Scale of game rendering

Post Reply
User avatar
Trench
Admin
Admin
Posts: 2908
Joined: May 22nd, 2012, 3:19 am
Location: Dallas / Fort Worth
Contact:
United States of America

Scale of game rendering

Post by Trench »

I've noticed this behavior ever since I installed Windows 8.1 x64 and the Origin-based Battlefield 1942. None of the usual or obvious suspects seems to explain or correct the issue, so wanted to post it here in case someone has ever seen or corrected something similar.

As shown in the attached screen shot comparison, the Windows 8.1 / Origin machine seems to be drawing the game "too skinny", such that tanks / planes / weapons / etc. all look "squished horizontally". Things I've been looking at but haven't proven to be the issue:

- Both the video.con and the monitor's on-screen menu confirm the game is running in 1920x1080 60hz on both Windows 7 / CD and Windows 8.1 / Origin. The "horizontal squish" almost looks like the game is rendering for a 2048-wide screen or similar, and then "squishes" the result to fit in 1920.

- Both VideoDefault.con files have "renderer.fieldOfView 1.33", as well as all the other settings being equal too. I've also played with "renderer.fieldOfView 1" and "renderer.fieldOfView 1.2" and "renderer.fieldOfView 1.78" on the Windows 8.1 / Origin machine, but although it changes the field of view, everything is still "squished".

- Checked the settings in the NVIDIA Control Panel regarding display size and scaling. Both Windows 7 / CD and Windows 8.1 / Origin are set to "Aspect ratio" scaling, and the "View system topology" report shows both have come up with the same "Horizontal 2200 / Vertical 1125", "Active 1920 / 1080", "Front Porch 88 / 4", "Sync width 44 / 5", "Back porch 148 / 36". Which to me means they both are attempting to stretch the screen image in the same way.

- Initially used same NVIDIA 307.45 driver on Windows 8.1 as I had been using on Windows 7. Upgraded to later 307.68 version Microsoft Update was offering, but no change in behavior. This is an old Quadro FX 3500, for what it's worth, so later driver sets don't include support for FX 3500 (even the ones with documentation which say they do).

- Windows DPI setting is the same (100%) between the Windows 7 / CD and Windows 8.1 / Origin. Tried pushing the Windows 8.1 to 125%, but no change in the game rendering.

-Trench
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
User avatar
Swanny-CG
Retired Admin
Retired Admin
Posts: 1962
Joined: December 15th, 2008, 9:48 am
Location: Bay Area, California

Re: Scale of game rendering

Post by Swanny-CG »

Are you running at the default LCD resolution on both monitors? I had some weird stuff happening with the chat text, it was very hard to read, but I didn't realize it was running a bit off from the native resolution for that monitor, and that seemed to fix it.

From the SS comparison, the "squished" one actually looks better to my eye, but maybe it's just the angle.
Image
User avatar
Trench
Admin
Admin
Posts: 2908
Joined: May 22nd, 2012, 3:19 am
Location: Dallas / Fort Worth
Contact:
United States of America

Re: Scale of game rendering

Post by Trench »

Swanny-CG wrote:Are you running at the default LCD resolution on both monitors? I had some weird stuff happening with the chat text, it was very hard to read...
Yes, the 1920x1080 resolution is the monitor's native / maximum, and yes chat text is very hard to read if you ask Battlefield 1942 to scale the resolution at all. Chat and game text is definitely clear, and is one of the reasons I ended up moving to 1920x1080 for playing.
Swanny-CG wrote:From the SS comparison, the "squished" one actually looks better to my eye, but maybe it's just the angle.
Sure, sure... you just want the things I'm aiming at to be even narrower than they already are. ;)

After 10 years of playing, the "skinny" screen shot is definitely the one that's not right. Everything, including the gun I'm carrying in first-person view, is narrower than it should be. The equipment is all "stubby" and too short; if you walked around to the side of the howitzer or choppers in these screen shots, they would look "short bus" and like cute little toy versions of the real ones.

Weird.

