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BioShock Widescreen Slices Vertical View
by Nick Breckon, Aug 21, 2007 11:03am PDTIn a rapidly-expanding thread on the 2K Games forum, reports are
coming in that 2K Boston and Australia's just-released shooter BioShock (PC, X360) uses a cropping method for its widescreen display, cutting down on the vertical view rather than expanding the horizontal width (illustrated left). The problem apparently exists for both the PC and Xbox 360 versions, and cannot be fixed with an edit of the game's FOV (field of view) setting.
The issue took forum goers by surprise, as 2K Boston lead programmer Chris Kline assured fans last May that BioShock's widescreen view would show more, rather than less. "The game will render in full 16:9 aspect ratio, with no letterboxing unless your resolution is not true 16:9," Kline said in a thread on the 2K forums. "You will see more in widescreen. We use a different projection matrix; there is no squashing or stretching of the image involved." Shacknews can confirm that the problem exists in the PC demo of BioShock, and has contacted 2K Games for comment.
Comments
It's a matter of perspective. Is widescreen cut down from 4:3 or is 4:3 cut down from widescreen? I don't see any good reason that one view of this is right and one is wrong. It is arbitrary.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 23 replies.
The move from 4:3 to widescreen is a natural one, and should be made because we'll be more comfortable at that kind of "window" than a restrictive one.
If the move from 4:3 to 16:9 (16:10 on a computer) means cropping up top and bottom, it means you're not gaining more view, which would be the natural way; you're just *removing* visual data. Instead of making it right, you're making it wrong on all sides, and thus acting as you were correcting the view but then zooming.
It SHOULD move to the sides while maintaining the vertical fov. It's not "arbitrary" nor wrong. It's the correct thing to do. When you buy a widescreen monitor, you don't do so to cut on the number of pixels you'll be using from the top or the bottom; you do so to extend to the sides and use more space. The same applies to widescreen gaming, but it's one reason so deeply rooted into the way we see the world that's the only correct one. We would have no reason whatsoever to use widescreen when playing if all developers simply cropped the view.
In MP games there should be a compromise between higher horizontal fov and lower vertical fov so people won't bitch about it. But in SP games, there's no reason whatsoever to go for the wrong choice.
tl;dr: 4:3 SHOULD be cut down from widescreen, not the other way around. Devs should at least allow fov configuration so people can adjust it back.
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