Hugo2607 Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 I read on the front page of the website that there is a project, Arda, wich will allow you to use high resolutions in Red Alert 1 (the screenshot is already about 1080p), since Red Alert 1 and Tiberian Dawn run on pretty similar engines, is there any chance of this being ported to Tiberian Dawn in the (near) future? I'm already running Tiberian Dawn at 1024x768 thanks to Nyerguds' 1.06c release Thanks, Hugo2607 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyerguds Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 1.06c revision 2 allows you to run the game in any resolution. Just run CCConfig.exe and select "custom" in the resolutions choice. Mind you, heights higher than 768 cause graphics errors in the sidebar (the lower part of the power production won't be visible) and playing maps with lots of trees on high res causes horrible slowdowns. I suggest you read through the release article to get the full overview of what v1.06c r2 can do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugo2607 Posted March 24, 2012 Author Share Posted March 24, 2012 Yeah, i know, but i meant that Arda looks like it doesn't have those glitches, for example the sidebar looks fine and it looks like the tiles aren't limited to 8. On the other hand, you'd still have the problem that the maps are probably too small for anything higher than 1024x768. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyerguds Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 No, see, the problem is, the lower part of the sidebar graphics are one single piece. It doesn't auto-repeat or anything. So if you want 1200 pixels height, I need to make a sidebar SHP file that's 1200 pixels high (well, minus the height of the radar above it). So you see, there's no way to 'fix' that. I can make it bigger now, but if monitors get even bigger, and someone wants to run it in 1400 pixels height, the same problem will reappear anyway. And then there's the fact C&C maps can only be 1488x1488 anyway, yes. So basically, as I said in the article, it's entirely possible, but don't come complaining about it. As far as I'm concerned, hi-res is finished. The only thing I might still add is dynamic changing of the amount of icons, but that's kind of a mess, especially where savegames are concerned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pichorra Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 No, see, the problem is, the lower part of the sidebar graphics are one single piece. It doesn't auto-repeat or anything. So if you want 1200 pixels height, I need to make a sidebar SHP file that's 1200 pixels high (well, minus the height of the radar above it). So you see, there's no way to 'fix' that. I can make it bigger now, but if monitors get even bigger, and someone wants to run it in 1400 pixels height, the same problem will reappear anyway. And then there's the fact C&C maps can only be 1488x1488 anyway, yes. So basically, as I said in the article, it's entirely possible, but don't come complaining about it. As far as I'm concerned, hi-res is finished. The only thing I might still add is dynamic changing of the amount of icons, but that's kind of a mess, especially where savegames are concerned. Do that and you will break my DOSmod compatibility, 'cause I will need to redo the entirely sidebar, and it was painfull Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyerguds Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 Psh, I can always update the dos mod myself if I change the game too much Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myg Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 Well, the system could still be used to patch the game/etc and help fix bugs bro, theres still plenty of em around. Like Load a skirmish game with nobase/ 50 units and tech level 1 with AI and enjoy a crash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyerguds Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 Myg, kindly read before replying. I only said "As far as I'm concerned, hi-res is finished." That doesn't in any way mean I stop making more patches. Just that the hi-res part is done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrFlibble Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 Maybe this is a bit off-topic, but may I ask if the latest build of your patch (haven't checked it out yet, sorry!) stretches the screen if you set the game to 640x480 or not? Recently I've read this little article and have become concerned about aspect correction in C&C. It seems to me that the graphics indeed look better/more natural when stretched, even though the high-res sidebar images (e.g. the side logos) were seemingly made without regard to aspect correction, as they look somewhat stretched out of proportion in 640x400 mode. By contrast, the DOS version logos were very obviously made to look proportional with aspect correction, the GDI logo is visibly not perfectly round on uncorrected images. What's your opinion on this subject? On another note, I vaguely remember some old fix that, unless I'm completely mistaken, did perform aspect correction in 640x480 mode. I'm not sure since I can't find it among the old fixes that I've got, perhaps I dismissed it back then 'cause I was more inclined to play in the default uncorrected 640x480 mode. You could say that 640x400 and 640x480 /w aspect correction look the same, but either the video card or the LCD display on my machine makes the 640x400 version look clamped, blocky and badly proportioned (pixels having different width and/or height). I've had similar issues with it with DOSBox when running 320x200 games with fullresolution=original and aspect=false; changing the settings to fullresolution=640x480 and aspect=true helped fix it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyerguds Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 You're right about the radar logos; they're indeed not adjusted to DOS C&C's 8:5 aspect ratio. The videos