Widescreen support [Added in Latest Version!]

[iisdev]

Hi there,

Just wanted you to know that I just purchased a license for your game to support you.

Please add support for widescreen displays;  a game this beautiful *deserves* nothing less.

Congratulations on the release and best wishes in the future! I can't wait to see what you do next.

iisdev

[Double0Three]

As other posts on this topic have stated, wide screen support is planned to be added in later.  Also you can change the resolution in the init.cfg file in your Aquaria directory as a temporary workaround.  If you look around the forums you will find a lot more info on this topic.  My monitor runs natively @ 1440x900.  I changed the resolution in my config file and it looks great

[Nazo]

One thing I wanted to point out -- just as a reminder since it's easy to forget.  Some LCDs are 5:4 for some reason -- eg 1280x1024 rather than 1280x960.  I suspect it has to do with the fact that 960 is not as binary friendly (I still remember how when higher resolutions were being added it took a REALLY long time for 1280x960 to actually come out.  So long that things like VESA standards don't even have 1280x960 in there sadly.)  A lot of people forget about 1280x1024 since it's the only non-widescreen standard PC resolution that differs from 4:3 and while 1280x960 is no problem whatsoever on a 1280x1024 CRT, it kind of sucks on an LCD...

I think probably the easiest method of all is that there seems to be some kind of API call that can be made to query the drivers to see what video resolutions the video card and monitor agree on.  This should make widescreen and custom resolutions show up as well as those like 1280x1024.  Sometimes others might be kind of nice (for example, I sometimes like to use 720x480 on a TV.)

One thing that would work if nothing else does is adding borders to essentially letterbox non 4:3 resolutions to 4:3.  It would be kind of unpleasant, but it would at least help some people (especially non-nVidia users.)

[Quemaqua]

I've been playing the game at 1280x960 on a 1280x1024 LCD.  I honestly hadn't even thought about it until this very moment because I was so excited to get into the game when I first got it.

[Lim-Dul]

Some LCDs are 5:4 for some reason

Not "some" - almost all 17" - 19" LCD monitors are 5:4 and according to e.g. the Steam Hardware Survey over 40% of the users have monitors in this size range.

In fact the 1280 x 1024 resolution is one of the most widespread resolutions right now because almost all modern 17" and 19" non-widescreen monitors use it. It's even a standard with its own name: SXGA

The explanation, according to Wikipedia is the following:

There is much speculation on the origin of SXGA. Some believe its use began back in the mid-1980s, as an upgrade from XGA 1024×768. At the time, memory was extremely expensive. Using 1280×1024 at 8-bit color depth allowed 1.25 MiB of video RAM usage, fitting nicely with available RAM chip sizes.[1][2]

    1280 pixels × 1024 pixels = 1,310,720 pixels
    1,310,720 pixels × 8 bits/pixel = 10,485,760 bits
    10,485,760 bits ÷ 8 bits/byte = 1,310,720 bytes = 1.25 MiB

It's really a bad mistake to omit this option when making a modern game since 4:3 isn't all that popular nowadays...

[black18]

We know the things that the most widespread resolutions right now because almost all modern 17" and 19" non-widescreen monitors use it.


_________________
Scotsman Ice Machine

[Kailieann]

I don't think it was really necessary to bump a thread that was almost a year and a half old, without adding anything useful to the discussion.

Especially seeing as the latest version of the game does have widescreen support.

[Chibi]

Probably didn't notice the date. I made a few similar mistakes when I was new to the forums. 

[nimble-nemo]

Well, now that the necromancy has been done...

I have just played the demo and I'm considering purchasing Aquaria.
Unfortunately my native resolution of 1280x1024 is not available for the game and using 1280x960 gives me a black bar at the bottom of the screen and lots of graphical glitches.

So, I would like to know if 1280x1024 is supported in the full version of Aquaria.

Thanks for your help. 

[Alec]

It should be! I added support for 16:10, 16:9 and 5:4. 

[GenL]

It should be! I added support for 16:10, 16:9 and 5:4. 

I wanted to ask, is 5:4 the only one mode where game sets black bars by itself? Would be great if i'm not the only one who is waiting for this little bug to be fixed...

Also (sorry for off-topic), are there any updates for ATI/Vista vsync lag issue? I'm planning to return into the "swimming" soon and thought that maybe some fixes were discovered already.

[Alec]

As far as I understand, its probably a video card issue?

[GenL]

As far as I understand, its probably a video card issue?

I guess it's not, as other user confirmed this when having 5:4 resolution set in settings file. I think there is something wrong with layers where these black bars are being applied.
The possible workaround is to use 1280x960 and activate image centering via GPU, both ATI and NVIDIA can do it AFAIK. But it doesn't work well for some games, and i didn't test it with Aquaria yet. If it works via GPU, then it will result in absolutely same visual resolution for 5:4 monitor (as if someone would use native in-game 1280x1024 resolution), but without those glitches.

And if that was about vsync - i don't know. Just remember that someone on the board was talking about this issue for ATI cards with Vista OS. I'll try to update drivers, but i doubt it will help.

[Alec]

Sometimes driver updates fix everything...