Black bars at 16:10

[CrunchyBiscuit]

Hey there!

I'm trying to play this game on my 1680x1050 monitor, but I'm getting black bars at the top and bottom. Changing the aspect ratio setting from 16:9 to 16:10 doesn't do anything, I'm still seeing black bars. I can't select my native resolution either.

The strange thing is, when I pause the game, the black bars suddenly disappear and the game stretches vertically to fullscreen (which is precisely what I want), but as soon as I play on again, the black bars reappear. I'm pretty certain this is a bug, the game should always stretch when 16:10 is selected, not just when pausing.

Any workarounds? Thanks in advance.

Specs:

Processor: AMD Phenom II x4 3800MHz
RAM: 4GB Kingston HyperX 1333MHz 7-7-7-20
Videocard: AMD Radeon HD6950 2GB (840/1275MHz)
Motherboard: Asus M4A88T-M
Sound: Onboard VIA HD Audio
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Display: Dell 2209WA
Input: Logitech G400s mouse (1000Hz), generic keyboard
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 7200 RPM 1TB

[cheru]

Hi, I'm passing this on to the devs.

do you think you could grab a screenshot for me?

[CrunchyBiscuit]

Hey there!

I made a short video demonstrating the problem. Resolution is set at 1600x900 (since I can't select my native of 1680x1050) and the aspect ratio setting is at 16:10.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIKczxcnyoU

As you can see, the black bars at the top and bottom disappear when the game is paused, but they shouldn't even be there at all in the first place. When I select an aspect ratio of 16:9, the black bars are always there, also during pause (as they should be).

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Based on the shape of the circle, it actually looks like the game is natively 16:9, and the pause menu stretches the image to make it 16:10 but it should normally display it as 16:9 anyway, which it does. If you just want to stretch it, without regard to the proper aspect ratio, I'm not sure how to do that.

[cheru]

We'll look into it for a potential future patch. For now, does any of the other resolution options work?

[CrunchyBiscuit]

Originally posted by Quint the Laser Beaver:

Based on the shape of the circle, it actually looks like the game is natively 16:9, and the pause menu stretches the image to make it 16:10 but it should normally display it as 16:9 anyway, which it does. If you just want to stretch it, without regard to the proper aspect ratio, I'm not sure how to do that.

Yes, this is correct - as I stated in my opening post. When paused at 1600x900 16:10, the game STRETCHES vertically, but this is exactly what I want. I'd rather play fullscreen with a bit of stretch than with black bars. What would be the use of having an aspect ratio setting, when the game always displays black bars anyway? And seeing the game displays exactly the way I expected but only when paused, makes me think this is actually a bug (the game should always stretch at 16:10, not just when paused).

Sure, the best scenario would be to actually display more graphics on top and bottom at 16:10, or zoom in and cut off a bit of the sides. I understand many games are made for 16:9, so I accept that there is no dedicated 16:10 mode. But I don't mind that, since I'm fine with having the game stretched out a little. Point is, it doesn't. Only when paused. Which basically renders the 16:10 option useless.

Originally posted by cheru:

We'll look into it for a potential future patch. For now, does any of the other resolution options work?

My monitor can handle a max of 1920x1200 (oversampled). All resolutions the game offers work (except those that are higher than my monitor supports), but they all display black bars. When 16:10 is selected, they all exhibit the same behaviour as described above (stretch correctly, but only when paused).

[<Frosty>]

Just got the game and similar issue here. Also on a 1680*1050 monitor.

Changing the Aspect Ratio to anything else doesn't work for me, the game viewport & FOV stays the same as 16:9 on-screen no matter the AR selected and it doesn't allow me change to matching resolutions either (no 1680*1050 etc.. options when 16:10 is selected).

