Widescreen Gaming Forum

Okay, I really don't see what the problem with SC's widescreen implementation is. This is a freakin' RTS. Having less FOV and thus less distortion makes it easier to select units. And as somebody else said, due to the zoomability, it isn't really "vert-". I played the demo extensively and was very satisfied by the view.

I'm not a SC fanboy or anything (I'm not buying the game), but I think it would be stupid to listen to the grade Cranky has given this game's widescreen implementation.

Having less FOV and thus less distortion makes it easier to select units.

Less FOV does not mean less distortion. It just means everything is bigger, but fewer things are visible at once. Having more FOV means you can see more units at once without distortion.

as somebody else said, due to the zoomability

SC is not zoomable. It's "dollyable." There's a difference between zooming and dollying, and I provided a link to a detailed article about it in this thread. Dollying *does* cause distortion. It's not much if the game is mostly flat to begin with, but it is there, so you cannot objectively say that dollying out will undo the vert -'ness.

I think it would be stupid to listen to the grade Cranky has given this game's widescreen implementation.

What you fail to realize is that I didn't give this game any grade at all. I created a set of well-defined criteria that determines the score a game gets, and no one criticized it at that time. This criteria has been applied to Supreme Commander, and it gets an above-average C+.

Subjectively, you could easily say that Supreme Commander is very playable in spite of its failure to be hor +. I haven't played the game yet, but I suspect that I would agree with that statement. But it's still a subjective statement, and the grading system is based on factual criteria.

I don't know if any one mentioned this yet, but the game allows you to use 2 monitors at once, one being a mini map kind of setup and the other being the actual game monitor...

I personally think this is great, and hope more games will add this kind of features

Having less FOV and thus less distortion makes it easier to select units.

Less FOV does not mean less distortion. It just means everything is bigger, but fewer things are visible at once. Having more FOV means you can see more units at once without distortion.

as somebody else said, due to the zoomability

SC is not zoomable. It's "dollyable." There's a difference between zooming and dollying, and I provided a link to a detailed article about it in this thread. Dollying *does* cause distortion. It's not much if the game is mostly flat to begin with, but it is there, so you cannot objectively say that dollying out will undo the vert -'ness.

Whatever. The "you see less" argument is bulls*** in Supreme Commander because you can zoom/dolly in and out freely, and doing that is what you constantly have to do if you want to have a proper overview of the battlefield. One does NOT play at just one zoom level all the time. In SC, zoom/dollying in and out is synonym to panning the view around in traditional RTS games. Playing SC in widescreen is better than playing it in 4:3. You DO see more in widescreen, due to having a larger viewing area. This report makes it seem like widescreen's broken, which isn't true.

Okay, let's be civil here. The grading criteria is objective, and has been around for quite some time with no objections.

The fact remains, that if you dolly all the way out on a 4:3 and a 16:10 monitor, you see more on a 4:3 monitor as it has a larger FOV and larger viewing area. This has been proven in the screenshots.

Is the gameplay severely effected by this? Most people seem to think not really? Is the gameplay in WOW severly effected by it being Vert -? IMHO, no. I still like the widescreen, and like being able to keep my inventory bags and menus "off to the side." But, neither game provides a Hor+ FOV, and the developers could have easily done it. How do I know? Well, Sigil added proper WS support (going from Vert- to Hor+) in a beta patch release.

No one complained when WOW got a C grade. I didn't like that Guild Wars got a C grade, as it's "some Hor+ and some Vert-" I like the game and had hoped it would get a better grade, and I think the "playability" of the game would lend itself to a better grade. But, the fact is that it didn't get that grade.

Now, I would think that SC could be considered "some Hor+ and some Vert-" based on the example of being able to move the menu bar. But, should someone be forced to change their style of play to get proper WS support? I don't think so.

I don't know if any one mentioned this yet, but the game allows you to use 2 monitors at once, one being a mini map kind of setup and the other being the actual game monitor...

