21:9 seems so much better for games...too bad many dont properly support it

[VirtualLarry]

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/1300490/

ultrabook with 21:9 screen

 

[sao123]

and where did you pull those numbers from? 21:9 is way more natural feeling to me than 16:9. it depends on the size of the screen and actual fov too. I was a competitive cyclist for years so I must have had super human fov because I sure as hell could see more than what 16:9 aspect ratio would show without ever turning my head.

No... you didnt.
I cite this site... http://io9.com/5926643/10-fundamental-limits-to-human-perception-++-and-how-they-shape-your-world but the numbers are recognized by Optometrists Nationally.
The human field of vision is 210 degrees horizonally, 135 degrees vertically. This is the maximum you can see, without turning your head.

Simple geometry says, The human field of vision is 14:9.

You are comparing angular ratios to linear ratios.

I didn't double check your numbers, so I dont know if they are correct, but if you wanted to do a proper comparison you would first try to convert from one to the other.

Assume you are 1 meter from your screen. 135 degrees means that you have 67.5 degrees up and down from the center of the screen. That means the distance from the center to the upper and lower edge is tan(67.5 degrees) = 2.41 meters.

Since this measurement is from the center, we double it to get the total height of 4.82 meters.

Now we do the same thing for the horizontal aspect. 200 degrees horizontal means we get 100 degrees from the center of the screen to each horizontal edge. tan(100 degrees)= -5.67.

At this point you should be asking what on earth happened, how did we get a negative number?

The answer is that 200 degrees is larger than 180degrees, which is the maximum angle you can map onto a flat screen. This means that the actual ratio of a flat screen is infinite. You can have a screen that is infinitly wide and it still will not fill your vision. On the other hand, from 1 meter away, the screen would only need to be 5 meters high to completely fill your vision.

Now, again, this is based on your numbers, which i did not double check.

You are wrong on 3 points...

Geometry says in a closed shape the ratios of the angle and its opposing sides (linear to angular ratio) are the same.


you can map all 360 degree and translate it onto a flat surface, its called a panaramic view. If i am inside the globe at the center, I can only see 210 degrees of it. but I can see all 360 degrees of a map flat on a paper.


This is your error, it does not matter how far from the screen you sit...
You are not looking at the the screen as if looking through a hole in the wall from a distance... in a first person game, the screen is acting as your actual physical eyes. what you see on the screen is what you would see if you were actually in the game. As i said earlier, 16:10 is the closest to 14:9 in an available resolution. If you use 21:9 in a first person shooter game, you are actually viewing imagery which would be behind your head in real life in a panaramic view

 

[omeds]

then you have not tried many games at all or just just dont notice what is actually going on. its a fact that tons of games dont properly support 21:9. some games will cut off top and bottom and some games will stretch both of which is hard to notice unless you compare it to 16:9. some games will make wonky fov where things in the center are farther away while panning around and will be much closer when on the sides. I have spent hours trying out different games and most are a mess so again you must be oblivious to all of this or not play hardly any games. in fact you need that flawless widescreen program just to get about half the games looking right.

While you're correct many games don't support 21:9, I have been able to get them to work one way or another either by maually editing configs or reg hacks, or using tools/utilities.. usually the same methods needed for eyefinity users.

Like I said the only game that I haven't been able to get to run at is 21:9 is SC2.

 

[toyota]

While you're correct many games don't support 21:9, I have been able to get them to work one way or another either by maually editing configs or reg hacks, or using tools/utilities.. usually the same methods needed for eyefinity users.

Like I said the only game that I haven't been able to get to run at is 21:9 is SC2.

and just because you got them to run or fill out the screen does not mean they are being displayed properly. to claim only one game does not work is crazy. its well known that there are popular games that wont even do 21:9 at all. and again many that you can end up getting to 21:9 are NOT being rendered correctly. Dead Space 3, RAGE and Crysis 3 are the ONLY games that worked properly out of over 20 that I tried. even then cutscenes went to 16:9.

 

[omeds]

They are displaying properly. Nothing is stretched, correct FOV's and so on. I don't claim to have played every game, but every game I do play works fine, even though some of them needed a bit of messing around like eyefinity. Monitor oc's to 76hz too, which is a nice little bonus.