Another issue for me with 16:10 is that instead of black bars on the top and bottom (from the game incorrectly rendering at 16:9) it shows whatever was last on-screen in the background - probably last frame buffered:
So if I start the game, the desktop shows where the black bars would be, or if I open the Steam Overlay and close it, it'll show that.
The postprocessing seems to render over those top & bottom "bar" areas as well.

The interface definately lacks some basic KB & Mouse stuff as I'm sure has been discussed already.
Even a basic chart on the control config screen showing [Esc] == Exit, Keyboard[Z, X, C, V; A, S, D, F; Q, W, E, R] == Button[0, 1, 2, 3, 4; 5, 6, 7, 8; 9, 10, 11] etc.. would've helped.

I couldn't actually figure out how to setup & start the game until I searched the forum, I kept pressing [Esc] to try and backout of the "first startup" config menu which quits the game lol!

Looking forward to playing the game when I have some time though!

[CrunchyBiscuit]

Originally posted by <Frosty>:

I couldn't actually figure out how to setup & start the game until I searched the forum, I kept pressing [Esc] to try and backout of the "first startup" config menu which quits the game lol!

LOL you wouldn't believe how many times I had to restart the game because of that! Pressing escape in the menu quits the game. Really odd. Just remember not to press it when in the menu! :D

[<Frosty>]

^
;)

Originally posted by CrunchyBiscuit:

Yes, this is correct - as I stated in my opening post. When paused at 1600x900 16:10, the game STRETCHES vertically, but this is exactly what I want. I'd rather play fullscreen with a bit of stretch than with black bars. What would be the use of having an aspect ratio setting, when the game always displays black bars anyway? And seeing the game displays exactly the way I expected but only when paused, makes me think this is actually a bug (the game should always stretch at 16:10, not just when paused).

Sure, the best scenario would be to actually display more graphics on top and bottom at 16:10, or zoom in and cut off a bit of the sides. I understand many games are made for 16:9, so I accept that there is no dedicated 16:10 mode. But I don't mind that, since I'm fine with having the game stretched out a little. Point is, it doesn't. Only when paused. Which basically renders the 16:10 option useless.

I don't really get why you'd want 16:9 stretched to fullscreen 16:10, it distorts the image for no other reason than to fill the screen.
But you should be able to do that via your driver & GPU scaling options, at least in nVidia drivers, even overscan IIRC.

Alot of games do do overscan (zooming in on the default AR/FOV image till it fills the screen vertically & cutting off the sides/horizontal) in 16:10 instead of increasing the vertical FOV though, which would be ok I guess - options for both would be nice in a perfect world. I remember the controversy back in the day going from 4:3 to 16:10 etc.. widescreen monitors lol!

[CrunchyBiscuit]

Originally posted by <Frosty>:

I don't really get why you'd want 16:9 stretched to fullscreen 16:10, it distorts the image for no other reason than to fill the screen.

It's just a matter of personal preference. I want my screen filled, I don't care about stretching in this game (but I do in others). The option for 16:10 shouldn't be there just for show, it's intended to have a function, which it currently doesn't.

Originally posted by <Frosty>:

But you should be able to do that via your driver & GPU scaling options, at least in nVidia, drivers, even overscan IIRC.

That only works when the true resolution of the game is at 16:9 and when it's lower than my native. I don't want to play at a lower resolution than my native (1680x1050 is already a bit on the lower side and I clearly see the pixels getting larger when lowering resolution). Since my monitor doesn't natively support 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 (they only work because I have a custom monitor driver which adds oversampled resolutions), the scaling options refuse to recognise these resolutions and refuse to remove the black bars. At 16;10, the game adds the black bars in software (like a graphics effect), the game is actually rendering at 16:10, which is demonstrated by the fact that the game stretches when paused.

Originally posted by <Frosty>:

Alot of games do do overscan (zooming in on the default AR/FOV image till it fills the screen vertically & cutting off the sides/horizontal) in 16:10 instead of increasing the vertical FOV though, which would be ok I guess - options for both be nice in a perfect world. I remember the controversy back in the day going from 4:3 to widescreen monitors lol!

