HDTV 720p Resolution

[greenbean]

Well, I've got to say I'm not impressed with the widescreen support that's currently in Civ IV.

->HDTV standard resolution 720p is just not supported at all, full-screen or windowed
-> HDTV resolutions don't support HDTV overscanning in full-screen mode (i.e. unit action buttons & research progress meters are off screen)
-> 4:3 resolutions in windows (that are maximized to fill a widescreen) don't translate the cursor position to the game properly, i.e. units won't go the spot the cursor is over & the terrain info is not for the tile the mouse is over

Please, someone fix the widescreen support!!!

Anyone have any luck dealing with the above issues?

[Imran Siddiqui]

I thought the widescreen support was for widescreen monitors, not HDTV.

[greenbean]

HDTV is a subset of widescreen resolutions. They are the original wide screen resolutions.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Not exactly:

http://www.gen-x-pc.com/lcd3.htm

Doesn't seem to be a 780 in there. A 768 is there, however. It seems that widescreen support is for widescreen monitors, not HDTV.

[greenbean]

I'm looking for assistance with displaying civ 4 on a widescreen HDTV monitor, not arguing semantics.

Obviously you've gone to great trouble looking up references that only cover the resolutions that support your argument. However, HDTV resolutions, such as 720x1280 have been in place since 1995, and are "widescreen".

http://www.atsc.org/document_map/video.htm

&

http://www.smpte.org/smpte_store/standards/index.cfm?scope=0&stdtype=smpte&CurrentPage=12

I think the ATSC & SMPTE are bit more authoritative than gen-x-pc....

So unless you can help, please don't dissuade others who might with your opinion.

[TheHateMale]

I'd be surprised if Firaxis put any time at all into making Civ4 natively compatible with HDTV.

That said, have you tried setting a custom resolution through the .ini files that matches your display?

Got to My Documents\\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\CivilizationIV.ini

Look for:
; Custom Screen Height, ex: 768 - Normal resolutions can be set in-game and will be used when both values are set to 0
ScreenHeight = 0

; Custom Screen Width, ex: 1024 - Normal resolutions can be set in-game and will be used when both values are set to 0
ScreenWidth = 0

[greenbean]

I'd be surprised if they didn't support HDTV's as monitors, as I know more people with HDTVs hooked up as monitors than I know people with wide screen LCDs.

At any rate, I've tried changing these parameters. 1280x720 isn't accepted, and defaults to 1024x768. My initial comments were based on changing these values and the fullscreen value.

Thanks for the help.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by greenbean
I'm looking for assistance with displaying civ 4 on a widescreen HDTV monitor, not arguing semantics.

Obviously you've gone to great trouble looking up references that only cover the resolutions that support your argument. However, HDTV resolutions, such as 720x1280 have been in place since 1995, and are "widescreen".

http://www.atsc.org/document_map/video.htm

&

http://www.smpte.org/smpte_store/standards/index.cfm?scope=0&stdtype=smpte&CurrentPage=12

I think the ATSC & SMPTE are bit more authoritative than gen-x-pc....

So unless you can help, please don't dissuade others who might with your opinion.

You've linked to two TV sites .

Widescreen in monitors are a different beast than widescreen in TVs. I'm sorry, but I don't think anyone will be able to help here. But hey, carry on.

[TheHateMale]

When you say that the values aren't accepted, what happens when you try and set it to your TV's resolution? Also, is your computer clone-displaying on a regular monitor?

[greenbean]

I can put the values in the file, but when the Civ IV starts up, it doesn't use those values. The native resolution of the HDTV is 1280x720, which isn't accepted, civ iv comes up in 1024x768.

I thought that civ 4 couldn't accept anything less than 768 in the vertical direction, so I tried 1280x768 & 1366x768 which also came up in 1024x768.

I figured that It seems there are only a few select wide screen resolutions that are available, and I don't know which ones are. The closest one I've found is 1600x900.

My computer isn't cloning the screen onto another monitor.

[TheHateMale]

I think it doesn't say what your resolution is in-game if you have a custom resolution.

The only way offhand I can think to do it is to run Civ4 in a Window, set your desktop to a resolution that works and set Civ to capture the mouse while it's running. If that doesn't help, it may be worth trying to catch the eye of one of the developers who'd presumably either know how to set it, or someone who would.

[bennos76]

What do you mean by:

"set Civ to capture the mouse while it's running"?

I know this is slightly off topic but I've been running civ in windowed mode with an 800x600 desktop (the only way I can get it to work at that res). I have the same problem with the cursor picking up the wrong tiles, civ thinks the cursor is one tile up and one tile left of where the cursor actually is.

If there's a way to 'recapture the mouse', I'd love to know what it is.

[greenbean]

Whooo!

Tech support's has passed my problem up the chain. Hopefully a fix will show up!

[Dralt]

Wow!

Keep me posted. I am very interested in this as well.

Widescreen should be supported, regardless of whether it's a TV or a monitor. From a game development standpoint, there is no difference.

[DanS]

Has this been resolved? I have an Infocus SP7200 (projector) and would love to play in 1280x720p widescreen.

Thanks!