Maintain Aspect Ratio in EAW during full screen.

[MarkEAW 63]

Check out 'Screen Stretching' info in the 'SETTING SCREEN RESOLUTION' section of my 'Video Help Document' to maintain aspect ratio of EAW in full screen.
This is primarily will pillar black bars on each side of the screen. Other configurations too.

https://eaw.neocities.org/video.html

 

 

Edited December 31, 2019 by MarkEAW

[RIBob 39]

 This article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_resolutions gives some info about resolution, and more importantly, aspect ratios.  EAW seems particularly fond of a 4:3 aspect ratio, if I'm not mistaken.  Probably an artifact of its' origins on CRT monitors way back when.

Obviously, many users, while maintaining older computers on which to run EAW, will likely buy new monitors to better view many things.  Maybe even try to run EAW on Win 10 or some other OpSys with a newer computer.

Now, this might sound stupid, but let's say a user has a new monitor, say 1920x1080.  Not cutting edge at all, and semi-obsolescent. 1920x1080 is not 4:3 ratio (but close), and so somewhat unfriendly to EAW.  Assume the GFX card and CPU will adequately support such a resolution.

Now, What to do?  From your comments, I'm guessing that the user should edit the screen resolution in the Config.Ini of the EAW game to maintain the largest possible 4:3 aspect ratio within their monitor screen.  Is this correct, assuming no other issues?

IIRC, I tinkered within the D3W wrapper program to maximize the screen size/resolution of v1.28e EAW on my 1920x1080 monitor, and saw no visible "ovaling" of gunsights or any other objectionable effects.  Both height and width could be independently manipulated within the wrapper program.  Perhaps any distortion present was so slight that I took no notice, not specifically looking for such.

RIBob

 

Edited July 23, 2019 by RIBob

[MarkEAW 63]

The aspect ratio of 4:3 Is what I prefer, you can stretch the image if you want. Some people call it wide screen when the do that but its not really.

I have more info of course in another help doc on my site. I think I referenced it in the other doc :). Let me look it up....

https://eaw.neocities.org/eaw-known-bugs-feature-ideas.html#featurevideo

 

[RIBob 39]

Like most, I reckon, I prefer a wider angle of view, which, as you note, is something different from a simply enlarged, mistakenly-termed "widescreen" view.  If I interpret your comments correctly, then the largest 4:3 window that fits within one's monitor is probably the upper limit, in view of not encountering 'stretching" of the essential gunsight. 

The reduction in apparent font size of the "essential info" displayed on lower corner of screen, as screen resolution is greatly increased is problematic, as is the degradation of the instruments on the dashboard.  There are times when accurate, easily readable info is quite essential.

I understand the font size can be altered, but I'm too stupid to do that, lol.

As you have noted elsewhere, this issue, or related issues, is an inherent problem with EAW, and not easily remedied without skills that have not been forthcoming, sad to say.

There are some flight sims that are so written/constructed that "widescreen" mods/patches can be applied to the original game (if it lacked such originally) with no apparent drawbacks, and to considerable overall advantage.  That EAW lacks this feature has to be taken into account as a negative feature, but ought to be evaluated in conjunction with the numerous positive features EAW offers.  

[MarkEAW 63]

My new modern Monitor I just got has me updating this info. I've updated the first post and have additional information added to the help docs referred too.

Basically the meat of the info is my old monitor lacked builtin scaling so i loaded it off to the GPU, and capped at a steady 30fps during game. My new monitor I can scale properly on it and I benefit with some additional FPS during the flight screen while still maintaining a 1024x768 4:3 ratio at 120hz refresh rate-on the monitor. The game doesn't display at that rate though.

Can get a bit confusing, but hopefully I filled out the help docs enough to explain it correctly, to what I understand it to be.