-Trench
User avatar
Trench
Admin
Admin
Posts: 2908
Joined: May 22nd, 2012, 3:19 am
Location: Dallas / Fort Worth
Contact:
United States of America

Re: Scale of game rendering

Post by Trench »

Trench wrote:Weird.
TL;DR: The "fixed" Origin BF1942.EXE is what causes the rendering scale difference. The display is "correct" when setting monitor's native 1920x1080 resolution, when I'm using the EA-provided BF1942.EXE for either the Origin-based install or the CD-based installed. But trying to set the native 1920x1080 resolution when the updated Origin-based BF1942.EXE is installed for playing on EA117 / on CD-based servers, the game will begin to exhibit the "skinny" or squished display.

I installed the CD-based version of Battlefield 1942 on my Windows 8.1 machine and confirmed the rendering was not "skinny" or squished. So I reverted back to my Windows 7 SP1 machine image which had only the CD-based version of Battlefield 1942 installed, and I installed the Origin-based Battlefield 1942 onto the Windows 7 SP1 machine.

Initially I /thought/ the issue didn't exist with Origin on Windows 7 SP1, because I successfully verified in a single-player "instant battle" game using the Origin-based Battlefield 1942 that the rendering was not "skinny" or squished. But when I tried to join the EA117 server, I realized I had forgotten to install the modified BF1942.EXE and/or set my game's CD key.

And once I had done those things to the Origin-based Battlefield 1942 installation, I immediately noticed that NOW the rendering was "skinny" or squished. So I reverted back to the original Origin BF1942.EXE just to be sure, and indeed once I was back to using the EA-supplied BF1942.EXE, the screen rendering was now "correct" in the Origin-based Battlefield 1942.

Note in all cases, I have been manually setting the video.con "game.setGameDisplayMode 1920 1080 32 60" and marking the video.con file read-only as described in http://www.widescreengaming.net/wiki/Battlefield_1942.

Doing some research, the fixed Origin BF1942.EXE we're using (http://www.ea117.com/DL/BF1942.zip) verifies as being byte-for-byte identical to the bf1942-v1.61-no-origin-widescreen-fix.zip from http://team-simple.org/download/. Team SiMPLE describes this fixed BF1942.EXE as:
bf1942-v1.61-no-origin-widescreen-fix.zip simple.txt wrote:Battlefield 1942 v1.61 No Origin and widescreen fix

Information:
This patched executable will let you play Battlefield 1942 without having to launch Origin client. It includes a widescreen fix: http://www.wsgf.org/dr/battlefield-1942. You can choose any resolution from the in-game menu. This BF1942 version is 1.61, you'll be able to join v1.61 servers that don't check for CD-keys or BF1942 Origin patched servers that accept all client versions, most of them are. It has also an important bug fix to avoid the game freezing when you click in-game menu MULTIPLAY > INTERNET button, if master.gamespy.com server is not responding.

Installation:
Extract in "Origin Games\Battlefield 1942" directory overwriting BF1942.exe.

SiMPLE 2013-06-28
But the fix description at http://www.wsgf.org/dr/battlefield-1942 is very vague, aside from having an Eyefinity example screen shot that looks like it would induce vomiting and motion sickness if you tried to turn your player around.

In one of their other patch versions (bf1942-v1.612-nocd-widescreen-fix.zip), the readme describes the "widescreen fix" in a little more detail:
bf1942-v1.612-nocd-widescreen-fix simple.txt wrote:Battlefield 1942 v1.612 No CD and widescreen support

Information:
BF1942 v1.612 no CD with correct widescreen support. No longer the game display is horizontally stretched at higher resolutions and you don't need to edit Video.con and write protect it as described in: http://www.widescreengaming.net/wiki/Battlefield_1942. You can choose any resolution from the in-game menu. It has also an important bug fix to avoid the game freezing when you click in-game menu MULTIPLAY > INTERNET button, if master.gamespy.com server is not responding. Besides that, it is an improved no CD patch. Previous ones missed some checks and BF1942.org is not needed anymore.

Installation:
Extract .zip file, preserving directory structure, in your "EA Games\Battlefield 1942" directory (not "Origin Games\Battlefield 1942"). Overwrite BF1942.exe, init.con, contentCrc32.con and Mod.dll files.
So the updated BF1942.EXE for the Origin Battlefield 1942 does intend to change and "fix" widescreen support. And presumably, the "rendering scale" issue I'm seeing is the fact that with the fixed BF1942.EXE installed, the Battlefield 1942 game will no longer be "horizontally stretched at higher resolutions."

