Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Beezle
Do they make 42 inch Trinitrons?[:D]

Only in Nigeria.

ORIGINAL: Beezle

As my eyes age I have bought progressively larger monitors. I am currently using a 21" Trinitron. The images are lovely, and I have no trouble reading the fonts in this game.

I am a little worried what I buy next for a monitor, though.

Do they make 42 inch Trinitrons?[:D]

There is a very cool gadget in development – goggles with small LCD screens instead of lenses. Besides getting stereo 3D picture it is equivalent to 42 or 62 ( I don’t remember) screen from 9 feet viewing distance. I guess next year they’ll start selling it.

link http://www.47stphoto.com/eycolcdviscg.html It is not exactly the same but you'll get the idea.

ORIGINAL: testarossa

There is a very cool gadget in development – goggles with small LCD screens instead of lenses. Besides getting stereo 3D picture it is equivalent to 42 or 62 ( I don’t remember) screen from 9 feet viewing distance. I guess next year they’ll start selling it.

link http://www.47stphoto.com/eycolcdviscg.html It is not exactly the same but you'll get the idea.

Now, just hold very still while I thread this wire in thru your ear.... (Direct neural link, only way to go.) [:D]

Here is another thing about fonts and general sluggishness of the Game.

I was playing PF, so I've enabled FSAA to 8 and anis. filtration to 16 to get decent picture. Then I loaded WITP and couldnt read reports without pain. After I desabled all those advanced features for my GT, fonts in WITP became again easy to read. And overall performance improved a lot.

So may be if you disable anti aliasing and anis. filtr. it will get easier on your eyes.

ORIGINAL: testarossa
There is a very cool gadget in development – goggles with small LCD screens instead of lenses. Besides getting stereo 3D picture it is equivalent to 42 or 62 ( I don’t remember) screen from 9 feet viewing distance. I guess next year they’ll start selling it.

It's in final development. Here's a picture from the field testing:

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

ORIGINAL: testarossa
There is a very cool gadget in development – goggles with small LCD screens instead of lenses. Besides getting stereo 3D picture it is equivalent to 42 or 62 ( I don’t remember) screen from 9 feet viewing distance. I guess next year they’ll start selling it.

It's in final development. Here's a picture from the field testing:

Ya know, the fact that we consider such a gadget a "cool" thing goes a long ways towards explaining why we play WiTP. [8|]

[:D]

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

Have you considered the possibility of a magnifying lens? I have seen these at computer equipment shops. They mount in a bracket in front of your monitor screen and enlarge the portion of the screen you are viewing to help you make out detail. These aids were invented to help those with poor vision use computers.

I have a 17 inch flatscreen monitor and have no problem reading the material in WitP screens. My vision is impaired to some degree by nearsightedness and retinal deterioration attendant on diabetes.

Are you sure you're not thinking of the movie Brazil?

You could probably have some large ducts installed in your gaming/computer room. [:D][My apologies to those who have not seen the movie]

There's a wonderful fix for the font issue in the support section, run a search for 'font'. It involves downloading an alternite Times New Roman font. The design decision to use a serif font is clearly non-standard and a bad choice. If you follow the steps in that post you'll have a much cleaner looking and much more readable font.

The downside is you lose access to the Times New Roman font (God knows why you'd want it).

Don't do it that way, you'll bugger up your system fonts.

If you must change it, this is how (completely unsupported)

Get a hex editor. (UltraEdit is my prefered butchoring tool)

Open up the war in the pacific.exe file. (make a backup copy!)

Search to locate Times

Overtype! (NOT INSERT) the Times New Roman text with the font name you want to use.

Overwrite any leftover letters with hex 00 (ie: the maximum font name space can not exceed what is already there!)

Save out your results and you now have the new font in witp without screwing up your system.

[&o] Verdana, ho-ho-ho!

OK. Batang and Verdana are the best but fuck up inbase screen menues. Are we stuck with Times New Roman or what? Any ideas outthere in the field?

Don't want to look like a complete ass, but how do you run WitP in windowed mode? Thanks.

Edit the shortcut and add a -w to the end.

ORIGINAL: testarossa
1.No kidding about LCD screen. It is just great for your eyes, period. I stare at computer screen 8 hours at work and then 4-6 at home. Don’t think it would’ve been possible using CRT monitor. But again this is just a suggestion.

I actually don't like LCD monitors, but that is personal preference I think.

2.If you use message delay 0.1 you don’t really need to read anything down there. Only useful information is about LBA patrol hitting something during search and reinforcement arrivals. If you use default 1.0 delay your game will take years to finish.

True, but I was talking about reading the rest if the screens.

3.The font solution should actually work if you change basic font for WITP in OS, than change OS to use different font. MS Sans Serif looks ugly anyways.

Hm, worth considering.

And I fully understand your frustration with this issue, although it looks like they should concentrate on things that bother majority of the players i.e. leaders bug, land movement bug, ASW bug, aircraft upgrade issues etc.

Oh, fair enough. And I was not really criticizing Matrix (et al) per se, more like lamenting the lack of a fix. The criticism was towards the people who give stupid solutions like "buy a new monitor!" as a resolution.

As I said, I can wait. It was some time before I got into UV too. But I won't necessarily be that patient about it!
[:D]

And speaking of that....

Since you don't plan to play WITP anymore, I won't bother to try to hunt them down for you.

You misunderstand, I said I have not been able to play and lamenting that it will probably be a while before I am able to play.

I may be willing to at least give these font suggestions a shot though. Not the best solution, but worth looking into.

And thanks to Blackhorse (and a few others) for their support.
But as was pointed out, it looks like we are a distinct minority, so low priority. I can understand that. But it is regrettable.

