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Author Topic: ETA for Widescreen Support  (Read 12682 times)

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Offline Tricipitinus

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ETA for Widescreen Support
« on: January 20, 2008, 09:16:20 pm »
Hi!

I finished the demo - very interested in buying the game..but not unless Widescreen-Support is implemented.
And since I'm not kown to replay any singleplayer mode game I would like to play it in Widescreen right away.

So is it yet possible to give an ETA for the widescreen support so that I know when to come back to get my full-version copy?

Offline Alec

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Re: ETA for Widescreen Support
« Reply #1 on: January 20, 2008, 10:11:25 pm »
Its not on my todo list yet.

So no idea ATM.

Offline Tolkienfanatic

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Re: ETA for Widescreen Support
« Reply #2 on: January 20, 2008, 11:53:03 pm »
This brings to mind the question... what is on the to-do list :o

Offline Alec

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Re: ETA for Widescreen Support
« Reply #3 on: January 20, 2008, 11:59:44 pm »
The Mac version.

Offline Kentor

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Re: ETA for Widescreen Support
« Reply #4 on: January 24, 2008, 12:20:17 pm »
I'm also in the same boat -- I want to purchase the full version, but not without proper aspect support for 16:10.  It should be noted that pretty much all Macs for the last two generations or more have been 16:10 aspect as well, hence it's probably worthwhile looking into widescreen support.

Offline Alec

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Re: ETA for Widescreen Support
« Reply #5 on: January 24, 2008, 07:11:57 pm »
I believe most Macs can handle doing 4:3 with black bars, so its not a big deal.

Adding full widescreen support at this point would be very difficult.

Currently you can set widescreen resolutions in the init.cfg, they may stretch to fill, and there will be problems with the water surface reflections. (but ripples + reflections would probably have to be disabled anyways due to the size of the render texture you'd have to have for say 1680x1050)

You can also configure your video card driver to keep the game at 4:3 with added black bars when in fullscreen. This also depends on your monitor's capabilities I believe.

You can also run the game in a window at a high 4:3 resolution.

Offline Tricipitinus

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Re: ETA for Widescreen Support
« Reply #6 on: January 25, 2008, 11:51:28 pm »
couldn't help noticing that the screenshots from macworld almost all show aquaria on a widescreen :)
I guess the scretched work-around.

sry for this again, I'm sure you can't hear ppl cry for widescreen support any more ^^

Offline Alec

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Re: ETA for Widescreen Support
« Reply #7 on: January 25, 2008, 11:58:53 pm »
sry for this again, I'm sure you can't hear ppl cry for widescreen support any more ^^

I understand why people want it, but unfortunately its not readily added. I did spend a fair deal of time looking into getting it to work, but the furthest I got after a lot of struggling was very far from being working.

Its not as easy as doing a widescreen mode for a 3D game, since the 2D view has to be centered properly and the camera locking gets confusing. (the edges of the screen hit way before they were originally planned to)

In my efforts, I still haven't managed to get the ratio right. I've gotten close-ish, but its squashing things horizontally more than it should.

Widescreen also messes with the mouse controls. Centering the mouse breaks.

There are also a number of rendering effects, including the mini map, the black masking etc that would have to be fully rewritten to support widescreen.

Ripples wouldn't work at all properly with non 4:3, and since that code was originally very painstaking to get to look right, I'm not really interested in redoing it just to support another aspect ratio.

The reality is that the game is quite playable and looks great at 4:3, even if you're stretching it to fill a widscreen monitor it still looks pretty good. I understand that its not perfect and some people prefer widescreen, but I really don't have the resources (i.e. time) to invest in rewriting large parts of the code to support it right now.

Offline Alphasoldier

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Re: ETA for Widescreen Support
« Reply #8 on: January 26, 2008, 12:52:03 am »
Which I think is perfectly understandable, though I also understand why people want widescreen, but this game is Classicly 2D keep it to the classical 4:3 screens.  ^-^

And if you don't have that rip off the sides of your screen. >=[
God sees and knows everything, but at least he won't gossip about it.

Offline Alec

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Re: ETA for Widescreen Support
« Reply #9 on: January 26, 2008, 12:55:40 am »
passes Alphasoldier a beer

Chill, homey. :)

Offline Alec

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Re: ETA for Widescreen Support
« Reply #10 on: January 27, 2008, 12:09:22 am »
There's a thread up with my past progress on widescreen support and what the issues involved in fixing it are.


EDIT: Hey, it works now. :)
« Last Edit: January 27, 2008, 10:25:07 am by Alec »

Offline Cheamo

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Re: ETA for Widescreen Support
« Reply #11 on: January 31, 2008, 07:26:58 am »
Um, so does that mean it's done? If we get the most up to date patch we can change to widescreen resolution? I love the game, but I kinda stopped playing it because Naija looked all fat, and I figured that wasn't right.

Offline Alec

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Re: ETA for Widescreen Support
« Reply #12 on: January 31, 2008, 07:40:37 am »
There isn't a patch out for this yet.

Offline Alphasoldier

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Re: ETA for Widescreen Support
« Reply #13 on: January 31, 2008, 08:10:05 am »
@Cheamo
Swim to the side and she's tall again. ^-^
God sees and knows everything, but at least he won't gossip about it.