Looks awesome (Full Version)

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V22 Osprey -> Looks awesome (6/16/2009 10:43:38 PM)

This looks awesome

Questions:
-Is this about Horse Combat only?
-The game data says the display resolution is:1024x768.Does this mean its stuck at the 1024 res or can I put the resolution higher?(All my computer monitors are 17in or bigger, and that means no full screen action)



CushVA -> RE: Looks awesome (6/16/2009 10:56:39 PM)

1) No, there is infantry and artillery

2) It seems to be fixed at 1024x768. Seems to be 'Full Screen', if there's a way to do it 'windowed', I haven't found it



Erik Rutins -> RE: Looks awesome (6/16/2009 11:17:02 PM)

Check the readme for instructions on Windowed Mode.



Titanwarrior89 -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 12:42:42 AM)

Downloading this puppy now.[:D]
quote:

ORIGINAL: V22 Osprey

This looks awesome

Questions:
-Is this about Horse Combat only?
-The game data says the display resolution is:1024x768.Does this mean its stuck at the 1024 res or can I put the resolution higher?(All my computer monitors are 17in or bigger, and that means no full screen action)




V22 Osprey -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 1:46:22 AM)

Fixed at the 1024 res?Darn it.Now I'm going to have those stupid black bars on the sides and everything is going to look mushed.

Come on matrix, its 2009, we've moved on from 1024 res.My desktop moniter has a 1600 res and my laptop a 1400 res.Come on!



rich12545 -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 4:06:10 AM)

Yeah I agree.  I no longer play a game that won't match my windows res.  Got all excited about PureSim which is now free.  Installed it and it will work only in a small window or full screen that looks like crap.  Uninstalled it.  Oh, well.



Erik Rutins -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 12:29:20 PM)

Are you guys aware of how to set your display drivers to allow a game with fixed resolution to run full screen without scaling? As far as these things go, there's only so much that can be done without creating a whole new engine. I understand the complaint when it comes to completely new releases and especially mainstream games with large budgets.

When it comes to classic wargames like this one that have been given a new lease on life, we've always considered other improvements more important than redoing an entire graphics engine just to support higher resolutions. That's a priority for us on new engine work, but there's only so much you can do in a reasonable time with games where the engine is already done.

Personally, I still fire up some older games that don't support my display resolution simply because the gameplay is still unmatched by anything newer. I also find that with the proper display driver settings, these games don't look bad at all. They may not take up the whole screen, but they look fine.

Regards,

- Erik



Moltke71 -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 1:27:24 PM)

I may be old and stupid, but here's what I do with older games. I right-click on my desktop, memorize my monitor's best res, change it to a lesser res for older games and then kick it back up after the game. Maybe people don't have the three seconds to spare to do this.



sol_invictus -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 2:24:51 PM)

Yeah I don't understand why someone would pass on a game simply because of the minimal time required to get it to look good. I remember back in the DOS days having to tweak and sweat to squeeze out a few more bits of memory to get some games to run at all. People don't realize how much easier things are now but how for the most part game quality has declined in many respects. I find myself returning to older games or almost exclusively playing niche titles by small independent developers to the almost complete exclusion of the HUGE DEVELOPERS. Without Matrix, Paradox, and HPS I would be staring at the walls most of the time.[:(]


Yes of course. I can't believe I forgot AGEOD.



oldspec4 -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 2:29:50 PM)

Same independent developers for me too.. but will also add AGEOD to the list.



Moltke71 -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 2:36:37 PM)

Arinvald,

Yeah, you and I remember the days when we were grateful to have any computer games and more than happy to do some work to make them run.

And, for the Noobs, the games were actually more expensive.



SlickWilhelm -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 2:49:49 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bismarck

I may be old and stupid, but here's what I do with older games. I right-click on my desktop, memorize my monitor's best res, change it to a lesser res for older games and then kick it back up after the game. Maybe people don't have the three seconds to spare to do this.


Hey, Mr. Old & Stupid! [:D]

j/k Jim. [:)]

Your solution is fine if you're using an old CRT monitor. But these new fangled widescreen LCD monitors like to display crisp graphics only in their native resolution. Anyone who does what you do on an LCD monitor should notice substantial degradation of picture quality.

Erik pretty much summed up the best solution, which is to utilize your graphics card driver program(CCC for ATI cards) to manipulate the graphics for these older "fixed 4:3 aspect ratio" games.

I understand a game takes years to develop from conception to shipment, but still....my only gripe is that some developers didn't do their homework and see the LCD revolution coming.

That being said, as Erik also alluded to, it's not fair to expect a game that was originally produced back in the stone age(early 2000's) to be available in widescreen format. Depending on the engine, it takes a great deal of time and $$$ to make all the changes that would be required.




SlickWilhelm -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 2:57:27 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Arinvald

Yeah I don't understand why someone would pass on a game simply because of the minimal time required to get it to look good. I remember back in the DOS days having to tweak and sweat to squeeze out a few more bits of memory to get some games to run at all. People don't realize how much easier things are now but how for the most part game quality has declined in many respects. I find myself returning to older games or almost exclusively playing niche titles by small independent developers to the almost complete exclusion of the HUGE DEVELOPERS. Without Matrix, Paradox, and HPS I would be staring at the walls most of the time.[:(]


Amen, Arinvald!