are, though, besides some logos they seemingly forgot to adjust. Not that the videos matter much, since hifi's system stretches the 640x400 area to fullscreen, ignoring the aspect ratio. So as long as a 4:3 resolution is used, they're always stretched correctly. The only old aspect ratio fix was running 640x400 on a CRT monitor, though. The 1.06c r2 installer enables the Aspect Ratio option by default, giving 1024x640 stretched to 1024x768. Not entirely sure what to do with that for r3, though. I've considered simply making it unchecked by default, but at this moment, the option is unchanged from r2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrFlibble Posted March 27, 2012 Share Posted March 27, 2012 The 1.06c r2 installer enables the Aspect Ratio option by default, giving 1024x640 stretched to 1024x768. Not entirely sure what to do with that for r3, though. I've considered simply making it unchecked by default, but at this moment, the option is unchanged from r2. Awesome, I'll check it out ASAP ^_^ BTW, since I haven't been able to find that old fix that seemed to stretch the screen in the 640x480 setting, any idea what it could have been? I think I've only tested that one on a different PC that handles the original 640x400 mode quite well, so I guess that maybe the "fix" simply made the game ignore the difference between the two settings (out of mistake? - not sure though). All the old fixes I've checked out so far (most of them from your site, of course) produce the original 640x480 unstretched look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyerguds Posted March 27, 2012 Share Posted March 27, 2012 As I said, it's related to the monitor type. If you run a game on 640x400 on a flatscreen, the monitor just pads it since it doesn't even understand the concept of non-square pixels. A CRT monitor, on the other hand, will just show you whatever resolution you request, as fullscreen, thereby achieving the vertical pixel deformation needed to correct the aspect ratio. That deformation is peanuts to a tube monitor; it just projects the image, after all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrFlibble Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 Oh, perhaps you'd explain something to me in this respect? (Sorry for [possibly] going off-topic here!) I'm a little bit confused because I get different results with two different LCD displays, one on a desktop machine which produces the uneven pixels in the 640x400 resolution, and also has trouble with fullresolution=original in DOSBox (let's call it display X for simplicity's sake). The other is on a laptop computer, and it produces a somewhat blurred but otherwise flawless image in C&C95's 640x400 mode (referred to as display Y further on). The tricky part that I find puzzling is as follows: display X flawlessly renders the fullscreen mode of FAR Manager in 25 lines DOS screen, while display Y produces visibly uneven pixels. Also, display Y gets the uneven pixels problem if it runs a game in 640x480 or 800x600 modes (I noticed it with Serious Sam). Not sure if this is relevant, but display X has a max resolution of 1280x1024, and display Y is limited to 1024x768 (but this is also related to the video card's memory capacity, or is it not?). Sorry for asking a noobish question here, but I'm really a bit at loss here, and the entire problem is more or less related to the main topic at hand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyerguds Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 Well, since LCD displays really have one dot per pixel, their maximum display resolution is exactly the amount of physical pixels on the monitor. Now, if you play something in a lower resolution, logically, it'll be upscaled to fill as much as possible. After all, the pixels are actual physical dots. It can't just enlarge those. If it weren't scaled, you'd just see a tiny box in the middle of your big screen, exactly the size you'd get when looking at a screenshot picture of the game in your normal desktop resolution. I've seen laptop monitors on which the choice between centering lower resolutions in black or stretching them to fullscreen is in fact a setting. The difference between the two monitors which makes you see 'uneven pixels' is most likely simply caused by the stretching method; one using smooth stretching, while the other one uses simple pixel duplication. Both have their good and bad sides; as you said, pixel stretching tends to give visible uneven pixels due to blatant duplication of entire lines of pixels. But smooth stretching of low-res things generally doesn't look good either, since it tends to blur it. This is exactly why CnC-DDraw offers a choice in which stretching method to use. As for the aspect ratio, I haven't seen a single LCD/TFT monitor which would ignore the original image's aspect ratio and stretch it to true fullscreen. It'll keep its X and Y correct as if it were square pixels. So if you'd play C&C in 640x400 on a 1024x768 monitor, it'll be stretched to 1024x640 and centered in 1024x768, instead of stretching to the full 1024x768 as it should. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrFlibble Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 Ah-hah, so the stretching method depends on the actual hardware, right? That does explain a lot, then. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nyerguds Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 Yeah. You could look through your video driver settings or your monitor controls to see if there are any settings related to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrFlibble Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 Yeah, I guess I should have read that manual more carefully :laugh: But I was so glad to finally change from the old CRT monitor (which started to flicker often as it got older) that I didn't pay much attention to details back then Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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