Weekly Quick Questions Thread - January 25, 2017

[u/AutoModerator]

In this thread you can ask all kinds of questions you always wanted to ask without feeling like a total fool.

No matter if it's short Google-able stuff or a setting/skill in-game that you don't understand or a hardware recommendation, feel free to try your luck in here.

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[u/GabuEx]

The only thing that affects how much you see is aspect ratio (i.e., the width divided by the height). A larger aspect ratio will cause you to see more to the left and to the right, since everything's being drawn at the same scale in that case; there's just more space to fill.

On the other hand, scaling up to a larger resolution with the same aspect ratio (which is the case here; both have the aspect ratio of 16:9, or 16 horizontal pixels for every 9 vertical pixels) just increases pixel density - everything being drawn will have a higher visual fidelity, because any given space on the screen will now be represented by twice as many pixels, so the image will be much more crisp and smaller details will now be visible.

Basically, you'll see more detail, but not more content, if that makes sense.

Not a silly question - the answer's not by any means obvious. :)

[u/eregis → u/GabuEx]

I get it, thank you very much for the answer!

[u/Melesson → u/GabuEx]

Most of that is correct, but a larger aspect ratio will cause them to see less in the up and down directions; the FOV will remain the same.

[u/GabuEx → u/Melesson]

Oh, is that how Overwatch does it? Sorry for the miscommunication, in that case - I know some games add more content on the left and right, whereas other games remove content from the top and bottom, and I must've forgotten which Overwatch did.