PC Gaming Standards

[Princess_Frosty]

Hi everyone, I'm a long time PC gamer and recently started coding a website in my spare time http://www.pcgamingstandards.com which I hope everyone can benefit from.

The basic idea is to pool all the known problems with modern games (lack of proper widescreen support, forced Vsync, lack of AA and AF options etc) into one database where they're documented and easy to find, most importantly if known fixes are available these are linked directly to make correcting your problems as easy as possible.

I'd just like to stress that this is a personal project I'm working on in my spare time, it's not commercial in any way, it's not there to make money from traffic, there's no adverts, no sponsors, no associates.

The website is still in very early stages, there maybe some bugs, I'd really appreciate your feedback both on any problems you find but on the features themselves, if you think something can be improved or something vital is missing then please post, PM me or use the contact form on the site.

Also because it's still new there isn't many games added to the database, this is a long job and requires access to the games to confirm if they pass/fail all the catagories, so I cannot do all the work myself, to help I have added a add game button at the bottom of the website which will allow you to submit a game for review which will be checked to the best of my ability and added.

I hope you all find this helpful, it's my honest attempt at giving something back to the PC gaming community. All your feedback is welcome both good and bad, it all helps me improve the site.

 

[Princess_Frosty]

A very quick update, the site had its first recorded live visit on August the 4th which means it's now 2 months old today, I've been keeping an eye on my stats and this morning broken the 10,000 views milestone I set for myself. Thanks for everyone who has taken the time to visit and give me feedback and suggestion for the website, I read them all and have a big update in the works to bring you some of the most requested features.

Big thanks to anyone who took time out of their day to research a game and submit the details, remember to add your name in the submit form to be added to the contributors list on the about page, thanks you!

 

[sneak_copter]

Advertising. There is a link at the bottom of all pages if you wish to inquire about paid advertising. Taking all things, such as post count into consideration, advertising in posts is genuinely looked down upon.

Welcome to the Escapist.

 

[Insomniactk]

Great idea, I'm surprised this haven't been done before.
Gonna check it out.

 

[Darktau]

It may be advertising, but at least it's actually useful
Seems like a good idea to me

 

[Crossborder]

This sounds awesome. I'm going to check it out

 

[Liberaliterr]

Awesome site, really coming along well .

 

[Flour]

Interesting, going to bookmark this for when I get a computer that can actually run recent games at a decent resolution.

Personally I'd like to see an "all" function. But that's mainly because I like using lists like this to help me decide which game(s) to buy.

 

[SomethingUnrelated]

PC Game developers need to realise that not evewryone owns a supercomputer. They need to make them easier to run on more ordinary computers.

 

[klakkat]

PC Game developers need to realise that not evewryone owns a supercomputer. They need to make them easier to run on more ordinary computers.

Well, you're usually going to have to turn to independent developers for that; I've seen a number of newer games (usually only on Steam, XBLA, direct download from a site, etc) that don't require good stats from your comp, and I'm not talking about flash games (though, those are also available). Mainstream developers have to make a huge splash in the first week with their games, so they need to be as pretty as can be accomplished; so, don't expect big developers to ever tone down their requirements.

 

[Optimus Hagrid]

I'd request a section for if the game supports all that pixel/vertex shading nonsense, but it wouldn't fit in with the rest of the site. At all :/

PC Game developers need to realise that not evewryone owns a supercomputer. They need to make them easier to run on more ordinary computers.

My card doesn't even support normal mapping. Was devastated when I couldn't run TF2.

Yet I've had hours of countless fun playing countless lower-spec older and indie games. Why the hell can't developers pick up on this and make games lower spec?

 

[Princess_Frosty]

Thanks guys.

I don't consider this advertising, what am I advertising exactly? The site doesn't sell any product or service, it doesn't contain any advertising or in fact any method for making money.

It's my personal website built by a gamer to benefit other gamers, if the moderators believe this falls under advertising then by all means have the thread removed, I'm just trying to give something back to the PC community.

 

[Nutcase]

Feedback time!

(at the site)

Vert- is a bad way to implement widescreen; the problem is you?re cutting off parts of the screen which were originally intended to be displayed and you?re presenting the user with a physically wider monitor but you?re not giving them additional horizontal FOV (Field Of View) which can lead to an unnatural claustrophobic like feeling.

