Lord KiRon

Join Date 06/2003

Some graphics looks bad on high res

Well I just started to play the game in 1200x1024 resolution with x4 AA using NVIDIA 6800GTX card and latest drivers.

And I have to say that some graphics images used in cut sceens look bad - like low res images "blown" to high resolution (you get simular efect if you try to stretch 640x480 .BMP to be background in 1600x1200 mode in Windows.
Example: first anomaly detection screen, the engine of starship looks to "pixelized" or better say built from small recangles, some other details too.

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

I thought I read that only the terran type colony ship was supposedly a high res image in the beta?

Anyone else?

W/R
Suralle

Successfully updated karma reason!

Nope

--

One way to remedy this is for Stardock to post high res packages tailored for each resolution setting.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Well, the actual videos ARE kinda small. So if blown to a large resolution it's going to look bad.

i.e., if you play the videos using Bink, it's maybe a quarter or a third of the screen's area at 1024x768. And you're playing at an even higher resolution.

Successfully updated karma reason!

kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

Most of the in-game videos are sized 640x384 or thereabouts. So it's going to be stretched pretty much no matter what if you run the game higher than default resolution. The only way around would be for stardock to rerender *all* in-game videos in high res, which I don't think is terribly likely (besides the fact that it could triple or quadruple the size of the game download).

Successfully updated karma reason!

Actually that's why I made this post - to let the developers know that it's not looks good.
It's on them to decide to use bigger images or better scaling algorithm or something else , but something shell be done about it.

Btw: I was talking about "cut sceene" images , not videos, actually just noticed that there are such thing as videos and downloading them now

Successfully updated karma reason!

Well, we could add in code so that if it goes beyond a certain ratio it doesn't stretch them, but centers them in a black box.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Well, we could add in code so that if it goes beyond a certain ratio it doesn't stretch them, but centers them in a black box.

Would it be possible to give the user the option on how they want to view it? Much like most players in 1x (black box) 2x (streatched black box) and Full Screen?

Successfully updated karma reason!

Well, we could add in code so that if it goes beyond a certain ratio it doesn't stretch them, but centers them in a black box

I don't know the "right" solution but as it is now it's not good, since game itself looks best on high res and on LCD monitors (that probably most users have by now) it's better to use native resolution - most people will play on high res .

Btw: about videos, I know a lot of games that give an option either to stretch the video or switch to lower resolution like 640x480 while playing video.
Some people preffer first , others second.

Successfully updated karma reason!

kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

Btw: about videos, I know a lot of games that give an option either to stretch the video or switch to lower resolution like 640x480 while playing video.
Some people preffer first , others second.

The second option is largely infeasible in this case, as the videos are rendered in a small part of the in-game interface, not full screen (for the most part).

Successfully updated karma reason!

how about a hi-res version?

Successfully updated karma reason!

i only hope that the screen dosent change resolution settings to accomadate a cut scene. my flat screen gives me a pop-up warning me that it is not in it native resolution after playing some games for 10 or so seconds. it is very anoying

Successfully updated karma reason!

I think it is better not to use the highest technical possiblyties the most users have even NOT 1 GB RAM ,3500 GHZ or latest version of nvidia or geforce graphic-card with 256 MB ...the most users have medium-pc/ medium graphic-card becourse it's much more cheep and every game is running some are not in the highest res but good so why stardock shut make a game only the users with the best pc will realy enjoy? This is a company and have to make money so they need a lot of users not only Mr. and Miss.Rich

Successfully updated karma reason!

I agree with what you saying but my point is that while game should run well on mid range computers it should not look WORSE on high end computers like it's now, at least should be same.

After almost every user tryes highest resolution possible first and only if it not works well goes down until find highest playble resolution.
So if my PC works fine with 1200x1024 I might not even know that the game will look better at 640x480

One possible solution I do not like is to limit max resolution to let's say 1024x768 but again neither nor majority of the users will like it.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Cinematics are pre-rendered movies at a set resolution. So they had to pick an appropriate res to have the movies at so it could be useable across multiple types of machines.

The game itself is using direct3d for its drawing, which is scalable to any resolution. So the playable game should look fine on any resolution (infact it will look better on higher), its just the videos that have to be stretched. I really don't see how big of a problem that is, it's just video afterall, what % of your playtime is spent on cutscenes?

And switching between resolutions automatically during play has a jarr'ing effect. Its not a simple transition in the windowing system. I'd much prefer a low-res movie to noticeable context switching with the resolution.

So the game doesn't look better at 640x480, its just the resolution of your settings match the video at that level. It will have the same amount of detail. A higher resolution like 1280x1024 will provide a much crisper version of the game under its 3D-engine.

So having a faster computer will benefit you here

Successfully updated karma reason!

One thing that might be an option for you guys is to make an optional high quality music/movie pack. Obsidian did this with KoToR II. It weighed in at about 2GB and they hosted it through nVidia's servers. I don't know what the business end details are, but assuming that it would be too much for your servers/bandwidth, hosting them somewhere else is an idea.

Successfully updated karma reason!