Yep, there are various methods of working with different aspect ratios and resolutions. The best method usually comes down to player preference, which is why options are so important. I think we can all agree that having an aspect ratio setting in the game that doesn't actually do anything useful, is not what the developers intended, whether you personally prefer black bars or stretching or whatever.

[<Frosty>]

Well none of the AR options worked for me lol all show 16:9 on-screen, and not being able to select native (or even corresponding resolution for any other AR) is definately annoying.
Having to scale from 1600.. up to 1680.. is not much of a jump but definately far from ideal or normal.

I tend to acclimatise to GPU scaling fairly quickly if not focusing on it, even running something at 1080p on my 1440p monitor or out to a 2160p TV, pretty much like scaled video/TV using a good scaling algo. Not ideal but image tearing and other artefacts or lotsa pop-in bug me more.
Stretching the 16:9 image vertically to 16:10 is the same thing in the vertical axis anyway + AR distortion ;)
(16:9-16:10 black bars are minimal too, and black ;), but I know people notice it with most non-16:9 monitor reviews mentioning it. Now widescreen displayed on 4:3, that was something, with the image so small :D! And now more cinemascope movies ;), consumer screens get wider, movies go wider again lol)

I haven't dealt with AMD/Catalysts in a while but you could try:

• Apart from not being able to select native 1680*1050, I can have it stretch with 16:9 @ 1600*900 from my drivers.
  
• Sounds like it doesn't accept custom resolutions from your post, but maybe you could try making a custom 1680*945 (16:9) res and using that + GPU stretch scaling. I'll prob give that a try myself tomorrow to get native res.

Anyway, hopefully we'll get some patch lovin'! :D

[CrunchyBiscuit]

Originally posted by <Frosty>:

(16:9-16:10 black bars are minimal too, and black ;)

Yep, it's not like it will keep me from playing the game or anything. I would just much prefer to be able to stretch the screen to fill and thought it was kinda odd to have an aspect ratio setting that doesn't really do anything useful, but kinda works when the game is paused.

Originally posted by <Frosty>:

Apart from not being able to select native 1680*1050, I can have it stretch with 16:9 @ 1600*900 from my drivers.

Thanks for the ideas! Yes, this works, but I get stretched pixels. I don't mind a stretched screen, but I do mind stretched pixels (blurry). I think the scaling method is only valid when downscaling from a higher resolution to the monitor's native resolution, any means of upscaling a lower resolution to the monitor's native just looks rather bad.

I'd be content if I could use this method on my 1920x1080 and 1920x1200 resolutions, but since they're both added via a tweak, my driver control panel refuses to recognise them properly and thus I cannot rescale them through the driver, it only works if the game supports it.

Originally posted by <Frosty>:

Sounds like it doesn't accept custom resolutions from your post, but maybe you could try making a custom 1680*945 (16:9) res and using that + GPU stretch scaling. I'll prob give that a try myself tomorrow to get native res.

That might work, but with the same effect as described above (stretched and blurry pixels). That won't do it for me. Besides, I can't add more custom resolutions currently. I'd have to delete one to add one.

There might be some other way to add custom resolutions, maybe my driver control panel could rescale them then. So far I tried PowerStrip to make custom monitor drivers and CRU (Custom Resolution Utility). I hear good things about GeDoSaTo, but I'm having a tough time getting it to work well. It's probably conflicting with my custom monitor driver, dunno.

Originally posted by <Frosty>:

Anyway, hopefully we'll get some patch lovin'! :D

That would be great! And certainly spare me a lot of hassle. Then again, I could also skip the hassle by just ignoring the issue and play the game with bars.

[CrunchyBiscuit]

For people experiencing the same thing, try out the little tool found in the topic below. Works great!

http://steamcommunity.com/app/283680/discussions/0/594820656471339511/