after using the widescreen mod for Bioshock, I think the developer goofed too. But now there's a mod so no worries. About the copyprotection, the retail game played fine for me and whenever a real crack comes out, I'll have that to reinstall the game. Again, no worries.

I have to say, even though I love Irrational games (they'll always be Irrational to me, as 2K Boston is just gay...;)), the way they implemented widescreen and the activation method are really big missteps. I know they'll fix them, but it's a little confusing how they could make such goofy decisions.

I don't even know why I'm replying to this.. a day late, and you (zeph) barely replied to my first post, but whatever:

You don’t get it do you? Technology isn’t going to wait on you. Technology doesn’t stop. When the flood gates up & true 64-bit computing is available without barriers so that people can have 16,000 Gigs of RAM, then that’s the direction computing will go.

I don't know if you know what a "64-bit" processor actually is, but I do and it's not the revolution you seem to think it is. At best it represents a processor which is twice as fast/efficient as a 32 bit equivalent. In reality applications of a 64bit instruction, result, or address space are not exceptionally common and I'd expect the actual speed gain of a 64bit processor to be around the 1.5 mark. This is ignoring the types of nonlinearities associated with an increased bus size which inevitably results in increased power and heat disipation requirements.

Furthermore, it isn't alack of address space which keeps us from throwing 10 or more gigs of RAM in a home computer. That problem is easy to overcome, what's not easy to engineer is ram which can perform reasonably fast when the associated amount of excess wiring/transistrs is put in close proximity. I alluded to the memory latency bottleneck in my last post, but now I'm going to own you (with the help of intel's Platform 2015 (ftp://download.intel.com/technology/computing/archinnov/platform2015/download/Platform_2015.pdf) and this paper: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/papers/Hitting_Memory_Wall-wulf94.pdf).

Both outline the problem of the memory bottleneck. While CPU speeds have grown at an annual rate of 55%, memory speed has only improved 10%. Of special note, is the complete LACK of bus size as a topic of intel's 2015 platform.. in other words, the leaders of the CPU market don't see any serious benefit to future computing, so please STFU about how 64 bit processors are going to revolutionize the industry.

I wouldn’t be surprised if in 15-20years we needed 128bit systems.

You. Are. Fucking. Retarded.

Ever hear of Moore’s Law dumbfuck?

Moore's law has nothing to do with bus or instruction size. It relates only to the size of transistors, or how many we can fit onto a single chip. More transistors does not result directly in larger instructions, those extra transistors are generally used as more on-chip cache or registers. Another doubling of register size would result in no useful gains for video gamers... No game progammer has ever implemented a system for performing 128bit math on a 64bit processor and thought to themselves "gee, I wish I could do this in hardware". That level of precision has no application in videogames.

I encourage you to read through that intel document I linked, it outlines fairly conservatively the future of computing. Parallelism is in, as is on chip memory. Intel's paper suggest something in the gigabyte range for on chip memory.. nothing like your ludicrous claims of 16,000 gigs. Just because bus size increased from 8 to 16, to 32 fairly quickly don't assume that futher increases will result. Notice how long we used 32 bit processors, and notice how slow the 64 bit adoption was. 32 bit processors reigned for well over a decade, and 64 bit processors will likely have a longer lifetime. Architectures are no longer capable of acheiving speed increases in this way, they have to get smarter as opposed to just getting larger.

Fuck, in a few years they’re going to be talking about holographic television because of the wide-open space and breathing room that 64-bit computing will provide.

A 64 bit architecture doesn't enable holographic television, a fucking holographic medium enables it.

I’ll have the right video card and if I had a widescreen monitor

?? So you're entire rant about widescreen monitors was bullshit... say it aint so!

That’s what widescreen does for you when it works!!!! I’ve explained that if you have a 22” monitor 4:3 & a 22” monitor at 16:9..

QFT. Stop comparing widescreen monitors of the "same size" to 4:3 monitors of the same size. The comparison is NOT valid, one is SMALLER than the other.

I know right now that a lot of you are scratching your heads and thinking no, no, that’s not how it works.

