I've changed from an 18" CRT to a widescreen LCD 23" at native 1920x1080. Whilst I can get the likes of tomb raider underworld to look really sharp by changing the game resolution, there are no resolution options in games like dracula3, evil under the sun, keepsake, nostradamus, etc. Is there a way I can find out what res the games are loading at and is there a way to change it? Also my monitor is widescreen so some things look a little squashed. It's all very playable, I just want to improve it.

[billy7777]

Yes... this is an issue with the wide screen monitors (and something I am looking into as a developer)

Most adventure games are pre-rendered (except full 3d type) - which means they would have to supply the same backgrounds - prerendered in various resolutions in order to fit both widescreen and regular monitors

I may offer an option to increase the resolution in my next game - however the trade off would be some black around the game play area (but at least the image would not be squished)

Hi billy, thanks for the reply. I must get around to checking out your last half of darkness game, looks awesome.

[fov]

You should be able to set your monitor to letterbox the image rather than stretching it. Take a look at your video settings or the menus that can be accessed by pressing the buttons on the front of the monitor.

Thanks fov, never thought of that, I'll take a peek.

[booB]

Originally Posted by fov

You should be able to set your monitor to letterbox the image rather than stretching it. Take a look at your video settings or the menus that can be accessed by pressing the buttons on the front of the monitor.

And if your monitor doesn't have this capability built-in (many of them don't), your video card might.

If you have an nVidia card, go to your nVidia Control Panel, select "Flat-Panel Scaling", and check "Use nVidia scaling with fixed-aspect ratio". Cake. You'll get black bars on the sides of your monitor, but this is infinitely preferable to having a stretched game screen, or having the top and bottom cut off.

If you have an ATI card... good luck. (I used to have one, and there was no option for fixed aspect ratio, but they might have changed this in the past year or so. Otherwise, you might have to download some third-party drivers.)

Also, don't forget to check the Widescreen Gaming Forum just in case there IS a way to play your game in true widescreen. Sometimes, the option won't be supported natively by the game, but you can force it to be supported with an easy workaround.

[kwool]

^ My ATI card driver does support widescreen/traditional scaling. It will switch and scale on its own in order to preserve the formatting of the original program. I have an ATI Radeon Xpress 200M (on my laptop), so I went to the ATI site and updated my driver and downloaded the "Catalyst Control Center" program, which gave me incredible options, including the scaling one.

[booB]

cool. ATI finally got with the times.

Ah, my monitor does have a button which allows me to switch between 4:3 and widescreen. I tried 4:3 on Dracula 3. Well, the sharpness is better in 4:3, it's just unfortunate having such large black vertical borders either side. I'll have to see whether I stick with that, or fill the whole screen in 16 : 9. but sacrifice some sharpness.

[Sughly]

'Tis why I shall never part with my 4:3 monitor. New games with widescreen support will come and go, but the classics will always be around in their 4:3 glory. Yeah there's the support, but borders bugger me too and if you don't have an absolutely massive widescreen monitor then it's not going to measure up to a larger monitor native to 4:3.

I laughed on the inside at a friend's attempt to play Fallout on widescreen with no 4:3 support. He seemed quite content though, seemingly having no recollection of the characters being less short and fat in his earlier 4:3 days.

[booB]

What is the difference between having a 4:3 monitor and having a widescreen monitor with black bars on the sides? It's exactly the same thing.

[Sughly]

Originally Posted by booB

What is the difference between having a 4:3 monitor and having a widescreen monitor with black bars on the sides? It's exactly the same thing.

Except a 19" 4:3 will have a larger screen size than its 19" widescreen counterpart with borders playing a 4:3 game.

[Collector]

That assumes that you can only have same size of monitors. My widescreen is taller than my old 20" 4:3. Monitors keep getting cheaper and cheaper. For what you paid for your old monitor several years ago you can get a larger one, when it's time to replace it.

[Sughly]

Originally Posted by Collector

That assumes that you can only have same size of monitors. My widescreen is taller than my old 20" 4:3. Monitors keep getting cheaper and cheaper. For what you paid for your old monitor several years ago you can get a larger one, when it's time to replace it.

This is also true, granted it is getting cheaper and cheaper to get larger monitors. But to have a widescreen large enough to give you an equivelant to a 20" 4:3 means your pushing the resolution of 3D games using widescreen settings and hence either letting the gameplay suffer in order to make the game look nice on your massive monitor, pulling down the graphics options so that gameplay runs better but game looks smeared blurry and poo, or spending a small fortune on beefing up the pc to run everything nicely on your big widescreen monitor.

In other words, I prefer to keep a 4:3 monitor for 4:3 games, and a reasonably sized widescreen monitor for widescreen games.

EDIT: namely because I don't have a small fortune

[booB]

I bought my 22" widescreen for just over $200 a couple years ago. Nowadays, the same monitor would go for about $130.

The distortion (pixelation) resulting from having a huge monitor which is much bigger than the resolution of the game your running will be the same whether it's widescreen (1920x1200) or 4:3 (1600x1200). A high resolution monitor is a high resolution monitor, regardless of aspect ratio. The only difference is that the widescreen monitor can do more things.

Not to mention, having a 4:3 monitor and a 16:10 monitor is just way too much of a pain in the ass for normal people.

I don't know how keeping your 4:3 monitor around is going to save you money. If you're playing modern games, you need modern hardware to run them. If you don't want to spend the money, and don't mind running these games at low settings, then they're not going to run any better on your 4:3 display than on your widescreen.

Also, modern hardware doesn't have to cost you an arm and a leg like it used to. If you learn to install it yourself (or have a buddy that can do so), you can play modern games quite well on a $50 graphics card, a $100 processor with a $20 CPU cooler, and about $30 worth of memory -- probably keeping your existing mobo and hard drive.

[Sughly]

Originally Posted by booB

The distortion (pixelation) resulting from having a huge monitor which is much bigger than the resolution of the game your running will be the same whether it's widescreen (1920x1200) or 4:3 (1600x1200). A high resolution monitor is a high resolution monitor, regardless of aspect ratio. The only difference is that the widescreen monitor can do more things.

I'm just speaking here on 3D games that can upscale, which isn't relative to pixelation with pre rendered backgrounds and such. Hence, smaller monitor for older 4:3 and predominantly prerendered art, and slightly larger widescreen for games with 3D and, well, widescreen support.

Originally Posted by booB

Also, modern hardware doesn't have to cost you an arm and a leg like it used to. If you learn to install it yourself (or have a buddy that can do so), you can play modern games quite well on a $50 graphics card, a $100 processor with a $20 CPU cooler, and about $30 worth of memory -- probably keeping your existing mobo and hard drive.

I do upgrade and install my own parts, but being in Australia it's not quite as cheap as that (maybe a $200 graphics card, $200 cpu, $100 ram, and if upgrading mobo? bah, way too much for them these days).