Will this old title ever get upgraded?

[Imp]

Don

Windows mode either on 16" laptop or 23-24" monitor I cant remember specs now.
Game is crystal clear with my specs on.
Forum on 16" monitor no zoom level is crystal clear also with glasses on.
Without glasses I can make out peoples names in the larger font from the fuzz but the main body is unreadable.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by geoff

I had a situation with a different game where the text was hard to read, but I found that if I set the in-game resolution to be the same as I was using outside the game, the blurriness went away.

I guess with WinSPMBT that would mean running the game in windowed mode and using desktop as the resolution. That's how I am set up anyway.

I like other newer games too, but I keep coming back to WinSPMBT!

Geoff

and that is exactly what we keep suggesting to people. The best way to play the game is windowed desktop

Don

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Imp

Don

Windows mode either on 16" laptop or 23-24" monitor I cant remember specs now.
Game is crystal clear with my specs on.
Forum on 16" monitor no zoom level is crystal clear also with glasses on.
Without glasses I can make out peoples names in the larger font from the fuzz but the main body is unreadable.

That sounds like me only I really have to squint without the glasses to read peoples names in the larger font but like you it's crystal clear with the glasses on.

I think some people think we're just making exuses but I see the game and the forums exactly the way you describe.......with my glasses on and I'm REALLY trying to understand what's going on with some sytems that would generate these comments.

Now.... that said I SOMETIMES load the game and it's not quite sharp and the only solution is reboot but that hasn't happen to me in ages and it only seems to happen when I fire up the game after being on the computer doing other things for a long time ( and we tell people in the GG not to do that...........). In my case a screen shot shows perfectly sharp even when it's slightly off when I take the shot but it always clears up with a reboot so something is slighlty off in the code the runs the monitor so what I'm seeing isn't what it's trying to show me which is why the screen shot is sharp and clear but this isn't something that happens a lot, but for all I know this is what people are seeing on a more regular basis but I can assure everyone if Andy and I saw what's being described on a regular basis we certainly wouldn't be telling people every thing is OK at our end

Don

[Mobhack]

I suspect that those complaining of fuzziness are trying to run the game in full-screen mode at a resolution less than the monitor's native resolution. That will provide 2 hits to presentation quality:
- The monitor is trying to display less pixels than "native" = fuzziness
- Since we only provide 4:3 modes for archaic CRT sets, it is also trying to stretch a square mode to fit a modern letterbox display which adds more fuzziness.

We provided desktop resolution as the way to deal with wide screen monitors. It is what you should therefore use if playing on a wide screen display. Desktop resolution is mapping the same video driver resolution as the screen, so therefore there wont be fuzziness from stretching a square video mode to a letterbox wide-screen.

Full-screen mode is therefore dead, and only provided for historical reasons - there may be a few CRT square screen players left. Full screen mode is also in an old MSDOS 256-colour paletted mode often used by games in the old days, this can cause palette sharing problems (psychedelic screen) on modern video cards. Windowed mode uses full-colour mode, and that allows you to switch between the game and other windows apps at will. You also get to see the windows task-bar so can see the clock, email notifications etc.

Those full game owners who want to use a lower monitor resolution than the monitor's native resolution because of eye-strain issues or whatever should proceed as follows:

a) Use windowed game mode and desktop screen size.

b) Before firing up the game, right click on the windows desktop and change the resolution to your desired lower value.

c) Start and play the game. The game is now playing in the selected resolution without trying to squish a 4:3 square video mode onto a wide-screen "letterbox"!. One game pixel now relates exactly to 1 desktop pixel.

d) On game exit, right click the windows desktop, and set resolution back to what you were using previously.

NB - You will have to experiment with the different resolutions your video card allows until you find one that displays the game with the correct height and width aspect ratios. Many of the resolutions offered may well stretch or squash the icons both horizontally and vertically!. One you have found the one on your video card that you are happiest with, stick to that.

[Imp]

Quote:

Those full game owners who want to use a lower monitor resolution than the monitor's native resolution because of eye-strain issues or whatever should proceed as follows:

I used to use the above procedure for another game.
Not sure if its common but my graphic card remembered the 2 settings I used so switching took seconds.

As a side note I tried running the game in fullscreen mode & the graphics are noticeably worse on my system & stretched.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Imp

As a side note I tried running the game in fullscreen mode & the graphics are noticeably worse on my system & stretched.

On mine the graphics are no different in fullscreen but there is some hesitation when moving units but that's with windows10 Win8 didn't do that. Different OS give different results on different systems

EDIT- When I was still using my old Dell with XP when I ran the game in fullscreen mode the colours were not quite right........windowed mode they were perfect but fullscreen every thing was what I would best describe as "washed out" but I did't hear anyone else having that problem and I attributed it to me running the game in XP on a machine and graphics card set up for winME because before I swtiched to XP both windowed and fullscreen displayed the colours the same in winME

FURTHER EDIT- As we have often said all systems are a bit different with mine when I run the recomended 1920x1080 resolution everything is razor sharp......game, forums, other apps, everything. When I try some of the lower resolutions and run the game ( or the forums or anything ) the size of the image does increase but it's never quite as sharp as 1920x1080. Some of the lower ones are better than others but none are as good as the recommended resolution for my system but "results may vary" for other systems

Don