11.10.2009, 08:19
I have no idea if anyone has posted about this before, but here is how to got correct widescreen in IL2
As anyone who has a widescreen monitor will tell you, IL2 does NOT support widescreen. In order to use widescreen you have to make changes in your conf.ini file to manually change the resolution.
What some people may not be aware of is that this does not enable true widescreen, it actually just cuts off the top and bottom of your screen to give the effect of widescreen. Here is a youtube video which shows you what I mean. Note this uses a 16:10 widescreen for the example, if you have a 16:9 (like me!) then things are even worse!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XJ19qwP3KA
So, contrary to what people may think having a widescreen monitor is actually a disadvantage over a standard 4:3 monitor as you have less of the view on screen. This is especially true is a dogfight as you lose 'vertical' view and in turning fight (cockpit to cockpit) this might mean you cannot see your enemy when he can see you.
Widescreen has never been enabled for IL2 and never will be. However there is a workaround. A chap called San has produced a program called Sans IL2 FOV changer. This enables you to expand the FOV past 90 degrees which is the maximum FOV in IL2. Maximum FOV is gained when you have pulled back as far as you can as can see the maximum amount of cockpit.
With this program you can pull back past 90 degrees, in fact all the way to a ridiculous fisheye view! However if you restrict the FOV to around 106 degrees (101 degrees for a 16:10 monitor), this gives the equivilent vertical view for a 16:9 widescreen monitor of 90 degrees on a 4:3 monitor. Thus you have in effect proper widescreen as you get more vision to the sides.
Here is a link to the program.
http://il2fovchanger.byethost7.com/
It works quite well, but has some bugs. One of these bugs is occasionally the program fails to start and you get a standard micrsoft type message telling you it has encountered a problem. The only way I have found to deal with this is to delete the file and unzip it again. This means losing your settings. Anyhoo, I suggest you read the manual and try it out.
Personally I only use the default setting which is set at 106 degrees and it is assigned to one of my joystick buttons. I use standard IL2 views for gunsight and narrow FOV except for full wide where I use Sans FOV changer for a FOV of 106 degrees. Note, around 101 degrees is right for 16:10 monitors, have a look at screen shots on front of Sans webpage)
If I have time later I might produce some screen shots showing comparisions of normal 4:3 and widescreen (both 'normal' and with Sans program running. However its dinner time now!
Note: this also enables triple monitor setups if you have a Triplehead2Go.
As anyone who has a widescreen monitor will tell you, IL2 does NOT support widescreen. In order to use widescreen you have to make changes in your conf.ini file to manually change the resolution.
What some people may not be aware of is that this does not enable true widescreen, it actually just cuts off the top and bottom of your screen to give the effect of widescreen. Here is a youtube video which shows you what I mean. Note this uses a 16:10 widescreen for the example, if you have a 16:9 (like me!) then things are even worse!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XJ19qwP3KA
So, contrary to what people may think having a widescreen monitor is actually a disadvantage over a standard 4:3 monitor as you have less of the view on screen. This is especially true is a dogfight as you lose 'vertical' view and in turning fight (cockpit to cockpit) this might mean you cannot see your enemy when he can see you.
Widescreen has never been enabled for IL2 and never will be. However there is a workaround. A chap called San has produced a program called Sans IL2 FOV changer. This enables you to expand the FOV past 90 degrees which is the maximum FOV in IL2. Maximum FOV is gained when you have pulled back as far as you can as can see the maximum amount of cockpit.
With this program you can pull back past 90 degrees, in fact all the way to a ridiculous fisheye view! However if you restrict the FOV to around 106 degrees (101 degrees for a 16:10 monitor), this gives the equivilent vertical view for a 16:9 widescreen monitor of 90 degrees on a 4:3 monitor. Thus you have in effect proper widescreen as you get more vision to the sides.
Here is a link to the program.
http://il2fovchanger.byethost7.com/
It works quite well, but has some bugs. One of these bugs is occasionally the program fails to start and you get a standard micrsoft type message telling you it has encountered a problem. The only way I have found to deal with this is to delete the file and unzip it again. This means losing your settings. Anyhoo, I suggest you read the manual and try it out.
Personally I only use the default setting which is set at 106 degrees and it is assigned to one of my joystick buttons. I use standard IL2 views for gunsight and narrow FOV except for full wide where I use Sans FOV changer for a FOV of 106 degrees. Note, around 101 degrees is right for 16:10 monitors, have a look at screen shots on front of Sans webpage)
If I have time later I might produce some screen shots showing comparisions of normal 4:3 and widescreen (both 'normal' and with Sans program running. However its dinner time now!
Note: this also enables triple monitor setups if you have a Triplehead2Go.