Installing the fixed BF1942.EXE does eliminate the need to manually edit the video.con, and eliminates the need to mark the file read-only. With the updated BF1942.EXE installed, all of my video card modes are already showing in the in-game video configuration menu.

BEFORE installing the updated BF1942.EXE I could only see: 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1152x864 and 1280x960. But now with the updated BF1942.EXE installed, in addition to those modes I can also see: 720x480, 720x576, 1176x664, 1280x720, 1280x768, 1280x800, 1280x1024, 1360x768, 1600x900, 1600x1024, 1860x1050, 1768x992 and 1920x1080. And selecting any of these modes will be written to and "stick" in the video.con, without having to mark the file read-only.

But only if I select one of the 4:3 resolutions (e.g. 1280x960) does the display look "correct" to me, which makes me think "what I'm used to" is what they consider "stretched." Selecting any of the new resolutions including 1920x1080 (which is the same resolution I have always been running by manually forcing the video.con setting) now looks "skinny" or squished when I play, because they "fixed" it so that it's no longer "stretched."

So I'm guessing that the difference in the rendering actually is intentional. But whereas before I would have described the rendered equipment sizes as "looking realistic", now I think the M1A1s look way skinner than they do in real life, etc. But I guess we'll just have to get used to that.

-Trench
User avatar
Hav3n
Member
Posts: 385
Joined: December 17th, 2008, 12:46 am
Location: Washington, D.C.
United States of America

Re: Scale of game rendering

Post by Hav3n »

The skinny image looks wrong. The wider image looks wrong too.

Something in the middle is what I'm used to. Rocking DC on a Macbook Pro XP partition.
User avatar
Trench
Admin
Admin
Posts: 2908
Joined: May 22nd, 2012, 3:19 am
Location: Dallas / Fort Worth
Contact:
United States of America

Re: Scale of game rendering

Post by Trench »

Hav3n wrote:Something in the middle is what I'm used to. Rocking DC on a Macbook Pro XP partition.
That's probably because the Apple hardware has sunflower-shaped pixels or some other touchy-feely crap. ;)

Guess I'll have to turn off the in-monitor stretching on one of my monitors and switch to a true 4:3 display, just to remind myself what this game use to look like back when we were all blasting our faces with electrons in front of a CRT tube. Maybe the Battlefield 1942 equipment really was "narrow", but we've been playing on wide-screens so long the stretch really does seem normal.

-Trench
User avatar
Nightstalker
Retired Admin
Retired Admin
Posts: 4624
Joined: February 7th, 2010, 9:29 pm
United States of America

Re: Scale of game rendering

Post by Nightstalker »

Trench wrote: That's probably because the Apple hardware has sunflower-shaped pixels or some other touchy-feely crap. ;)
-Trench

Oh dear Lord, now you have awoken then demons. You might as well show him what you have as your desktop background .....
android_eating_apple_1280x1024_by_crus23-d38bpt4.JPG
And didn't you say this was the background on your phone :?
android-vs-ios.jpg
On a serious note. I swapped back to 4:3 for a while and it threw me off completely. Especially in a helo. I was used to aiming lets say 2 inches left/right and/or above/below the enemy helo on widescreen, I had to aim less for the left and right but the same for above and below. It was frustrating as hell but I think in the end it did seem as though my gameplay was better. (Still terrible, but better)
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Image
God bless the past and present men and women in uniform.
Like sands through the hourglass, these are the days of our lives. This is Nightstalker and this is EA117.
User avatar
Hav3n
Member
Posts: 385
Joined: December 17th, 2008, 12:46 am
Location: Washington, D.C.
United States of America

Re: Scale of game rendering

Post by Hav3n »

I don't know what I did or how, but somehow my Macbook pro's rendering of BF1942/DC seems accurate. You know...you can just tell that tanks/jets/helis look correct from what you see in the real world. The dimensions look normal. But who knows...its a shame the game is so old that there isn't much widescreen support.

