Book II Video Resolution

[vid]

They would have to make graphics for each resolution then which would triple that workload. Most 2d games are always at one fixed resolution, heck starcraft is only 800x600 and I still play it.

As for the widescreen mode, same problem, they would have to make graphics at a widescreen resolution or stretch the graphics. I HATE things when they are not in their proper aspect ratio so black bars on the side are fine with me. But I do know a guy who has a 47" HDTV and watches analog cable, stretched on it............talk about eye burning.

I think it wouldn´t be that much workload, because BW said that he rendered all of his tilessets. A tile for three different resolutions could be automatically generated.
The only "problem" would be the download size for users with limited bandwidth.

[dalamber]

1280x1024 is insane, I have 1440*900 on my PC and 1024*768 on my laptop, so none of my computers is going to be able to use such resolution. And I'm not going to buy something bigger than 19" widescreen, I have a TV for movies and other stuff I want to see on the big screen.

Personally I find current 800*600 quite ok. When using windowed mode, the window isn't occupying all of the screen and you can actually see something in another window - like IM, email etc. That's the point of using windowed for me, so I'd better stick with current one actually

As for widescreen options, actually most of graphics cards support black lines on left and right to preserve aspect ratio, but adding some good-looking bars instead on right and left(like, for instance, in Puzzle Quest) looks better and helps people who don't have opportunity to set up their videoboard/monitor.

[Effidian]

1024* 768 would be great. I don't mind 800x600 though, so ...

[Leej]

Eagerly waiting for the Mac release in a couple of days, but in the meanwhile my completely Mac-centric 2¢

1024x768 wouldn't stop me from playing Book2 (just like 800x600 won't stop me from Book1), but it doesn't make me giddy with excitement. have a display at 2560x1600 and a MacBook Pro at 1680x1050.

If you rewrite the engine and go Intel only on the Mac side, the lowest resolution on an Intel Mac is 1280x800 on a MacBook (this is excepting Mac Mini owners running a small display).

I can't think of a Mac built that has a 1.6GHz or better processor that would have a lower resolution than 1024x768. The first gen 17" G5 iMacs with a 1.6 GHz processor were running at 1440x900 iirc.

I would like a fullscreen option that would just scale the number of tiles visible based upon screen resolution. Something just cool about seeing a huge world map as you play.

Widescreen format > larger resolution. Allowing the number of tiles to scale to fill up widescreen would be very good.

I don't need some extreme level of detail on the individual tiles. I wouldn't complain, but it is unnecessary and would just add expense and delay to the game.

[Nazgûl]

I would like a fullscreen option that would just scale the number of tiles visible based upon screen resolution. Something just cool about seeing a huge world map as you play.

Widescreen format > larger resolution. Allowing the number of tiles to scale to fill up widescreen would be very good.

I agree, widescreen is what I want the most and "number of tiles scaling" would be very nice for higher resolutions. I'm using 1680x1050.

[alpha]

Also using 1680*1050, hope it's going to be added.

[Siemova]

Sounds to me like three resolution choices would be optimal:

800x600 for legacy machines / small monitors / windowed play
1024x768 for larger 4:3 monitors
1440x900 for widescreen

The greater resolutions could work for windowed play as well, depending on your screen's real estate.

Increasing the amount of visible playing field seems by far the better option, rather than trying to scale/stretch all the tiles just for the sake of constraining the viewport. Why should people with larger screens be handicapped down to the lowest common denominator? This isn't a multiplayer game where seeing more would give one player an undue advantage. If we have the real estate, I humbly suggest that we should be able to use it, so long as that doesn't make things terribly difficult on Basilisk... and I can't imagine it would, would it?

[gebba]

Hello, is not it possible to choose resolution without scaling the tiles? I mean, you can have the same interface and same sized-graphs, but depending on the resolution you choose, you see more of the main game window (the screen area where your avatar is). I dont know how many tiles you can see now but lets say it is 15x10 at 800x600, so if you choose 1024x768 you can see 20x15 of the map or something like that.
if this is not possible, I vote for 1024x768.

[alpha]

ebba, this will be probably too much cheese for us wide-scren owners, but still a very good idea imho

[Noceur]

1024*768 would be nice (I was fine with 800x600, even though I've got a widescreen LCD). It would be nice with a 16:10 resolution though... maybe stuff in some more interface on the side and leave the actual in-game area the same?
If you pick 1680x1050 for example, you've got 656 pixels of space on the side. This can be used to keep inventory always open. You've also got 282 pixels in the vertical space that can be used for something.

1440x900 might be a better resolution because many widescreen laptops might not be able to go up to 1680x1050. Still, there's 416 extra pixels horizontal and 142 extra pixels vertical there.

If you use the extra space from 16:10 resolutions this way, you don't have to render extra tiles and sprites.

[Saxon1974]

yes, 1024x768 resolution would work well.

[farvardin]

1024x768 is ok for me, but I think the user should have the choice of the resolution.
The user interface could remain almost the same, just the window of the game could be wider. It wouldn't resize the tiles and such, just increase or decrease the playfield. Don't forget the Asus EEE and similar computers will hit the market very soon, with their compact size they would be the perfect platform for playing escalon, except the resolution is 800x480 pixels.
http://frafa.free.fr/img/asus_eee_400x400.jpg

[Horace2]

So, right now the poll is favoring sticking with our current engine and enhancing it. If we bump up the resolution, what should it go to? 1024x768 is the obvious next step. Does everyone approve of this? If we go too much higher than that, we risk excluding users with lesser computers, but I think it should be group consensus as to what the next game will offer.

With this engine being 2D, we don't have the luxury of offering selectable resolutions like you would normally see with a 3D engine. Tiles don't scale well; when we try to scale everything, you quickly see gaps and seams between the tiles. We need to set a resolution now and stick to it through development.

For LCD monitor users, any game resolution that's not an integer divisor of their native resolution won't look very good in full screen mode. For me, 800x600 is perfect since it's exactly half of my native 16x12, which means that the pixel boundaries are still perfect. I'm not sure what the most common lcd resolution is, but whatever that is might be the best choice. The good thing about 800x600 is that it covers two common resolutions, 8x6 and 16x12, while other choices cover only one common resolution.

For a game like this, I think 800x600 is sufficient, with the 'quality' of the graphics owing much more to the quality of the art rather than the number of pixels.

[farvardin]

I never play fullscreen because on LCD it's ugly when it's not the native resolution.

I still think the resolution should be user defined. It wouldn't mean make several tiles, but change the "canvas" of the game while keeping the same size for objects. If you've played Ultima VII with Exult, you'll see what I meant :
http://exult.sourceforge.net/

You can also select to double the size of the tiles or not.

[Athanasius]

1024*768 would be my wish as I would be afraid that a 1280 res would be too much for the players with middle- or low-class systems.