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On an unrelated note, over the weekend, I plan on loading the Beta of Windows 7, so I'll let you know how AGS handles on the new OS.

Already gave this a shot myself, worked fine here for Windows 7 32bit on my UMPC. For most respects windows 7 should be almost entirely compatible with Vista stuff so no worries.

I find it hard to believe this hasn't been mentioned before, but a quick searching showed no obvious results. Feel free to redirect me if it has. One thing I'd quite like is a 75% or 50% downscaler for the entire game...

Let me clarify the what and why.

I've been tinkering with using the 1024x768 mode for some high res goodliness. It works nicely and all thanks for this ability but I've been saddled with a problem. My laptop/tablet is actually a mini thing and uses the standard netbook resolution of screen (1024x600). Granted some things give you a scaled 1024x768 mock mode to get around anything that can't deal with the 600 cut but as it happens mine does not and I suspect it's not the only one. The other problem is that approach looks rather hideous.

So... What I'd like is an ability to design the game at 1024x768, a respectable resolution that most could enjoy but with the engine able to shrink that where relevant so the game would function well on netbooks.

I do foresee a problem herein and I respect this may not be an entirely practical thing to impliment. The problem I forsee is that despite it being downright easy to scale the graphics, this may play with co-ordinates a little since they'd need to be scaled too. It should be possible to get them within 1 pixel of accurate without fuss though so hopefully easy to do with a minimum of fuss if there's some convienient central point to scale co-ordinates (I imagine there is for the sake of the upscaling already available?). 75% original or so should be ideal for netbook viewing in a window but scaling it to a standard resolution, a la 800x600 sounds good too.

Again feel free to set me right on any existing discussion on the topic or any additional problems in doing it.

Edit:

Just as I shut the browser window it occurred to me, can completely forget downscaling if it was simply possible to render at 1024x600 with the bottom 168 cropped off though this would likely break any bottom aligned GUIness. I can design around it and do not mind doing so. Really the whole problem is just that DX/DD will fail to create 1024x768 viewports since the max res is 1024x600. But what would be cooler for netbooks/ultra portables than high resolution AGS games?

I was going to make a note about fixing the thing permanently with the installer but looks like you already did it in 3.1.2. Too quick for me! For those wondering, just right click the icon, click properties, head to the compatability tab and check the box to always run as admin, this will fix 3.1.1 on vista without needing to always right click and 'run as administrator'

Good stuff!

Just wanted to note a little something though, I'm currently set up on Vista 64bit and noticed that while 3.1.1 is seemingly working fine for all other functions, it will crash when attempting to create a new game, this goes away when 'run as administrator'. 3.1 didn't do this and I've noticed that 3.1 is set to run at Admin already, so I assume was set to do so by default but 3.1.1 doesn't. I clean installed 3.1.1 to double check.

Not a big problem since it's trivial to set for the user but it momentarily confused me so I thought I might note it here lest it catch anyone else out.

Anyway, thanks for another great release!