Please, make S2 support 1360x768 (HDTV) resolution!

[OMA]

Any news about 1360x768 HDTV resolution support for S2E2? (see previous message)

[OMA]

No dice?

[Col_Shaggy]

From your postings it sounds like you're using a television set rather than a monitor. To be clear: my monitor, which is advertised as HD, is simply that a monitor. My sister has a widescreen plasma tv, so it's got a tuner and volume controls and different channels. Her plasma will regularly stretch an HD or DVD signal to fit the screen, if there are the black letterboxing bars present at the top and bottom, and it usually drops bits of the image out of the frame. So subtitles tend to be lost sometimes and the image gets a little distorted.

Unless, I take the set out of automatic adjustment. Then it retains the shape and size of the signal sent, regardless of its matting.

So check the settings on your display and see if there's a change there that might help. The plasma's automatic setting is pretty simple to flick in an out with a command on the remote, so this might work for an acceptable stop gap.

[Morlamweb]

I just got an HDTV myself this Christmas, and of course one of the first things I did is hook it up to my PC When I loaded S&M the first time with the new TV, it loaded in fullscreen, because that's what I set it to the first time I played it. I saw no problems when playing it in FS on the HDTV; the inventory box, the interface, and subtitles, everything was there. Then I read this thread, and I got curious about which resolutions are available in-game with the HDTV. I saw only the 3 basic 4:3 resolutions, and one basic 16:9 res. 1360x768 wasn't listed, even though the game was apparently running fine in that mode! Very weird. I checked in Windows, and when my PC is connected to the HDTV, and the screen res is definitely 1360x768.

Further, I tried playing around with the screen settings, just to see what happens. I must have picked the wrong one, because the tv blanked out and said "mode not supported". Switching back to the ol' computer monitor got the interface back. Here's a suggestion: when the user changes the screen res in-game, implement a check dialog, that automatically changes the res back to the previous known-good setting if the user doesn't click OK in 15 seconds, a la the Display control panel in Windows.

[OMA]

Originally Posted by Morlamweb

I saw no problems when playing it in FS on the HDTV; the inventory box, the interface, and subtitles, everything was there.

Of course, you can play in fullscreen using a 4:3 resolution with no problem, except that the 4:3 image will be deformed to fit your 16:9 screen and will look a bit bad. You can also change your TV mode so it's 4:3. Then the image won't be deformed, but you'll lose a good amount of screen with black bars at both sides of the image.

Originally Posted by Morlamweb

1360x768 wasn't listed, even though the game was apparently running fine in that mode! Very weird. I checked in Windows, and when my PC is connected to the HDTV, and the screen res is definitely 1360x768.

Your game is not really running at 1360x768, even if that's the resolution set in Windows' Control Panel. When you run the Sam&Max game, the resolution is automatically switched to the resolution you configured when you first ran the game (the COPS setup screen), and I suppose it was a 4:3 resolution, since you played with the game before you had this brand new HDTV. So I suppose you're using a stretched 4:3 resolution when playing Sam&Max instead of a real 16:9 resolution.

My problem is that the only 16:9 resolution available in the game resolutions list that is compatible with HDTV is 1280x720, which in some TVs like mine can only be used through HDMI, instead of the regular VGA cable, and using HDMI makes the image to be overscanned, so all four ends of the image are lost, and the subtitles are cut at the bottom edge of the screen, because the image is too big in HDMI mode.

This can be fixed by Telltale just by adding support for 1360x768, as that resolution is supported by all HDTVs when using VGA cable, so overscan can be avoided.

I suppose it's already too late to fix this for Episode 2, which will be released in a few days, but I've been talking about this issue since Episode 1 came out back in November! Surely adding one more resolution to the list can't be that hard...

It's a shame we can't play the game properly in HDTVs, in real 16:9 with no overscan, when the game already supports widescreen. It's just a minor technical issue (adding support for 1360x768). I hope this can be fixed for Episode 3 and subsequent releases, and it's fixed as well for all episodes in the forthcoming DVD version at the end of the season.

Originally Posted by Morlamweb

I tried playing around with the screen settings, just to see what happens. I must have picked the wrong one, because the tv blanked out and said "mode not supported". Switching back to the ol' computer monitor got the interface back. Here's a suggestion: when the user changes the screen res in-game, implement a check dialog, that automatically changes the res back to the previous known-good setting if the user doesn't click OK in 15 seconds, a la the Display control panel in Windows.

