Help! WITE2 destroyed my computer....

[HansBolter]

I bought WitE2 for my birthday six days ago. I have been living in a nightmare ever since.

GG apparently didn't think to include a way for the player to customize the game resolution and attempting to play on a 4k monitor not only makes the text too small, but also the hexes at maximum zoom. It is a pretty big issue they are apparently working to fix as an afterthought.

In the meantime players are told to play around with changing the resolution of the monitor and adjust scaling. I did this yesterday and played through the tutorial scenario.

After changing the monitor back to defaults I now cannot play WITPAE. Every attempt to launch AE with a customized game resolution setting from both my DBB and Focus Pacific game folders results in the monitor adjusting the resolution and NOT displaying the game, but rather the desktop. The game loads and is running as can be seen by the icon in the task bar in the attached screen shot. Nothing I try gets the game to display. I have to use Task Manager to shut it down.

I have created multiple new short cuts trying to find a fix with no joy. I tried removing my custom resolution setting and the launch gives the same results with the game attempting to switch to its default resolution.

Can anyone hazard a guess what has gotten screwed up?

[geofflambert]

I've been having all kinds of weird problems after getting Windows 10 updates. I wonder if that could be related. Desktop not refreshing on its own. Side bar stuff stops working at all requiring a reboot.

[Yaab]

Morrowind, Witchers... You should try Vagrus, Stoneshard or Spire of Sorcery (all have demos). It wont't help with the WITP:AE problem, but will offer a healthy dose of escapism.

[HansBolter]

Fortunately Elder Scrolls Online still works for that. [:)]

[HansBolter]

I did System Restore back to yesterday but it had no effect.

I tried adding a -w switch to the command line to force it into windowed mode, but no matter if its the games default resolution of IIRC 1024x768 or my custom resolution of -px1680 -py1050, the game image will not expand to fill the expanded window.

See screenshot.

[Voltreffer]

A few things:

Keep in mind that the main menu will never expand to fill the window; you need to load a game up to properly test game resolution settings.

Use -pxf -pyf switches in lieu of -px -py. The regular px/py switches don't always 'stick'.

To truly wrangle this game (and other classics like it), you'll want to use DxWnd. I forget who first mentioned it in the forums, but it's been a lifesaver - it's the only way I've been able to get a true fullscreen experience with AE.

[Evoken]

Can you right click your desktop , go to video settings and share your monitor scaling and resolution please ? I reckon scaling might be less than %100 , if its like that try again with %100 scaling. If that doesnt work i am out of ideas , hope this helps

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Voltreffer

A few things:

Keep in mind that the main menu will never expand to fill the window; you need to load a game up to properly test game resolution settings.

Use -pxf -pyf switches in lieu of -px -py. The regular px/py switches don't always 'stick'.

To truly wrangle this game (and other classics like it), you'll want to use DxWnd. I forget who first mentioned it in the forums, but it's been a lifesaver - it's the only way I've been able to get a true fullscreen experience with AE.

[:D]
Take a look at Hans's posting numbers and be aware he has been playing this game since it came out. He knows all of the standard game tweaking tricks but its the new computer and monitor that is giving him fits. And maybe Win 10, of course.[8|]

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: Evoken

Can you right click your desktop , go to video settings and share your monitor scaling and resolution please ? I reckon scaling might be less than %100 , if its like that try again with %100 scaling. If that doesnt work i am out of ideas , hope this helps

Thanks for prompting me to look again at the screen settings.

I has been playing with scale settings, as recommended, to get WITE2 to a decent size and had apparently not reset them to defaults as I thought. The culprit was having Scaling set to 175% instead of the recommended, and default 150%. Resetting it to 150% fixed the problem and the game now runs fine again in full screen mode at my custom resolution.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: Voltreffer

A few things:

Keep in mind that the main menu will never expand to fill the window; you need to load a game up to properly test game resolution settings.

Use -pxf -pyf switches in lieu of -px -py. The regular px/py switches don't always 'stick'.

To truly wrangle this game (and other classics like it), you'll want to use DxWnd. I forget who first mentioned it in the forums, but it's been a lifesaver - it's the only way I've been able to get a true fullscreen experience with AE.

Thanks for the recommendations.

Problem identified and fixed for now, but I'll take a look at that program.

Not familiar with what adding the 'f' to the switches does, but am willing to try.

[Voltreffer]

The 'f' in the pxf/pyf switches represents 'force'. It was briefly mentioned in one of the readme file versions (I briefly looked and can't find it now). Long story short, it allows more resolution combinations than the standard switches. Just remember to maintain your monitor's ratio of vertical and horizontal pixels when experimenting with custom resolutions. Also try to stick to resolution combos which divide into whole numbers for both dimensions.

As for DxWnd, if you decide to give it a go, let me know if you need any guidance with the settings. Its only drawback is it can be overwhelming at first with the options it provides; fortunately, only a few settings need to be tweaked to get AE working.



The other nice thing about DxWnd is it provides a way to save the configurations of multiple games in one spot. It loads the special configuration for each game only while that game is running, then puts everything back when the game exits. This minimizes the tweaks needed to be made to Windows itself and allows games with very different requirements to 'play nice' together.

[HansBolter]

That sounds like it might be just what I need for WITE2.

Thanks.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: Voltreffer

A few things:

Keep in mind that the main menu will never expand to fill the window; you need to load a game up to properly test game resolution settings.

Use -pxf -pyf switches in lieu of -px -py. The regular px/py switches don't always 'stick'.

To truly wrangle this game (and other classics like it), you'll want to use DxWnd. I forget who first mentioned it in the forums, but it's been a lifesaver - it's the only way I've been able to get a true fullscreen experience with AE.

[:D]
Take a look at Hans's posting numbers and be aware he has been playing this game since it came out. He knows all of the standard game tweaking tricks but its the new computer and monitor that is giving him fits. And maybe Win 10, of course.[8|]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but even after all these years I was not aware of using the 'f' in the resolution switch.

This old dog can still learn new tricks. [:)]

[Nomad]

The bottom line is that it is good you got it figured out Hans.

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: Voltreffer

A few things:

Keep in mind that the main menu will never expand to fill the window; you need to load a game up to properly test game resolution settings.

Use -pxf -pyf switches in lieu of -px -py. The regular px/py switches don't always 'stick'.

To truly wrangle this game (and other classics like it), you'll want to use DxWnd. I forget who first mentioned it in the forums, but it's been a lifesaver - it's the only way I've been able to get a true fullscreen experience with AE.

[:D]
Take a look at Hans's posting numbers and be aware he has been playing this game since it came out. He knows all of the standard game tweaking tricks but its the new computer and monitor that is giving him fits. And maybe Win 10, of course.[8|]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but even after all these years I was not aware of using the 'f' in the resolution switch.

This old dog can still learn new tricks. [:)]

Then you are not an old dog because you can still learn new tricks. Yes, doggies do get dementia and can't learn new tricks.[;)]

[Reg]

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=4966644

DxWnd can also be used as a poor man's 4K monitor as it allows an AE window to be stretched across multiple monitors. (tested and it works... [:)])

[Voltreffer]

Reg!

Your name came to mind when I was trying to remember who had suggested DxWnd, but I wasn't 100% sure. It's a great utility; thanks for suggesting it! o7

[Reg]

I can't take credit, that will have to go to the ED/BTR team (Simovitch) who are doing a fantastic job with the old classic. [8D]