• Widescreen
• Aspect ratio
• Vsync
• Mouse Acceleration
• Anti-Aliasing
• Anisotropic Filtering
• Alt Tab

What is it?

Widescreen is a standard for rendering a scene so the resulting image is wider than the traditional more squarely shaped screens; this provides additional visual information on both sides of the screen for anyone who has a widescreen monitor or TV.

Why is it important?

Widescreen increases the quality of the gaming experience by offering a display which is better suited for a lot of games, many games benefit from the additional horizontal space it can be used to show us more of the scene and it is a more natural field of view for games like first person shooters and racing games.

More importantly widescreen that is badly implemented can actually decrease the viewing area of the game being rendered or distort the picture by stretching it. There are several ways a traditional square like screen resolution (4:3 or 5:4) can be converted into a widescreen format (16:10 or 16:9):

• You can increase the amount of visual data on either side by widening the image; this is often referred to as Horz+ (plus horizontal)
• You can chop off the top and bottom parts of the screen to lower the height and keep the width the same; this is often referred to as Vert- (Minus vertical)
• You can simply stretch the picture to fit.

Horz+ is generally considered to be the best way to implement widescreen; it increases the horizontal viewing angle of the game to allow for additional vertical space to be added.

Vert- is a bad way to implement widescreen; the problem is you're cutting off parts of the screen which were originally intended to be displayed and you're presenting the user with a physically wider monitor but you're not giving them additional horizontal FOV (Field Of View) which can lead to an unnatural claustrophobic like feeling.

Stretching is the worst way to support widescreen, the image is designed for one aspect ratio and stretched to fit a different one, this leads to everything appearing horizontally fatter than the intended image.

What are the criteria for pcgamingstandards.com?

The criteria for pcgamingstandards.com is the use of Horz+ since this is unquestionably the most sensible implementation of widescreen, this means when you switch to widescreen resolutions the game increases the horizontal component of the FOV (Field Of View) in the correct proportion.

The game must do this automatically when the resolution is selected through the in game menu, it's not acceptable to expect gamers to edit the game config files, enable the developer console or use a 3rd party hack to fix this.

Where can I read more?

What is it?

The aspect ratio is the ratio of the width to height of the monitor you're using, in order to get a clean image with no stretching or distortion, games need to support a wide range of screen resolutions that cater for the varying standard aspect ratios.

There are several common aspect ratios:

• 4:3 (1.333) - This is an old standard used for many CRT monitors.
• 5:4 (1.25) - This is the original LCD standard used for many early flat screen monitors.
• 16:10 (1.6) - This is the first PC widescreen monitor aspect ratio.
• 16:9(1.777) - This is the the most common TV standard for widescreen, some gamers now use TVs instead of monitors and 16:9 PC monitors are becoming popular.

To work out the aspect ratio of your screen you first need to know its native screen resolution, the native resolution is the physical number of pixels the screen has. Then simply divide the width by the height, for example your native screen resolution is 1680x1050 then 1680 / 1050 = 1.6.

Compare that to the list above and you can see this is a 16:10 aspect ratio, you should always try and use the native screen resolution when playing games for maximum quality, however if you need to use a lower resolution then make sure to select a resolution that also matches your aspect ratio. You can see from the list below that 16:10 resolutions lower than 1680x1050 include 1440x900 and 1280x800.

This image shows the various different screen resolutions and their aspect ratios.

Why is it important?

Supporting standard aspect ratios is important to allow a wide range of users to enjoy games without distortion; if a certain resolution isn't supported then the gamer is forced to pick the closest approximation and one of several things will happen.

The image doesn't display at all, the user will get an out of range error with their monitor.
The image could stretch to fit which creates distortion and makes objects to appear stretched or compressed.
The image is scaled to add black bars around the top or sides of the screen which cuts off viewing area.

What are the criteria for pcgamingstandards.com?

The criteria for meeting the aspect ratio standards is the game must make available all standard resolutions for any given aspect ratio. It is understood that many games cannot use very low resolutions due to a minimum amount of information needed on the screen so resolutions below 800x600 are generally discounted.

Access to all resolutions should be made through the games menu; It's not acceptable to expect gamers to edit the game config files, enable the developer console or use a 3rd party hack in order to enable these resolutions.

Games that list resolutions which are taken from the video driver should pass all aspect ratio standards since the driver will automatically make available all relevant resolutions for your display(s) and will ignore irrelevant ones.

To meet the criteria for the 4:3 aspect ratio the game must support the following resolutions:
800x600 - SVGA
1024x768 - XGA
1280x960
1600x1200 - UXGA
2048x1536 - QXGA

To meet the criteria for the 5:4 aspect ratio the game must support the following resolution:
1280x1024 - SXGA

To meet the criteria for the 16:10 aspect ratio the game must support the following resolutions:
1280x800 - WXGA
1440x900
1680x1050 - WSXGA+
1920x1200 - WUXGA
2560x1600 - WQXGA

To meet the criteria for the 16:9 aspect ratio the game must support the following resolutions:
1280x720 - HD 720p
1366x768
1920x1080 - HD 1080p

Where can I read more?

