely deluded and hopeless.
Click to expand...

WTF are you talking about? His whole arm is missing because they opted to mess with the wide screen. I was *wondering* why in a lot of shots we barely saw his hand. It makes a lot of sense now.
 
P

plagiarize

Banned
pswii60 said:
I think so. I think 16:9 isn't cropped, it's just that 4:3 is adding more that isn't supposed to be there, if that makes sense.

I'm pretty sure the game will have been developed in 16:9, and that's how the game is intended to be played.
Click to expand...
like i say, that's the way they've demonstrated it at every step along the way.
 
M

Mamesj

Banned
what the hell? This looks like more of a stylistic decision rather than a technical problem...what the fuck are these people complaining about?
 
P

plagiarize

Banned
joshcryer said:
WTF are you talking about? His whole arm is missing because they opted to mess with the wide screen. I was *wondering* why in a lot of shots we barely saw his hand. It makes a lot of sense now.
Click to expand...
what we're saying is that *maybe* you aren't meant to see his whole arm. maybe the game was designed to be widescreen all along, and whatever they did for the 4:3 version was an after thought.

anyone with the 360 version want to run it in a 4:3 resolution and let us know if it has black borders or not?
 
V

voltron

Member
BioshockFOV.jpg


Yeah Im starting to think it doenst matter too much, but still annoying.
 
R

RiskyChris

Banned
Mamesj said:
what the hell? This looks like more of a stylistic decision rather than a technical problem...what the fuck are these people complaining about?
Click to expand...

First real BioShock "problem" yet? Sounds like a total nonissue.

Maybe if I keep this up I'll get cool Cult of Rapture goodies
 
A

antoniogaud

Member
OHMYGOD! I desperately need to see the rest of my character's wrists or this game SUCKS!! Man wrist is why I purchase games, not overall quality. I'm not going to pick up my pre-paid Bioshock game today (at 11am) because the game suffers from man wrist omission syndrome (MWOS).
 
M

Mamesj

Banned
RiskyChris said:
First real BioShock "problem" yet? Sounds like a total nonissue.

Maybe if I keep this up I'll get cool Cult of Rapture goodies
Click to expand...


Don't forget, if you play it for 24 hours straight, it starts to slowdown a bit. Sure glad Gerstman pointed that out. In fact, this WS issue was probably posted by him from an anonymous account. He's exposing the truth about this deceptively awesome game :roll
 
J

joshcryer

it's ok, you're all right now
Mamesj said:
what the hell? This looks like more of a stylistic decision rather than a technical problem...what the fuck are these people complaining about?
Click to expand...

Firstly, the complaints are mainly from a forum specializing in *widescreen gaming.*

Secondly, the impression was that cropping/letterboxing wouldn't be utilized for widescreen: http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14789&postcount=2

Third, it's a cheap and lame effect and if you don't care about it, good for you. Move along because apparently there is a whole damn forum on the internet about guys who care about this very sort of thing.
 
J

joshcryer

it's ok, you're all right now
plagiarize said:
what we're saying is that *maybe* you aren't meant to see his whole arm. maybe the game was designed to be widescreen all along, and whatever they did for the 4:3 version was an after thought.

anyone with the 360 version want to run it in a 4:3 resolution and let us know if it has black borders or not?
Click to expand...

Well, I think it's a stylistically poor decision because you *can* see his full arm in 4:3 mode. So this is just a cheap copout.

I'm not trying to detract from the awesomeness of this game, dude. But of course it can only be seen that way because everything is black and white and blah. The point is they're not doing it the *right* way. They're doing a cheap hack which in the end sucks.
 
R

Razoric

Banned
Mithos Yggdrasill said:
What the heck ?!??? A game with an average of 9.7 and without true widescreen on both X360 and PC ? It is a joke, right ?
Click to expand...

99.9% of us wouldve never noticed while playing the game. Why should that take away from the review?
 
F

FrankT

Member
Mithos Yggdrasill said:
What the heck ?!??? A game with an average of 9.7 and without true widescreen on both X360 and PC ? It is a joke, right ?
Click to expand...

