Wide screen BETA test for winSPWW2 - for CD owners only

[Zonks]

Great work! Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bit, running in windowed mode @ 1920x1080
Intel Quadcore 870
GTX 275 Driver version 260.99

[DRG]

*IF* you occasionally find you have issues with graphics running WINDOWED mode try running the game in GDI mode instead of DirectX mode

[Leroy]

Try to unzip got 2 error msg for both files. exe was winvfx8.dll
2nd was borlndmm.dll
are these files suppose to be on the CD? or where?

thxs

[DRG]

Where did you unzip this to ? Both of those .dlls are in the main folder of EVERY version of either game and if you unzip to the main folder of winspww2 it will find them when you start the game up from GameOptions

Don

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by ERISS

There are still 2 problems:
_ There was already a bug with the last patch, when displaying with resolution under desktop one in full screen (that's ok in a window). See attached picture.
_ Fonts are still small, please at least double their height (but not usefull in combat screen).

So, that's not new problems with this beta (and I didn't find new ones, but I didn't test well).

I use WinXP Pro32b, ATI Radeon HD4770 with very last Catalyst driver.

(Screenshot: Here is a test with 1024x768, my desktop is 1280x1024)

Neither of these are wide-screen resolutions, but are traditional 4:3 aspect ratios.

XP can show the psychedelic palette on alt-tabbing in and out of the full screen modes, as described in the Game Guide, it's not just a Vista/Windows 7 problem.

My XP system will do it about 1 time in 100. other drivers just may not like alt-tabbing at all.

Also - you are using a game resolution that is not the same as the monitors desktop, which seems to compound the problem for any video driver that has problems with the 256 colour palettes. It seems that the psychedelic palette problem is more noticeable when the resolution used for full-screen game differs from the desktop resolution. This is certainly the case with my XP development system - it plays 1280 full screen rock steadily as its native mode and the windows desktop are 1280. Only when I try to drive other resolutions (e.g 1152) at full screen and ALT-TAB in and out do I get the 1 in 100 or so duff screen.

So I would suggest that if you want 1024 by 768 that you should try setting up your windows desktop to 1024x768 first and see if it is happier with alt-tabbing in that case. If not, then you should simply refrain from alt-tabbing in and out of full screen games, as described in the Game Guide*, or play the game in windowed mode 1024 wide on a 1024x768 windows desktop since you seem to be wanting to have the texts larger.

Cheers
Andy

* Game Guide->Tuning Your Machine

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by Leroy

Try to unzip got 2 error msg for both files. exe was winvfx8.dll
2nd was borlndmm.dll
are these files suppose to be on the CD? or where?

thxs

Did you unzip these files to the game's installation folder (point 2 in the original post) or simply to the desktop or a temp folder?. If the latter and you then tried to run them stand-alone then of course they will object to not having access to the rest of the game files!

If you have installed the game to somewhere else than the default folder then of course you will have to unzip the files to wherever that is. If you cannot remember where you did so - try a search for the file winspww2.exe.

Do you have windows 7 or vista?. If so - did you install the game under /program files/... ?.

Cheers
Andy

[user38]

Originally Posted by BluntForce

Now if only there was a way to run the game widescreened in a resolution LESS than my desktop, but i guess i can just change my desktop size before I launch it

You could use PowerStrip: http://entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm. PowerStrip is a small application that can be set to run on startup. You can use it to set up display profiles (to change your desktop resolution) and colour profiles (to change other display properties such as colour temperature, gamma, etc). Once you have set these profiles you can create an application profile to associate a particular application with one of your set colour and display profiles. So, if your desktop is set to 1920x1080 and you want to play SPWW2 at 1360 x 768 you can create a 1360x768 display profile and create an application profile (by selecting a shortcut link and chosing the 1360x768 display profile). Henceforth, while powerstrip is running starting SPWW2 will automatically change your desktop resolution to 1360x768 while the application is running and change it back when the application is terminated.

For me it is one of those "can't live without programs".

Off topic
Other "can't live without" programs:
Task killer which will terminate hung programs with one click: http://www.tucows.com/preview/516579
WinPatrol which will alert you if any program tries to install startup programs http://www.winpatrol.com/

[DRG]

Originally Posted by user38

.......... while powerstrip is running starting SPWW2 will automatically change your desktop resolution to 1360x768 while the application is running and change it back when the application is terminated.

This could be a simple solution to the problem some people are having with text size in windowed mode. If anyone tries this please let us know how it worked for you

Don