I personally think this is great, and hope more games will add this kind of features

Yes... yes you can. IF you have the latest kicka** pc your local and online shopkeepers can provide you with.

Which I'll be getting as soon as AMD decides to release that R600 stuff of theirs...


Okay, maybe my 9800XT is really getting old, but the secondary display does eat your resources. Just like the detailed landscape...

The fact remains, that if you dolly all the way out on a 4:3 and a 16:10 monitor, you see more on a 4:3 monitor as it has a larger FOV and larger viewing area. This has been proven in the screenshots.

No. Those screenshots merely show the default zoom level for various resolutions. One does *not* play Supreme Commander at that zoom level constantly, for the same reason you don't use Google Earth / Maps at the same zoom level constantly - the area is just way too large to make that convenient. So it really doesn't matter what the default zoom level in Supreme Commander is.

Here are some screenshots with the non-widescreen (1280*1024) one zoomed in so that it shows horizontally as much as the 16:10 (1680*1050). So there you go: Supreme Commander properly supports widescreen out of the box.

As your screenshots clearly show, the angle of view is very different for each resolution at the same zoom level.
And that is exactly what all the fuss is about - the same zoom level on different resolutions does not give the same image.

Is that a problem ? No.
Should it be considered bad widescreen support, from a fully objective point of view ? Yes.

The grade is rightfully low(ish), despite it not affecting the gaming experience.
What makes it great for widescreen gaming is a subjective matter, which cannot be incorporated into a rating system such as this one, unless you find some way to 'objectify' your opinion.

Here are some screenshots with the non-widescreen (1280*1024) one zoomed in so that it shows horizontally as much as the 16:10 (1680*1050). So there you go: Supreme Commander properly supports widescreen out of the box.

Yeah, i was aware of that when i was writing this report back in November 2006. But the problem and fact is, that the game does "zoom in a little bit" in order to keep horizontall part of FOV and it decreases FOV vertically.. :) So i have provided the screenshots without zooming in or out manually, and then they show the game as vert-. However, if you play on wide screen, you do not care that at the moment you are a little bit closer than if you would play at 4:3 resolution. More FOV, that is what you see. So, although the game is vert- technically, it does not feel as vert- during gameplay.

If game developers make the game zoom out one step each time the resolution is changed, then the game would be hor+. It is probably not as simple.. they would have to implement hor+ properly. But why would they do it, when the gameplay experience doe not feel discriminated (while vert-)?

It simply does not matter in such a kind of game, that it is vert- as it would matter in First Person Shooter or Racing game.

As your screenshots clearly show, the angle of view is very different for each resolution at the same zoom level.

...Oh really? The widescreen shot shows more area at the sides than the non-widescreen, exactly as one would expect. And the angles don't seem "very different" at all to me. After examining them in Photoshop, they don't seem to differ by more than a degree or so.

As for the whole "we've gotta stay objective" bollocks: does one rate the quality of a car purely by their horsepower, 0-100 accelleration times, fuel consumption, number of seats, the volume of their boot, and their maximum cornering angles at a given low and medium speeds?

Although there are some things which all good widescreen games ought to have (such as widescreen resolutions being selectable in-game, proper UI scaling, proper aspect ratios), the most important thing, whether or not the game is better in widescreen or not, is slightly subjective.

I think anyone who has actually played Supreme Commander will immediately conclude that it's better in widescreen. The viewing area in widescreen IS larger and the aspect ratio is correct. Who gives a s*** whether or not the camera angle differs by one degree in different resolutions? If such an utterly unimportant variable results in a "C" rather than an "A", then I think the rating system is pointless.

I personally believe that the rating system would be a lot more useful to WSGF viewers if it weren't to extremely authoritarian. I don't think letting Human's judgement rate a game's widescreen implementation will break the system. On the contrary, it'll make it actually meaningful. Please, go and actually play Supreme Commander - if after playing it you still think it deserves a "C", then I don't know what's wrong with you.