SoF on widescreen displays
An unpatched SoF only supports a screen aspect ratio of 4:3. The table below shows the supported resolutions (you can list them in SoF with the 'vid_modes' command):
| gl_mode | X-resolution | Y-resolution |
|---|---|---|
| 0 (disabled) | 320 | 240 |
| 1 (disabled) | 400 | 300 |
| 2 (disabled) | 512 | 384 |
| 3 | 640 | 480 |
| 4 | 800 | 600 |
| 5 | 960 | 720 |
| 6 | 1024 | 768 |
| 7 | 1152 | 864 |
| 8 | 1280 | 960 |
| 9 | 1600 | 1200 |
Some players are using widescreen displays with other aspect ratios, like 16:10. When they play SoF in fullscreen mode, the image is distorted (squeezed vertically/stretched horizontally), but the amount of information that is displayed, is the same.
 | Unmodified SoF on 4:3 display |
 | Unmodified SoF on 16:10 display (distorted) |
SoF.exe resolution patch
Warning: You can't use a patched SoF.exe with WaX. It works with UAC3.
Download this patch to change the hardcoded resolutions of SoF.exe. This will allow you to play SoF in fullscreen mode on widesceen displays without getting image distortion.
You should also download these modified menus that will fit in the new screen aspect ratios. If you keep the original menus, the bottom part of the menus may not be visible.
Note that the horizontal FOV isn't changed, so you will actually see less instead of more. Since the missing information is at the top and the bottom, I don't consider this a big problem. The example 16:10 image below shows this. The red box indicates what area would have been visible with an aspect ratio of 4:3.
 | Patched SoF on 16:10 display |
SoFplus resolution and FOV changes
I'm still working on this. This will be in the next relase of SoFplus. Feel free to inform me about your opinion on the FOV subject...
I've put a new command (sp_cl_set_video_mode) in the unreleased SoFplus client that lets you set any resolution you want.
I'm thinking about changing FOV, but it's not easy to come up with something that's fair for players with 4:3 and 16:10 displays. Using a FOV of 100 for 16:10 displays results in the same amount of information on the screen as a FOV of 95 on a 4:3 display, but it probably gives the players with the 16:10 display an advantage, because information on the left/right is more important than on the top/bottom.
Almost every other game with widescreen support keeps the vertical FOV locked, which means that the horizontal FOV changes with different aspect ratios. For SoF this would mean that players on 16:10 displays would get a horizontal FOV of 105.
The images below show how FOV affects the amount of information that's on the screen. The red box indicates what information is on the screen on a 4:3 display with FOV 95 (the current SoF default).
 |
|
||||||||
 |
|
||||||||
 |
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
 |
|
||||||||
 |
|
The images below show how FOV settings affect the displayed image. Note that a changed FOV also affects gameplay: Small FOV makes the game feel slow and large FOV makes it feel fast (your real speed is always the same). You can try this yourself by walking around with the sniper rifle. When it's zoomed in, your FOV is very small and the game will feel slow.
 | FOV 20 |
 | FOV 35 |
 | FOV 50 |
 | FOV 65 |
 | FOV 80 |
 | FOV 95 SoF default |
 | FOV 110 |
 | FOV 125 |
 | FOV 140 |
 | FOV 155 |