No one is scratching their heads about this, we are just confused as to why you are comparing 22" widescreends to 22" 4:3's, as the comparison is not valid. Compare the widescreen to a 4:3 of the same height, that is the valid comparison to make...

Post #63 by Zephalephelah:
Okay kwyjibo, I’m going to take you seriously & tell you what’s up. In the 90’s when 32bit Windows took over the scene, people had to upgrade their systems at least every 6 months.

From an earlier comment in the same post I don't get the impression that you're a high-end/bleeding edge gamer, so I have no idea who or what made you upgrade your system every 6 months. I have no idea who these other "people" are either. No one I know has ever put themselves into such an upgrade loop. Perhaps you and these people have money to burn, I really can't say.

I consider myself a mid-range hardware type of guy when it comes to gaming, and have always been able to play current games without problems. My first PC was purchased in 1989 and since then I've upgraded 4 times, for a total of 5 computers. The last two have been the only ones that I've had to perform "update upgrades" (ie video card or RAM). So all things considered my upgrade schedule has been roughly every 3 years. I realize, especially in the last few years, that hardware is improving exponentially and I have no problem upgrading when necessary. However, my card still decent and is still considered a mid-range video card, and looking at video card comparison charts confirm that. What really irks me is when developers but in intentional blocks to prevent things from working, and from my understanding the Unreal engine that Bioshock is using does support the earlier pixel shaders.

Anyways, it was just an observation/comment on my part. My card is still good enough to play everything else on the market so I have no intention of shelling out $200+ for a new card just for one game.

In the meantime I stand by my assertion that the whining and dumbassery surrounding this widescreen thing is really fucking boring

Then why are you here man? Seriously? If you don't find the fact that you're getting 44% less real estate in Bioshock on your widescreen monitor to be a problem, why are you even BOTHERING to read a thread about it? Or post that you think the whining about it is really boring?

It's BORING to you, and yet you still choose to comment on it?

Again, you don't find it a problem, great. More power to you. Enjoy your small cropped game. I DO find it a problem. It's the year two thousand fucking seven. I shouldn't have to play a game as if it's 1996.

Just because YOU don't find it a problem doesn't mean that it isn't for everyone else.

Creston

Just because something is popular doesn’t make it a wise decision you fuckin’ Sheeple moron!

And sometimes things get popular because they're fucking better than what came before it. Things aren't more awesomer just because you're clinging to some counterculture bullshit like it gives you a reason to keep breathing intelligent people's air. So go listen to your shit on vinyl, watch your big old CRT and spank your monkey to Farrah Fawcett because that's what real men did when you were growing up. Nobody fucking cares.


And typing in ALL CAPS doesn't make what you say right, by the way.


And by the way, you're not special because you're old enough to have owned an Apple IIGS or a Ti-99. Myself, and probably half the board, are just as old as you are and had the same stuff when we were younger. Those things were crap, by the way, in comparison to newer things. CRT televisions are absolute garbage compared to plasma or LCD televisions now, especially so when watching something made for the aspect ratio of the television.

Some other people here gave good replies to why you're a fucktard, but seriously man... before you start calling people names you might want to stop that peanut in your skull from rattling around long enough to get something more than anecdotal crap about your brother buying a shit TV so all LCD's must be garbage.

we have the 30 inch dell flatpanel its actually a bit too large for games -- you find yourself looking left and right and even up and down a lot. It depends how close you are to the display of course. I think a 24inch widescreen is ideal for PC games assuming you are about 2 feet feet away. You might want to save your $$ and get a 24 inch or at least find someone with the 30 inch dell screen before you buy.

wow, Zephalephelah keep beating that dead horse....

This comment was edited on Aug 22, 14:37.

NM...you're talking about monitor size, which is retarded...jesus I don't know why I responded.

27" widescreen here....I'm not going to be more accurate on a 27" 4:3 you retard. It's already taking up most of my view.

Then for you, the monitor is truly bigger because the height is around the same as most other people's decent-sized monitors. So for you, when you play, you just plain see more. Everything is the same size & you get more. Of course, unless you have a really awesome LCD then you have all sorts of other limitations; but I get what you're saying.

