Quote:It is not that hard to accommodate both ratios. Unless you plan on having some special scene where an object fills the viewport exactly, the code to support both is relatively painless.Hm, I'm not sure what you mean. Can you clarify?
Quote:When you put black bars, you're potentially inducing to cause screen burn-ins because 1/4 - 1/3 of the screen has been completely still in black for countless hours (of gameplay)Ah, I hadn't thought of this - will definitely take it into consideration.
Interestingly, I realized about it when I read my LCD's manual which didn't recommend the 4:3 mode (which puts black bars on the sides) because it can potentially cause burn-ins or differences in brightness when you remove those bars.
Quote:Gameplay advantages coming from Hardware differences are inevitable.Agreed. As you note though, what effect variations in hardware will have depends on the game. I think there are some types of games (the game I'm working on falls in this category) where aspect ratio is more likely to affect gameplay than some of the other variables you mentioned (system speed, input devices, sound, etc.). In these cases, I think trying to address the aspect ratio issue can be important from a gameplay perspective.
Quote:Original post by Pete MichaudInteresting articles - thanks for the links!
I tackled this exact issue for Kōtiro, but I approached it a little differently. I wanted to strike the right balance between visibility and emotional connection:
Resolution and Emotional Connection
Then I followed it up with this, which covers what actual distances mean:
Environment Conventions
Quote:Original post by SlatherThat's an interesting idea as well. (I wasn't able to run your demo - probably due to my outdated hardware - but the screenshots look very nice!)
You can limit the vision distance with something other than the screen edge like fading objects past a distance threshold, using fog, "fog of war" (ala Warcraft), or something more creative. Instead of cutting the view area down to a single size, make it so the extra view space doesn't show the player anything that would give them an advantage.
Quote:Original post by Matias GoldbergThe screen in the picture is a plasma. Modern LCDs are not supposed to suffer from image retention at all, while plasmas do, and are generally not used for gaming for exactly that reason. Devs throwing a bone to plasma owners, like a slowly moving background picture instead of black bars, is obviously not much work and offset some image retention, but that isn't enough to make your software "burn-in proof". For that, you also couldn't have a static score counter, a health bar, or anything of the sort. In short, not worth doing. The only thing that works is not to get a plasma in the first place, or to obey the owner's manual and strongly moderate the relative amount of gaming and off-aspect video viewing you do on it.
I just want to point out a technical element that is often (and can't be) left out:
When you put black bars, you're potentially inducing to cause screen burn-ins because 1/4 - 1/3 of the screen has been completely still in black for countless hours (of gameplay)
Interestingly, I realized about it when I read my LCD's manual which didn't recommend the 4:3 mode (which puts black bars on the sides) because it can potentially cause burn-ins or differences in brightness when you remove those bars.
Quote:Gameplay advantages coming from Hardware differences are inevitable.So what advantage do people with fast systems have in a fighting game, in comparison to people with systems with average HW specs and reasonable graphics settings? I'm thinking none.
This doesn't apply just to aspect ratio.
People with fast systems have advantage in Fighting & Racing games than those with slow HW (or other fast paced games).
Quote:Gamepads often have less lag than keyboards to get the input (don't ask me why). Players playing with gamepads in fast paced games have again advantage over keyboard-usersGot a link, or any information at all about this supposed systemic keyboard lag? I do not believe it exists. There are valid reasons to use a gamepad or arcade stick over keyboard, of course - accuracy of input, speed of input, and analog input capability. Key jamming and ghosting are legit issues for users of low-quality keyboards but can always be rectified by switching to a high-quality keyboard.
Quote:Original post by Stroppy Katamari
The screen in the picture is a plasma. Modern LCDs are not supposed to suffer from image retention at all, while plasmas do, and are generally not used for gaming for exactly that reason. Devs throwing a bone to plasma owners, like a slowly moving background picture instead of black bars, is obviously not much work and offset some image retention, but that isn't enough to make your software "burn-in proof". For that, you also couldn't have a static score counter, a health bar, or anything of the sort. In short, not worth doing. The only thing that works is not to get a plasma in the first place, or to obey the owner's manual and strongly moderate the relative amount of gaming and off-aspect video viewing you do on it.
Quote:Alex Fry: Very sensible. But as you probably know, most of the latency in gaming today comes from the processing going on in the LCD TV. They often have five, ten frames of latency.
Quote:So what advantage do people with fast systems have in a fighting game, in comparison to people with systems with average HW specs and reasonable graphics settings? I'm thinking none.
Quote:
I see differences of network lag, selective use of low graphics settings and cheating to be much more prominent technical issues than possible hardware advantage.
Quote:Got a link, or any information at all about this supposed systemic keyboard lag? I do not believe it exists. There are valid reasons to use a gamepad or arcade stick over keyboard, of course - accuracy of input, speed of input, and analog input capability.
Quote:Key jamming and ghosting are legit issues for users of low-quality keyboards but can always be rectified by switching to a high-quality keyboard.
Quote:Original post by Matias GoldbergNo, the point of this thread is fairness in a competetive setting with different sets of hardware. "The same exact experience" requires either the same exact hardware, or hard-capping the game to the weakest supported hardware.Quote:So what advantage do people with fast systems have in a fighting game, in comparison to people with systems with average HW specs and reasonable graphics settings? I'm thinking none.
Better response as they can predict enemy movements more fluently and input faster.
Also, you're comparing a High-end system with an "average HW specs and reasonable graphics settings".
You have to compare high-end, average, and below average. Unless you're not targeting the last group. Oh, but the point of this thread is to include as more people as possible having the same (exact?) experience, so we can't exclude them.
Quote:I have no idea what that has to do with anything.Quote:
I see differences of network lag, selective use of low graphics settings and cheating to be much more prominent technical issues than possible hardware advantage.
Ahh, yes. But single player also comes into discussion here.
How many times you've heard someone "For god sake I've pressed the damn key! why didn't he move??!" or "WTF? it stalled for 1 second and now I'm dead??"
Quote:One crappy keyboard != endemic keyboard lag. The vast majority of gamers never have trouble with their keyboards, and do not even specifically pick a keyboard for gaming, much less get a gamepad to fight some widespread lag problem with keyboards which I maintain does not exist.Quote:Got a link, or any information at all about this supposed systemic keyboard lag? I do not believe it exists. There are valid reasons to use a gamepad or arcade stick over keyboard, of course - accuracy of input, speed of input, and analog input capability.
My keyboard for example.
A cheap USB Genius Keyboard that came with my Mobo. It lags as hell (and I still don't know why) compared to my other PS/2 keyboards.
Quote:No. I neglected to mention that games are already designed around those issues, so successfully that the majority of gamers are oblivious even to the possibility of these phenomena. A keyboard which jams and ghosts so badly that it's unusable is an exception, just as a keyboard with lag is. Replacing such a keyboard with a normal, functional one is the reasonable fix. Software cannot accommodate every deficient piece of HW in existence. The line of minimal requirements has to be drawn somewhere.Quote:Key jamming and ghosting are legit issues for users of low-quality keyboards but can always be rectified by switching to a high-quality keyboard.
Ahh.... so we arrive at the original problem: Fairness of the game when dealing with different Hardware.
The solution you're proposing is analogous to forcing everyone to buy a 4:3 monitor (or whatever the developer decided) or else you can't play the game.