That's another issue that should be fixed. The resolutions list (either in the COPS setup screen or in the "gear icon" menu) shows some unsupported resolutions. If you choose one unsupported resolution, then you get a blank screen, and then you can't get back! The only way to get out of that blank screen is exiting the game with ALT+F4, and the worse part is that when you start the game again, you will get a blank screen again, since the "bad" resolution was saved when you selected it.

So the only way to get a working game from that point is either connecting a regular computer monitor, as Morlamweb did, which is extremely cumbersome (specially if you have to bring a CRT monitor from a different room), or just uninstalling and reinstalling the whole season! (which is quite annoying too, since as far as I know, the only way to completely delete the game configuration is uninstalling all of the episodes, one by one, since the configuration is kept when uninstalling an episode if other episodes are still installed).

All these annoyances could be avoided just by having the typical countdown after a resolution change, like Morlamweb suggests. If the user doesn't do anything after the countdown goes to zero (meaning the user can't see anything), then the game should go back to the previous working resolution (the countdown should also be stoppable by pressing ESC, which would also go back to the previous resolution).

I think both enhancements (1360x768 resolution support and countdown after resolution change) should be easy to implement, so I hope they can be implemented at least before the season ends and the DVD comes out!

Thanks for reading

OMA

[mothra]

i can force my nvidia driver to use the original aspect ratio of the resolution I chose and fill the frame with black bars if necessary. that way a 4:3/16:9 image won't be stretched on my 16:10 display.

[OMA]

But if you you have a 16:10 display, I suspect it's a regular computer monitor, not a HDTV, and the game supports the most common 16:10 resolutions.

I also have an nVidia card, and it even has an option in its drivers to avoid overscan with HDMI, but the game seems to ignore any of those settings. When it's started, it changes to regular overscanned 1280x720.

The best option is that they either add an option for 1360x768 (so there is no overscan) or an option to "use desktop resoluton", so the game can be run in fullscreen without changing resolutions, just using the same resolution the user chose in Windows' Control Panel. This latter option, coupled with an "aspect ratio" option (4:3/5:4/16:9/16:10), should be the best way to make everyone happy, since then virtually all resolutions could be used.

I hope there's someone from Telltale reading all this! (thanks for arriving this far in the thread! )

OMA

[Morlamweb]

Your game is not really running at 1360x768, even if that's the resolution set in Windows' Control Panel. When you run the Sam&Max game, the resolution is automatically switched to the resolution you configured when you first ran the game (the COPS setup screen), and I suppose it was a 4:3 resolution, since you played with the game before you had this brand new HDTV. So I suppose you're using a stretched 4:3 resolution when playing Sam&Max instead of a real 16:9 resolution.

Actually, no. My main monitor, before I got the HDTV, is a 19 inch widescreen LCD panel, with a native res of 1440x900. I'm not sure if the aspect ratio is 16:9 or 16:10, but it definitely is not 4:3.

Back in season 1, before widescreen support, I ran S&M in a window, with a 1024x768 in-game res, beacuse if I enabled widescreen everything was stretched. Now, in episode 201, the interface gear and the inventory box still look like they're framed for a 4:3 display (that is, a few inches in from the left side of the screen). That's the way it looks in fullscreen on both displays.

[OMA]

Originally Posted by Morlamweb

Actually, no. My main monitor, before I got the HDTV, is a 19 inch widescreen LCD panel, with a native res of 1440x900. I'm not sure if the aspect ratio is 16:9 or 16:10, but it definitely is not 4:3.

It's a 16:10 resolution (1440/900=1.6). If your TV supports that resolution, maybe it's a FullHD TV ("Full HD" TVs can show resolutions up to 1920x1080, whereas "HD Ready" TVs can only go up to 1360x768). Mine is just "HD Ready", and since I can't choose the native 1360x768 resolution, I have to go through the trouble of connecting a DVI to HDMI cable and having overscan so I can use the supported resolution of 1280x720, which is far from ideal.

I still think the best solution is having an option to not change resolutions at all in fullscreen (just like the windowed mode) and just use the desktop resolution. Why do games in general ignore the system-wide setting anyway?

OMA

[Morlamweb]

The HDTV is only "HD-Ready"; it tops out at 1360x768. It's the desktop LCD panel that supports 1440x900.