I tried my hand at BF3 and am playing some BF4 now. It is fun and I'll eventually get the hang of it, but Desert Combat is a special special game. Truly.
User avatar
Trench
Admin
Admin
Posts: 2908
Joined: May 22nd, 2012, 3:19 am
Location: Dallas / Fort Worth
Contact:
United States of America

Re: Scale of game rendering

Post by Trench »

Hav3n wrote:But who knows...its a shame the game is so old that there isn't much widescreen support.
I should put more trust in the programmer(s) who came up with the http://www.wsgf.org/dr/battlefield-1942 fix, and that programmatically they know "we're now making a 1:1 usage of the available rendering area, whereas before we know the content was being rendered for a different aspect ratio and then stretched to fill the same area."

Because to me, the "doesn't support widescreen" problem in Battlefield 1942 was just "you can't access those modes from the in-game video menu." Once I forced those modes in the video.con and marked it read-only so it couldn't be undone, for me personally I didn't perceive that there was any remaining "widescreen problem."

But their documentation suggests that even once you had the right video mode selected, the content was still being stretched. And now with the http://www.wsgf.org/dr/battlefield-1942 fix or http://team-simple.org/download/ fixes, its no longer being stretched. I suppose; just still doesn't look right to me.

-Trench
User avatar
Trench
Admin
Admin
Posts: 2908
Joined: May 22nd, 2012, 3:19 am
Location: Dallas / Fort Worth
Contact:
United States of America

Re: Scale of game rendering

Post by Trench »

Nightstalker wrote:I swapped back to 4:3 for a while and it threw me off completely. Especially in a helo. I was used to aiming lets say 2 inches left/right and/or above/below the enemy helo on widescreen, I had to aim less for the left and right but the same for above and below.
I wonder if there is a practical effect on the "precision of aiming". I mean whether you have "the widescreen fix or not", it should take the same amount of mouse movement to move your crosshair over the full width of a target. Because from the game's perspective the target is still the same number of pixels / measurement units wide; just in one case those pixels are subsequently stretched for the display (and the target appears wider visually on-screen), and in the other case they're not stretched.

One practical effect should be that the mouse precision is slightly "lowered". Meaning before when you moved the mouse enough to cross the width of one target, that represented say 0.5" of movement visually on the screen. Now with the widescreen fix that same amount of mouse movement still crosses the entire width of the target, but represents only 0.4" of movement visually on the screen, since the display is no longer "stretched". To feel like you get the same responsiveness from the mouse (like "whipping from one side of the screen to the other used to only require "this much" mouse movement"), it might be necessary to up the mouse sensitivity a bit.

I'm still playing the CD version for now ("stretched"), but maybe one day I'll convert.

-Trench
User avatar
Nightstalker
Retired Admin
Retired Admin
Posts: 4624
Joined: February 7th, 2010, 9:29 pm
United States of America

Re: Scale of game rendering

Post by Nightstalker »

I did not have the widescreen fix. I am sure the game saw 0.5 of mouse movement as 0.5 which visually would be the same in 4:3. Now on the contrary I saw 0.5 of mouse movement as 0.7 when playing in widescreen (non-fixed) At least it seemed that way. Could have been all mental but when I did go back to 4:3, it seemed as if I was over shooting helos (left and right) as I was leading by 0.7 because that's what I was used to in widescreen instead of 0.5.

I hope that clarifies what I was trying to say.
Image
God bless the past and present men and women in uniform.
Like sands through the hourglass, these are the days of our lives. This is Nightstalker and this is EA117.
User avatar
fromage
Member
Posts: 456
Joined: November 26th, 2011, 3:43 pm

Re: Scale of game rendering

Post by fromage »

There are a LOT of words in this thread, and surprisingly, most of them did not come from Nighty. Twilight zone.
User avatar
Nightstalker
Retired Admin
Retired Admin
Posts: 4624
Joined: February 7th, 2010, 9:29 pm
United States of America

Re: Scale of game rendering

Post by Nightstalker »

LMMFAO!!!!!!!!!
Image
God bless the past and present men and women in uniform.
Like sands through the hourglass, these are the days of our lives. This is Nightstalker and this is EA117.
Post Reply