SHIII wide aspect screen monitor - how2fix?

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Originally Posted by Telgriff

It works, at least on some screens. By the looks of it its also dependant on the graphics card. My card had a display setup when I installed it to set the output to 22" Wide screen format. Maybe it depends on the type of output? My card runs through erm...DVI format straight to the screen.

That may well be the case. Some of the options described above simply weren't available to me.

Sounds quite promising given the right setup.

[JScones]

OK, seems a lot of widescreen LCD users are having this problem.

Before going to the trouble of installing the resolution fix (which is a pita for XP SP2 users and may not solve this problem anyway), simply check out your video card settings (via your video card's control panel). nVidia card users (and presumable ATI card users) who have correctly installed their monitor should have the ability to adjust flat panel scaling settings. The usual choices are:

1. Use scaling (default setting)
2. Use fixed aspect scaling
3. Use monitor's in-built scaling (your monitor may have scaling options of its own for you to tinker with)
4. Do not scale

Using #2 or #4 will see SH3 running in 4:3 format. The difference being that #2 will scale the image as large as possible to fill your monitor, but still maintaining a 4:3 ratio.

#1 (and #3 depending on your monitor's scaling settings) will stretch SH3. You'll find that #1 is usually the default setting.

I use #2 with my 22" LCD monitor (with the highest AA and AF to compensate for any up-scale "jaggies") as default for everything and have never experienced visual distortion with any application or game (granted not too many as I've only had this computer for a few weeks) - things that should display widescreen do, and things that shouldn't, don't.

FYI an example of my nVidia settings screen...

[XanderF]

Agreed with JScones comment...for nVidia cards.

Yes, it's true, ATI cards lack one of those options. Amazingly, the most useful one.

"2. Use fixed aspect scaling"

It's just not there. ATI users have been bitching about this for (product) generations, with no progress.

[Jimbuna]

Way to go JS
Just installed my 22" widescreen yesterday and you've confirmed my 'tweaking/adjusting' was correct.
Cheers

[Hitman]

This is a very annoying problem in many "old" games My current LG 1915 TFT runs at 1280x1024 with an aspect ratio of 5:4 instead of the previously common 4:3, and SH3 is stretched vertically Looks really weird. But with SH4 the 5:4 screen mode gives errors in stadimeters ranges , so I have decided to move to a very different style of monitor: I', going to buy a flat TV that can be used for a PC. Why? Because I can get all quality I have in a normal monitor (If it has a good maximum resolution and DVI plug), and I can also with a simple key in the remote control black out the sides of the screen and see it as 4:3, at the expense of losing some size. Plus I can watch TV in the bedroom

I have already taken a look at Samsung models, there are some specifically created as "TV for PCs". I recommend anyone to try that route, as it allows playing games that accept widescreen format and also older games.

[JScones]

Actually, I have a question (one of the rare few) that perhaps someone more up on graphics card settings can help me with.

I currently run SH3 using an nVidia 7950GT card with AF at 16 and AA at 8xS.

Now, my q is, there are many other settings which I can tweak. For example:

Anisotropic mip filter optimization (Off)
Anisotropic sample optimization (Off)
Conformant texture clamp (Hardware)
Extension limit (Off)
Force mipmaps (None)
Gamma correct antialiasing (On)
Hardware acceleration (Single display)
Ignore OpenGL errors (Off)
Negative LOD bias (Clamp)
OpenGL threading (Auto)
Texture filtering (High quality)
Transparency antialiasing (Supersampling)
Trilinear optimization (Off)
Triple buffering (Off)
VSync (Use application settings)

What are the best values for these settings? Performance isn't an issue - I want best graphics quality.

Any help appreciated.

[XanderF]

Normally, I'd argue that the "mip filter optimization" and "sample optimization" should be disabled, as they sacrifice image quality for performance.

