No 1600x1200?

**Beirut** · 10-02-2004, 19:23

Just got it this aft and it looks to be good fun. But my resolution is limited to 1200x958 (or something like that).

The PCGamer review said the game went to1600x1200.

My hardware is pretty decent. Just upgraded (for IL2-Pacific Fighters

) and I'm running an AMD64-3000/512RAM/9800Pro. I shouldn't be res limited with that setup should I?

Is there 1600x1200 in the game?

Thanks!

**barvaz** · 10-02-2004, 19:38

The developers in their infinite wisdom (well, this was probably dictated by marketing guys to make the game "more accessible...blah blah") created an auto detect system that limits your choices of screen resolution and color depth based on some arbitrary parameters it detects about your system.

Take a look at the following post on .com forums

I tried it and it works. Apparently, I was limited to 1024x768 resolution because my video card doesn’t support vertex shader v2.0, this is rather silly because my system is more than capable of running in 1280x1024 and since I use and LCD screen, any other resolution doesn’t look good on my screen.

I find this very annoying and pretty stupid that I need to mess with undocumented configuration files to be able to play the game in the resolution of my choice, I don’t want these decisions made for me, thank you, I can decide for my own

- barvaz

**Lemur** · 10-02-2004, 21:05

Once you've edited the text file, you'll be able to play in glorious 1600 x 1200 fullscreen orgasmic bliss. For whatever reason, RTW didn't want a Radeon 9700 pro running the game at high rez. Heh. Silly CA.

**Beirut** · 10-02-2004, 21:20

Thanks for the quick reply. But I can't figure out that stuff - I'm a total tech-zero and I'm likely to blow up my entire machine if I start screwing with files like that.

I'll wait for the patch.

**oblivious maximus** · 10-02-2004, 21:29

its simple. go into your program file, open Activision, then RTW, then open preferences and type edit the res you want. save and exit.

**Sjakihata** · 10-02-2004, 21:37

ok, i tried this.

I got a radeon 9700 pro (vertexshader 2.0), 2.08 ghz, 1024 mb ram and 128 vid ram

so my code should be: 2, 2, 4, 2 - right? I changed the resolutions, and also for code 2, 1, 4, 2 and 2, 3, 4, 2 to be sure. didnt work

**Plantagenet** · 10-03-2004, 01:04

Originally Posted by Beirut

Thanks for the quick reply. But I can't figure out that stuff - I'm a total tech-zero and I'm likely to blow up my entire machine if I start screwing with files like that.

I'll wait for the patch.

Its actually pretty simple, if you look at the table for a minute. You have a 9800Pro, which supports vertex shader 2.0, so 1st number=2. I don't know AMD speed equivalencies to my Intel 3.0 GHz, but I'm guessing your CPU is a 3 (can someone please confirm this?). If so, 2nd number=3. You have 512MB RAM, so 3rd number=3. Does your video card have 128 or 256 MB RAM? 4th number=2 (128) or 3 (256).

Assuming your card is 128MB & your CPU a 3, your code is: 2-3-3-2. So:

1. Scroll down to line 2-3-3-2
2. Scroll right to 1280 960 (there are two pairs of 1280x960, side by side, one for battle map & one for campaign map)
3. Change each 1280 960 to 1600 1200, so it looks exactly like this: 1600 1200 1600 1200

If you can tell me if your card is 128 or 256 MB, I'll tell you exactly what your code is and which numbers to change. Your card definitely supports 1600x1200, and it only takes 30 seconds to change.

**hoom** · 10-03-2004, 01:34

OMG yay! I finally get to play at a proper resolution :D
I suspect that it uses actual core speed rather than any calculated PRnumber.
I have an AthlonXP 2000+ (1.6ghz) & changing the 2ghz line did nothing, while changing the 1.5ghz line did.

There's a few other things there that make improvements not just res.
Importing the .txt into a spreadsheet as tab delimited data helps work out what everything is.
After making changes it should be possible to export to tab delimited txt, but I just copied the line into the .txt

**ToranagaSama** · 10-03-2004, 05:58

Originally Posted by barvaz

The developers in their infinite wisdom (well, this was probably dictated by marketing guys to make the game "more accessible...blah blah") created an auto detect system that limits your choices of screen resolution and color depth based on some arbitrary parameters it detects about your system.

WHAT sort of mentality does a thing like this, I'd like to know? The sad thing is the same mentality appears to have been carried through the entire game, RTW that is!

Reminds me of the American Auto industry, it all started going down hill, when they started to let the 'FINANCE Dept.' guys make all the decisions. Now we got a game company letting the Marketing guys run the show.

Incredulous!

**Beirut** · 10-03-2004, 20:44

After playing R:TW in 1600x1200 for a few hours I can say that there is no going back to a lower res. I've played all sorts of games, flight sims to shooters, always at 1024x768, but I've never seen another game that "demanded" you play it at 1600x1200 as this one does.

The quality of the animation jumps right out at you at the higher res. Also, you can see more of the battlefield, which also bring it alive. And so far, I've had scraps with upwards of 5000 soldiers and things were pretty fluid. Had one with close to 8000 but it got choppy at times. And the flaming arrows always hit the FPS.

There's no question - this is a high res game.

**barvaz** · 10-03-2004, 22:54

Originally Posted by ToranagaSama

WHAT sort of mentality does a thing like this, I'd like to know? The sad thing is the same mentality appears to have been carried through the entire game, RTW that is!

Reminds me of the American Auto industry, it all started going down hill, when they started to let the 'FINANCE Dept.' guys make all the decisions. Now we got a game company letting the Marketing guys run the show.

Incredulous!

Sad but hardly surprising.

4 years of development of a game in this scope cost several millions of dollars, not something that you expect lying around in the bank from the sales of STW/MTW. To be able to afford this, game development houses make deals with the devil and his servants, the marketing and accounting hordes.

Unfortunately, these people (with exceptions of course) mostly care about numbers – number of copies sold, number of support calls received, number of dollars left in the bank by the end of the day. They don’t care about games, most of them don’t play games or like them, as far as they are concerned they could be adding numbers for a company that distributes office supplies or sells furniture, as long as the bottom line is nicely positive, they consider their job done.

According to their logic, they rather sell 2 million of copies to the unsuspecting masses who would play the game for two weeks and then toss is aside for the next over hyped thing than to sell 200,000 copies and have a dedicated community of hardcore gamers following the game for months and keep coming back for mods and online play.

This logic produces statements like ”The game will be much more accessible to new players while still appealing to the series’ veterans” – which really translates to “Our marketing guys need to sell many more copies than the previous title to justify costs so they are forcing us to make the game as idiot proof as possible and have just enough easy accessible features to appeal to the average gamer and have nice reviews on the media. If 50000 hardcore followers will like the game less because of this, so be it.”. From their perspective, they are right.

Hopefully, RTW still manages to be a great and long lasting game, despite of the devil servants.

- barvaz