Silvek Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Don't know if this belongs here or in the Garage, but I'll give it a go here... I'm currently browsing for a new monitor and I'm considering buying a 24" widescreen monitor. My question is, how does Grim Fandango perform on a 16:9 format? Has anyone tried played through the game on a widescreen monitor? I know that the game is hardcoded to a certain resolution, which is a 4:3 ratio, so I imagine that it might look very strange in 16:9, if it will run at all, that is. Any insight would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thrik Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 It runs fine, but it'll either be stretched sideways to fit or you'll get black bars down the side, depending on your graphics card options (if you use an NVIDIA card, anyway). Which you prefer is up to you. One downside to running on such a high resolution is that the jagged edges become much more pronounced, so you'll want to get it running with anti-aliasing if you can. I have a sticky in the Glottis' Garage forum that describes getting anti-aliasing running with NVIDIA cards, however I haven't tested/updated that guide in quite a long time so I can't verify it's still accurate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvek Posted January 8, 2008 Author Share Posted January 8, 2008 That's good to hear How does it look when it's stretched sideways? I mean, is it noticeable or does the characters look hideous? I read your post in the Garage, some really good info there. I use RivaTuner already to overclock my graphics card, but I hadn't thought of changing the AA settings there. I can't remember in which resolution GF runs, but it wasn't that high right? Or will it run in your native resolution, i.e. the same resolution that is set in windows? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thrik Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 It runs in 640x480, so as you can imagine every bit of anti-aliasing helps. Efforts were made a few years ago to get Grim Fandango running in your native resolution and simply stretching the background imagery up, which makes the jaggies much less pronounced. However, the attempts were abandoned as although the models could be scaled up to higher resolutions the backgrounds stayed at their original 640x480 size in the corner, with the models placed over a black void. There is another project called GRIME which is a sub-project of ScummVM, which I believe will eventually become the only way of running Grim Fandango on modern machines, and may have ways to use higher resolutions. However this is barely usable right now and didn't work past the first chapter of the game last time I checked. Feel free to go Google that up, though. As it is though, you unfortunately have to live with stretched 640x480. I personally think horizontal stretching looks really bad as it obviously messes the proportions up, and I use black bars (even in newer games that hilariously don't support widescreen such as Battlefield 2142). It's entirely down to your taste, though; I know many people who don't mind horizontal stretching, even on television, and think it's a worthwhile compromise for filling the whole monitor. If my camera wasn't broken I'd get it running on my 24-inch monitor and take a photo so you can see roughly how it looks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvek Posted January 8, 2008 Author Share Posted January 8, 2008 Ah, I see. Yes, I can imagine that it would look quite jagged then if you stretch a 640x480 to widescreen... Is 2x2 the best AA to use for GF? Wouldn't 4x4 further reduce the jaggedness? I know that I'm one of the people who don't mind horizontal stretching on television, I rarely set it to 4:3 format, but I don't think that it's the same thing on computer games, and especially on a game that is as good as GF is, I don't want to ruin the experience of playing it by having it look bad I looked GrimE up, you just gotta love the effort that people put in for these old games The project is called "Residual" and as you said, it isn't quite finished. Grim is now playable (with some glitches) to: Meche leaves Manny again (Rubacava, Year 2) Definitely worth a look for me though, will be interesting to see how it looks when it's finished. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thrik Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 Oh aye, that's right. I got my words mixed up there; GRIME is the original engine, Residual is the replacement engine. Glad you found it regardless, though! From what I recall 2x2 is the only one that worked without artifacts, and I'm fairly sure I would have tested 4x4. However, my testing was quite a long time ago so newer drivers and cards may have different limitations. When we redo grimfandango.net later this year there'll be a thorough documentation of various technical issues and workarounds so I'll do new testing then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvek Posted January 8, 2008 Author Share Posted January 8, 2008 Oh, you're probably right, I was just speaking from the top of my head Cool to hear that you're redoing grimfandango.net, really looking forward to seeing the result. Thanks for your help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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