Minimum resolution?

[mikade]

Another question from my side: "What is the minimum resolution my game should support?"

I grew up with a very shoddy computer and was THRILLED when Half-Life let me play on 320x240. Trying the game on 640x480 was absolutely unplayable. As a result of this experience, growing up, I've always tried to accommodate the lower thresholds of computer resolutions, whether it be in programming or HTML, etc.

HOWEVER!- Do people really use such low resolutions anymore? Up till now I've tried to always make sure something could be viewed on at least 800x600. Would it be very bad to step this up to 1024x768? My conscience seems to say "yes", but I'm not sure.

I'm working on a project that involves a 2D tile-based world, and if a larger resolution means I get to fit more tiles into one screen, shouldn't I go for the larger resolution? Creating a scrolling map / split screen is out of the question. Thus, resolution pretty much determines map size.

I've thought about maybe making separate 800x600 maps and 1024x768 maps and then accommodating both, but it doesn't seem very elegant.

Thoughts / ideas?

[AthenaOfDelphi]

Theoretically, if it's a 2d tile based game, you should be able to accomodate any size of play area by adjusting the renderer at run time.

I'm assuming your player actor will always be in the center of the screen. Get the screen size, work out the center point and then work out how many tiles you can fit on so they just go off the edge of the screen and setup your renderer (and other elements) to handle only that number of tiles.

Depending on how you handle scrolling, you may want to draw a bigger area and then blit the visible part to the screen, allowing for smoother scrolling when you move (you don't have to redraw the whole map... you blit the visible part to screen, then when you've moved a whole tile, you reposition what you already have and only draw the missing tiles - thats how I did it on my PGD Annual competition entry and it worked quite well).

Hope this helps.

[jdarling]

The accepted "standard" in desktop resolution is currently set at 1024x768 for any system newer than 2000. Some new systems (actually a majority) are now shipping with standard resolutions higher than that, but many home users are still running in the 1024 range.

This is actually due to two main differences in "modern" systems. The first is the expense and availability of larger monitors (its very uncommon now to see a desktop with smaller than a 17" monitor) and the second is newer OS's. OS's like Vista, 7, and most Linux (I'll keep Mac out for now) distros choose to have their native resolution at a minimum of 1024x... Some OS's (like 7) can detect multi-screen or wide screen setups and will adjust accordingly.

Remember, you can always look to the statistics (example: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp) to tell you what the "average" user is using.

Going forward its more likely that we will see 1280 take over the default area, but first LCD's with a native resolution of 1280 will need to become common.

As AOD said, if your building in 2D none of this is a problem for you. If your running in full screen, then find the device caps that comes closest to what you expect and black fill the areas (either above and below or left and right) that you arn't going to use. If your running windowed just lock your screen size and call it done.

Of course, you can also do things like image scaling, show more of the world, use the empty space as ad space, etc, etc, etc...

- Jeremy

[mikade]

Thanks for the replies.

That link was really interesting, too! I'm shocked at those stats. :o

I understand about scrolling and not redrawing the whole map. My problem is that I'm making something with 2+ players who move in whatever direction they want, so I effectively can't use scrolling. Everything needs to be on one screen. Sorry, if I wasn't clear enough on that. I tried, putting that in the OP, but I guess I have a have habit of saying things in obscure ways. ::) You wrote some really nice suggestions, otherwise.

I thought about some kind of image scaling, but... the tiles are already realllllly small, so if I were to scale them down from a 1024x768 map that I want they would probably be incomprehensible.

According to those stats native 800x600 and lower is like... 1-4%. I guess I'll just go for the 1024x768. It's just a fun project, not planning to sell it or anything :P

[WILL]

Sorry I couldn't reply earlier, my darn internet provider had me flailing around all my network router and system settings trying to figure out that "there is nothing wrong with the internet connection" really means that "your connection is faulty and we are flat out lying to you while you are factory defaulting your router trying to fix it while it's already working just fine." *ahem* please excuse the mini-rant. :)

A lot of new games are using the new TV resolution of 1080p HD (1920x1080) as a flashy new standard for their releases. In fact a lot of games like the updated 'The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition' has had it's graphics redrawn for 1080p for those that are jumping at the new HD screens for all their entertainment. This is an option if you...

1) Have one. Don't develop for something that you don't have the hardware for. It sucks, been there. ::)

2) Can generate art, visuals and gameplay that will be worth the extra resolution.

1024x768 is a decent resolution and has been the ceiling for most systems for a while and it's fairly safe to use today. If your game uses 3D graphics or vector graphics of some sort, you could allow for higher resolutions of the same 1024x768 aspect and just resize accordingly. Some people with the higher resolution screens may appreciate that (I for example have higher than 1080p, it's 2560x1440 on my iMac 27" screen) but don't get too hung up on it because we can still darn-well open it up in a window. ;)