But if you did have a 27" 4:3, then enemies would be larger than they are now for you. However, as you say, the effect is somewhat diminished due to the fact that you have such a large monitor. I've been eyeing the 30" dell WS for quite awhile now, but I keep holding off because my ancient CRT is still superior & it's kinda big enough.

Some people balk and say there's no such thing as big enough, but as you increase display size, you also increase pixel size. Ever look at a really gigantic monster TV before and realize that you can notice the pixilation? That's too big. I saw a fight recently with a projector system and a screen over 100inches. He played video games on it too. Besides all the technical problems of those things (lights out to see good at all, etc.), the thing that bothered me was that although people were life-sized just like the guys drinking beer in the room with me, they looked really grainy.

I suppose you could crank up the resolution, but the bigger the display the lower the maximum resolution. Not all the time, but you get what you pay for. I just don't like the soft look of large displays. Again, the only way to really see this is to have two units side by side. Until you do that, then you're just pretending to have good quality because you spent too much money on BIG instead of GOOD.

looking at the screenshots that show what one is missing when using widescreen, the developers really goofed here. It doesnt break the game and folks saying they wont buy the game now are deeply over-reacting. its a game.

Bummer, I waited several years to play this game....

I'm just glad I managed to put off upgrading my aging AGP computer just for this game, 2 installs? W T F.

Good times.

Bring on the next big thing, this one is done

edit:

I guess I'll just go back to 'almost' deciding to buy a 360.

This comment was edited on Aug 22, 13:05.

2K boards are being hit so hard with complaints, their site only comes up half the time. Make note this isn't the only issue with this game, some people like myself cant get past the first door without crashing into blackness.

Bummer, I waited several years to play this game....

Im pretty torn here, I'm a huge fan of these guys, but these bugs are ridiculous.

EDIT: actually the site only comes up 1 in 5 times now.... are they out of bandwidth due to authorizations? or complaints?

This comment was edited on Aug 22, 11:41.

Having said that, how many wide screen players even noticed? Without comparison shots, you'd be hard pressed to even tell that they are using a dodgy implementation and I'd guess that 99% of players, myself included, wouldn't have noticed. I'd have just selected the 16:10 resolution, seen that things don't look stretched not thought of it again. That they are cutting out the top and bottom rather than adding to the sides wouldn't have occurred to me.

I wouldn't have noticed but now that I know I am disappointed. There is no need for dodgy implementations of widescreen and for a game that pushes the boundaries with technology (requires PS3.0, supports DX10) it seems silly to cut corners with widescreen support.

NEway, my 8800GTS arrived today and so I gave the demo a whirl (it wouldn't even play on my X850XT). I started with XP, selected 1680x1050 and loaded up the game. Performance was great and it looked a lot better than the X360 version (especially the running water later in the demo). Then I decided to bootup into Vista 64bit and try out DX10 mode... well, it started in a window and then gave me a whole load of fuss even when I selected the correct resolution (it had borders, so it didn't seem to like it). I played it briefly but I couldn't tell any real difference, other than performance was more choppy. I'll have another look later and probably format and reinstall Vista but it's a little disappointing - I was expecting a big improvement when it came to water. I bought Vista Ultimate OEM at release but I've barely used it... performance seems to be seriously lacking and, as Bioshock has demonstrated, it doesn't work as well as XP for games.

I look forward to playing the full version and really hope this whole widescreen issue is fixed. It's not that is compromises the game or even that it's particularly bad/noticeable but it's just unnecessary. Still, it won't really bother me that much if it doesn't get fixed.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Founder of the "I Hate Smiley Fitz" society

Remember: Riley has autism. He has trouble communicating, and in an overstimulating
environment, he can get frightened and run away, leaving his parents frantic. - Auburn

If you want some more details on what exactly happened and how the fix works, check googlestater's post:

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11658&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=325

He provides the correct numbers to plug into your FOV fix utility, based on the type of monitor you have. Interestingly he points out "the reason this works is that the devs designed the game to have a constant FOV of 75 degrees, regardless of your resolution, which is where thier unwanted zoom comes in the picture". Not cool for PC gamers, is it?

