News 11th July 2013 - STEAM SUMMER SALE

OK so lets just ignore the typically American, self-centered notion of having a global sale marketed as 'Summer' and get down to the vein scratching, geek peaking, nerd herding spectacular that is the STEAM SUMMER SALE!!!!

Here's what I've succumbed to so far:

STEAM CARDS: 

Want to know how to farm cards the easy way, click HERE for a short list of games you can run easily in text mode and gather many games cards at once in the background. You can also just run multiple games in windows with low res and gather the rest like I'm doing. Currently have bioshock infinite, ionshock, magica, walking dead, triple town and surgeon sim all running with cards randomly appearing in my inventory (my cpu and gpu isn't liking me at the moment though).

News 14th June 2013 - Back from the dead - 449K hits... wow!

Hello one and all,

I know it's been about a year since I last added anything to this site and it was very nearly shut down due to a complete and total lack of enthusiasm on my part (+ the $40 to keep the SmugMug photo server running) . I've moved on from gaming with three monitors as I was sick to death with the need to constantly tweak settings and the enormous resource drain it put on even the best of systems.

I still have three monitors, however the center one I am using now is a WQHD 2560x1440 IPS monitor from KOGAN, and I am thoroughly enjoying the quality of gaming at this resolution. Also, a few weeks ago I (like many of you I would imagine) came across the absolutely stunning shots from Bioshock Infinite taken by Dead End Thrills. It inspired me to look through my game collection again in search of titles worthy of in-game-photography and it is with this in mind that I shall start posting wallpapers and screens again.

Im not saying it will be frequent, but perhaps more so than recent history would suggest.

News 27th March 2012

Hello widescreen gamers,

I know it has been quite some time since my last post. Let me reassure you that I haven't forgotten about you all completely. The combination of summer holidays and now the beginning of my masters degree, along with many issues with my computer, have seen me place this site on the back burner for a while.

I must be honest and say that a contributing factor for a lack of recent content here has been my shift away from tri screen gaming. I'm sure all of you loath the tedious and laborious effort one must go through in order to play ones favourite yet unsupported games in widescreen. I must thank the good folks at Wide Screen Gaming Forums for making this job just that little bit easier though.

My case has just received another overhaul, in that I've abandoned my custom case in favour of a Xigmatek Elysium Super Tower Case Sliver/Black from PC Case Gear. I still have my custom case AND the Thermaltake Armor + that I took the mobo tray out of. If anyone lives in Melbourne and would like to make me an offer on the pair, have a look at the case in the 'My Rig!' section above. 

Lastly, I am still open to any suggestions for the site and always happy for people to send me their own creations to share with the community.

Thanks for all the continued support and interest,

Jim.

NEWS 26th October 2011

Don't worry, I haven't dropped off the face of the planet or been teleported into a Tron style world of crappy graphics and bizarrely clothed programs, NO! Just a lot of uni work on my plate at the moment. In the mean time, how about downloading my widescreen template and have a go creating some backgrounds of your own and sharing them with everyone here. You could also F12 some screens in Steam and send them over to me!

Be back soon,

Jim.

Portrait 2

Two things. 1) I'm waiting on a call back from Acer as someone needs to be bitched at for five minutes over their dodgy viewing angle claims. With anything less than BRIGHT, blacks on these screens in portrait mode are terrible. At 3 ft viewing, the distance between my eyes is too great, so much so that each eye is seeing a different shade of black and it bugs your eyes out.

Acer V243HL = Bad for portrait viewing!!!

So in short... Be very particular about your monitor purchase if you are thinking about portrait mode. It does look cool, some games are awesome on it, there's little FOV issues with games, BUT it does have its down sides.

PRO's

• Like a big screen TV
• FOV not really an issue in game
• 3rd person and driving games are great
• Things look tall in game! (Buildings, Sky etc)

CON's

• Some programs wont like your res
• Vertical viewing angle of your monitors might not be adequate
• Monitors might not be in sync (seriously, vertical bob watching movies in vlc was out)
• Some websites (Ha, like mine) need greater than 1080 pixels to be viewed correctly
• NO BLU RAY! That's right, I'll get to that

2) BLU RAYS WONT PLAY IN PORTRAIT!!!