No. Correct FOV is a function of three things - personal preference, physical distance from the screen, and physical width of the screen. Screen aspect ratio does not enter into it. There is no single correct way to do widescreen. What you call Vert- and Vert+ as well as letter/pillar/windowboxing are all totally appropriate for some situations. Only stretching is obviously inferior.

Also, I'd like to see an additional column of data which would indicate the types of DRM used on the game (usually several ones that vary according to region and distribution channel). This information is generally harder to find than the type of widescreen support, especially when you are trying to determine which copy of the game is the least encumbered.

 

[Princess_Frosty]

FOV is largely down to developer preference as to how they want to make their game appear, as much as i'd like to use FOV in the standards on it own, I cannot because it really hinders developer preference. Which is a shame because games like Bioshock shipped with a very small FOV, something that console users are used to, when for PC users it should be a lot higher, this backs up what you say about distance from screen.

However when you change the ratio of the screen height to width you have to change the FOV accordingly to stop the image from stretching and distorting in comparison to the original. Any game that uses vert- makes widescreen look increasingly more awful the wider you set your aspect ratio. It's only just noticeable for traditional 16:10 or 16:9 widescreen and a little offputting, but with TH2G and AMDs new Eyefinity where 3 wide monitors in a 3x1 configuration is possible, this is a big problem indeed.

There are only a few rare exceptions where you might consider vert- a bonus, things where you require a fixed width for all players like oldschool side scrollers for example.

 

[Nutcase]

However when you change the ratio of the screen height to width you have to change the FOV accordingly to stop the image from stretching and distorting in comparison to the original. Any game that uses vert- makes widescreen look increasingly more awful the wider you set your aspect ratio. It's only just noticeable for traditional 16:10 or 16:9 widescreen and a little offputting, but with TH2G and AMDs new Eyefinity where 3 wide monitors in a 3x1 configuration is possible, this is a big problem indeed.
There are only a few rare exceptions where you might consider vert- a bonus, things where you require a fixed width for all players like oldschool side scrollers for example.

Nope. Bioshock is an example of a game where vert- was probably appropriate. It was designed for 16:9 resolution, so out of "normal" displays, ones sporting that aspect ratio are going to be the best to experience it with.

But the devs must support 4:3 displays as well. How? Letterboxed 16:9 is the option perfectly faithful to the original design. However, many will find the black bars distracting, so the devs might as well render on top of the bars. This is what you call vert-, and makes perfect sense in a single-player FPS like Bioshock. It's not that widescreen players see "less", although they do; it's that 4:3 players see more than intended.

Should FOV be different for the two? Well, depends on the viewing angle. A 21" 4:3 screen has about as much physical width as a 19" widescreen. Assuming they are sitting at the same distance, the FOV on them should be identical, no matter what it actually is (determined primarily by developer, secondarily by user preference).

Exotic display solutions with extreme viewing angles just don't matter that much at the moment. To make them work "nicely", the only way is to have user set the FOV manually, because only the user knows the actual viewing angles. Then there is the whole can of worms of perspective correction which isn't even on the radar yet, and the fact that design considerations (making a competetive game fair, for instance) will quite often result in hard-capped FOV and viewport anyway.

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

Thanks guys.

I don't consider this advertising, what am I advertising exactly? The site doesn't sell any product or service, it doesn't contain any advertising or in fact any method for making money.

It's my personal website built by a gamer to benefit other gamers, if the moderators believe this falls under advertising then by all means have the thread removed, I'm just trying to give something back to the PC community.

Well to clarify, this does fall on the borderline of the "no advertising" rule, because you are promoting your site (intentionally or not) - of course, you aren't selling anything but it still counts as advertising, in the same way that if someone made a topic saying 'click my minicity link' would be advertising.

Still, this has promoted discussion anyway, so don't worry about it.

Also, I love that you put "Alt Tab functionality" - I always tend to do an "Alt Tab test" for games so I know whether or not minimized the game will either fuck everything or simply pause it.

I remember when a pop up would come up during counter strike back in the day, and oh man did that cause all sorts of problems.

