1.91

David E. Gervais · #1 March 5th, 2004, 03:50 PM

I hear what you're saying, and I run my desktop at 1280x1024 also. SE:IV seems to be 'stretching' the 1024x768 image to fit the screen. For a test, view the image at it's intended size and see if it looks better, I suspect that the distortions are due to the strange way se4 displays the intro screen when running at higher than 1024x768 resolutions.

If, at it's original size it still looks god aweful to you, I'm the one to blame. sorry for the eyesore.

Cheers!

Timstone · #2 March 5th, 2004, 03:56 PM

Hahaha... no the image is perfect, but I really, really, really dislike the way SE IV stretsches the image.
Ah well, nothing is perfect.
Thanks for the response.

David E. Gervais · #3 March 5th, 2004, 06:24 PM

Well, I wasn't 100% satisfied with how se4 stretched the image, so I created a 1280x1024 Version and guess what?..

I first made a 1280X1024 folder in the \screens\ folder to see if by chance it would load it, but it didn't. Then I said, hmmm, what if I replace the 1024x768 Version with this larger bitmap? will the program crop it then enlarge? or will it use it at full rez? well to my pleasent surprise it used the 1280x1024 Version. Now this looks great at 1280x1024, but I haven't tried it at 1024x768, is someone running the game at this rez who could test out my image? I'm wondering if se4 will crop the big pic or rescale it downward to 1024x768. (I'm also curious what happens at 800x600. maybe we have been creating different size intro pics and se only needs one at the max rez.)

I know I can just set my screen rez at 1024 and try it myself, but that throws off all my desktop icons and I don't feel like re-arranging my desktop.

So, who wants to see/try my new 1280x1024 intro pic? and Does someone want to host it? (I'll create a high quality .jpg that can then be converted to .bmp before running the game.)

Cheers!

[ March 05, 2004, 16:27: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]

Phoenix-D · #4 March 5th, 2004, 06:51 PM

Well, I tried the 1024 intro screen at 800x600.

SE doesn't resizes it. It also TILES it, oddly. So you get most of the thing working right..but once you get down to the buttons it loops, so you see the Space Empires IV lettering and the curve of the planet twice.

David E. Gervais · #5 March 5th, 2004, 07:44 PM

ok, I just tried my 1280x1024 pic at 1024x768 and I see exactly what you mean, it does a partial rescale, but for some odd reason a portion of the original 1280 pic gets tiled under the menus.

Very strange. I guess se4 is upward compatible but not downward compatible.

Oh well, Cheers!

EDIT: I just tried using the 800x600 pic instead of the 1280x1024 and it simply stretches it to fit my screen rez. hmmm, I wonder if this is a bug in the display_bmp routines? is it supposed to scale downward as well as upward? I guess only the gods will know.

[ March 05, 2004, 17:51: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]

Timstone · #6 March 6th, 2004, 02:58 AM

I just installed 1.91. But, damn! That looks plain ugly.
I have a new monitor and I run it on 1280x1024 but I didn't prepare for the horror that lie ahead when I started up SE IV.

Does anyone have a NICE startup screen for SE IV, or is it impossible for SE IV to show 1280x1024?