Games on Widescreen

[Deus ex Machina]

I have a question for anyone who owns a wide screen television (16:9 Aspect ratio). I Believe most, if not all video games were designed to play on a regular sized television screen, so what happens if you play them on a widescreen?

And before you say this has nothing to do with Dragonball; I'm asking because I'm thinking about buying a bigger and better television for the impending release of Budokai 3. I can't wait to see how great those Ki effects look in high definition.

I figure either that the picture has to be stretched to accomodate the extra length of the screen, or simply leaves the unused space blank. But whatever the case, does anyone know?

EDIT: Come on people! Somebody out there must know.

[Xyex]

I know a number of games come with 16:9 modes... I can't remember if either Budokai game had that however. Anyway, I'm pretty sure you can change the display on the TV itself, but stretching it to 16:9 via the TV setting would stretch the image.

Don't quote me on this about the TV though, I've only ever used one set up for display at the store.

[Daimao]

Neither Budokai game has a widescreen mode (we'll see if Budokai 3 does). You can always "stretch" the image to the 16:9 ratio, though. I rather prefer playing Final Fantasy X-2 that way.

You can also look around herefor games that have actual widescreen modes.

[Deus ex Machina]

Thanks for the input guys; but your link doesn't seem to work Daimao. Oh well, even if it's not in widescreen I could still look into something high definition.

[Mugenmidget]

My TV has several options.

When I watch DBZ movies that are in "full screen," I use fill mode, which chops off the top and bottom of the image. This creates the image they used for theatrical releases, so it doesn't distort the image.

When I play video games, if it has widescreen I obviously go for full, but there is another option. First off, if I'm playing a Capcom fighter, I usually stay on full as well because if you've been to a few arcades you'll notice some Capcom games are presented with a stretched image like this, and it is probably better in most cases. The option I use for most games that have standard ratio is Smooth Wide, and I use this for Budokai as well. What it does is it chops a tiny amount off the top and bottom, but nothing you're going to miss. Then it stretches the outer edges, and creates a weird 3d magnifying glass effect. In some games it can be rather annoying, but it works fine a lot of the time and even prevents screen burn in.

Oh and, if none of these options tickle your fancy, most widescreen TVs can add gray bars to the side and become standard televisions.

[Tuxedo Kamen]

mugenmidget has a fancy tv. great for playing supersonic warriors.

Speaking of supersonic warriors...

It's the best dbz game ever, and now I'm sad because it is now gone underneath the sand at the beach in South Padre Island here in texas

[Mugenmidget]

mugenmidget has a fancy tv. great for playing supersonic warriors.

Speaking of supersonic warriors...

It's the best dbz game ever, and now I'm sad because it is now gone underneath the sand at the beach in South Padre Island here in texas

Well when you guys come over tomorrow we can still play versus.

[PsyLiam]

To summerise, all widescreen TVs will have several modes for viewing images, to try and balance proportion-issues with "filling up the screen issues". They are usually as follows:

Widescreen: Watching something TV-widescreen (ie, almost anything make since 1998 in the UK, or something make since about 2002 in the US) will fill the screen and be proportioned correctly in this mode. Movies will have black bars, but they'll be much smaller than you'd get on a normal TV. Any 4:3 image will be stretched.

4:3: Puts black bars at the side. Kinda like watching widescreen on a normal TV, but in reverse. You'd use this if you're watching a 4:3 image and absolutly cannot stand to have it stretched.

Super Live/Smooth Wide/various other names: Compromised by trying to show a 4:3 image on a 16:9 screen. It squashes it in sideways slightly (which is possible, since a fair amount of the image is always off the edge of TV sets anyway). It also chops off a bit at the top and bottom - less so in the middle of the screen - and usually results in an image that's acceptable unless you are really picky.

There are also options for playing widescreen videos (since they don't automatically change their formatting for widescreen TVs like DVDs do).

IF you lived over here, I'd call you foolish for not buying a widescreen TV, since almost EVERYTHING made is now filmed in widescreen (in fact, Buffy, Angel, and several other US shows were filmed in widescreen specifically because the BBC asked them to do so. Which is nice). If you have digital, all the films are broadcast widescreen, blah blah blah.

In the US, the situation is a bit different. The only program I saw actually broadcast in widescreen when I was over there was Enterprise. So I dunno. You're doing the hi-definition thing better than us, but you also seem to refuse to do things that obviously make sense (like different coloured money, ATM cards that work without paying in any machine, having elections that work), so I can't say for certain what would be best.

[Tanooki Kuribo]

If you put your ps2 on without a disc, you can go to options, from there you can set the screen size to fit a widescreen TV.

[PsyLiam]

That doesn't do anything though unless the game has a widescreen option. And even then, I think you have to set it manually in the game.

I believe that the "aspect ratio" setting in the main options screen is purely for the DVD player.