Today, I tried to run S&M on the HDTV again, but it failed with the "mode not supported" message again. Switching back to the smaller panel, which retained the same res, I loaded S&M and saw only 4 resolution settings in the options panel: 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, and 1280x720. The HDTV doesn't support 1280x720, which is why the game didn't work on the bigger panel. Still, the settings here don't at all reflect the resolutions available in the Windows display control panel. The only difference from last time is that I started the PC with the HDTV attached, whereas last time I had the smaller panel attached first. My suspicion is that this is a "default" list of resolutions, though why the game is using that than the list supported by my monitor, I have no idea.

Another option would be to add a Configuration screen or button to the game launcher. Already the launcher shows some web-enabled content like a few active forum threads. If the were a configuration tab, we could set the resolution before launching the game. If it was the wrong res, you could alt-F4 the game, go back in to the launcher, and switch to a safer res.

Nearly forgot: I'm using a standard VGA cable to connect my PC to the HDTV, not DVI/HDMI. And the video card is an ATI Radeon X1650 Pro.

[OMA]

Originally Posted by Morlamweb

The HDTV doesn't support 1280x720, which is why the game didn't work on the bigger panel.

A lot of HDTVs don't support 1280x720 through the VGA cable, but if your TV has an HDMI port, then it does support that resolution using a DVI to HDMI cable, as I'm doing, but that's pretty inconvenient plus you get an overscanned image that way (losing part of the image, as it's bigger than the screen).

Originally Posted by Morlamweb

I loaded S&M and saw only 4 resolution settings in the options panel

In my case I get lots of resolutions (see previous page in this thread), but none of them is the one I need: 1360x768 (which is the "native" resolution, usable through VGA cable with no overscan).

Originally Posted by Morlamweb

Another option would be to add a Configuration screen or button to the game launcher. Already the launcher shows some web-enabled content like a few active forum threads. If the were a configuration tab, we could set the resolution before launching the game. If it was the wrong res, you could alt-F4 the game, go back in to the launcher, and switch to a safer res.

That would be a lot better. As it is now, if you choose an unsupported resolution (which shouldn't appear in the list anyway), you get a blank screen, and if you reload the game you still get a blank screen (the game works but you can't see anything!), so the only way to escape from that problem is uninstalling one by one all installed episodes and reinstalling everything! (as I mentioned before). Well, you can also delete the registry entries created by the game, but most users won't figure that out...

Is someone from Telltale reading this? Please, I hope you do something about these issues!

[OMA]

Some months ago, I wrote some really boring posts in this thread about this

Now that the season is over (thanks for this wonderful season!), is there any possibility that the DVD release is updated so the HDTV resolution 1360x768 can be finally chosen?

[r00tb33r]

1680x1050 works well for me.

[jmm]

1680x1050 has an aspect ratio of 16:100 while 1360x768 aspect ratio is "around" 1.7708 which is not exactly 16:9
I think the problem lies in having a non-standard aspect ratio (For PC monitors)

[OMA]

I also think that might be the problem. Anyway, 1360x768 is still a valid resolution and should be supported in the game. Other games do. Is it too late to add support for that?

[OMA]

Hi, sorry for being boring but, is there any technical reason (can't see any) why 1360x768 can't be implemented like the rest of resolutions? Probably this resolution is being filtered out of the resolutions list for not being an exact 16:9 resolution, but an exception could be made, since it's so close to 16:9.

Are SBG4AP episodes going to have this limitation, too?

[NickTTG]

I would guess (thought I'm no expert) but unless the tool used to make the games was updated to support that rez, I wouldn't expect you to see anything different for the Sam and Max series. And I'm pretty sure the Team is happy with the current resolution support.

[OMA]

The thing is, I think this would be very easy to implement. It's not like going from 4:3 to 16:9, since the camera shots have to be different and all that stuff, like I suppose is happenning with the port of Season 1 to Wii with widescreen support.

But in this case, Season 2 is already widescreen (16:9/16:10) compatible! And 1360x768 is really, really close to 16:9 (it's in fact the resolution of all so-called 16:9 TVs, at least the HD-Ready ones). So in practical terms it's the same as 16:9. So there's no extra work involved in adding that resolution, other than just letting it be added to the resolutions list.

If it's more difficult than that, I'd be curious to know the technical explanation.

[Tester Scott]

I think due to the curvature of the earth as it tilts on its quadruple axle in the face of our great sun Norath that he gets angry and smites the small cows of Hinterland and... wait, what are we talking about?

[OMA]

Mmh... I'd never thought of that. That must be it! Thanks for sharing you insightful views!