Hardware Poll #1

gragnak · Post by **gragnak** » May 8th, 2007, 2:42 am

19" LCD.
The screenshots you show on official site are 800x600?
Images are shown as are?
What I'm trying to ask is: If I can display those images with a good quality on my screen, can I expect to habve tha same results with the final game?

YouTube · Post by **BasiliskWrangler** » May 8th, 2007, 3:00 am

Yes, it should look the exact same if you play in windowed mode, and if you play it full-screen it will look better than if you just enlarge the 800x600 screenshot on your computer...at least, this has been the case on the 15 or so LCDs that I have so far seen the game run on. This is because when you play the game full-screen, the video card will be sending a true 800x600 signal to your LCD and the LCD will be interpolating the pixels itself.

gragnak · Post by **gragnak** » May 8th, 2007, 3:16 am

Thanks!
The important thing is the roleplay system. Graphics are important but not crucial. And the 800x600 res is another good way to revamp the old school sensation (my opinion).

Fleisch · Post by **Fleisch** » June 10th, 2007, 10:30 pm

I just upgraded to a wide screen (well, 22"), which looks nice, but uses up so much of my graphics card's puny brain that large fonts tend to crash it. I guess I should stop looking at large fonts.

Riverstone · Post by **Riverstone** » June 11th, 2007, 1:11 am

I was pleasantly surprised with Civilisation 3 when I upgraded from my old 800x600 imac to a 17" LCD on a new G5, in that, like a website, the play area just continued out to accomodate the screen, so essentially I could see more of the game board, while the UI at the top and bottom simply moved it's relevant parts across to the left or right and scaled the repeatable graphic in the centre. This was independant of the actual res settings.

In the case of full screen interfaces, like Eschalon's character development or inventory screens, Civ 3 simply poped them up on screen in front of the gameworld at thier native res, so if you had a huge monitor the interface would just be a box in the centre, while on a smaller 800x600 screen it would be full screen.

Anyway I found that this was a brilliant way for an sprite based isometric game to accomodate screen sizes. On a large screen Civ 3 looked glorious, and I much prefer it to it's 4th installment which moved to 3D. In summary, even the simplest isometric 2d game can look and feel like an awesome major game when the gameboard extends it's viewable area on larger screens.

YouTube · Post by **BasiliskWrangler** » June 11th, 2007, 5:49 am

We thought about doing that, just extending the game screen for larger monitors. One of the big obstacles in that is things really start slowing down when we pump a lot of sprites onto the screen, and a larger the play area, the more sprites we have to draw to fill it.

Depending on how Book I's engine performs for everybody, I expect Book II's to be pushed up to at least 1024x768 or higher.

Riverstone · Post by **Riverstone** » June 11th, 2007, 8:00 am

We thought about doing that, just extending the game screen for larger monitors. One of the big obstacles in that is things really start slowing down when we pump a lot of sprites onto the screen, and a larger the play area, the more sprites we have to draw to fill it.

That makes sense, although it makes me wonder what people with slow machines are doing with large monitors >.< (but that my be my ignorance speaking as I am happily blissful in my comfort zone with my latest all in one iMac with it's very decent graphics card).

With regard to sprites, again this is probaly my ignorance, but I would have thought that 2d sprites could be rendering in vast numbers by today's PC's. Hence my thinking that when the game is installed on an older machine with a small screen it automatically runs fine as there is less going on, while at the same time when run on a quad-core G5 with a 30" LCD the inherent uberness off the machine boots it along just as well. Of course then all the sprites might be micoscopic, but in that case the user could just lower the res of the actual monitor.

Anyway I'm just rambing and have no idea what I'm talking about really. I still think the Graphics look great from what I have seen and I'm just itching to see what you guys come up with!

Gallifrey · Post by **Gallifrey** » June 11th, 2007, 8:35 am

Riverstone wrote:
That makes sense, although it makes me wonder what people with slow machines are doing with large monitors >.< (but that my be my ignorance speaking as I am happily blissful in my comfort zone with my latest all in one iMac with it's very decent graphics card).

The people you wonder about are the people who buy computers from, for example, Dell, that are super-cheap with huge processors and big wide-screen monitors, but have nothing more than integrated graphics controllers (the lack of a graphics card being why the systems are so cheap). They get 3.2 ghz machine with 1gb of RAM and a 24" widescreen monitor, but can't actually play anything on the machine, and think they got a great deal for $950.

