Hardware & Technical Ultrawide screen (21:9) image stretching

[Alecz]

I am using a 21:9 monitor running at 2560 x 1080. Elite appears to support this resolution and aspect ration, and most aspects of the game are fine.
However, I can't get over the issue where the planets are stretched when they are at the edge of the screen.

I don't have a screenshot of my own handy, but other people have raised this in the past:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...V-Here-s-How?p=2868110&viewfull=1#post2868110 :

I fiddled with the POV settings but it does not help.

Past posts seem to indicate that:

• This is how Elite (and most video games work) - not true, many games handle 21:9 just fine, without distortion at the edges
• Only affects triple monitors, if rendering was separate on each monitor it would not be an issue - not true, this is a single monitor
• its just how the galaxy space and 2D items have to be rendered - this is a planet which should be 3D not 2 D
• It is stretched intentionally to remove any advantage a wider view would give the player - WTH?? Should we all just use 4:3 now?

I specifically bought a 21:9 monitor to play Elite and have a better and more immersed view, is there a way to fix this?

 

[Shadowdancer]

It is a normal effect when you project a scene onto a plane and watch it from the "wrong" distance so the observed field of view does not match the imaged field. You can "fix" this by moving your face up to the monitor so the monitor covers the same field as the game renders onto it (That means for a 180° FoV your eyes would theoretically touch the surface and for anything wider you'd need to put your eyeballs through it, neither is recommended). Alternatively you can very carefully bend your monitor into a roughly spherical shape with an appropriate radius.

 

[Alecz]

Hmm, I see what you are saying. So for wider resolutions, a curved screen would be required to preserve a correct image projection.

Oh I wish there was a software solution to this.

 

[Shadowdancer]

It's the same as with map projections, you're putting a sphere or part of it onto a differently shaped surface. You can tweak the projection to your needs, but it will always be distorted in some way. If you want it to be sorta, kinda right, a spherical projection setup or a VR bucket would be solutions that don't distort but come with their own downsides like requiring explicit support by the game, expensive hardware, or a dedicated room of significant size.

Check out the images here: https://github.com/shaunlebron/blinky

 

[Morbad]

As mentioned, no good way around it with rectilinear projection, unless you want to reduce your FOV setting to unusable levels, or sit painfully close to the display.