schnodder: I installed the widescreen patch and set my resolution to 1920x1200. It seems that I have infinite scrolling distance. Well, according to the readme of the widescreen patch this should not be the case unless I set certain commandline parameters.

without the widescreen patch I can only scroll a certain amount. Just out of couriosity I tried it with 1024x768, and with this resolution scrolling distance is also limited. So it seems that I have infinite scrolling distance only with 1920x1200. Is this a bug of the patch? And if so, how can I get the correct behavior for my resolution?

I never played the game, so I want to play it how it's intended, i.e. without infinite scrolling distance.

schnodder

mikenike: I've been going through the read me and I saw that this can be a problem with very high resolutions. I don't think there is a solution, you just have to keep you're resolution set a little lower. Infinite scrolling won't change the way you're suppose to experience the game. All it will do is make things a little easier and less frustrating.

Here's a link to view the readme.

file:///C:/Program%20Files%20%28x86%29/GOG.com/Arcanum/HighRes/Readme/highres.html

schnodder: ok thanks, since I have 16:10 display and the lower 16:10 resolutions are not filling my screen (I tried various things to strech it, but ...) I think I'm gonna play with infinite scrolling distance.

mikenike: It's a good choice. I promise you infinite scrolling distance won’t make any difference in how you're "supposed" to experience the game. Not having infinite scrolling distance was actually the first thing I disliked about Arcanum. Glad I could help.

DrWevil: Nah, can't agree with that dude. The distance you can scroll was constrained by, and proportional to your perception skill. Makes alot of sense when you think about it, you're meant to be the player character not an omnipotent being. Try the extremes of either side without the patch and you'll see what I mean. Think of the difference between a keen eyed rifleman, who should be able to see/perceive alot more about his surroundings (e.g. the scrolling area of say... 2 full screens) than an almost blind Hulking half ogre who can only see what's right in front of him (with less than 1 screen area of scrolling). The pros and cons are pretty stark.

This is extended with the level of ambient light, meaning you can see (and scroll) further than you can in light than in the dark. IIRC there were certain backgrounds you could pick (something like night vision?) that altered some of the penalties of this so all in all it is a pretty strong base feature of the game. Just like strength, dex, etc.

It's probably easier with infinite scroll but for gameplay I'd drop it straight away.

DrWevil: Well at the very least it gives you the ability to scout without putting yourself in any danger, or going down any wrong paths, which heavily detracts from the exploratory aspect of the game. Regardless of the distance at which enemies spawn, in the most part it wouldn't be too difficult to work out where groups of enemies or a boss would be, and easily avoid them.

I'm not saying the system is perfect by any means, but I think its an inventive representative of how perception works in real life. Ideally it could have occlusion (layered line of sight) and going back to the ogre example, blurred vision past a certain point but these would add heavily to the processing/development time.

You made a good point, I understand what you’re saying about the lower perception character being able to see just as far, with a lower definition compared to the rifleman but I'd guess this is how the game represents the difference. Because it has no real way to show a difference in clarity it's not so much that you can scroll to the maximum distance the character can see, but to where it can clearly see.

Like anything in Arcanum, it's a mechanic that you can choose to focus on, leave it be, or even mod! Plenty of choices to suit different styles of play :)

schnodder: ok thanks, since I have 16:10 display and the lower 16:10 resolutions are not filling my screen (I tried various things to strech it, but ...) I think I'm gonna play with infinite scrolling distance.