Civ2 Zoom Level Problem

[Harry Tuttle]

This is something that has irked me for a long while. Each time I load up a saved game, or even a scenario the zoom level is set to one soom closer than the standard, making the game screen all blurry and such.

How can I make the game load with the standard zoom level each and every time?

[techumseh]

You can't. Deal with it.

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by techumseh
You can't. Deal with it.

In the words of Vader: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

[fairline]

Yes you can, sort of....

Shift-z on your first turn after starting a scenario and then save. When you reload after a fresh start of civ, it'll be 'blurry' as you say - just load twice consequetively and whatever screen res you had when you saved will be reloaded on the second occasion.

[Arthedain]

I also experienced this after not having the 1024x? resolution in Windows.

[Ecthy]

That's the zoom level I play on nowadays. Looks way cooler IMO

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by fairline
Yes you can, sort of....

Shift-z on your first turn after starting a scenario and then save. When you reload after a fresh start of civ, it'll be 'blurry' as you say - just load twice consequetively and whatever screen res you had when you saved will be reloaded on the second occasion.

Hmmm I will try that Fairline. Thank you.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

I just press "x" twice and the problem resolves itself...

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
I just press "x" twice and the problem resolves itself...

Well yeah, I know, but the problem is upon loading a game and having too press the x twice.

[Mercator]

It is annoying. Ages ago I tried to see if I could hex-edit the executable so it would always start with the standard zoom level. My hex-editing skills weren't good enough, unfortunately.

[Boco]

Were you able to find the address that sets the zoom? Or is that too simplistic?
[Edit]
Note to self: wait 'til initial beer buzz wears off before posting. Possibly wait more.

I'm trying to understand the process, here. Do you first find where the zoom is recorded in memory, then run Civ2.exe with some sort of debugger that halts execution when it writes at that address? Or do I live in a world of fantasy?
[/Edit]

[Mercator]

Well, I didn't do anything that fancy. It's certainly fantasy in my world. I sorta looked for zoom level numbers or screen size numbers, just in the executable, and saw what happened when I edited them. That didn't quite work.

The only thing I could find was where the zoom level was stored in a savegame, I think.

[N35t0r]

I only had the problem when I switched to a larger monitor.. the first time I loaded an old save game, the zoom level was set to the old value so I had to hit shift + z, but every subsequent time, and with new games, I didn't have any trouble...

[AGRICOLA]

If you are using a zoom other than SHIFT + Z, how you load a save and whether you are loading a regular game or a scen makes a difference.

You can use any method to load a regular game and get the correct zoom.

Loading a scen by starting CIV II or TOT and using Load a Game will default to SHIFT + Z. Similarly, if you have a game open and use Quit and then Load a Game, the zoom will default to SHIFT + Z. However, using the GAME pulldown and Load Game will produce a map with the same zoom as the saved game. To me, this looks like a bit of sloppy coding.

Mercator is right in that the zoom is saved in a game save. The byte which saves the zoom setting is near the end of a regular game or before the events section in a scen. Consequently, its offset is highly variable.