Stretch Modes in Games: Justified Practice or Mangled Aspect Ratios?

This is one reason I chose to stick with a 4:3 TV. I knew that I wouldn't prefer Windowboxed material. The Letterboxing of 16:9 stuff on my WEGA is fine.

 

Jeff, I understand your point of view but unlike a movie a game has no set aspect ratio to "butcher" IMO. Games are not made with 2:35:1 or 1:85:1 aspect ratios in mind nor are pan and scan versions of games being released in the way that a DVD of a movie is. It could be argued that a games aspect ratio is 4X3 and that is the way its to be played and I can see where that argument would be correct to some but I don't agree with it in some instances.
I personally don't feel that stretching a game is a horrible thing to do. 16:9 support is becoming more and more prevelant but in the end its still a bit of afterthought by the developers in question. For me (and again this is my opinion) I take it on a game to game basis. A game like Halo that stretches very well and looks great, I dont see a problem with. On the other hand a game like Shenmue 2 that IMO looks horrible stretched I'll play in the normal mode with the grey bars. I don't find it to be blashpemy if someone prefers to stretch a game on thier widescreen monitor for the reason I mentioned above, I dont find that games have a set aspect ratio to play in. Developers right now pretty much leave that open to interpretation. Unlike a movie like The Shining which I would never watch in a stretch mode byt he way.

 

I'll admit that I stretch most games to fit my 16:9 set. I bought the TV so that I would be able to enjoy the best experience when watching movies in their OAR, and that will never change. Unfortunately there is a tradeoff. Either watch all 4:3 oriented stuff in OAR and risk burn-in, or stretch it. I spent a lot of money on my set and don't plan on buying a new one for a long time.

Because of this, I have had to make some sacrifices. Movies are always OAR because I have placed that as most important. Second to that, though, I place reducing burn-in risk as more important than playing games in OAR. Yes, games are art, and it is very important to recreate the creators' intentions as best as possible. But while movies are watched, games are played. There is so much more going on than just what you see. While a movie has only two tools - picture and sound - a game has those but several more, such as controls, difficulty, playability, etc. If you change the picture of a movie, you are messing with at least half of the entire product. For a game, much less of a percentage.

I'm not saying this makes it right. Eliminate the risk of burn-in for me, and I would do everything OAR. But my point is that stretching a video game does much less damage to a creator's intent than MARring a movie. It does do damage, I admit, but I'm not going to risk damaging my $3000 TV for a video game.

 

Burn-in is absolutely the #1 factor in stretching. But while I would never stretch, say, His Girl Friday, that's because a wide Cary Grant looks flat out wrong -- Mario, OTOH, looks fine stretched to me. And I've gone back and forth between a 16:9 and 4:3 set with the same game and I don't notice a difference either way.

See, while I will not get into the debate about whether videogames are art or not, they are mainly for playing, not for just watching. Things like composition and framing take a backseat to the action. And as long as I can make out the action, the distortion doesn't bother me.

If videogame makers won't offer anamorphic widescreen for technical reasons, you think they could at least offer a letterbox version with the display within the 1.78 frame. Then I could at least zoom the game and not distort the image. I think World Driver something or another on the N64 and Jet Force Gemini had this option.

 

Disagreeing is one thing, but summarily dismissing someone's valid question as a "non-issue" is just plain rude.
Games do have a proper aspect ratio. Look at it this way - if the artists and model designers were told that the image would be stretched horizontally, don't you think they would compensate for it?
That said, I play many games in a stretch/zoom mode. Full stretch is always more distortion than I can take. Buffy should be 5 ft 3, not 3 ft 3! If a game has recognizable real world proportions, like a human figure, I almost always play in the proper aspect ratio. The distortion is just too distracting.
Beach Spikers is the only game where I thought that the proportions actually improved after streching the image a bit.
-Dave

 

but that's just it...most games (at least the ones i've played on my wide set) don't look awkward stretched (while most all TV programming does look weird).

 

If it looks good, and most do, then all is cool by me!

 

Some manufacturers have good stretch modes, and some don't. My HD widescreen Mits seems to make all games look good via X-Box progressive whether the game is 16 x 9 or not ( Halo for a example since everyone thinks Halo is the almighty, Myself , I found Enclave to be supreme master as of yet and I don't think that was 16 x 9 either )

The Game Cube does a great job as well but I decided against the PS2 after renting it and finding the picture very unacceptable.

I have witnessed some bad stretch modes on some RPTV's out there and wont list names for the sake of not stirring anyone up, and they would make watching TV or gaming unpleasant

 

The best looking game out now in Unreal, IMO, widescreen AND FSAA. Looks very nice, I havetn noticed any real sowdown either.