HOWEVER...with the GeForce 7-series, it doesn't matter much. The texture filtering has hardware optimizations that are hardcoded, and while changing these settings does improve things a touch, you can't do anything about the hardcoded optimizations. This means that the image quality is ALWAYS going to be quite a bit less when compared the GeForce 8-series or Radeon X1K-series (note the "High Quality" tests which show the optimizations disabled).

Regarding the others:

• Conformant texture clamp (Hardware) - IIRC, this is an OpenGL-only setting (no effect on Direct3d, which the Silent Hunter series uses). Tribes 2, for example, needed this in OpenGL mode.
• Extension limit (Off) - IIRC, again, OpenGL-only. Been a few months since I've had an nVidia card, so don't recall offhand on these last two. Best I recall, they were there largely to resolve compatibility issues with some titles.
• Force mipmaps (None) - Some games don't specify a mipmap blend method. Thus, it defaults to 'none'. This lets you force higher quality mipmap (texture) blending when no method is requested by the game.
• Gamma correct antialiasing (On) - Very nice feature to have. Article on it, here. ATI cards have always done this, and nVidia cards just started offering it with the 7-series.
• Hardware acceleration (Single display) - If you have more than one display, this allows you to define how 3d games/etc is accelerated. Assuming you only have one monitor, or only play games on one monitor in a multi-monitor situation, this is the correct value.
• Ignore OpenGL errors (Off) - Again, another setting to work around various OpenGL issues.
• Negative LOD bias (Clamp) - Prevents games from setting a 'negative LOD bias', which in those titles (IIRC, "IL-2" is one) basically moves all the texture levels one direction out. This improves texture transitions and reduces 'texture shimmering' (where the ground or 'seems' between textures seem to...well...'shimmer')
• OpenGL threading (Auto) - Allows OpenGL calls to be seperated into multiple threads. Could be useful in a multi-CPU (dual core, etc) environment.
• Texture filtering (High quality) - This is actually just a 'catch all' setting. Note when you enable this, some of the settings above become disabled - IE., their behavior is controlled by this value collectively rather than letting the user control each one individually.
• Transparency antialiasing (Supersampling) - Another good one to have. This anti-aliases 'alpha textures' (textures applied to an otherwise solid object that have transparency to them. For example, the 'legs' of the cranes at the docks in the Silent Hunter series, your bridge railings, etc.) ATI calls this feature "adaptive AA", and you can see some 'before and after' pics of it in Sh3 in this thread. Anandtech offers an analysis of nVidia's Transparency AA modes on this page
• Trilinear optimization (Off) - As with the other 'optimization' settings, sacrifices image quality for speed. This is also controlled by the 'texture filtering' setting (IE., disabled when you use that one).
• Triple buffering (Off) - Effects OpenGL only. This allows the 3d application to have a 3rd 'back buffer' to render to rather than the standard 2 (IE., 3d applications typically render to a frame buffer, and this is 'flipped' into the display buffer for you to see the image. With this option enabled, there is a third buffer. In practice, the makes the game interface feel a TOUCH more sluggish - the responsiveness to input is now 50% reduced, obviously - but the average framerate is MUCH more stable. It's less likely that the game can 'gets ahead of the graphics card' in rendering needs, as the card keeps itself busy with an extra buffer over the standard method.
• VSync (Use application settings) - Probably a good idea to force this on. Essentially, your monitor has some refresh rate. This is the rate at which it redraws the screen (effectively locked at 60hz on LCDs, but you can't really tell as LCDs aren't re-drawing the entire screen every 'refresh', while CRTs do). V-sync being enabled forces the buffer 'flip' to wait for the next vertical sync (refresh on your monitor). This has the disadvantage of 'limiting' the game framerate to your monitor's refresh rate (IE., with a refresh of 75hz, the rendered image could never exceed 75fps, the extra power being 'wasted'), on the other hand, when flipping buffers at a different rate than the monitor is refreshing, you basically can get an image split some way down the screen between the two different (adjacent) frames. This effect is referred to as 'tearing' (and that's kinda what it looks like - two similar images, each torn in half, and layed next to each other).