Screen Issues

Hi,

I have written a kool little Blitz Basic game on my 1024x748 (or whatever the dimensions are) screen, however, it will not work on my friend's 800x600 screen.

Is there a special way I can make my game auto-resize, like professional games do such as Who Wants To Be A Millionare?

The latter auto configures to any screen size.

Many thanks...

Not in 2D graphics modes.

Its always best to go for 800x600x16 with 2D games and don't bother with supporting multiple resolutions, because as you've found out, you'll get into all manner of difficulties.

Saying that, if you're running your game in a window, try it full-screen (Graphics 1024,768,16,1). I don't know of many systems these days that don't support that graphics resolution.

I haven't seen Who Wants to be a Millionaire, but I'd hazard a guess that its in 3D. In Blitz3D, you don't have to worry about screen resolution too much - everything is resized in 3D automatically.

Yeah I tryed support multiple reso its a pain >.>

I how ever always use 640x680 now dunno why I just like it :|

Actually, thats not entirely accurate. You can use ResizeImage beforehand to size your images depending on the screen. My Shadow of Fear editor has an options screen where you can change resolution the source for which can be found here. Its not terribly hard to do, but it does mean that the game takes longer to load up.

Not really. You just have to really think your design through.

Not supporting multiple resolutions means that some people (people with LCD screens for example) will be forced to look at a really ugly display. Which is a bad thing. Also, in the future PC hardware may not support whatever resolution you think is a good idea. For example all professional graphics cards that I've tried (Wildcat & FireGL) do not support 16 bit displays at all, so your masterfully design application will fail anyway.

Support multiple resolutions. It'll be worth it in the long run!

It's quite simple really, you just need to create a new x,y conversion that works as a percentage or something similar.

So x=0 would be x=0, x=100 would be x=640 (for 640x480).

This way all your positioning stays the same, then you just make sure that you select the right font to make sure everything stays the right size. I did this is sphere racer for all the on-screen fonts when you change res.

Yes thats possible - the problem is that Blitz images invariably look like complete crap after they've been resized in Blitz.
Yes - fonts are easy enough. I'll give you that.