StingingVelvet: Well like Phoenix said, I just don't agree with that at all.

Wishbone: No, I kind of gathered that ;-)

But I'm surprised that you draw the lines that sharp. Are you really saying that "no matter what, under any circumstances, every game will always look better the higher the resolution gets"? You have every right to think that, naturally, I just find it, well, extreme.

eyeball226: Say the game was meant for 640x480, if you picked 853x480 everything on your 16:9 monitor would be the same size, but you'd be using the whole of your screen (and the aspect ratio would be correct).
Of course, I don't think 853 is a permissible horizontal resolution, you might get away with 850 or if not, 800. 800x480 would get you 15x9. You'd be using almost the full resolution of your monitor but with the same level of zoom.

Another nice one would be 1024x576 if your video card will allow 576 (interestingly enough 576 is the vertical resolution of PAL video).

There are other possibilities too, I use this to calculate them: http://andrew.hedges.name/experiments/aspect_ratio

EDIT: I should point out, you need to add them as custom resolutions in your graphics card control panel and then choose them in whatever resolution hack you use.

cogadh: I am intimately familiar with adding custom resolutions (its the only way I can get fixed aspect ratio scaling to work, long story) but it doesn't matter, if it is a res that the monitor does not normally support, it will always look like crap. Maybe it is just my monitor, but trying to run anything other than the limited resolutions it already supports results in an image that looks like the screen is covered with a thick coating of Vaseline.

StingingVelvet: Every 3D game, yes. I don't really see what is odd or confusing about it, to be honest. I wouldn't even know where to start if we debated it further.

cogadh: I am intimately familiar with adding custom resolutions (its the only way I can get fixed aspect ratio scaling to work, long story) but it doesn't matter, if it is a res that the monitor does not normally support, it will always look like crap. Maybe it is just my monitor, but trying to run anything other than the limited resolutions it already supports results in an image that looks like the screen is covered with a thick coating of Vaseline.

cogadh: I am intimately familiar with adding custom resolutions (its the only way I can get fixed aspect ratio scaling to work, long story) but it doesn't matter, if it is a res that the monitor does not normally support, it will always look like crap. Maybe it is just my monitor, but trying to run anything other than the limited resolutions it already supports results in an image that looks like the screen is covered with a thick coating of Vaseline.

cogadh: I love playing games on my big widescreen monitor. The higher resolution and wider field of vision is so much more immersive and enjoyable than the 4:3 resolutions of the "olden days". However, sometimes it seems that widescreen is detrimental to the game, especially with games as old as some of the ones GOG sells.

For example, one of the first things I did after buying and installing Arcanum months ago was install all of the unofficial patches and graphical improvement mods out there, including the widescreen patch. I played it for about five minutes and quit in disgust and with a bad case of eye strain. At 1680X1050, the game is just too "small" to play. I found myself leaning in to squint at my monitor, just to try and follow the gameplay, read text, etc. and was having no fun at all. Extremely disappointing, considering all the good things I had heard about this game since I missed/skipped it the first time around. Today, however, I re-installed the game, with all the patches and mods except the widescreen one. Oh my, what a difference. I could lean back in my chair and actually enjoy the game at its old 4:3 resolution (fixed aspect ratio scaling enabled, of course). The gaming "purist" in me says "this is the way it was meant to be played", but at the same time, I am thinking "who cares if it was meant to played this way, this is simply more fun".

This got me thinking: is widescreen really better? With games designed for the "widescreen era", the answer is obviously "yes", but what about older games like the ones GOG sells? With few exceptions, I am finding that "upscaling" these games to widescreen resolutions just makes them look small and crappy. What good is covering all of my monitor real estate if it make the game suck balls?

Thoughts, opinons?

orcishgamer: It's not that covering all your monitor realestate sucks, it's that doing it at your monitor's ideal resolution makes stuff look tiny as hell.

The problem is, even if you can set a game to the above, I've never owned an LCD that this didn't look crappy on, even my IPS panel Cinema Display.

GameRager: Have you ever tried using the widescreen patchs/fixes/mods along with a gui mod that makes the text and such scale to match the newer higher resolutions? I'm pretty sure PS:Torment has one to make the text and GUIs look right and the right size when playing at higher resolutions. Not sure about your games though.

orcishgamer: I'll give PS:T a shot, it sounds like a good benchmark for it.

Sadly there's old games I play that don't have any patches, even some GOG games (the Empire Earth games look like crap on my machine). Between that and mouse issues (because I dare to use a super sensitive, gaming mouse) some games just piss me off to no end. I usually give up really quick since I have limited gaming time and don't want to waste it doing what feels like work (sometimes I just want my stuff to work, not build a Linux machine from the ground up out of spare parts, and cobble together custom software to do something for "free" - yeah I know this isn't that bad, but you get the point).

GameRager: Well with either widescreen mods or community fixes or ini edits, the games can be quite enjoyable if played at a higher than normal yet still not too high resolution if one can't find a proper gui/text scaling community fix or mod. I do know there is one(or two even) for PS:T though to resize the text and gui though.

orcishgamer: I kind of wish we could just move to vector for text so we could be done with text issues and resolution once and for all. I'm sure some graphic artist or designer of some kind can tell me why that won't work, but until then I'm going to enjoy the fantasy.

GameRager: Does vector scale text with graphics when using higher resolutions? Just curious. I've heard the term before with lighting in games and also vector fog but not much else.

I would still follow the PS:T modding guide which allows one to install/patch/mod for various things like resolution-etc though when installing it to test it, as it makes the process go as pain free and easy as possible.