Anyone remember trying to get your autoexec.bat and config.sys setup with extended and expanded memory?

<shudder> ewe, those were the days!</shudder>



Moltke71 -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 3:41:04 PM)

Naw, I have a 22" LCD - no problem.



benpark -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 4:21:09 PM)

The game automatically recognized my 1920x1200 screen resolution.

I do have to agree that future versions should be adapted to take advantage of larger screen resolutions. The game looks good at the default zoom in, but falls apart quickly closer or further. When you open up the folders with the graphic files, you so how much work went into making all of the new graphics, so it would be worth it make the adaptations for the next volume. Part of the big draw for this era is the visual aspect of the battles. A greater screen resolution would allow the graphics to remain far clearer at multiple levels of zoom.

That said, this should in no way stop someone from buying this game. It's the best around at depicting this era and level of combat.



rich12545 -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 4:23:32 PM)

I don't have a widescreen.  Just a regular 19" lcd monitor with a native of 1280x1024.  Anything else looks like crap EVEN if I change the desktop res (which I did for PureSim).  Doesn't matter.  I understand the time involved and not buying/playing these games is a personal decision and not one to be attacked by Jim Cobb as stupid.  If he wants to compromise and play games that look like crap that's his decision and I won't attack it.  There's only so much time in the day to play games anyway and I prefer not to get aggravated looking at one that looks terrible when there are so many that look fine.  For example I recently bought two Close Combat games.  Very old ones that run just fine on my monitor.  If they can do it properly then anyone can.



SlickWilhelm -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 4:36:43 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: benpark

The game automatically recognized my 1920x1200 screen resolution.



Hey benpark, perhaps you have your video card driver utility set to upscale any game not at the native resolution? Or are you saying that the game is really in 1920x1200 resolution.

If the game is truly locked at 1024x768 res, it should look awful(well, maybe not awful, but fuzzy at least) on your monitor, unless you used the utility to adjust the scaling.



Erik Rutins -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 4:40:49 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: rich12545
I don't have a widescreen.  Just a regular 19" lcd monitor with a native of 1280x1024.  Anything else looks like crap EVEN if I change the desktop res (which I did for PureSim).  Doesn't matter.  I understand the time involved and not buying/playing these games is a personal decision and not one to be attacked by Jim Cobb as stupid.  If he wants to compromise and play games that look like crap that's his decision and I won't attack it.  There's only so much time in the day to play games anyway and I prefer not to get aggravated looking at one that looks terrible when there are so many that look fine.  For example I recently bought two Close Combat games.  Very old ones that run just fine on my monitor.  If they can do it properly then anyone can.


You don't need to change the resolution. Are you familiar with driver settings for display scaling?



Nicholas Bell -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 4:49:03 PM)

Is it possible to play in 2D?  Don't much fancy the out-of-scale toy-soldier look.  I know I am in the minority on this issue, but I won't purchase if there is no decent 2D option.  Thanks.



Erik Rutins -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 4:59:16 PM)

No plain 2D option, sorry.



benpark -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 5:13:05 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Slick Wilhelm


quote:

ORIGINAL: benpark

The game automatically recognized my 1920x1200 screen resolution.



Hey benpark, perhaps you have your video card driver utility set to upscale any game not at the native resolution? Or are you saying that the game is really in 1920x1200 resolution.

If the game is truly locked at 1024x768 res, it should look awful(well, maybe not awful, but fuzzy at least) on your monitor, unless you used the utility to adjust the scaling.



Yes, it's upscaling and not in a window. I have all other ATI Catalyst settings at "default". At this setting, the standard zoom looks pretty decent, and the zoomed out and in graphics are pretty pixelated. It's certainly playable only at the default zoom.



leastonh1 -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 5:26:55 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Arinvald
Yeah I don't understand why someone would pass on a game simply because of the minimal time required to get it to look good. I remember back in the DOS days having to tweak and sweat to squeeze out a few more bits of memory to get some games to run at all. People don't realize how much easier things are now but how for the most part game quality has declined in many respects.

I'm with you there Arinvald!!! I had different boot disks set up for different games. I spent dozens of hours messing with autoexec.bat and config.sys to get that last stubborn 1k (yes, for those who haven't a clue, that's 1 Kilobyte! [:D]) of memory freed up so a game would run.

