No widescreen resolution support?

[SlickWilhelm]

Is it really true that the resolution is fixed at 1024x768 as stated in the Matrix announcement?

If so, that might be a deal breaker for me. All my monitors are wide screen now, and I'm getting tired of having to play some games in "fuzzy mode" because they don't support wide screen resolutions.

I can totally understand if this is the case with a game developed in 2005, but not 2008.

[Floyd]

Yes, resolution is fixed and, IIRC, there is no 'window mode'.

[Joram]

FWIW, I have a widescreen monitor and it looks and plays perfectly fine.  If that's not good enough for you, then don't know what to tell you.

[Roger Neilson II]

I thnk the issue is that the original base game engine is from around 2005.... FOF and this one are significant programming variants on the base engine as far as I can tell so the game is, by the look of it, stuck becuase the engine would need a complete rewrite to give that functionality.

Its a pity as I don't like this fixed display at all. I guess its economics though.

Roger

[SlickWilhelm]

ORIGINAL: Joram

FWIW, I have a widescreen monitor and it looks and plays perfectly fine.  If that's not good enough for you, then don't know what to tell you.

Joram, I'm happy for you that it looks perfectly fine. But it's a fact that if you force a wide screen monitor to use any other resolution than it's native mode, it will most likely result in blurry or fuzzy graphics.

If you boot up Napolean's Campaigns in 1200x800 mode, and CoG in it's native resolution, you'll see what I mean.

I hate to sound like a naysayer, but I was really hoping for wide screen support in the Emperor's Edition.

[SlickWilhelm]

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson II

Its a pity as I don't like this fixed display at all. I guess its economics though.

Roger

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi Wilhelm,

Yes, it is fixed at 1024x768 because the underlying graphical engine is the same (though the graphics are improved). With that said, I play this in 1680x1050 and 1280x1024 and 1440x900 and in all resolutions it does not look fuzzy. I think a lot of folks with widescreen monitors are not getting the most out of them.

A lot of widescreen monitors and video cards have options that will make fixed resolution games look great even when stretched, but if you don't use those and just leave all settings at the default, some of them don't automatically adjust. For example, of the three monitors I've tried this on, it looked great on two of them without any adjustments. On the third I had to change a scaling setting in my video driver (which did not mess up my other games) and it looked great on that one afterwards too.

Regards,

- Erik

[cdbeck]

ORIGINAL: Slick Wilhelm
Joram, I'm happy for you that it looks perfectly fine. But it's a fact that if you force a wide screen monitor to use any other resolution than it's native mode, it will most likely result in blurry or fuzzy graphics.

If you boot up Napolean's Campaigns in 1200x800 mode, and CoG in it's native resolution, you'll see what I mean.

I hate to sound like a naysayer, but I was really hoping for wide screen support in the Emperor's Edition.

I was disappointed, as well, that there isn't widescreen or high resolution support, but I can say, with personal experience, that the graphics do not look blurry or fuzzy and the text is perfectly readable. I am running it on a 1440x900 laptop LCD screen, so the scaling is significant, and yet not overly noticeable. I am VERY picky about this, but lately I have gotten over some of my hangups with this because it is the only way to play certain classic games (pretty much anything offered by GoG.com, like Fallout, Captialism, etc).

However, I am using an nVidia 8600M GS, and nVidia has its own scaling program that may make this work better (in fact, with the latest driver update I would SWEAR that the scaling looks much clearer, but this is probably anecdotal and perception). YMMV.

EDIT: I do want to support Erik's statement that the graphics have been updated. The map is much crisper, the tactical battle terrain is sharp and clearly defined, the textures in general are much brighter and stand out against the backdrop. The overlays are also nicely done. The only improvement I am not crazy about is the animated sea in the naval battles, it creates a little slow-down for me and seems too "busy." However, you can disable it during the battles, it doesn't look as realistic, but helps me focus on the battle at hand.

SoM

[Panama Red]

Erik:
You said that you run this game on 1280x1024. If this game is "fixed" at 1024x768, how do you manage to run it at 1280x1024 ???[&:]
 
Panama Red

[Erik Rutins]

Panama Red,

Monitors and video cards automatically resize the 1024x768 resolution of the game to fill the 1280x1024 screen. It's all done transparently to the user. There are also scaling options in monitor and video settings (which vary based on your monitor and video card) that allow you to adjust how different resolutions are shown on your display.

Regards,

- Erik

[Fintilgin]

It does look fine at 1680x1050 on my computer.

I do hope future products try to give native support to widescreen though.  I don't have a big problem with scaled games, but when I go back to one that supports my native resolution it always looks so much crisper and cleaner.  CoG:EE looks good... but it could look better. [;)]

[PDiFolco]

I have a 1280*1024 monitor. The game looks nice in 1024*768, but the images are somewhat distorted, because 1280*1024 is 5:4 ratio where 1024*768 is 4:3.

[Matto]

It is possible use D3DWindower to play it in window !!! BUT !!! Some windows are wrong and some are causing game crash (morale and glory logs, strategy goals etc.) ...

[PDiFolco]

Matto, how do you do that ? And if it crashes it's not really "possible to play" .. [:-]

[Matto]

Download D3DWindower utility ... add CoG:EE exe file to this utility. Start game from this utility ... it is running in window 1024x768 on my laptop 1280x800 ...

It is possible to play, I must only avoid using three mentioned report window ... if I can see it, I must start a game in full screen ... so it is usefull for PBEM games, where you need only play one turn or at games, where you do not need see morale, glory and political goals windows ...

Btw. political goals you can see on the map ... morale situation on the main screen and if you know rules, you know why is your morale falling down ... similar with glory ...

[PDiFolco]

Matto
I was not clear, I already have D3DWindower and tried, but the game keeps changing res to 1024*768 and display full screen, whatever options I put..[&:]

[SlickWilhelm]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I play this in 1680x1050 and 1280x1024 and 1440x900 and in all resolutions it does not look fuzzy. I think a lot of folks with widescreen monitors are not getting the most out of them.

ORIGINAL: Son_of_Montfort

I was disappointed, as well, that there isn't widescreen or high resolution support, but I can say, with personal experience, that the graphics do not look blurry or fuzzy and the text is perfectly readable. I am running it on a 1440x900 laptop LCD screen, so the scaling is significant, and yet not overly noticeable. I am VERY picky about this, but lately I have gotten over some of my hangups with this because it is the only way to play certain classic games (pretty much anything offered by GoG.com, like Fallout, Captialism, etc).

Thanks guys. Perhaps I was too hasty. I just might grab that CoG discount and order CoGEE afterall.

[SlickWilhelm]

I went ahead and purchased CoGEE and I have to admit that while it's not as crystal clear as it could be, it looks much better than CoG and is definitely good enough to pass muster. I'll keep tweaking, too. But it does look very good as is.

[Hard Sarge]

hey, don't you have a Palace to storm or something ?

[SlickWilhelm]

LOL Sarge, I'm giving HG a bit of a rest while we await a patch for it. In the meantime, I'm reading the book "How Far from Austerlitz" and playing CoGEE at the same time.