No, but if you cry more, perhaps that 9.7 will come down a bit. :lol
 
K

Kobold

half-wit retard monkey's ass
Mithos Yggdrasill said:
What the heck ?!??? A game with an average of 9.7 and without true widescreen on both X360 and PC ? It is a joke, right ?
Click to expand...
Yea it is a joke of an issue, nothing to see here. Move along.
 
M

Mamesj

Banned
joshcryer said:
Move along because apparently there is a whole damn forum on the internet about guys who care about this very sort of thing.
Click to expand...

and if there is a forum about it, it must be very important :lol

This isn't a forum about widescreen gaming, so I'm going to call out how dumb I think this is. Not every post is going to be in agreement with the OP.

and that's.....perfectly ok.
 
P

Ponn

Banned
Kobold said:
Yea it is a joke of an issue, nothing to see here. Move along.
Click to expand...

You should have read anime fan reactions when they found out the new Dragonball Z sets were doing this for their widescreen.
 
D

Draft

Member
I wonder why they'd do that. I'm sure 90% of the people who play Bioshock will be doing it on some kind of widescreen monitor or TV.
 
M

Mithos Yggdrasill

Banned
Razoric said:
99.9% of us wouldve never noticed while playing the game. Why should that take away from the review?
Click to expand...

I didn't mean that the game should have had a different approach in reviews, but I'm surprised that this didn't come out before. But if nobody noticed that, it means that it's a only a detail.
 
M

Mamesj

Banned
Ponn01 said:
You should have read anime fan reactions when they found out the new Dragonball Z sets were doing this for their widescreen.
Click to expand...


it's ok, dragonball fans aren't real people.

alright, I'm done posting in this thread, I swear.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
What's even dumber than the nutcases whining on widescreengaming is people spinning this. No shit Bioshock is still fucking awesome, but it doesn't mean that it's any less stupid if it's cropped like this.
 
E

ex0du5

Banned
Kind of glad I'm still using a trusty old 19-inch CRT monitor :). It's gonna die soon though :(.

Pretty stupid that they went and did widescreen like this though. You'd think widescreen would have the better experience.
 
P

plagiarize

Banned
Stumpokapow said:
What's even dumber than the nutcases whining on widescreengaming is people spinning this. No shit Bioshock is still fucking awesome, but it doesn't mean that it's any less stupid if it's cropped like this.
Click to expand...
but we don't know that it's cropped. that infers it was designed in 4:3 *first*.

if the game was designed to be widescreen (which all signs point to), then it doesn't matter what the hell they've done for the 4:3 aspect ratio.

i'll play it in widescreen as it was meant to be played.
 
R

RiskyChris

Banned
What is this "not true widescreen" bullshit? The game is outputting a widescreen signal.

WS doesn't always mean you see more.

Edit: :lol I don't even know why I'm trying to do DC, probably my high from the game coming out in 3 minutes. I'm off to EBStop, see you guys in 12 hours.
 
B

Brashnir

Member
Ponn01 said:
You should have read anime fan reactions when they found out the new Dragonball Z sets were doing this for their widescreen.
Click to expand...

Anime and games aren't the same thing.

Cropping a movie is the removal of content.

Cropping a game is a non-issue. Since two screen formats are in existance, a developer HAS to make a choice. Crop a 4:3 to 16:10/9 for that version, OR crop a 16:10/9 to 4:3 for that version. Either one leaves one side unhappy. The advantage of this particular method is that it doesn't mess with the field of vision, which can give some people headaches if set too wide, and can give the widescreen player an advantage, since if the FOV is cropped for 4:3 they lose a significant amount of peripheral vision.

I think they made the right choice.
 
J

joshcryer

it's ok, you're all right now
RiskyChris said:
What is this "not true widescreen" bullshit? The game is outputting a widescreen signal.

WS doesn't always mean you see more.
Click to expand...

WS means your FOV is wider. That's the whole point of WS.
 
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