Then, what about the days of the wonderful Spectrum 48k? My first computer. Six minutes to boot Flight Simulator from tape and the anticipation was brilliant. It was actually exciting to wait for that title screen to pop up. Such good memories hehe. These kids of today have been spoiled rotten. The games just work most of the time. If they want to play an old one, simple. Get DOSBox, VMWare or an emulator. Way too easy! [:'(]

I am sooooo old lol! [8|]



rich12545 -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 5:33:31 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins


quote:

ORIGINAL: rich12545
I don't have a widescreen.  Just a regular 19" lcd monitor with a native of 1280x1024.  Anything else looks like crap EVEN if I change the desktop res (which I did for PureSim).  Doesn't matter.  I understand the time involved and not buying/playing these games is a personal decision and not one to be attacked by Jim Cobb as stupid.  If he wants to compromise and play games that look like crap that's his decision and I won't attack it.  There's only so much time in the day to play games anyway and I prefer not to get aggravated looking at one that looks terrible when there are so many that look fine.  For example I recently bought two Close Combat games.  Very old ones that run just fine on my monitor.  If they can do it properly then anyone can.


You don't need to change the resolution. Are you familiar with driver settings for display scaling?


No. I have an nvidia 9500gt. Looked at the control panel and there's a thing called manage custom resolutions but I didn't understand it. Is this what you're referring to? I'm using the latest nvidia 32 bit driver. If there's a way for 1024x768 or 800x600 to look good on my monitor that would be very nice.



sol_invictus -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 5:47:57 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Jim_H

quote:

ORIGINAL: Arinvald
Yeah I don't understand why someone would pass on a game simply because of the minimal time required to get it to look good. I remember back in the DOS days having to tweak and sweat to squeeze out a few more bits of memory to get some games to run at all. People don't realize how much easier things are now but how for the most part game quality has declined in many respects.

I'm with you there Arinvald!!! I had different boot disks set up for different games. I spent dozens of hours messing with autoexec.bat and config.sys to get that last stubborn 1k (yes, for those who haven't a clue, that's 1 Kilobyte! [:D]) of memory freed up so a game would run.

Then, what about the days of the wonderful Spectrum 48k? My first computer. Six minutes to boot Flight Simulator from tape and the anticipation was brilliant. It was actually exciting to wait for that title screen to pop up. Such good memories hehe. These kids of today have been spoiled rotten. The games just work most of the time. If they want to play an old one, simple. Get DOSBox, VMWare or an emulator. Way too easy! [:'(]

I am sooooo old lol! [8|]



I can't remember the name of the programs but I can remember having to use those memory optimizers when Memmaker couldn't sqeeze out enough; which it usually couldn't. Imagine trying to ask players to pay for a program in order to get a game to run. It would be madness today.[X(] I can't say that I ever had to deal with a tape drive.[X(]



Moltke71 -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 6:09:46 PM)

We're truly ages away from where we started.  My first rig was an Apple IIe and I had to wait for it ti come out.  My brother-in-law asked why I wanted a IIe when I could get a II immediately. I said I wanted 64k of RAM. He actually said:

"Jim, nobody will ever need 64k of RAM."



rich12545 -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 6:23:59 PM)

My first was an apple ii+.  48k ram.  Dos 2.2.  I added 2.3 and made a switch for them.  I remember the old days.  Fooling with the different memory systems. Hours and hours and hours.  My son worked at microsoft in the mid 90s and I complained to him.  Why can't ms just come out with a system that automatically used all the ram.  Then there was win95.  And he thought I was nuts when I got my first pc with a 100 meg hard drive.  Nobody could ever use that much space.

I also remember b&w tv.  So what?  Times change.  Nowadays there's no excuse.



Moltke71 -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 7:23:06 PM)

Yeah, but I love hitting my brother-in-law, the engineer, over the head with his vision.



mattilacken2 -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 9:15:40 PM)

Hi.
Iīve played a lot of strategy games on my computer since the Spectrum/C64 days. I love games such TOAW, talonsofts battleground, HPS SIMS, COTA, Take Command..... For several years ago i looked at the "Horse and Musket" games at Shrapnel, but I could not belive how a game could look so ugly. After reading about "Horse and Musket: Volume I, Frederick the Great" and all saying how great it was, "Looks awesome"..Payed, installed...Could somone please tell me what is the beauty about this game? It looks terrible! The graphics is not awesome, itīs just plain ugly.
I love the games from matrix and I bought many of them, TOAW 1, 2, 3 , Highway to the reich, COTA, Battleground series, the games from AEOGD and many more, but this one must be the most ugly looking one.
Very disapointed buyer...
Looking forward to the storm of replays ;)



Erik Rutins -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 9:35:07 PM)

Matti,

Graphics are a subjective thing. Horse and Musket: Volume I is much better looking than its predecessors, but I understand that it's not your cup of tea.

The point of this type of game though is the gameplay. Are you disappointed purely based on looks? Have you had a chance to play it yet?

Regards,

- Erik



mattilacken2 -> RE: Looks awesome (6/17/2009 9:47:43 PM)

Hi Eric.
I havenīt played the game much, bought it today. As I wrote in my post, I truly love the games from Matrix that i bought in the past, maybe you guys at Matrix has spoiled me with really beautiful games like Battles in Normany/Italy, COTA and all the other matrix games that i have played.
Iīm awere of that graphics isnīt everything when it comes to true strategy-games. But with this one I was disapointed. [:(]
Sure, Empire: Total war is good looking, but I prefer games with more depth and detail, love the games from HPS and Tillerīs battleground, but then allways played in the 2D-mode.
/Matti



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