Screen resolution in smac/x

[Mart]

I think game defaults to your desktop screen resolution if it is 1024x768 or 800x600. If you do not have that line in the ini file, larger resolutions than 1024x... do not work, just game creates the "dx screen" with 1024x768, this is how I understand it. When having the line in the ini turning off the directdraw, you may use the resolution of the screen even if it is larger than 1024, as can be seen from our experiences.

You will have to adjust your monitor resolution from your desktop, remember though that some monitors cannot run some resolutions even if their video drivers allow for it. That depends on technical capablities of your monitor, check it in the manual, there should be something like recommended resolution.

Be careful, though, in extreme cases you might damage some hardware or have problems with the system. Once I changed resolution too much and had too fix things in safe mode.

[GePap]

Jesus, thats a lot of condensors-and as for City sizes, 69!?

[Dis]

oh well. that's fine. I'm happy with the current resolution then. When I go to higher resolutions the words tend to be too small to read easily. puts strain on my eyes.

[epsilonx]

Re: Screen resolution in smac/x

Originally posted by mart7x5
DirectDraw=0
Settings this to 0 disables DirectDraw. This disables the automatic window
resolution resizing during program launch.
[/i]
So I did just that. I expected the game to have some problems with graphics drawing, but it was not so. I use active matrix with resolution 1400x1050, and you know that streatching lower resolutions to higher ones in such cases makes really awfull things to graphics. To my surprise smax started using 1400x1050 resolution. I just see more map now in better detail.

LUCKY!!! My LCD monitor runs at 1280x1024 but I can't get SMAX to run at that resolution. This Direct Draw setting is already at 0. I also tried setting the Video Mode line to 1280 instead of 1024... what's yours set to?

(I'm using WinXP Pro SP2, DirectX 9.0c, nVidia FX5200)
I'm also using the terranx.exe patch that allows me to run it without the CDs, and the ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=1 line so I can run it on my P4-2.5GHz.

[Lord Nword]

Did you try putting the line in the "other" section of the .ini?

Originally posted by GePap
Jesus, thats a lot of condensors-and as for City sizes, 69!?

Ehhh? You want me to post the 127 size base in another game?

[epsilonx]

I don't have an [other] section. But I tried that, and it still doesn't work.

[Mart]

I have XP Home, only 3 SP2 fixes, I am not sure they are all, mobility radeon 9000, DX 9.0b

no video mode line in ini:

[PREFERENCES]
ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=1
[Alpha Centauri]
ds3d=1
eax=1
FastUnitAnim=0
SmoothUnitAnim=0
MainFontSize=16
InterludeFontSize=16
DisableOpeningMovie=1
Prefs Format=12
Difficulty=5
Map Type=3
Top Menu=4
Faction=1
Preferences=111000000010001001111110000111
More Preferences=111110101111011111010100
Semaphore=00000000
Announce=111111111011111111
Rules=1100000111110
Customize=2
Custom World=2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 
Time Controls=1
WindowsFileBox=0
Latest Save=
Faction 1=PEACE
Faction 2=UNIV
Faction 3=MORGAN
Faction 4=HIVE
Faction 5=SPARTANS
Faction 6=USURPER
Faction 7=CARETAKE
Latest Scenario=
Main Volume=127
Voice Volume=85
Music Volume=63
SFX Volume=95
Latest Map=
Gamma Correction=125
Net Session=LukMart
Net Name=Marcin
Custom Map X=40
Custom Map Y=80
WindowsFileBox=1
DirectDraw=0

[Commy]

Well, there was that one time that I got -127, wanna try and beat that?

[Lord Nword]

Easy, take a colony pod and use it on a 127 size base. It will automatically revert to -127.

[Commy]

Really? Does that actually do that? No, that's not what I did though...

My Orbital defenses supposedly failed to destroy the incoming PB, yet my base was still there. The land sunk like it does when a PB hits, all my units were gone, and all the terrain improvements dissappeared, but here was my base, sitting there at -127. I had the cloning vats, and so it "grew" one pop each turn by counting down, or I guess up, to zero...

Man, that was before I even knew about apolyton. I tried to get the same results again on the editor. I couldn't get it to happen with a PB, but somehow I did it by excessive population, no colony pods, sorry.

Anyway, I got SMAX and later downloaded the 2.0 patch for SMAX, so I suppose that will never happen again. I have heard, but never tested, the new limit for base sizes is 250...

[Lord Nword]

In regular SMAC, you could just let the base size grow and it would go right from 127 to -127 by itself. SMAX puts a limit at 127 so it doesn't roll over....

[Commy]

That's what I got it to do in the editor, but that's not what happened, at least I don't think, on my game. Anyway, no city survives a PB and then drops 1000 meters in altitude, so the game's still screwy...

[Xian]

OHMYGODITWORKEDICANTBELEIVETHISISHAPPENNING

It worked!


Im @ 1280x1024, which is not the same as the thread authors!

Wow, just when i thought I'd be able to give up my smax addiction... thx!

[laurentius]

Thanks guys, I love my SMAC/X and now its even better.

- laurentius@1920x1200

[smacfan]

Interesting phenomenon -- looks really neat on my 19" monitor at my max res, 1600x1200, but two things to note:

1) WindowsFileBox=1 does not work at all with DirectDraw=0. I had to turn it off to load a game with the "in-game" load windows.

2) All pop-up menus (e.g., base screen, etc.) are not sized either, which can make them *very* difficult to read for old or tired eyes.

I too think I'll stay with 1024x768, easier on the eyes means longer playing hours...

FWIW:

P4 3.2Ghz, WinXP SP2, ATI Radeon X300 PCI16 128M