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[PrettyBoy]

I am having issues with the resolution, and aspect ratio while playing smoking guns. I, as all people these days do, have a 16:9 monitor. The game restricts all FOV to be 90, which is okay on a 4:3 monitor, but is completely unacceptable on a 16:9 monitor. SG achieves 16:9 aspect ratio not by adding more to the sides, but by chopping off the top and bottom. I get a headache when playing so zoomed in.

For whatever reason, the ability is to change your FOV is locked (a pretty short sighted decision) due to "Cheating". This doesn't make any sense, as you must reload when you apply new graphics settings. People cannot just change their FOV on the fly.

Right now, SG is unbearable due to the ridiculous field of view, or lack there of. I want my enemies to be more than 2 pixel when they are more than just a few feet away, and I do not want to deal with tunnel vision from being so zoomed in. Other games don't have this issue, why does SG?

How can I fix this, and make SG enjoyable?

[TheDoctor]

I cannot comment on why cg_fov did become locked, as I wasn't involved. Currently, there are no signs there will ever be a newer version of SG than the current one, so the situation may never change.

Anyhow, did you check all possibilities that

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r_fullscreen 0 or r_fullscreen 1
r_mode -1 together with r_customwidth and r_customheight

offer?

If you insist on not be able to solve the problem, please consider to post a screenshot (or even a photo of your monitor) which shows the problem in your eyes. This may (or may not) motivate someone to look into a change.

[TheDoctor]

OK, I just figured out, if the custom resolution exceeds 1920 horizontally or 1080 vertically, r_fullscreen does not scale/stretch to full screen but does introduce black borders.

Is this the problem you are having?

[PrettyBoy]

So, there are a couple of resolution options I am given from the SG menu. I am given all of the standard 4:3 resolutions that range from 320*240 to 2048*1536, as well as the 16:9 "wide screen" options that range from 856*480 through 2560*1600, and finally a last option that SG calls 1280*720[16:9 HD]. I am currently using 800*600 as it is the only 4:3 resolution that will full screen on my computer, but this makes everything look blocky and quite poor when inflated to the size of my 24" monitor. What I would like to use is 1920*1080, however this chops off the top and bottom making it too zoomed in, which makes me rather nauseous. The last option, 1280*720[16:9 HD] looks good as well however this one appears to zoom the most, so I don't even consider it an option.

My issue that I would like to resolve is that the beautiful 1920*1080 option is too zoomed in, and unplayable. the 800*600 is less so zoomed in, (black bars on the side, and no chopped off top or bottom) but makes everything so blocky and pixelated.

If there is a fix for this, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you...

[gunsmoker]

Yes, I am suffering from this as well. I will post some screen shots later when I get home and am able to get some uploaded. I want to use the HD option but it zooms in. I too have to use the 800x600 option but the graphics get really bad(all blocks).

A common problem I have when bringing people to this game is complaints of the bad graphics. I always just chalked it up to being an old game, however, recently when trying different options I found that the HD option graphics look good, but are unusable due to the fact that it zooms in and part of the screen is cut off.

I noticed this when the first screen shots were posted about the new engine and the graphics looked so much better. I see how it is because I have been using the poor resolution and have been unable to use the HD option

[gunsmoker]

Ok, I was able to take some pictures to show what is happening. attached is a couple photos. first is with 800X600, next is the 1080 option, also I included the HD16:9 option for 3 pictures. I took the pictures in two different spots to show it. It shows that it cuts the top and bottom off, but also makes the picture more clear. Thank you for your input.

I too get eye strain and nausea from it being zoomed in but prefer the better picture. PrettyBoy and I have been playing a bunch lately and getting some of our friends to play too. We are attempting to get regular bank robbery games started again, however this does lessen the experience.


Okay, I am unable to post the picture because it is asking for web address but the pictures are on my computer. I will try to figure out a way to do it but am not sure how

[TheDoctor]

Okay, I am unable to post the pictures

Send them via mail to oa.doctor gmail.com

[PrettyBoy]

I too will mail you images I took of my monitor from my phone. If you would be willing, I would appreciate it if you could post the pictures on this thread so that all who view it, can see exactly what it is that I am talking about. (I cannot seem to upload them from my computer)

Thank you

[TheDoctor]

I too will mail you images I took of my monitor from my phone.

Thank you. I've analyzed the pictures and combined three of them into single file for comparison:


This shows three things:

1. the amount of horizontal information is identical in every screen resolution: on the left, we see the horse's hind leg, on the right, we see a part of the door of the building under construction.
2. the amount of vertical information depends on the aspect ratio of the screen resolution. In a 4:3 resolution, we see an additional part of the sky and the soil.
3. in some cases, the screen resolution is not scaled to fullscreen but instead filled with black space. In my case, having a monitor with 3840x2160, any resolution exceeding 1920 horizontally and 1080 vertically is not scaled to fullscreen, but drawn as a part of the screen together with black bars.

[gunsmoker]

TheDoctor,

Thank you for posting the pics. In addition to the details that you have highlighted, I wanted to point out some additional information.

While the 800x600 option does indeed give the whole field of view. What is not really noticeable in the pictures, is how worse the picture is on 800x600 compared to 1080 or 720. The lines are blurry and pixelated, whereas on 1080 the lines are sharp and clear.

As can be seen on the one picture, with 720 or 1080, someone could be on the roof on the left and be invisible(outside of field of view), but on 800x600 they can be seen.


This leaves one with either having a full field of view with poor picture quality, or zoomed field of view with good picture quality.

This is a big drawback to the game, being that the graphics are already dated, to have to sacrifice more is undesirable.

If there is a way to remedy this, please share.

Thank you

[Tanker_5455]

I don't know, I've been playing in 1280x780 and didn't pay much attention to the black bars... Still, I'll try to give other options a try, if I get a better FOV, it'll be worth it.

[gunsmoker]

PrettyBoy spent alot of time working the different options and came up with a good set up.

He helped me adjust my settings to where I get a better field of view and also have a more crisp resolution.

maybe he can chime in and give some tips on how to best optimize the settings.

[PrettyBoy]

maybe he can chime in and give some tips on how to best optimize the settings.

Widescreen without cropping on this version of smoking guns seems to be impossible. The best solution I could find is to maintain 4:3 aspect ratio, while matching in-game vertical resolution with the monitor's native vertical resolution.

If your monitor’s native resolution is 1600x900 then the in-game resolution you are looking for is 1200x900.

If your monitor’s native resolution is 1920x1080 then the in-game resolution you are looking for is 1440x1080.

If your monitor’s native resolution is 2560x1440 then the in-game resolution you are looking for is 1920x1440.

This can be achieved with the three following commands (replace x and y):

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/r_customwidth x

/r_customheight y

/r_mode -1


The only downside to this method, is the 4:3 game output becomes “left justified” on a 16:9 monitor. If there is a command to make the game output centered, just as the preset 4:3 resolutions are, please do share.