I was playing PF, so I've enabled FSAA to 8 and anis. filtration to 16 to get decent picture. Then I loaded WITP and couldn't read reports without pain. After I disabled all those advanced features for my GT, fonts in WITP became again easy to read. And overall performance improved a lot.

So may be if you disable anti aliasing and anis. filtr. it will get easier on your eyes.

Hmm. I thought those were set on a game by game basis, not at the OS level (I admit to not being a graphics card guru).

The downside is you lose access to the Times New Roman font (God knows why you'd want it).

Actually, I like TNR and use it quite a bit in MS Word.
As long as I have it at a decent font size.


I'm typing this as I read along and just found Mr. Frag's response to fixing it with a hex editor.

Cool! [8D]

Thanks! I'll look into that!
Mucho gracias!
Danke!
Domo arrigato!

OK. Batang and Verdana are the best but **** up inbase screen menues. Are we stuck with Times New Roman or what? Any ideas outthere in the field?

How does it 'mess' up the inbase screen menus? Would a different font work better?

Don't want to look like a complete ass, but how do you run WitP in windowed mode?

Curiosity: What benefit does this provide?

Playing in windowed mode. Allows people at work to play without being caught by their boss![:D]

Playing in windowed mode helps when you want to monitor your "instant messaging" blurbs...[:'(]

CRT's use variable geometry. They are capable of displaying any resolution at all within the realms of their dot pitch.

LCD's use fixed geometry. They are designed with a fixed number of x,y pixels and that is the resolution that the display *MUST* run at.

If you happen to be running at something other then the LCD's fixed resolution, various panels handle this differently. Some simply display a smaller area of the display to not distort things. Others use some expansion methods to scale the lower resolution upwards to fit the panel. Depending on the pitch and capabilities of the panel, this can look horrible or very good (generally a function of the $ tag).

Running WitP in windowed mode allows it to not be subject to this potentially horrible expansion mode that happens on LCD panels and generally gives you a clearer picture.

I would not have touched a LCD panel in the last couple of years due to the quality of them. They have gotten much better over time BUT this is really one area where you get *exactly* what you pay for. Buy a $500 panel and it looks like it. Buy a $2000 panel and it looks like it too.

I have a 23" Apple LCD here now (my latest in the long line of lets go broke toys) and I swear I can read fonts from 12 feet away because it is simply that clear. It has *nothing* to do with the game or fonts in the game. It is all about the quality of the monitor that displays the stuff. If you have a .32 or higher dot pitch, 1024x768 will look horrible. It is that simple. There are just not enough dots per inch to make that resolution look clear. Couple this with the differences between mask and non-mask technology CRTs and you have the makings of a great headache.

I have glasses, my eyesight is certainly not great in any respect but I can sit in front of my monitors for 14+ hours a day without any headaches at all. You get what you pay for in the world of displays. It is that simple.

ORIGINAL: neuromancer

Hmm. I thought those were set on a game by game basis, not at the OS level (I admit to not being a graphics card guru).

You can override all game settings on videocard driver level. It is generally best solution for flight sims and FPS, WITP doesn't need FSAA and bump mapping and 3.0 shaders. Check my thread about Pacific fighters, You'll se what i'm talking about.

How does it 'mess' up the inbase screen menus? Would a different font work better?

I’ve tried around 20 fonts yesterday. The best is Batang and Verdana, but WITP has all ingame menus of fixed size (base info screen, ship info, database, everything) so when you use different font for example Batang, all the info like supply, oil, air support numbers gets overlapped with each other. I’ll get home and will post some screen shots. TNR is the best and that’s why they used it. Another observation – because the way the games is designed looks like they will have to redesign GUI to accommodate different font. That’s why there is no option to select different font in game option menu. And I think you are out of luck in this case unless they will have too much free time on their hands to actually tweak GUI (last time they did it they moved some buttons in base menu in 1.3, than changed another button in 1.4 to theatre headquarter instead on SF).

Curiosity: What benefit does this provide?

I hoped it would run faster as Frag suggested. It runs faster but I use font smoothing for WinXP, and WITP looks plastic like. And performance gain is not enough to justify switching font smoothing off.

ORIGINAL: testarossa

ORIGINAL: neuromancer

Hmm. I thought those were set on a game by game basis, not at the OS level (I admit to not being a graphics card guru).

You can override all game settings on videocard driver level. It is generally best solution for flight sims and FPS, WITP doesn't need FSAA and bump mapping and 3.0 shaders. Check my thread about Pacific fighters, You'll se what i'm talking about.

Not sure what my settings are at, so I'll have to look.

How does it 'mess' up the inbase screen menus? Would a different font work better?

I’ve tried around 20 fonts yesterday. The best is Batang and Verdana, but WITP has all ingame menus of fixed size (base info screen, ship info, database, everything) so when you use different font for example Batang, all the info like supply, oil, air support numbers gets overlapped with each other.

Not unexpected. But the question is, how bad is it? If its messy, but servicable, I may be able to live with it. If it completely fouls things beyond recognition, then I may be S.O.L.

I haven't tried the adjustment yet, been playing another game. I might give it a shot over Christmas.

Another observation – because the way the games is designed looks like they will have to redesign GUI to accommodate different font. That’s why there is no option to select different font in game option menu.

Ah, unfortunate. That would explain why no fix has arrived to date. They wouldn't want to slap a quick fix together that makes it look real ugly. We can do that (with Frag's suggestion) and deal with the smell and the mess ourselves, but they wouldn't want to do that.

But also as you say, if it would require a complete layout overhaul, it may not be something they can do in the near future, if ever.

As I said, unfortunate.