 

[BoFox]

No... you didnt.
I cite this site... http://io9.com/5926643/10-fundamental-limits-to-human-perception-++-and-how-they-shape-your-world but the numbers are recognized by Optometrists Nationally.
The human field of vision is 210 degrees horizonally, 135 degrees vertically. This is the maximum you can see, without turning your head.

Simple geometry says, The human field of vision is 14:9.








You are wrong on 3 points...

Geometry says in a closed shape the ratios of the angle and its opposing sides (linear to angular ratio) are the same.


you can map all 360 degree and translate it onto a flat surface, its called a panaramic view. If i am inside the globe at the center, I can only see 210 degrees of it. but I can see all 360 degrees of a map flat on a paper.


This is your error, it does not matter how far from the screen you sit...
You are not looking at the the screen as if looking through a hole in the wall from a distance... in a first person game, the screen is acting as your actual physical eyes. what you see on the screen is what you would see if you were actually in the game. As i said earlier, 16:10 is the closest to 14:9 in an available resolution. If you use 21:9 in a first person shooter game, you are actually viewing imagery which would be behind your head in real life in a panaramic view

No, you're wrong! I can see more than 360 degrees!

 

[serpretetsky]

This is your error, it does not matter how far from the screen you sit...
You are not looking at the the screen as if looking through a hole in the wall from a distance... in a first person game, the screen is acting as your actual physical eyes. what you see on the screen is what you would see if you were actually in the game. As i said earlier, 16:10 is the closest to 14:9 in an available resolution. If you use 21:9 in a first person shooter game, you are actually viewing imagery which would be behind your head in real life in a panaramic view

The most correct way to render a 3d scene onto a flat screen is indeed, as if you are looking at a hole in the wall (like a window for example). This naturally means the sides need to be distorted.

I do not know of any games that render the way you are describing. ALL of the half-life series, quake series, unreal series, BF series, Call of Duty series render linearly.

You don't have to take my word for it, find the command to change fov for your choice of FPS, and try to take it near 180 degrees (like 170). I guarantee you it will look all kinds of screwed up.

Now try to take it past 180. Things either crash, max out at 180, or do very screwy stuff

A poster in this thread had posted this website, and it's a VERY good example of rendering methods.

http://strlen.com/gfxengine/fisheyequake/compare.html

The screenshots on the left are what most games render (and they are optically correct for a flat screen)

The screenshots on the right are what it sounds like you are describing. Again, I dont know of any games that render this way because spherical monitors are not very common.

Because of this, it matters VERY MUCH where you sit.

Have you ever seen eyefinity or other super widescreen setups? The sides usually look distorted.

This immediately tells you that the game is rendering linearly, not spherically, and that you are not in the correct position to view the game. Usually you need to get close for it to be optically correct

you can map all 360 degree and translate it onto a flat surface, its called a panaramic view. If i am inside the globe at the center, I can only see 210 degrees of it. but I can see all 360 degrees of a map flat on a paper.

It doesn't make sense for games to render more than 180 degrees on a flat screen, because that would mean the game should render things that are technically behind you. But thats rediculous, because the screen is not behind you. So why would the monitor render something behind you if the monitor can't ever properly display it as being behind you. It's giving you incorrect information. It will show you something as being directly behind you as being to the left or right. It isn't optically correct.

Now it might be something that YOU may want, i dont know. Like you mention, panaromas can be mapped to flat surface, if you want. However, that is not the correct way to view a 3d world. Viewed as a flat surface, it will be distorted at every point that is not perpinduclar to you.


edit:

Geometry says in a closed shape the ratios of the angle and its opposing sides (linear to angular ratio) are the same.

This is only true for triangles, not any shape. But that isn't a problem, your statement is still very relevant since we're mostly interested in triangles anyways.

The problem is that the ratios ARE NOT the same. You might be thinking of the ratios of the SINE of the angle with the opposite side. Usually in geometry this shows up like this:

Sin(a)/A = Sin(b)/B = Sin(c)/C

Sine, by its very nature, is a transformation of angular data to linear data.

 

[sao123]

The most correct way to render a 3d scene onto a flat screen is indeed, as if you are looking at a hole in the wall (like a window for example). This naturally means the sides need to be distorted.

I do not know of any games that render the way you are describing. ALL of the half-life series, quake series, unreal series, BF series, Call of Duty series render linearly.

