Zoom levels, Windowed mode, Wide Screen.

[firepowerjohan]

I see some questions about this every now and then, so might be good to inform about it some more

* We have 3 zoom levels in game, 25%, 50% and 100%.
* We support windowed and full screen mode
* We always run the game in 1024x768 so there is no specific wide screen option

Some more info:
Whole map is hexagon 150x72 hexes (=10.800 hexes).
At 100% zoom, you will be viewing 17x9 hexes
At 50% zoom, you will be viweing 34x17 hexes
at 25% zoom, you will be viewing 68x35 hexes

For those with wide screen, you can use the windowed mode to get the right proportions. Mouse scrolling works in windowed mode also.

[dferdinand1231]

i cant wait for this game to come out, i wanna play it so bad

please please please do not restrict this game to 1024 res.
i have a 22" lcd with 1650 x 1080 max and i cant stand when developers restrict screen res settings, it really dissapoints me
if anyone else feels the same way, please say something

even allowing someway to force the screen res would be fine
ill look forward to your responses

[firepowerjohan]

yes, it forces 1024x768 in full screen and in windowed mode it will use your desktop resolution of course. Why so keen running on your max resolution? If you want right proportions you can set your desktop to like 1300x700 something and then go to windowed mode inside game. would mean it covers like 75%-80% of your screen and you have room for your msn or icq on the right hand side of the display while playing Commander Europe At War

[IainMcNeil]

To support other resolutions the UI would have to be drawn at multiple sizes which is a huge amount of work. It is not a 3D game where things can just be scaled It's not that we didnt think about it - it's that it was just too much work to do for a small team on its first game.

[sagji]

The reason for running at the display's native resolution is that this is the only resolution an LCD display runs at, other resolutions are faked - usually by using hardware scaling - with the consequent loss of quality. This is especially bad when showing a 4:3 aspect ratio image on a wide screen display.

Running windowed rather than full screen is a good visual work around - but usually this introduces usability problems becasue moving the mouse to the edge of the window to scroll becomes harder when going past the edge has a different effect.

For example Gates of Troy would look a lot better on my display if it had a widescreen resolution even if this extra space just contained a simple fixed image. This would mean that the round buttons would be circular and remove other distortions.

I would prefer any extra resolution to be used to show more of the map - so no scaling of graphics required. If my system can't handle this than I still have the option to drop down to the standard resolution.
Even if the extra pixels are filled with black it may still look better.

Additionally I would like an option for side bars instead of top/bottom bars - many games put their control bars accross the top and bottom of the screen - reducing the more valuable vertical resolution. On a wide screen it makes more sense to put them at the sides even if this means they end up twice the area.

To recap
Higher resolution should be supported by displaying more not by using larger graphics.

[IainMcNeil]

I run on LCD screens and it looks fine, so it's not really an issue. Yes it would be marginally better in the native resolution but like I said it is a huge amount of work. Showing more is not possible without lots of work - the UI would have to be redrawn at the new resolution. You could show more hexes but it is the UI that is problem.

We considered a side bar, but we decided East-West viewing was mroe important than North South as in this theatre of operations as you tend not to fight much morth to south. Then ad in zoom levels and you can see as much as you like with no problems. We have put a lot of thought in to this believe it or not

[sagji]

It is because you are fighting E-W that the N-S direction is more important. To take an example from the first screen in the thread "Commander Screens & News" if you had side bars instead of bottom bar then you would see 25% more hexes N-S which is 25% more of the front line. Most if not all of what you loose is things so far from the front line that they can't reach it this turn so are far less critical.


I don't see why you need to rescale the UI why can't it just be drawn in the same number of pixes?

Using the same screen shot as above. If the display had a 50% higher vertical resolution and a 90% higher horizontal resolution (1920x1200)
split the top bar into two parts (with a 3-4 hex gap in the standard resolution about 18 in this higher resolution)
Split the bottom part into two parts (with no gap in the standard resolution, about 15 in this higher resolution)

When a dialog pops up (such as the one later in the same thread) then you see lost of the map around it.

