Catzklawz

Cheers to 'Catzklawz' for sending in this widescreen background. Made using the template listed HERE.

Batman - Arkham Asylum + WQHD

In keeping with my stroll down memory lane this week, I thought I should fire up the first Batman game to see how three years has treated it. What can I say except 'Brilliant!!!!' Well, i'll let the pics simply speak for themselves:

Bioshock 2 - WQHD

Such a vast improvement from the first game. Once again it ran on my new system without breaking a sweat. A little dated in the graphics department, however lighting and water effects still look great!!!
This is still worth playing if you haven't yet.

Bioshock 1 - WQHD

Thought I would take a 5 min trip down memory lane and play the original Bioshock (2007). On my 2 x 670's in SLI it ran anywhere from 220-450 fps @ 2560x1440, so not too taxing on my system when I turned vsync on. Have to say though, while the textures are still ok, the models and polygon count really leave this game feeling quite dated.

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).

Bioshock Infinite + WQHD

The following WQHD screens were taken using: SweetFX with setting from HERE, Cheat Engine, with THIS table and Photoshop for a few shots to balance colours and exposure.

GTA IV - Modded

After seeing what Dead End Thrills did with Bioshock Infinite I decided to figure out how to mod GTA IV.



I'm running:
GTAIV 1.0.4.0 - Downgraded my steam version
iCEnhancer 2.1 + config tool
DKT70 HD Roads Re-edited by Fonia5
GTA IV Native Trainer
FRAPS

Gigabyte GTX 670 2GB OC Windforce Ed
i5 3570 @ stock
16GB RAM
Installed on 2 1TB hard drives in RAID 0
2560x1440

Now I know I could bump the settings up till it almost wont run, just to get better shots, but I wanted to actually play the game as well. These shots were taken with the game running around 40 fps.

I'm currently trying to download the HD texture pack 2.0 but its taking forever.

Rage

UPDATE 3: The new patch adds extra video settings so there isnt the need to edit the cfg if it runs without glitches

UPDATE 2: I THINK I'M ADDICTED TO THIS GAME NOW!!!!



I know, I know... it's been a whole half a day and I haven't added any RAGE pics. Well here they are.

Now there are many questions that RAGE may force some of you to secrete, but here's one you may not have heard...

WHY???

This is the biggest question in my mind when playing 'Borderlands 1.5'... ahhh I mean 'Fallout New Engine' oh crap... I mean 'Another buggy console port'. As most of you have already heard, the game is quite, quite buggy. The only one I've experienced so far is that textures take too long to load and as such pop in and out of focus... much like my own focus when trying to justify Bethesda's decision to make RAGE. If you ignore that and run around fast enough, the motion blur hides the texture bug a bit and you are transported to the wonderfully rendered world of Borderlands. It's nearly identical, right down to the way vehicles look... christ, even the fonts are similar.

Either RAGE is stepping on Borderlands toes, or BL2 will fall over RAGE on its way out the door. I'm left asking 'What is the point?' Don't get me wrong... a patch or two and this going to be the gaming equivalent of a T-Rex with frikin Lasers, but we already got the T-Rex of games in the Fallout series and Borderlands had a lot of laser pistols (OK the same one with different coloured stats, but you know what I mean).

Did the Borderfans get sick of all the DLC and want to fork out new cold hard cash for what at first glance looks like the same game? At least it plays in multi-mon (insert pokemon joke here) straight away and the hud is fine (AS IS THE CASE WITH SKYRIM!!!!! YES?????). Also it should run fine on most decent systems as there are little to no video settings available. 2xGTX 480's and it was almost perfect on 5760x1080 and x8 AA.

Just found a graphics tweak guide HERE. Might give that a go... but then again, the zombies in Dead Island are still calling me.


UPDATE 1.5:

1.5 cause I hit the wrong button and have to type all this out again... ahhhhh

Ok so I have tried out some of the config file settings and I must say that they are definitely worth using. To apply them you need to create a file called 'rageconfig.cfg' in rage/base/ and fill it with your loathing and contempt for console ports and the developers who have yet to add these simple settings to the SETTINGS MENU! Sorry, it's just a bit stupid to have to go to this length dont you think. Anywho, try these settings:

vt_pageimagesizeuniquediffuseonly2 8192 
vt_pageimagesizeuniquediffuseonly 8192 
vt_pageimagesizeunique 8192 
vt_pageimagesizevmtr 8192 
vt_restart 
vt_maxaniso 4 
image_anisotropy 16
image_usecompression 0
cvaradd g_fov 12
com_skipIntroVideo 1
g_showplayershadow 1
m_smooth 0
com_AllowConsole 1
vt_usecudatranscode 2


The last 17 shots in the series are with these settings.


After trying these out I found my way to the next town and started to do some of the races. NOW I can answer the question as to WHY this game should be. I had to drag myself away to take comparison shots, write this... f*** it up... and write it again.

Here are the comparison shots:

Old settings:


New Settings:


UPDATE 3: 2 new pics in widescreen, that's right, my setup is back to landscape!!!

Fallout 4 - New Vegas

A couple of extra shots added in today

Well after working through the Fallout NV forum @ WSGF I have managed to get the game running... kinda. Not exactly about to buy the new DLC till this is fixed though.

PROS:

• 6020x1080 (which is a bezel of 130/130 for surround)
• Terminals working (although fuzzy) 
• Pipboy visible
• Looks Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!

CONS:

• Mouse Horizontal speed in menus too fast
• V.A.T.S Slow / virtually unusable
• Pipboy font kinda fuzzy

Here's what you need to do:

Download my ini files HERE

Start the game with the launcher

Make some changes to the settings so it saves ini files

Probably best to setup character and leave the start house and save

(menu's are still glitchy here I think)

Place my files in the correct folders (make backups, make sure fallout.ini is read only)

Start the game using the FalloutNV.exe

Play

Take screenshots

Send them to me!!!!

Battlefield 3

BETA IMAGES OMG!!!!!! AHHHHHHHGGGGGGG!!!!!!

Driver San Francisco

Thanks once again to the peeps at WideScreen Gaming Forum for THIS INFO to play kinda properly in WS

Lego - Pirates of the Caribbean

So Lego - Pirates will work right out of the box, however as you can see, the hud is a bit screwed up. Would love to know how to fix this.

Nvidia

Just so we're clear, I AM AN NVIDIA FANBOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



NEW SHOTS NOW UP including Just Cause 2, WOW, Resident Evil 5, Need for Speed.

For these and the AMD shots, please let me know if you would like different variations as it would be easy to do in photoshop.

Need for Speed

AMD

Just so ppl have a direct link to these images, here is a post dedicated to AMD/ATI

Bulletstorm

A highly under rated, over the top, tongue an' cheek first person shooter. Just started playing through in widescreen with corrected FOV (not in the cut scenes though) thanks to the members of Widescreen Gaming Forums. Click HERE for the info needed to play this game in WS

Zero Punctuation

In honour of boosting the legitimacy of my web site (by proving my amazing copy & paste skills), here are the Zero Punctuation wallpapers I photoshopped a few months ago.

Now you'll see Zero Punctuation reviews below corresponding game backgrounds. I've checked on the Escapist that it's ok to post the vids here, but even if its not who cares! At least I'm all the way down here in Australia while Zahtzee lives...

...Ah ****

Fallout 1+2+3

Xotic

Hard Reset