That is right people. Corel Windvd 11, ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre 5, Cyberlink PowerDVD 11.
None of these will play back Blu Rays properly on a surround setup in portrait mode. They either have strange artifacts, wont play on one of the screens or just simply refuse to start. The only thing I found that worked was to use AnyDVD and open the disc, find the movie file and play using VLC, but now my copy has expired and I cant afford another just yet... also, this is a huge pain in the ass just to play a Blu Ray.

SOOOOO, I think I will rejoin the realm of landscape surround gaming. It was a fun idea and definitely worth it if you have better screens than me, but too much of a hassle. Should be receiving my 3rd GTX 480 sometime this week and looking forward to playing BATMAN AC (fighting crime and heatwaves across Gotham) and Skyrim, both of which I have on pre-order.

I shall leave you with some dodgy shots of my now obsolete portrait setup.

Batman - Arkham Asylum ***SLI FIX KINDA***

NOPE!!! Before you get your hopes up, these methods only worked once. Reinstalling vanilla bats didn't fix it either. If anyone has a better solution I would love to hear it. I'm still playing around with this as it DID work on both copies ONCE!!! 

This is just to let those of you out there who have tried and failed to play Batman Arkham Asylum GOTY (Game of the Year) edition in SLI and failed, that I have found a work around. TWO in fact!

The first is the crappy way (You've been warned)

1) 'Borrow' a friends copy of the non GOTY edition and install.

Use your GOTY GFWL key to activate vanilla batman ed

Let GFWL update,

Get a no-cd key from GameCopyWorld (I would think)

Play

Now for the better option:

2) Right click on your desktop

Go to Nvidia Control Panel

Click 'Manage 3D settings'

Add ShippingPC-BmGame to your list from ...Steam/steamapps/common/batman arkham asylum goty/Binaries

I clicked on EVERYTHING and set to the highest setting

Except for Max pre-rendered frames = 3

Antialiasing - Setting = 16xq CSAA

Run the Launcher

Portrait

Well well well... Looks like I can't even use my own site now. The reason being is that I've rearranged my monitors to a portrait setup and my resolution is now 3500 x 1080. Once again I've managed to get away with a 130 bezel correction as it's the same width the whole way around.

I made the stands today out of 2x4 and cut vesa 10x10 sized holes out of an old computer case side. I'll post some pics tomorrow to show you all.

I've tested it out with RAGE and DIRT 3 and so far its pretty cool. Even made a 6 screen grid that i can place windows in with a hot key using Winsplit (inc bezel correction). E-mail me if you would like to know how I did this.

The only issue I have is that as all the screens have been rotated 90 deg clockwise and therefore the top of the sets are now the right edge. With me so far? Now the problem is the vertical viewing angle of the screens. Try sliding down in your seat and look at your screen. Looks crappy and blackish doesn't it! Well that's what happens when I lean to the left. Thankfully my bed is to the right and the image looks great from there, but sitting here playing games, there is a distinct colour difference when playing games in a low light situation (bright scenes are ok). For example, when playing RAGE (AWESOME!) the gun is darker on the right screen than it is on the centre one. Soooooo my question:

IS THERE ANY WAY OF CORRECTING VERTICAL VIEWING ANGLE OF LCD SCREENS OR IS THIS A MANUFACTURING THING???


UPDATE 1:  How LCD makers lie to you about viewing angles (2007 but relevant)

In the mean time, here is a small selection of portrait backgrounds for people to use.

News 11th October 2011

Yep, two news posts in two days... shock horror. Just thought I should share my You-Tube promo vids for the site:

News 10th October 2011

Well it's almost complete so here are a few more shots of my computer. I've been assured that my new card has has been put through its paces over the weekend and should be mailed to me on Tuesday.

News 7th October 2011

Hello Widescreen Gamers!

A while since I've made a news post, MANY MANY changes having taken place since the last one. I'm continuing to re-arrange the layout of the page to try and make it look and work better for everyone. Hope this has been more of a help than a hindrance (any suggestions are welcome).

