4:3 Stretched without Black Bars doesn't work with settings allowed in tourneys
Before the System Override event of Season 4, players had a way to play on 4:3 Aspect Ratio without cinematic black bars by adding these two commands in their autoexec.cfg:
- mat_letterbox_aspect_goal 1.33 (or the number that you get from dividing your intended resolution's aspect ratio like 4/3 for 4:3 and 5/4 for 5:4)
- mat_letterbox_aspect_threshold 1.33
In the ALGS official match rules, these two commands' values along with fps_max are the only ones that are whitelisted to be edited through an autoexec.cfg file so people were allowed to play on stretched and/or custom resolutions without any form of black bars during the tournament. The only other command/variable that could be edited is through the videoconfig.txt (setting.csm_enabled).
After the System Override event, these two commands no longer worked as intended, with players being forced to have cinematic black bars (on top and below) despite it being stretched. Currently, the way to play 4:3 and other stretched resolutions is not allowed in the tournaments because players have to add another command that is not whitelisted: building_cubemaps "1"
More specifically, players need to have these commands in their launch options:
- mat_letterbox_aspect_goal 0
- mat_letterbox_aspect_threshold 0
- building_cubemaps "1"
I have a few questions:
- What is the purpose of the building_cubemaps command (If it can be disclosed)?
- Why are the old commands that are still written in the tournament match rules not working and would they ever be fixed?
- If Question 2's answer is still unknown, then would building_cubemaps ever be whitelisted as a command in the ALGS Official Match Rules?
Eric Hewitt has commented on this before on Twitter last year but it seems to still have not been fixed for ALGS players to be able to play on this resolution. I have also messaged him on Twitter about it. I have also mentioned him, @PlayApex, and @PlayApexEsports on a tweet regarding the same issue.
Source: https://twitter.com/GH057ayame/status/1234930661766516736?s=20
The intended result is to not have any black bars in the game client on display on a 16:9 monitor, fully stretching the image of the game and not just stretching but players would still see black bars on top and at the bottom of their screen.