What is it?

Vsync stands for Vertical Synchronization; it's a graphical feature that comes standard with DirectX and OpenGL.

During normal operation video cards render new frames at a varying speed call the frame rate (measured in frames per second or FPS), monitors refresh their display at a separate fixed rate called the refresh rate (measured in Hertz or Hz). These 2 rates are independent and not synchronized this causes a visual distortion often referred to as "tearing".

Vsync job is to eliminate tearing, it does this by locking your frame rate in sync with your refresh rate.

Why is it important?

It is important to offer gamers the option to change Vsync, while Vsync does eliminate tearing it also has several undesireable side effects.

If your frame rate cannot reliably keep up with your refresh rate then Vsync cannot synchronize the 2 and instead has to lock your frame rate at at fraction of your refresh rate, the next step down is 1/2 then 1/3, 1/4 and so on. This can result in a low frame rate and choppy game experience.

Vsync also causes an artificial delay in rendering frames to the screen, this delay can make controlling games very difficult as it introcudes latency between your input and the result on screen, this is often referred to as "input lag".

What are the criteria for pcgamingstandards.com?

A menu item to toggle Vsync on/off must be available in the game menu, not having a menu item for this acceptable if Vsync is not on by default, it's not acceptable to expect gamers to edit the game config files, enable the developer console or use a 3rd party hack.

Where can I read more?

What is it?

Mouse acceleration is a feature which manipulates the mouse input so distance the cursor moves is a result of both the distance travelled by the mouse and also the speed at which is moves over that distance.

For example if you move your mouse 10cm slowly you might only rotate your viewpoint in game 90 degrees, if you move that same 10cm but quickly you might rotate 180 degrees.

Why is it important?

Many gamers find it extremely difficult to aim with mouse acceleration turned on, quickly reacting with sharp mouse turns causes you to overshoot your target and slow gradual aiming has resistance to movement causing you to undershoot.

The standard input for the mouse should be a linear 1:1 relationship between distance moved by the mouse and the movement during gameplay

Strong mouse acceleration tends to be left over from console ports or games developed for both the console and PC platform simultaneously, console gamers need acceleration when rotating with analogue sticks due to the limitations of that control method. Mice do not suffer this same problem and so acceleration on the input is unnecessary.

What are the criteria for pcgamingstandards.com?

The game must not force mouse acceleration or another other non-linear mouse movement for standard gameplay, it is only acceptable to use non-linear mouse input if you also provide a menu option to disable it.

Note: Most versions of windows and some mouse drivers come with mouse acceleration options, mouse acceleration as a result of these options is ignored.

Where can I read more?

What is it?

Anti Aliasing (AA for short) is a graphical feature which increases the quality of a games graphics by smoothing out jagged edges.

The left Diamond suffers from aliasing, the right diamond has Anti-Aliasing applied. The zoomed in diamond shows in detail exactly what is occuring to improve the image quality.

Why is it important?

Anti-Aliasing has been a standard for many years now and can greatly increase the general image quality of any 3D rendered scene for minimal performance cost on most modern video cards, at least some low filtering levels are provided at practically no cost to render time.

This is a powerful tool especially to gamers with monitors which have a large dot pitch or only support low resolutions.

What are the criteria for pcgamingstandards.com?

AA must be an option in the game menu and offer at least several basic levels of sampling to provide gamers with the best options possible, It's not acceptable to expect gamers to edit the game config files, enable the developer console or use a 3rd party hack in order to enable AA.

Where can I read more?

What is it?

Anisotropic filtering (AF for short) is a graphical feature which increases the quality of a games graphics by making blurry surfaces appear crisp and sharp.

Why is it important?

Anisotropic filtering greatly improves the general image quality of any 3D rendered scene and comes almost no performance cost to modern video cards, it's highly desirable for most gamers to apply Anisotropic filtering since it offers a more accurate representation of the game world with no real drawback

What are the criteria for pcgamingstandards.com?

AF must be an option in the game menu and offer at least several basic levels of sampling to provide gamers with the best options possible, It's not acceptable to expect gamers to edit the game config files, enable the developer console or use a 3rd party hack in order to enable AF

Where can I read more?

What is it?

Alt + tab is a key combination in Windows operating systems (and some flavours of Linux and OSX) which switches focus away from an application to the next in a list.

Why is it important?

There are many reasons why gamers might need to return to their desktop to attend to other applications, in some cases it's necessary in order to play the game since other software may block the game from performing certain actions, such as anti-virus and firewalls.

What are the criteria for pcgamingstandards.com?

A game must be able to alt tab back to the desktop and lose focus while minimizing or putting the game into windowed mode, the game must then be able to return to full screen without crashing or suffering graphical artifacts. Primary OS must be supported are Microsoft Windows XP onwards.

Where can I read more?