There may be some milage in reworking it with the top bar as a top left pane, the mini map as the top right pane, the command buttons as the bottom right pane, and the info pane as bottom left pane. However I think you will only get the benefit from this if a) using a wide screen, or b) two resolutions up from the standard. IF you can shave 2, or possibly 1, hex off the width of the info pane then it would look better and probably give enough center space to make the alternate layout work even in standard resolution.

However it is more important that you provide a widescreen resolution - even if is simply a fixed image on either side of the standard display.

[ijontichy]

It is because you are fighting E-W that the N-S direction is more important. To take an example from the first screen in the thread "Commander Screens & News" if you had side bars instead of bottom bar then you would see 25% more hexes N-S which is 25% more of the front line. Most if not all of what you loose is things so far from the front line that they can't reach it this turn so are far less critical.

Agreed. The more of the front line you can see (at any zoom level), the better. And the front line in this game will tend to be N-S a lot more than E-W. So using left and right panels instead of top and bottom panels would have been a better idea. On the other hand, I can see reasons for doing it the way that Slitherine have done it; it's just that I don't think those reasons are as good as the reasons sagji outlined. But at least they have included 3 levels of zoom, so that is some consolation.

I don't see why you need to rescale the UI why can't it just be drawn in the same number of pixes?

Exactly. The GUI elements don't have to be drawn at multiple sizes, unless the programmer has rigidly designed his program that way. Slightly more flexibility on the programmer's part would allow him to position the top panel at the top centre of the screen, and the bottom panel at the bottom centre of the screen, no resizing necessary.

For sure Slitherine has their reasons for designing it their way, but they should be made aware that some of us are not happy with it. Maybe in the next version or next game they will change this, or maybe they won't. But at least they know now that some people would like multiple screen resolution support. I am withholding my decision to buy this game until I see just how the windowed mode works. Most of the other things I've heard about the game sound exciting. That's my last post on this issue.

[IainMcNeil]

You'll just have to trust us on this - if we did not redraw the UI it would throw up a lot of issues

[ijontichy]

No problem, looking forward to the demo.

[toddtreadway]

Have to throw in my two cents here and say I'm disappointed there won't be support for other resolutions as well.

I play Gary Grigsby's World at War in windowed mode, where it is set at 1024x768, on my 1920x1200 monitor. It looks kind of silly.

I've also tried it in full-screen mode, and it is slightly blurry. Yes, it's not horrible, but it is noticable. And it will be noticable with Commander, as well.

Oh well.

[greenmoray1]

I just bought GG WiTW and no matter what screen res I chose the ui info was jumbled with words crashed together on every screen ui. If I looked carefully I can see things but they overlap. If this is related to screen res then what steps to take? I tried public beta current version on both windowed and full screen, checked local files, tried no beta version and uninstalled and reinstalled the game and still the words on the ui screens air planner ai and all the micro info necessary like specific pilots and changing whatever.....everything is this very ugly DOS unreadable lists. Those on you tube look fine, normal and clear wording. It looks to me like the same exact font i have. I am using windows 10 64 bit but the game works in all things just not in this info screen selection where you must click to manage the game....pretty important. What is the solution for this. (Someone said about changing font in the game, but I have never messed with this)

As it is the summer sale was thinking of getting WiTE but afraid the same thing will happen.

Really want to play this game......I managed to plan my ai air attacks and move my units but not much else ....there is so much there jumbled.

Never had a problem with any older game on my asus laptop with nividia.

Anything in manual on this? It should just work.

Any advice soon would be greatly appreciated

[Peter Stauffenberg]

You posted this in the forum for Military History: Commander - Europe at War. In your message you speak about Gary Grigsby's War in the West. If it's the latter game you mean then maybe posting in the correct forum will get you some answers.