Fullscreen: Resolution, presentation, immersion.

[Trapezoid]

Does anyone else feel that the current graphical setup for AGS games is somewhat... archaic?

I don't suggest removing any options or capabilities, but I think the default presentation of a game oughta be this:

NOT "fullscreen" in the sense that it alters your monitor's current resolution, but rather a black, maximized, window devoid of title-bar and corner icons.
Within this black void would be the game's screen, which automatically sets to 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x depending on what will fit in the monitor's current resolution. Too big for your comfort? Luckily you can press Ctrl-Alt-Minus or Ctrl-Alt-Plus to shift through different levels of magnification, ala ScummVM. Want to be able to see Windows again? Alt-Enter will toggle away the blackness back to a regular window and let you drag the game around to your heart's content.

Traditional "fullscreen" mode seems to be increasingly problematic as LCD monitors gain favor. There are now so many different brands of monitors with their own quirks and native resolutions, there's no way to release a game designed for full-screen immersion without a large percentage of players experiencing blurry interpolation, stretched out aspect ratio, or a simple error preventing fullscreen altogether.

The player shouldn't have to muck around with different checkboxes and graphics drivers that may or may not even work, just to achieve a graphical treatment that's easy on their eyes.

(P.S. I'm not a programmer and I'm clueless about how difficult this sort of feature would be to add, so please smack me down if you must. I've also been pretty absent from the forums for years, so I'm sorry if there's already be a similar discussion before.)


tl;dr: Windowed mode is ugly. Fullscreen mode is flaky. It should be more like DOSbox's fullscreen, with the on-the-fly key commands of ScummVM.

[Ali]

I think these ideas have been mentioned before, and I hope the clever programmer types are working on them. All I can say is that I wholeheartedly agree!

[xenogia]

You could always try the Skygoblin build of AGS which support 1280x720.

https://gitorious.org/skygoblinags/

[doimus]

Well, I'm not a programmer, but I hang around them, like drummers hang around musicians...
What I know is that in OpenGL (and probably in DirectX too) you can draw to separate "texture", and then you can draw that "texture" to whatever "polygon" you wish.

Now replace "texture" with whatever is happening on AGS screen and you can basically draw anything anywhere in any size on your screen, full or windowed.

[Alan v.Drake]

That is indeed what shold be done, doimus. I've been planning to improve the way resolutions and stretching are handled, but I hadn't time yet

- Alan

[dbuske]

You could always try the Skygoblin build of AGS which support 1280x720.

https://gitorious.org/skygoblinags/

There does not seem to be a way to download SkyGoblinAGS.

[Joseph DiPerla]

I think you have to download the git archive yourself and compile it. Look here:
https://gitorious.org/skygoblinags/pages/Home

[Icey]

Inside the bin folder should be a ZIP. Just extract that and your set.

https://gitorious.org/skygoblinags/skygoblinags/archive-tarball/master direct DL

[Ryan Timothy B]

I definitely agree that when the game is in a window it should be able to be resized or can be maximized. Also with Alt+Enter to enter/exit full screen mode while you play.