Beyond Good and Evil: Widescreen-Yes, Anamorphic-No (1 Viewer)

[Dave F]

Very frustrating. Beyond Good and Evil is widescreen, but does not display anamorphically. So no matter what, it's letterboxed. It seems like a great game so far, but the gorgeous graphics are bittersweet since the presentation blows.

Non-anamorphic widescreen. One step forward, two steps back.

-Dave

 

[John Doran]

do you know what the aspect-ratio is?

i'm really looking forward to this game, and i have to say that i would take a reasonably ratio'ed non-anamorphic widescreen over 4:3 any day.

 

[Dave F]

It's either 1.85 or 1.78. I just can't understand why they would make it design it widescreen & exclusively for 4:3 televisions. If they are aiming just for the 4:3 market, they should just make it in a 1.33 aspect ratio.

It's really frustrating because the graphics are so smooth and refined, but tiny. When I zoom to fill the screen (retaining the AR) I see all the scanlines, etc... So it's either tiny and smooth or big and jagged. :frowning:

-Dave

 

[Dave F]

Both. It's just like a non-anamorphic letterboxed DVD.

-Dave

 

[Jay Mitchosky]

I didn't realize any games were anamorphic. I thought they were simply widescreen capable or not (ie. widescreen is simply a wider presentation/horizontal draw).

 

[Dave F]

As with anamorphic DVDs, for most widescreen games it is the shape of the pixels that change. With both anamorphic DVD's and with games that are widescreen (usually), you will get an image that fills the screen & looks squished on a 4x3 set. Displaying the image in 16x9 just presents the pixels in the correct AR.

The main difference between games and anamorphic dvd's is that for a 4x3 presentation, a DVD player will remove lines of resolution to create a letterboxed image, whereas games don't remove lines, but will just render the image differently, but this is more a method employed by DVD players in handling anamorphic video, than an actual aspect of anamorphic video.

Here are some pics of BG&E. I don't have screenshot capability, so these are doctored.
Beyond Good & Evil on a 4x3 tv:
http://myweb.cableone.net/davef/pics/bge.jpg

Beyond Good & Evil on a 16:9 tv (displayed in "Full" format):
http://myweb.cableone.net/davef/pics/bge_stretch.jpg

-Dave

 

[Dave F]

how can it be certain this is a flaw in the programming rather than intentional aspect ratio effect?

It is an intentional effect, based upon some sh**ty decisions made by the developers/producers. Basically they decided that they want to support only 4:3 tv's, and gave the shaft to widescreen owners. Widescreen owners get either the squashed image as shown above, or have to zoom in and get a large reduction in resolution.

It is exactly like watching a letterboxed non-anamorphic image such as The Thing. Whereas as most games just don't support widescreen, BG&E has actively decided to develop against widescreen televisions.

-Dave

(Edit: Lol, you got your edit in while I was typing a reply )

 

[Jeffrey Forner]

Originally posted by Dave F:
Widescreen owners get either the squashed image as shown above, or have to zoom in and get a large reduction in resolution.

Or, you could set the TV to 4:3 mode and play it with the gray bars on the side.

That second picture in Dave's post demonstrates perfectly why I don't bother to play games stretched. Everything looks silly enough that way as it is, but the effect is greatly magnified when there are black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.

 

[Carlo_M]

I didn't realize any games were anamorphic. I thought they were simply widescreen capable or not (ie. widescreen is simply a wider presentation/horizontal draw).

That was my [admittedly limited] understanding too. The few games I have (I don't game much, but I have an XBox with a few widescreen games, NCAA Football 2003 & 2004, DOA3, Soul Calibur 2) it seems to me that I gain left/right area and not the game is anamorphically enhanced. When I tested and switched the XBox to 4:3 I lose that L/R area. This is most obvious the football games where there is clearly more room visible past the tackles of the O Line (almost to the WRs) whereas in the 4:3 mode the TV stops just outside of the tackles.

 

[Carlo_M]

BTW, the cut FMV scenes for Hunter The Reckoning (XBox) are also in widescreen, but that game is not widescreen enhanced, so they have black bars and are stretched horizontally just like Dave F is describing. Luckily it's only the cut scenes, and the game isn't letterboxed.

 

[John Doran]

yikes. so the game isn't really 16:9 at all...

that really, really chews.

 

[Tony_L]

yikes. so the game isn't really 16:9 at all...

that really, really chews.

Even worse than just simple 4:3 if you're a widescreen user.

 

[Jay Mitchosky]

BG&E has actively decided to develop against widescreen televisions.

But from what I've been reading they did decide to make an excellent game with an involving story.

Dave, those are great pictures. But too big (the first is 165M compared to the 40MB limit for the Forum) so I've turned them into URLs.

 

[Constant]

Hey guys,

I've been searching for information on BG&E's widescreen capabilities and I am downright shocked how difficult it is to obtain any concrete details. I called Ubisoft support, and they confirmed that the PC version does not support widescreen displays. The PS2 version apparently does not either. So, I was wondering, has this entire discussion been centered on the Xbox version? I'm hoping that, by some miraculous chance, everyone here is talking about the PS2 version and the Xbox version does indeed support an anamorphic display.

 

[Dave F]

I've been writing about the Xbox version, but I've heard that it is the same with PS2 and Gamecube.

Just as widescreen support has pushed a number of "ok" titles into the "buy" column for me, a situtation like this pushes it into the "do not buy" column.

-Dave

 

[Constant]

In response to Dave F's post:

No...NO....NOOOOOOOOO!!!! *Shakes fists at the heavens*

My only option now is to:

a) Buy the PC version
b) Buy a gamepad
c) Artifically expand the screen out to fit the proportions of my widescreen monitor.

Before "c" may occur, I must:

a) Pray that my widescreen monitor actually arrives and that I am not being ripped off by the ebay merchant (is overdue.)

So much for one game!!