SmugMug has been sooooo amazing to work with as an image server. If you are a die hard fan (ooh, I should make a die hard wallpaper) of displaying your pics online, then this is without a doubt the best solution. I'm not being paid by SmugMug to say this either (I paid the $40 for sign up thank you very much!). Their support 'Heroes' are awesome, with responses to all my inane questions answered quickly and pleasantly! No Joke!!!

Next on the agenda... 'People making torrents of my wallpapers'... YES! Shock horror, someone has made and started distributing a torrent pack of images from this site. Who would do such a thing? ME! Yep, just a sample pack for people to download and distribute. Hoping it might drum up a few more visitors. You can download it HERE.

Zombies are a calling... must run!

Jim.

NEWS 18th September 2011

AWESOME BANDWIDTH CHEWING LAYOUT!

NEW SERVER!

NEW TITLE IMAGE (SORTA)?

1078 WALLPAPERS!

61,000 HITS!

$40 POORER!?!

That's right kiddys, the move to SmugMug is now complete. You can stilll access MediaFire if you must, but I will no longer be hosting new material there (and will probably delete everything there soon). As you can see, SmugMug offers slideshows and badges, which I'm sure has crippled a few peoples bandwidth whilst I figured out the right amount for my homepage. This has taken the number of posts from 900+ down to 132 as each topic is a post (instead of every photo). As topics will expand horizontally not vertically, from now on I will repost the topic to let you all know of additions (So if an old topic is on the homepage... scroll through for more pics).

You'll also notice that I've sourced a few more images from people out in the community and a big round of applause must go to them for letting me host their images. I've also created/snapped shots from Arkham City, Dead Island, Space Marines, Juice-Ex (lol) and a few others.

Please remember that this site has cost me real money and effort (not credit/stars) and even though I'll bitch and moan about no one DONATES or no one's offering sponsorship, I appreciate each and every hit to the site. More than that, I really enjoy reading peoples comments (which have all disappeared with the old posts) and the ever sporadic e-mails that come my way.

So, continue to spread the word about this site... at least contemplate the notion of DONATING and have a go at creating some wallpapers of your own (Download my PS template HERE)

Oh, one last thing.

SCREENSHOTS

I really, really, REALLY need people to start sending me screenshots of the games they are playing as I have a limited amount of time and money... so here are two ways I do it...

In Steam I just hit F12 to take screenshots (you can too!!!)
Everything else I do with FRAPS.


Ok, that's all. I hope you enjoy the new layout...

Thanks,

Jim

News 11th September 2011

Here are some prelim shots of my pc. Still a few more things to add, then a proper photo shoot and hopefully rig O the month prizes will start raining from the sky. Hope you enjoy.

NEWS 8th September 2011

Woah, MEDIAFIRE is down completely! When did this happen? I assume it will be back up soon!?!?!

Well to make up for it, heres the link to the DIABLO III BETA... Oh yes that's right people! I'm downloading it now.

Not even sure how much is playable... So go download it... an start bitching to Blizzard when/if Eyefinity and NVS doesn't work properly.

Did I mention I accept adulation in the form of paypal DONATIONS? Just sayin, he he he.

NEWS 6th September 2011

Just a quick note to thank those few who have DONATED. I still need a few dollars more to ensure the server will run ad free next month, so if you are a regular visitor, I would appreciate the spare coin.

Secondly, the Top Pics! section has just been updated today. Nice to see a few new backgrounds making it in there.

Jim.

NEWS 30th august 2011 - 2

Well after a bit of a rant about my Google Account being disabled, I remembered that blogger is actually owned by Google. Suffice it to say, the TOS are vague enough that I think bad mouthing Google Adsense could actually get my blog closed...

Lets just say I'm extremely disappointed that Adsense thinks my site poses a risk of invalid clicks, right when they had to cut me a cheque too... I'll let you draw your own conclusions on that one.

Peace out ppl,

P.S - Anyone want to advertise here?

