Programming-wise, is it hard to allow players to select split-screen direction?
 

Don't know if anyone here is programming savvy, far as games go at least. I don't really post a lot of places where I know programmers are hanging, though, so I figured I'd throw this out a couple places where people might know.

Yes, it's kinda sad.

But yeah, friend talked me into playing Borderlands last night. I'm not big on the FPS, as you all know, but the BIG annoyance that got to me (well, besides the lack of a mini-map, which would have been awesome) was the fact that the splitscreen was vertical rather than horizontal. I especially hated scrolling back and forth on the inventory screen, but having like a 4 degree field vision was annoying in general.

Probably wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't used to vertical splitscreen, but it's kind of like finding out fire isn't right trigger. It's at least a pain to get used to.

So really, at this point, is there any technical reason you can't let someone choose? I'm not completely savvy on how the game and system handle the process, so maybe there's some reason in terms of output. Don't know, just thinking how awesome it would be if I could swap to horizontal.

And since the guy I was playing with it agreed, it would have been especially nice.

Really? There wasn't an option for that? I don't believe you.

You could change between vertical and horizontal on Tony Hawk for Nintendo 64. Hard to imagine Borderlands doesn't have that option somewheres.

Wow. Looking this up and it defaults to vertical and you can only do horizontal depending on your TV.

That's stupid.

So yeah, I haven't added anything to this and I'm also as curious as Kane Knight is about the technicalities behind it if anyone knows.

:rofl:

Sounds more like a mistake or they hard coded a few things in the game's actual code based on the TV they used but this time included menus and other stuff that wouldn't display correctly in a horizontal split.

Usually see that more with text sizes since developers only make it big enough for HD/widescreen TVs and didn't bother to test or code for a general display.

Technically I honestly can't think of anything that'd make it difficult. If you think about it with split screen all you're doing is splitting the screen into two distinct zones.

Zone A is a rectangle on screen for player one and anything player one see's is rendered in this rectangle, and the same goes for Zone B. All it is is a matter of defining the points on the screen for each zone.

You might need some rearranging of HUD elements but beyond that it's the same tech going into it.

But it's pretty common not to have splitscreen selection. Well, common among the dwindling numbers of couch multiplayer titles. Far as I've seen, the rarity is actually allowing the select. Evidently, Borderlands does in some TVs, which is nice, but it's still kind of rare as far as I know.

What does it need a 60inch tv or something? Because that option wasn't there when me and my friend went to play it on his 52inch tv.

Speaking from a programmer's perspective I don't see this to be an issue. The image would be rendered in the same way you'd just have less field of vision to work with so less would be shown. Doesn't seem like it would be something hard to implement, it's more of a programmer's choice not to put it in.