Widescreen advantage in multiplayer?

Hi there.

Lately as more widescreen monitors are used for gaming, it makes me wonder:
Does it give someone an advantage over a 4:3 monitor player, especially in multiplayer games? Particularly the advantage of giving one player or the other a wider view angle.

There are several ways to restrict the width/height ratio, such as blocking part of the viewport with HUD, or only allowing 4:3 resolutions -- but these methods only seem to annoy people and so are seldom used.

Are there any other ways to make it a fair play for both of the sides?

It depends. If you scale the image so that it is wider, it won't look nice. But if you give them a wider view angle, it will be unfair. If the game allows it, try to crop a bit from the top/bottom so the chances are near fair.

You can't force a user with an HD monitor to use a non-HD res. If you do you probably won't make many happy customers.

Moved to tech board.

What I've seen some games do is the play window is limited to a certain aspect ratio and then the UI sits on the edges. As far as an advantage I guess it would depend on the game.

I have spent way more time gaming than programming and I have played multiplayer first person shooters on both widescreen and regular. I will tell you the difference in my gameplay between both types is minute if any. Honestly if I was used to regular and played in a HD widescreen for a day I was actually worse due to overcompensation in the distance I thought I needed to move my reticule to get a headshot. Then when I got a widescreen and played it for a while if I played back on regular it was the same problem. Honestly what makes a gamer good is skill and comfort. If your gamer is comfortable with a widescreen and you take that away it will likely lead to less popularity in the game. If there was actually a serious issue in differences between these types then there would be screen restrictions in MLG (major league gaming). If you have a game with great gameplay a good concept and realistic feel then people will play including multiplayer. (and I'll bet your game will get more complaints about internet lag in multiplayer giving a player an advantage than someone saying the winner had a widescreen HD)

I don't play games but I do have a widescreen and consider anything which limits use of screen width very very lame.

Maybe you should have to do a quick vision test after logging on and everyone with less than 20/20 can have a positive handicap. Also it will be slightly unfair anyway if I have been playing 1st person shooters on a daily basis for several decades now :p