Leej · Post by **Leej** » June 11th, 2007, 9:05 pm

Riverstone wrote:I was pleasantly surprised with Civilisation 3 when I upgraded from my old 800x600 imac to a 17" LCD on a new G5, in that, like a website, the play area just continued out to accomodate the screen, so essentially I could see more of the game board, while the UI at the top and bottom simply moved it's relevant parts across to the left or right and scaled the repeatable graphic in the centre. This was independant of the actual res settings.

Rise of Nations Gold on the Mac did the same thing, and it was great. I love games that take advantage of widescreen and huge resolutions this way. Maybe for Book II (crosses fingers)

Fleisch · Post by **Fleisch** » June 11th, 2007, 10:44 pm

The people you wonder about are the people who buy computers from, for example, Dell, that are super-cheap with huge processors and big wide-screen monitors, but have nothing more than integrated graphics controllers (the lack of a graphics card being why the systems are so cheap). They get 3.2 ghz machine with 1gb of RAM and a 24" widescreen monitor, but can't actually play anything on the machine, and think they got a great deal for $950.

And then, if they try to upgrade the graphics, they can't, because they cheaped out on the power supply too.

GSV3MiaC · Post by **GSV3MiaC** » June 14th, 2007, 5:03 pm

1920*1200 widescreen TFT here (a Dell, as it happens). Great for graphics design (I edit maps on it) but a bit of a PITA for RPGs, since you have to move your head (or at least eyes) to see the critters sneaking up at the sides - in your peripheral vision, but not in the detail area.

The future is widescreen, if only because of all the TFTs being churned out for TVs, IMO.

Riverstone · Post by **Riverstone** » June 22nd, 2007, 5:26 am

The future is widescreen, if only because of all the TFTs being churned out for TVs, IMO.

Very likely. It's amazing how something as mundane as an aspect ratio can toy with the emotions of the consuming masses. Even now I tend to look back at 3:4 non-widescreen monitors (and definately TV's) and get an immediate sense that I am looking at something 'old'.

Ok, ok, we are not here is discuss the wonders of consumer culture, but I would like to raise the possibility of adding an additional interface setting to the game which, while remaining low-res, caters for wide screens, like 1024x640. This way the wide-screen users can get that warm fuzzy glow we get with the absence of black borders down the sides of our screen. In a perfect world the actual gameboard (characters and landscape etc) could pop out to a slightly wider, more rectangular view, but I'd be happy if all that was added was more of that lovely grey rock background used in the surrounding interface to fill the screen.

Uileat · Post by **Uileat** » July 29th, 2007, 10:24 pm

This is probably the ONLY negative issue that I've seen with this game that I've been anticipating so long, and I finally just had to register for the forum to give my $.02.

I realize what you've said about being too far along to reengineer for multiple resolutions, however:

The native res is 800x600...

How hard would it be to add another resolution flag for 960x600.

You'd only be pushing 160 more horizontal pixels, Leave the interfaces alone, slightly wider playfield area, and the LCD folks could all play without black bars. Or if it's a support issue at least make it a "hidden" .ini option.

Perhaps it really is impossible, but just having the available aspect ratio would make a huge difference to a LOT of people. Since I upgrade to widescreen LCD, widescreen aspect support is something that I look for in everything now. It makes a huge difference.

gragnak · Post by **gragnak** » July 30th, 2007, 5:46 am

If i'm not wrong, BsiliskWrangler just replyed to a similar question saying it wont be possible to implement resolution for Book I because it'd require too much time. But they think to put a wider range of resolution choices in Book II.

Basilisk please correct me if I'm wrong.

Gwendo · Post by **Gwendo** » July 30th, 2007, 1:03 pm

I think that what people are asking here is not a game revamp, so that it supports widescreen format. We (widescreen users) would like something like what Riverstone said: "but I'd be happy if all that was added was more of that lovely grey rock background used in the surrounding interface to fill the screen". No black bars and no stretched screen.

I'm no programmer, so I don't know if that would be a simple thing to do.

Anyway, it's a minor issue, if it would be troublesome, then leave it for the next books.

The Drunken Lizard Pub

Hardware Poll #1

What type of screen do you use?

Monitoring Monitors