You don't have to take my word for it, find the command to change fov for your choice of FPS, and try to take it near 180 degrees (like 170). I guarantee you it will look all kinds of screwed up.

Now try to take it past 180. Things either crash, max out at 180, or do very screwy stuff

A poster in this thread had posted this website, and it's a VERY good example of rendering methods.

http://strlen.com/gfxengine/fisheyequake/compare.html

The screenshots on the left are what most games render (and they are optically correct for a flat screen)

The screenshots on the right are what it sounds like you are describing. Again, I dont know of any games that render this way because spherical monitors are not very common.

Because of this, it matters VERY MUCH where you sit.

Have you ever seen eyefinity or other super widescreen setups? The sides usually look distorted.

This immediately tells you that the game is rendering linearly, not spherically, and that you are not in the correct position to view the game. Usually you need to get close for it to be optically correct


It doesn't make sense for games to render more than 180 degrees on a flat screen, because that would mean the game should render things that are technically behind you. But thats rediculous, because the screen is not behind you. So why would the monitor render something behind you if the monitor can't ever properly display it as being behind you. It's giving you incorrect information. It will show you something as being directly behind you as being to the left or right. It isn't optically correct.

Now it might be something that YOU may want, i dont know. Like you mention, panaromas can be mapped to flat surface, if you want. However, that is not the correct way to view a 3d world. Viewed as a flat surface, it will be distorted at every point that is not perpinduclar to you.


edit:


This is only true for triangles, not any shape. But that isn't a problem, your statement is still very relevant since we're mostly interested in triangles anyways.

The problem is that the ratios ARE NOT the same. You might be thinking of the ratios of the SINE of the angle with the opposite side. Usually in geometry this shows up like this:

Sin(a)/A = Sin(b)/B = Sin(c)/C

Sine, by its very nature, is a transformation of angular data to linear data.

You are right to a point... but all 3d engines render the same.
they render the full 360 degrees, then use the window effect you are talking about to mask/clip and create a FOV. If you increase that FOV beyond natural measures you are able to see all 360 degrees. Adjust the window = adjust what you can see.

Watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blZUao2jTGA and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1XsPYPGcl0 (part 2) to see if you understand more.



if what you said was true... this http://www.egmnow.com/articles/news/igloo-gaming-dome-offers-360-degree-visual-immersion/ would not be possible. you cant do that with flat surface rendering.

 

[serpretetsky]

You are right to a point... but all 3d engines render the same.
they render the full 360 degrees, then use the window effect you are talking about to mask/clip and create a FOV. If you increase that FOV beyond natural measures you are able to see all 360 degrees. Adjust the window = adjust what you can see.

Watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blZUao2jTGA and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1XsPYPGcl0 (part 2) to see if you understand more.



if what you said was true... this http://www.egmnow.com/articles/news/igloo-gaming-dome-offers-360-degree-visual-immersion/ would not be possible. you cant do that with flat surface rendering.

That's pretty cool if the engine actually has the option to render like that. Unfortunetly, nothing in the video tells me how they are doing it, it could be an engine option, it could be some extra code they had to create, it could even be a physical lens warping the frame. in fact, i can't even tell if its optically correct to begin with (i'd have to go there and see it) and since it's not actually rendering more than 180 degrees (you can see in the video there's never more than 180 degrees on the screen) this tells me even less.

Furthermore, it's irrelevant to my main argument. I was simply pointing out that i had never seen games rendered spherically, if there are some games that do, that's pretty cool, but it doesn't change my arguments on the proper way to render things onto flat surfaces, and how comparing angular to linear ratios doesn't really make sense.

If you increase that FOV beyond natural measures you are able to see all 360 degrees. Adjust the window = adjust what you can see.

Again, just TRY IT!
I have tried to increase the FOV beyond 180 degrees in gzdoom, half life 1, and half life 2. My games are pretty old, maybe you have some newer ones you can try.

It doesn't work. Sometimes the game will accept the command as if though everything is fine, but you can tell when you're playing it's not actually higher than 180. Switching between the two provides no difference.


My games are pretty old, maybe you have some newer ones you can try.
TRY IT! find a game you have that supports FOV changes (usually through the console, and possibly with cheat mode enabled) and try to change it to 175. Then try to change it to 270. Let me know what happens.