POLL: Shall we only support 1024*768 onwards?

[J Bytheway]

I don't know what to think about this. In my experience, the biggest problem is with laptops, because their upper limit on resolution is much "harder" than a monitor's. Until last year my laptop was still 800x600 and my present one is only 1024x768. I still know a couple of people with laptops at 800x600 (including one person using my old one...).

My desktop, on the other hand is an ancient P166 with a Voodoo Banshee (which is about a year newer than any other component of the machine), and I have always run that at 1024x768, even on the previous graphics card.

[child of Thor]

a fellow 166 er

i completely forgot to think about laptop users, i'm guessing it would have to be a low end machine that would have the problems? my mates laptop is more powerful than the new desktop pc i'm getting soon!! (his laptop cost as much as a car - so i would hope so! - i'll make my pc for a few hundred i hope)

[Solver]

Leave 800x600. One reason is that, as Locutus said, noone should suffer, and the game should be as independent as possible.

Now, I don't have a problem running 1024, certainly not for such a game like CtP2, on my machines. But, 800x600 is fine and used a lot. Civ 3 was released without support for 800x600... of which I was absolutely the biggest whiner. Yet, when I developed a solution letting the game to be played at 800x600, it got quite popular, especially among laptop users. Putting limits like that isn't neccessary. Yes, maybe with an improved UI the game will be less good looking on 800x600, but heck, some games I've played in modesthat were half-supported, and still enjoyed them!

[Locutus]

Originally posted by child of Thor
1 person in 1000(out my ass)

Well, let's use statistics that are not pulled out of CoT's arse for a moment:

In early 2004, the statistics for Internet usage were (are) the following:

Higher: 10%
1024x768: 47%
800x600: 37%
640x480: 1%
Lower: 5%

(source; other source; third source)

So 40%+ of all Internet users still use 800x600 or smaller. I once again recall that there was a huge riot about RoN and Civ3 not supporting 800x600. For RoN, a fan-made patch was made available to support that resolution, which was downloaded almost 500 times from Apolyton alone (and that while Apolyton is one of the smallest RoN sites on the web and this patch doesn't work seem to work for the latest patch). The Civ3 equivalent has some 2800 downloads (and that while all it requires IIRC is changing a single line in the Civ3 equivalent of userprofile.txt).

[Solver]

Loc, I'm afraid you're wrong on that Civ 3 solution. It doesn't just require a txt file change. That change forces the resolution (due to a bug in the game), but you can't use half the buttons that remain off-screen, and that's what the solution fixes. I must say that Firaxis did a great job when they agreed not to fix that bug .

[Gilgamensch]

Originally posted by Locutus


Well, let's use statistics that are not pulled out of CoT's arse for a moment:

In early 2004, the statistics for Internet usage were (are) the following:

Higher: 10%
1024x768: 47%
800x600: 37%
640x480: 1%
Lower: 5%


For RoN, a fan-made patch was made available to support that resolution, which was downloaded almost 500 times The Civ3 equivalent has some 2800 downloads

The first might be just a convience setting, but what counts more for me, would be the second 'source' you mentioned.

But IIRC, the writing was also getting far smaller in CIV3, can't remember in CTP2, though...........

[Maquiladora]

It doesnt mean all those 800x600 people cant run in 1024x768 and thats also the resolutions used to browse the internet, not playing games, which may be different depending on the game.

[Solver]

True, most of them can run 1024 - though the reason I wasn't able to is having a monitor manfucatured in 1993, I think, maybe 1994. However, those who browse the Net at 800x600, do so for a reason - they probably believe that things are too small for them at 1024, or something.

[Locutus]

Yes, like I said before many people like 800x600, regardless of whatever their machines support. This is also why 1024x768 is so popular: most modern monitors support much higher resolutions, yet very few people are taking advantage of this. The reasons for liking such low resolutions is a complete mystery to me -- as far as I'm concerned screen resolutions can't get big enough (as long as the monitor size increases with it, or everything becomes too small). But hey, if people like it, who are we to take it away from them?

[OnePresent]

7 years ago a client showed me his brand new 21" monitor. Very expensive back then. He was running it at 640x480 because it made women's breasts larger.

[Solver]

Yeah, but Locutus, if you are on a 15" monitor, would you really want to use 1280? For my liking at least, that indeed makes things too smal.... so I'm like, 1024 on 15", and 1280 on 17".

[Locutus]

At that resolution on such a screen, you should be able to count the 'pixels'

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Solver
Yeah, but Locutus, if you are on a 15" monitor, would you really want to use 1280? For my liking at least, that indeed makes things too smal.... so I'm like, 1024 on 15", and 1280 on 17".

Most monitors are 17" or larger these days. Even for LCDs it's becoming a standard.

And yes, when I had a 15" monitor I was running it on 1280x960 -- with the 'large font' option Windows offers that worked brilliantly

[OnePresent]

My PC is a laptop with a 15" screen running at 1600*1200 res. When playing CTPII I choose 1280x1024, otherwise it's just too small for my taste.

Originally posted by OnePresent
7 years ago a client showed me his brand new 21" monitor. Very expensive back then. He was running it at 640x480 because it made women's breasts larger.

After posting this I had a vision of all CTPII Source Coders immediately changing their resolutions to 640x480.

[J Bytheway]

My experience suggests that most people are moving to LCD displays now, which is a whole different story - you essentially have no choice of resolution at all if you want your display to look reasonable.

I'd say about 80-90% of my friends are using LCD displays, and all the computers in the college computer room are LCD too...