[Murry]

Has anyone been able to play Metal of Honor Allied Assault or any OpenGL/Quake 3 engine based game on their widescreen HDTV? I have a Panasonic 47" widescreen tv and I would love to play these games on it. I'm getting the AIW Radeon 9700. I want to play these games at 1920x1080i, which is the tv's maximum resolution. I don't care about web surfing or dvd playback. This is purely for pc gaming. I know how to add custom resolutions in the quake 3 engine config files, but does this engine support interlaced resolutions? Actually, here are the list of pc games I own that I would love to play at 1920x1080i:


1. Mafia (direct3d)

2. GTA3 (direct3d)

3. Metal of Honor Allied Assault (quake 3 engine)

4. Metal of Honor Spearhead expansion (quake 3 engine)

5. Soldier of Fortune 2 (quake 3 engine)

6. Unreal Tournament 2003 (direct3d)


And then of course, the upcoming DOOM 3!!!!

 

[TYBZ]

I would like to be able to do that. Sorry I can't help you, but perhaps you could help me, you said that you know how to create custom resolution in Q3, so perhaps you also know how to create custom resolution in JK2 (Jedi Knight 2) witch is the same graphic engine???


I would like to play in 1280x960.


Thanx in advance.

 

[Murry]

open up the config.cfg file in wordpad and change the values to these:


r_mode -1

r_customheight 1080

r_customwidth 1920

 

[Murry]

oops.


r_mode -1

r_customheight 960

r_customwidth 1280

 

[Mr.Pibb]

I've heard something about a major loss in performance when using interlaced resolutions. It may not matter when using the 9700, though (until the games get more demanding).


Tim

 

[TYBZ]

Thanx Murry.


Quick and easy. I like this.

 

[Mr.Pibb]

Also, for medal of honor, the file is named something like "unamedsolder.cfg"


Tim

 

[llamameat]

So far as i've noticed, all games which support custom resolutions will only allow you to use 4x3 resolutions, so 1920x1080i is out. Maybe there's one or two that allow widescreen, if so let me know!


Anyway, there's very little reason to use that resolution anyway as most HDTVs cannot fully resolve that many lines. Yes the standard for hdtv is 1920x1080, but most tvs (even a well configured, spanking new mitsubishi) will crap out at about 1400x960i or so. You be better off picking a res like 1440x1080i (which is 4:3), anything higher really makes no noticable difference.


For me i've played with a great many resolutions and I find the one that works best is 720x540p with 4xs antialiasing, but then again I refuse to play unless the framerate is silky-smooth.

 

[Mr.Pibb]

Even though I don't yet have an HDTV, I tried out a widescreen 720p custom resolution on my monitor with Medal of Honor and it worked great. I just had to "sqeeze" the image vertically on my monitor to get the aspect ratio right, and all looked well just in 16:9 instead of 4:3. Of course, it makes no sense to do this on a computer monitor so I ditched it, just happy to know that it should work when I DO purchase the HDTV!


Tim

 

[Esben]

I doubt you can play interlaced. Something lower, like 960x540p would be a better choice. I play all my games at 848x480, and if I enable 8xAA everything looks as smooth as ever. It is so incredibly stunning that I'm amazed the resolution is still "only" 848x480. It looks like 1280x720.

What should matter more to people is running lower resolution with antialiasing instead of higher resolution without. True high resolution is great, but it still looks very "computerish", without the jaggies and edges removed.

On my Quadro 4 at Ti 4600 speeds I cannot run most games smooth with 8xAA even with the low resolution, so I'm looking forward to GeForce FX.


I know all the games above (except Mafia) support custom resolutions. GTA3 is VERY simple and straightforward. Just enter options and select resolution (and widescreen, if running widescreen).

In UT2003 enter your resolution into UT2003.INI.

The Q3 engine games all have a .CFG file, in which you change like you descriped above.

 

[TYBZ]

That's great, I have just tried JK2 and it work fine in 1280x720. What isnt so great though, is that instead of giving you an edge on view angle, it crop most of the image and make it a *little* wider then 4:3.


As you can see right here (attachment).

 

[TYBZ]

Here is the HDTV one.

Note: Those captures where resize (50%) for the forum matter.

 

[JamesElrod]

Murry what did you do to get doom3 in custom res? im trying for 1280x720

 

[sjchmura]

As to the 4:3 comment:


This is NOT true


Q3 shipped with native widescreen support

If you set a Q3 engine game to 960x540p it looks good and is NOT distored save for


1. Any bitmaps (like the crosshair)

2. The default FOV is wrong


For the Q3 games I set the FOV to 109 and for the UT games to 110


For quake3 gaems:


cg_fov 109


for unreal


fov 110

 

[sjchmura]

Yes,


I agree - 920x500 or 848x480 with 4-6x AA (atuner) on my GF4-4400 card is simply stunning. No need for hirez. Also, add some Anistropic filtering.


On a 9700 you should just crank up the max. the 9700 will output 1920x1080i WITH the dongle and NOT take a speed hit


Powerstrip defined interlaced rez will be 1/2 speed

 

[TYBZ]

sjchmura, who said that custom resolutions (with different aspect ratio then 4:3) are distorted???


What is FOV?

 

[llamameat]

ok well the only q3 game i have is soldier of fortune 2, and that won't allow you custom resolutions in multiplayer for some reason. Seems to work fine in single player though. They must have done this because a widescreen format provides a greater field of view than 4:3, and hence, is an unfair advantage.


sjchmura, why will a powerstrip interlaced resolution be 1/2 speed? And are you referring to scanrates or performance of games?

 

[sjchmura]

The field of view (FOV) will make the screen give you more viewable area.


Currently in Quake3 and Unreal2003 it is set to a value of 90. This works fairly well for 4:3


When you input custom resolutions, while the aspect ratio is not distorted (save for any bitmaps like the crosshair) you FOV is still 90. What happens is that the 16:9 TV is chopping off the TOP and BOTTOM of the screen to keep the aspect ratio correct. Much like an inverse ZOOM.


So by doing the math 4:3/90=16:9/x we get about 105-110 as a good FOV


ATI and Powerstrip:


According to the powerstrip makers it will be 1/2 speed.

I have played on a 2.4ghz P4 ATI 9700 clocked to 390/680 1920x1080i with the dongle 2xAA and 4x AF and it was amazing looking

 

[TYBZ]

Sjchmura, thanx a lot for this valuable info about the FOV


It could be use has an edge... hehehe


It seems to be maxed out at 100 in JK2 though.

 

[sjchmura]

You should be able to enter larger values. Anyway - 100 is good for widescreen . I am surprised at 4:3 people do not complain about fish eye like effects.


In all the Q3 gams I have I can go to 255 for a really fisheye view