Now that we have a fix, let the rampant speculation on the choice of a constant 75 degree FOV begin! I don't care if they built the game around Standard Definition TVs running consoles and didn't bother testing WS. I'm gonna go play.
s{
This comment was edited on Aug 22, 11:29.

NM...you're talking about monitor size, which is retarded...jesus I don't know why I responded.

27" widescreen here....I'm not going to be more accurate on a 27" 4:3 you retard. It's already taking up most of my view.

This comment was edited on Aug 22, 11:15.

Indeed, monitor size has little to do with how accurate you are. That's mouse sensitivity and hand/eye co-ordination. On a bigger monitor (or in this case, a taller monitor) the target will be bigger but the ease at which you can get your cross hair on it is exactly the same. Larger just has the advantage that if you're being sniped from 500m, the sniper is just that little bit easier to see.

Quboid

Heaven help me for agreeing with Zeph but I think it's a fair generalisation to say that a larger monitor is better than a smaller one. Whether or not that's the case with penis size is more debatable! Also if he's above or below you, you have lost the advantage of extra width because the extra width is irrelevant at that time. You're not at a disadvantage either, unless the smaller size makes you miss seeing him.

IMHO wide screen is much nicer for gaming and I'll be upgrading as soon as I have the money. However, this discussion, surprise surprise, is silly. A 22" 16:10 monitor is different to a 22" 16:12 (4:3) monitor. The screen area is smaller and I'd say that is worse, but comparisons really can't be made.

Wide screen is the future, of that I'm sure, and it's silly to not implement it properly these days. Having said that, how many wide screen players even noticed? Without comparison shots, you'd be hard pressed to even tell that they are using a dodgy implementation and I'd guess that 99% of players, myself included, wouldn't have noticed. I'd have just selected the 16:10 resolution, seen that things don't look stretched not thought of it again. That they are cutting out the top and bottom rather than adding to the sides wouldn't have occurred to me.

AND WHY THE FUCK DOES FIREFOX KEEP IGNORING MY ARROW KEYS, PAGE KEYS AND CTRL KEY???

Quboid

What a dumbass analogy.

A screen, of any kind, is a 2D representation of a 3D world.


That was so funny though. Man, too damn funny. Do you have a PayPal account I can send you some money too? Such good times.



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Enahs, you're not being reasonable. You're just trying to rationalize your purchase.

If you are aiming a gun at a person in real life & that person is standing 6 feet tall & 100 feet away from you then he is going to be easier to shoot than if that same 6 foot tall man is standing 150 feet away.

But hey, while you are missing your shots more often, at least you can see more to the sides...

Now honestly, think about it. When you're looking at pron or something and you want to "inspect" it, what do you do? You click on the magnify button, right?

Get with the times man. Porn is now WS and HD. Your argument is invalid!

So while you're playing Bioshock or anything other game in Letterbox & I'm playing in 4:3, guess what, I can see more clearly because things are "closer" to me than they are for you (all things being equal & we both have 22inch monitors).

This is not true.
Clarity is not only tied to the size. It is tied to the distance you are from the screen. The quality of the screen. The persons vision. A smaller screen can easily look better and more clear then a screen 4X the size.


Some people do not see in color as well. Some people the flickering of a CRT hurts there eyes (not me, I have both a CRT and LCD, I love them both equally). Some people have horrible vision in a range from there eyes to 2ft out, but past that it is great, or reversed. Etc etc etc. It is not a one size fits all thing.

You might have a slight advantage by being able to see a bit more peripherially, but if I'm shooting from a vantage point above or below you, then you've lost that advantage. Additionally, you're a larger target on my screen, so again any advantage is lost.

Since I see the same amount of data as you vertically, no, I have not lost that advantage. It is just smaller. Smaller does not intrinsically make it better or worse. We are talking about monitors here, not penis size.


Your arguments are invalid.



It is all a matter of preference.












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This comment was edited on Aug 22, 10:51.