Messages

If you're going to make new passwords, this is good advice:

Some players report the following crash for 3.3.0, but only when running in windowed mode:

An exception 0xC0000005 occurred in ACWIN.EXE at EIP = 0x00469B98 ; program pointer is -1893, ACI version 3.3.0.1156, gtags (8485,21)

Can I assume that it is the same issue if another user gets a different EIP but the same program pointer and gtags?

Do we even need these options?

I think that's a very good question.

As far as I can tell, there are two kinds of players here. One kind prefers to have a full screen without any borders, and one kind that prefers to retain the game's aspect ratio (and, of course, there's a third kind who doesn't care either way). Since AGS games run in 16:10 aspect ratio and most contemporary monitors are 16:9, the second kind of player likes to have borders. I believe top/bottom borders are a remnant from the time when most monitors were 16:12, and most people probably haven't used that option for several years.

Can we call "sideborders" pillarboxing? That's the official term.

I'd rather not, as I've never heard of that and it barely even shows up on google. I'd prefer a clear and widely-used term over an "official" one.

Yes, it would be nice if these two options worked similar. So that would mean renaming force letterbox to "enable" (and maybe call it top/bottom borders instead of letterbox), and it would be nice if disabling sideborders would try the resolutions without borders first, and if failed try all the rest (just like how disabling letterboxing works now). And maybe make these the top two under 'graphics options' so that they're adjacent to one another.

Yes, it was in AGS for a long time, but it didn't actually work until you fixed it

Wait, so if I enable "letterbox" then I get borders to the side but not to the top/bottom, and if I disable it I get no borders anywhere even though I still asked for side borders. Huh?

Ok, I'll try that. What exactly is a "letterboxed" mode, though?

Ok, testing again.

Scale x2, no side borders same as yesterday.
Scale x2, with borders same as yesterday.
Max scaling, no side borders now works.
Max scaling with borders however no longer works: it plays the game fine, but doesn't show the side borders. This did work in yesterday's version.

Spoiler

Created graphics driver: Direct3D 9
Initializing screen settings
Game native resolution: 320 x 200 (32 bit), letterbox optional, side borders enabled
Initializing gfx filters
Requested gfx filter: max
Chosen gfx resolution: 1280 x 800 (32 bit), game frame: 320 x 200
Applying scaling filter: StdScale4
Switching to graphics mode
Attempt to switch gfx mode to 1280 x 800 (32-bit) fullscreen, game frame 320 x 200, gfx filter: StdScale4
Succeeded. Using gfx mode 1280 x 800 (32-bit) fullscreen, game frame 320 x 200, gfx filter: StdScale4
Preparing graphics mode screen

[close]

1) it did not find supported resolutions, which should not normally happen. But this happens if sideborders are disabled, so it's theoretically possible that there's simply no matching resolution. I wonder what the game should do in such case: should it override user request and try sideborders, or just quit?

Well, the engine also overrides e.g. the graphics driver (using Dx5 if Dx9 doesn't work), so it should also override the sideborders in this case. After all, it's better for the user to get a slightly different resolution, than for the game to abort.

Also note that the earlier build (log H) did run with max scaling/no borders.

Testing now...

Scale x2, no side borders. Chosen gfx resolution: 640 x 480 (32 bit), game frame: 320 x 240. That works since my monitor doesn't run in 640x400.
Scale x2, side borders. Game ends up running on a 1280 x 720 screen with the game in 640 x 360. That's weird, I'd expect it to be 640x400 (perhaps the logging is wrong or the 'game frame' doesn't mean what I think?) I suppose the big black borders are because my monitor doesn't support intermediate resolutions.
Scale max, side borders. Chosen gfx resolution: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit), game frame: 384 x 216. Again I'm not sure where the game frame comes from, but it launches well and does get side borders as expected.

Scale max, no side borders. Game fails to launch,

Spoiler

msg:
There was a problem initializing graphics mode 0 x 0 (32-bit) with game size 320 x 200 and filter 'Undefined'.
(Problem: 'Failed to find acceptable graphics filter')

log:
Built library path: d3d9.dll
Created graphics driver: Direct3D 9
Initializing screen settings
Game native resolution: 320 x 200 (32 bit), letterbox optional, side borders disabled
Initializing gfx filters
Couldn't find any supported uniform scaling for game size 320 x 200 (32 bit)
Init gfx driver
Created graphics driver: Allegro/DX5
Initializing screen settings
Game native resolution: 320 x 200 (32 bit), letterbox optional, side borders disabled
Initializing gfx filters
Couldn't find any supported uniform scaling for game size 320 x 200 (32 bit)

[close]

So we're getting close, I think Thank you for your time!

Now in the tracker:

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?issue=549.0
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?issue=550.0

Uploaded slightly updated version, now can run all games letterboxed.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/7wepvs1339utl8a/acwin_3.3.0_scaling_update.7z

Is this the same as hotfix 2 from the main release thread?

Was this issue resolved at some point?

I suppose one could write a spreadsheet program in AGS?

If by habsies you mean team up, then I may be interested

The 'when' poll

"Show all 123 options"?

Er... perhaps it would be more practical if you listed each week, rather than every single day for the next four months?

Now that you mention it...

...the reason why last year's game Draconis was released in AGS 2.7 is that it caused substantial slowdown on my computer in AGS 3.2. Of course, that is a game that relies on lots and lots of RawDraws so it's hardly par for the course. I'd have to check if this issue still occurs.

Here you go: http://www.datafilehost.com/d/09c2383f