Also, I want to throw some things in:

Ability to re-bind keys, and side mouse button support. I have some friends who like to use the Arrow Keys, and some modern games nowadays don't have side mouse button support nor let you rebind keys and that's just weird to me.

 

[Novacain4862]

Love also that you added the Alt-Tab thing. I hate games that go to hell when you want to alt tab out ie. TF2. Also All games should be able to be windowed. That should be a staple for all PC games coming out. I mean, yea it's not gonna be popular with everyone but for the people who want to go windowed can and be happy :3. Um I think a recent game who didn't have Windowed mode was maybe Anno 1404 but I may be wrong.

 

[Princess_Frosty]

Nope. Bioshock is an example of a game where vert- was probably appropriate. It was designed for 16:9 resolution, so out of "normal" displays, ones sporting that aspect ratio are going to be the best to experience it with.

But the devs must support 4:3 displays as well. How? Letterboxed 16:9 is the option perfectly faithful to the original design. However, many will find the black bars distracting, so the devs might as well render on top of the bars. This is what you call vert-, and makes perfect sense in a single-player FPS like Bioshock. It's not that widescreen players see "less", although they do; it's that 4:3 players see more than intended.

Should FOV be different for the two? Well, depends on the viewing angle. A 21" 4:3 screen has about as much physical width as a 19" widescreen. Assuming they are sitting at the same distance, the FOV on them should be identical, no matter what it actually is (determined primarily by developer, secondarily by user preference).

Exotic display solutions with extreme viewing angles just don't matter that much at the moment. To make them work "nicely", the only way is to have user set the FOV manually, because only the user knows the actual viewing angles. Then there is the whole can of worms of perspective correction which isn't even on the radar yet, and the fact that design considerations (making a competetive game fair, for instance) will quite often result in hard-capped FOV and viewport anyway.

I think in most games the idea is the vertical field of view is fixed at a certain amount no matter what the screen, and so as the width increases or decreases you increase or decrease the FOV to compensate. This stops any letterboxing which is clearly not desireable since you're cutting off parts of the screen, and it also stops stretching or distortion.

Remember even if you make your game in 16:9 as your default resolution and you talk about methods to scale this to 4:3 you also have to conisder how that method acts when you scale upwards to super wide for 3 monitors.

Horz+ is a scaling method that deals with all screen sizes in the best way possisble, even if you start with 16:9 and you scale down to 4:3 you're simply removing data from either side of the screen which makes sense because you have less vertical width.

Horz+ allows the horizontal FOV to naturally scale with the width of your screen as a ratio to the height (aspect ratio) so any screen no matter how wide has an appropirate FOV.

If you run vert- and you apply really wide aspect ratios for tripple monitor it becomes unplayable because you're dropping to about 10% of the original screen space and you lose almost all of your vertical view and are left with a width that is still approx 90 degrees which is totally inappropriate for such a wide display.

Basically if you're getting a wider screen you want more info on the sites of your viewport which means a wider horizontal FOV, this means as the aspect ratio goes up for width you want your "width FOV" to go up.

Put in terms you think of it, it's a fixed height equation, you'd move your monitor closer or further away to get the height (vertical) FOV correct first, so any changes in physical screen size would already be taken into account.

 

[Nutcase]

I think in most games the idea is the vertical field of view is fixed at a certain amount no matter what the screen, and so as the width increases or decreases you increase or decrease the FOV to compensate. This stops any letterboxing which is clearly not desireable since you're cutting off parts of the screen, and it also stops stretching or distortion.

Remember even if you make your game in 16:9 as your default resolution and you talk about methods to scale this to 4:3 you also have to conisder how that method acts when you scale upwards to super wide for 3 monitors.
Horz+ is a scaling method that deals with all screen sizes in the best way possisble, even if you start with 16:9 and you scale down to 4:3 you're simply removing data from either side of the screen which makes sense because you have less vertical width.

False. All the currently used ways of adapting to alternative aspect ratios, including horz+, assume small, flat screens. Within that environment all of them have an appropriate use. And all of them, including horz+, turn to shit on extremely large-angle setups. There is no single right answer or box to check when it comes to this.

If you don't see why these techniques are inadequate, draw an overhead diagram of a really large multi-screen setup and examine how pixels per angle changes in different parts of the view area.