NEWS 30th august 2011

Hmmmmmm I said for people to DONATE to my paypal... not spam my ad's. Now my account has been deleted and I am awaiting a response. So as it stands there have been zero donations to paypal and i've lost all i'd collected.

If you like coming here and downloading wallpapers I've either sourced or created myself (which is most mind you), please donate to me through paypal to recoupe at least some of the costs associated with running this site and the amount of time devoted to it. I'm talking about a donation of cents in the dollar will help me out.

Sorry to announce 50,000 hits on such a sombre note, but im out of pocket quite a bit thanks to some individuals. Who knows, maybe my account will be reactivated and all this can be put behind us.

Fingers crossed,

Jim

NEWS 20th August 2011

I have just $_PAID_$ for a month of Pro access for MediaFire which should allow faster and ad free access to downloading files. To cover this I've placed a 'DONATE' button on the side as Google isn't living up to my expectations.

ALSO!!! There are new packs of backgrounds available for you to download, AND while I have a Pro account you can go to my server and download entire folders. CLICK HERE!

If 1% of visitors donated $1 I could more than pay for the server AND i'll get rid of ALL the ad's on my site!!!
So check your Paypal for spare coin and help me out.

Cheers,

Jim.

P.S - Without DONATIONS my image server will revert to having pop-ups and there will be no ability to download folders either on the 19th of Sep or once 100GB has been downloaded.

NEWS 11th August 2011

Well I know it's been a while since I've given you all an update on how the site is going but quite frankly I don't know who I would be talking to. As surprising as it sounds, I get very little correspondence from this site even though my hits are still a strong 300-550 a day.

You see here's the low down. People... nice people... nice people like those in the artist section below have been kind enough for me to host their wallpapers here. Unfortunately, for every 'Crazy Falco' or 'Life in Megapixels' that come around, I've contacted dozens of people, receive 2 'F*&% off's', get banned from at least one shitty and obscure forum and have had to scour the internet for hours to find new content.

What am I trying to say from all of this? Not much, just having a whinge... no wait, I know, I did have a point.

SEND ME SOME PICTURES GOD DAMN IT!...
...or i'll post nothing but 'Doom 3' screens till my eyes bleed and people stop coming here.

That's right, I've got my cranky pants on and I'm not afraid to start throwing cats at people...

Alright, enough ranty crap. Now to some cold hard *boring for all but me* stats:

Hits are over 41,000... damn!!! Thanks ppl!!!
With 2.58GB / 767 files stored
Over 47, 300 downloads and
160 GB uploaded

Thanks as always to those who do visit and most importantly those who have contributed to the site.

P.S - TOP PICS RESORTED TODAY!

News 1st July 2011

WOO HOO!

25,000 HITS!!

31,000 DOWNLOADS!!!

100GB's DOWNLOADED!!!!

ITS MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

Well at least it was on Wednesday. 

Just a quick wrap up of the month here at 'Jim's Widescreen Wallpapers'. The final score is in at 13,703 hits for June which is up from 10,583 in May. My site looks to have made about $30 this month (although I will have to wait on a final adjustment to be sure) and I am now hosting 664 pictures. Rest assured I'll come up with something apt for picture 666 (kittens or bunnies or something, yeah?). As always I must thank everyone who visited and/or contributed to the site. Please keep sending me pics. Almost finished setting up my custom PC to enter into rig of the month at a few places, so i'll be posting a few pics of that soon as well.

Cheers everyone,

Jim.

NEWS 19th June 2011

WOO HOO!

20,000 Hits!

Server info:
Storage used: 2.38GB
Downloads Served: 24,801
Bandwidth Served: 83.76GB

Ok so the latest update to the page is the facebook site. Click 'like' to be updated through FB whenever more wallpapers are added to the site (I think that's how its going to work, let me know if there are any problems).

As you can see below, I've started playing around with the 3D Mandelbrot program 'Mandelbulb 3D version 1.7.2'. If you would like any of these images at a different res just let me know as it will be easy to re-render at ANY size.

Cheers ppl,

Jim

P.S - Fragmentarium is another Mandelbrot program. This one uses your GPU to render in realtime.