Render options in RA1 Which is better?

[glorsh66]

I gonna ask another similar question - about render options in this games. Which is the best?

GDI, OnepGL, DDrawCompact? (as far as i know the native mode for the original version of RA was GDI? - don't be confused with another GDI☻)

I suppose firts RA is complete remade (unlike Tib. sun and RA2 - in their case the original drawing process is used, but for compatibility reason -a wrapper is used , if i got it right)

 

[FunkyFr3sh]

GDI is very highly compatible, it almost always works for anyone without any issues. It also supports windowed mode and stretching, alt+enter and other cool features.

OpenGL is slower than GDI on windows, it's mainly useful for Linux/Mac. Some screen recording programs require OpenGL too. It also supports windowed mode and stretching, alt+enter and other cool features.

DDrawCompat is by far the fastest, very useful if you don't need the extra features of GDI and OpenGL. With this renderer you can run the game at very high resolutions even on older computers. It also doesn't slow down the game with screen recording programs as much as GDI/OpenGL are doing (Tested with OBS)

 

For playing I use DDrawCompat, since I don't need windowed mode nor the other features.

For streaming tourneys and testing I use GDI+Windowed mode

 

 

The native one was DirectDraw just like in TS/RA2. RA1 is using wrappers too, but the RA1 ones are working perfectly without any side effects. TS/RA2 can have problems with alt+tab for example, in RA1 there are no such issues

[riderr3]

Agreed. On Win8 I'm using GDI because otherwise I cannot capture screenshots or videos. Especially for Dune 2000, if I not using GDI mode, I can not return to game after ALT+TAB (pixel mess or something appeared).

[Snow-i]

On 3/17/2018 at 7:37 AM, FunkyFr3sh said:

GDI is very highly compatible, it almost always works for anyone without any issues. It also supports windowed mode and stretching, alt+enter and other cool features.

OpenGL is slower than GDI on windows, it's mainly useful for Linux/Mac. Some screen recording programs require OpenGL too. It also supports windowed mode and stretching, alt+enter and other cool features.

DDrawCompat is by far the fastest, very useful if you don't need the extra features of GDI and OpenGL. With this renderer you can run the game at very high resolutions even on older computers. It also doesn't slow down the game with screen recording programs as much as GDI/OpenGL are doing (Tested with OBS)

 

For playing I use DDrawCompat, since I don't need windowed mode nor the other features.

For streaming tourneys and testing I use GDI+Windowed mode

 

 

The native one was DirectDraw just like in TS/RA2. RA1 is using wrappers too, but the RA1 ones are working perfectly without any side effects. TS/RA2 can have problems with alt+tab for example, in RA1 there are no such issues

Funky, thanks for the insight!  Mind if I ask a few more questions?

 

Is there any noticeable difference in gameplay/visuals on modern computers?  Watching some streams on youtube some games look way more "pastel" than others alongside other small differences.  Wondering if this is because of the render or other graphics options?  I play on my windows 10 enterprise work computer (fall creators) so I am very hesitant to go futzing around with the settings since I am super comfortable with how it is now (and also if it ain't broke i'm not gonna fix it lol).  

 

For instance, here are two videos from Lauta's channel that demonstrate what I mean on P4:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKjnxiaiapY&t=598s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzLm-xX47nc

 

Notice how the shroud in video 1 is "blended in" at the border between shroud and revealed,  whereas in video 2 it's pretty much a stark cutoff?  The ground, tanks, buildings also seems to be different colors and video 1 just appears more pastel in general.  Just curious as to what causes these effects as the resolutions look the same.  

 

-Snow

[FunkyFr3sh]

11 hours ago, Snow-i said:

Funky, thanks for the insight!  Mind if I ask a few more questions?

 

Is there any noticeable difference in gameplay/visuals on modern computers?  Watching some streams on youtube some games look way more "pastel" than others alongside other small differences.  Wondering if this is because of the render or other graphics options?  I play on my windows 10 enterprise work computer (fall creators) so I am very hesitant to go futzing around with the settings since I am super comfortable with how it is now (and also if it ain't broke i'm not gonna fix it lol).  

 

For instance, here are two videos from Lauta's channel that demonstrate what I mean on P4:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKjnxiaiapY&t=598s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzLm-xX47nc

 

Notice how the shroud in video 1 is "blended in" at the border between shroud and revealed,  whereas in video 2 it's pretty much a stark cutoff?  The ground, tanks, buildings also seems to be different colors and video 1 just appears more pastel in general.  Just curious as to what causes these effects as the resolutions look the same.  

 

-Snow

 

The performance can be better (you could notice that the scroll speed is faster for example), but you would only notice that on a old PC though.

The differences in visuals in these videos are usually caused by the recording software/codec. My older videos also look a lot different since I used a different recorder and Xvid codec back then. 

 

Here are some videos I just made on Windows 10 using GDI/OpenGL/DDrawCompat:

http://cnc.cloudns.pro/Test/

 

All look pretty much the same, except the 2 where I enabled stretching. With GDI stretching you can get the image very sharp and with OpenGL+linear stretching it gets blurry. 

I enabled the FPS counter in the videos so you can see how much impact each setting has on the game performance.

 

 

I don't know what recorder/settings lauta used in these old videos you linked, but in the latest videos he is using OBS recorder with GDI+Stretching.

Old videos are probably GDI too, but no stretching. I guess he didn't use OBS back then since the quality is a lot worse in both of them.

One of the two videos was upscaled to 1280x720, which was probably done with yet another tool after the video was recorded already (Could explain the difference between the two vids). The one that wasn't upscaled is very bright, maybe the tool he used thought it might be a good idea to tweak settings and make it darker.