Best Resolution

[fuzzy70]

Hopefully I will explain this correctly 

I am nearly at the stage where I feel comfortable with GLB to actually get my arse in gear & write a game (more than likely a remake to start with), just need to play around more with polyvectors really.

Even though I only have the main Win/OsX/Linux targets & none of the mobile ones I think it would be best to code to one resolution then scale the graphics judging by the various posts in the forum. My question is this, What would be a good resolution to use as a base?. For example would it be best to design/layout the game as 1024x768 then scale down for lower resolutions, or something like 800x600 & scale up or down from that. Of course there may be games where scaling fails or specifically targeting a platform, but will cross that bridge when it happens.

Any feedback on what resolution you design your project in would be appreciated.

Lee

[Ian Price]

TBH you'd be better off concentrating on a resolution that you realistically feel comfortable in drawing your graphics for. Resolution really is only for the graphics - if you can't create non-blocky images (unless you want your game to be blocky) for a resolution of 1024x768 (or more) then why try to aim for that resolution? If you want blocky then you might as well go for a low res and scale up.

Think of the game you want to do first (especially seeing as it's your first game), and then decide what is actually achievable by you. I'd suggest you forget about resolution for now (start small - eg 640x480; this is generally well supported on most hardware - windowed or fullscreen) and concentrate on the game.

[fuzzy70]

Thanks Ian.

Getting back into the mindset of game writing rather than apps/utils (which being window based are resizeable) is the main challenge for me at the moment as it has been many years since I coded a game. So perhaps skipping the resolution issue to start with may be best come to think of it.

Lee

[ampos]

My advise is exactly the opposite. Choose a resolution and stick to it, but even  before, think about the reescaling system.

If it is a fast game, use my polysystem or Criven's. If it is a slow action one,  my draw2virtual is the esiest. Of course you can do your system, but you got the idea.

[spacefractal]

I think most actuelly go after eihter 480x320 or 1024x768 resolution (those iOS support). 1024x768 is a excellent resoulution as well, which nearly all PC support today, so its a comon resoulution.

But its depend if you want retro, or a hires game, so its really depend kind of game what is best. Example in Cave Heoros (a H.E.R.O. remake, I created in the past, which is not in GlBasic) I used 960x600 as internal resoulution and scaled it (If I remember correct), while Greedy Mouse (newly Annonced) designed to been run in any resoulution (in both Landscape and Portrait modes).

[Ian Price]

480x320 won't be supported in fullscreen on many laptops. The minimum nowadays is 640x480 (hence why I suggested it). If you want a windowed screen then any res is fine.

[fuzzy70]

I can imagine tile based games & scrollers to work well with scaling from the point of view that you can adjust the playfield accordingly & so you don't get empty borders down the sides or top while still maintaining the same aspect ratio, for a very rough example your Geedy Mouse game Spacefractal you could crop a strip of tiles or add a strip if need be so as to keep a full screen.

There may be games where that may not be possible without leaving border somewhere, again a rough example, say I made a tetris remake (not a great example but shows the point I am making) & laid it out for a 640x480 res, scaling that up to 640x960 for an iPhone 4 would leave a border down the sides in landscape or top/bottom if portrait mode.

Writing the above has made me think about planning the game layout if I do plan to support different resolutions at some stage, something that never really crossed my mind before tbh as was just thinking of the run of the mill 640x480, 800x600 etc that's common on PC's.

Along with your tips/advice & the above I just wrote regarding widescreen resolutions I'm glad I asked this original question as will def save me some head scratching in the future 

Lee

[spacefractal]

Supporting Different resolutions can been really annoying and depend how far you will support i. I did it very extreme in Greedy Mouse which is also include screen ratio as well trying to detect its a tablet or not etc (based on resoulution).

Borders can also works nice in some games, a great example is Snake Slider. Here its works pretty nice.

In the Tetris example, you could mightbeen show more of the background, but keep game area in same ratio. Here the gamearea is more important.

But in a 2d adventure, you might need to use letter box in contain ratios, but depend style of graphics.