New user - screen resolution question

[Holmes301]

Hello, I found Open General last year, after having played Panzer General 2 for many years since it first came out, and for probably thousands of hours, playing custom campaigns etc. PG2 has been my favourite computer game of all time.

I played 7 or 8 campaigns in Open General to get a good feel for it. I have noted down quite a list of bugs/quirks/queries/suggestions, which I would like to submit but it needs writing up properly and clearly in full sentences, not just a jotted list, and health issues are affecting getting that work done.

But first I would like to say that Open General is simply brilliant, it completely captures the feel of the original game, more so than People's General which I also played, Panzer Marshal the online playable version I've seen out there, and the official sequels such as Panzer General 3D (I think it was called), and Panzer Corps, both of which I was surprised to find not just lacking in the original's charm and character, but essentially unplayable for various reasons.

Not only is the faithful recreation of the game superb, but the stability on Windows 10 is great - only one crash in about 4 months of playing - and the way it makes it easy to change campaigns, equipment files and maps etc is really excellent. The additions to the original gameplay of PG2 are thoughtful and good as well, as are the hundreds of new unit icons.

So serious congratulations for the achievement of making Open General great. I used to work as a software developer many years ago, as well as a QA tester for commercial software, so I have a fair idea how big a job it has been to make this game so good, complete and polished, and I'm sure many players appreciate it.

I've only found one serious problem with the game and that is the resolution. The icons, units, hexes and information on the screen are just way too tiny. On last year's older laptop I had to drop the game's resolution to 800 x 600, which was OK and workable. But recently I got a newer laptop which has a higher 1920 x 1080 resolution, and now dropping the game to that lowest resolution of 800 X 600, it is still too small to play with comfort. I can see when trying the game at the native resolution of 1920 x 1080 that everything is crisp and sharp and the video that plays looks great. But at this resolution and all resolutions below this, the icons are simply too small that they strain the eyes, and even at 800 x 600 which was workable on my old laptop it still looks too small, and the text is also quite unsharp although is workable. Perhaps if I was running the game on a large monitor then I'm guessing it might be better, because the screen's area is physically larger and so everything will look larger, but on any laptop screen I think it is a major problem.

So with the amount of effort that has got into this game I am surprised that this is an issue and that it's not possible to customise the size of the units, icons and hexes in the game better, because it obviously majorly affects the user experience.

For comparison I ran the original Panzer General 2 game on the same new laptop, it is stable and works fine although the units move a little too slowly for some strange reason. But the clear difference is that it looks visually fine - the units are a good size and easy to see and work with, and the map, icons and text don't look too tiny, or fuzzy. Since the old Panzer General 2 can look fine despite it being decades old, I'm surprised the new Open General can't be made to look fine on the same screen, or even better.

So once again thank you for making the game, and any suggestions would be appreciated about how to make it display at a playable size on my new screen.

[sympatyk]

"z" + "+" -> magnification
"with" + "-" -> zoom out
"z" -> 100%
"ctrl" + "mouse wheel" -> increase / decrease

[randowe]

What sympatyk said

So with the amount of effort that has got into this game I am surprised that this is an issue and that it's not possible to customise the size of the units, icons and hexes in the game better, because it obviously majorly affects the user experience.

to the forum Holmes

Speaking about the graphics, there are more than 1500 maps and more than 17000 icons or whatever the number is, created my many different designers. And we could make good use of some more thousands of icons and more maps... Nobody will ever create all these maps and icons in a new scale. The community has been shrinking vastly over the years and there is nobody left for such an (any) effort. The scale is determind fom PG2 and you would have to start from zero to create another scale It a mission impossible.

[lvjtn]

But recently I got a newer laptop which has a higher 1920 x 1080 resolution

first of all, imo 1920x1080 on a 14-15" laptop is insanly stupid idea. not only for opengen, but entirely. idk why it industry forces this madness, but it's only my personal i use 1280x720 or 1366x768 depending the hw support, if you don't want to become blind, a 27" screen is mandatory for a 1920x1080 fortunately most recent laptops can be opened up to 180 degrees

For comparison I ran the original Panzer General 2 game on the same new laptop, it is stable and works fine although the units move a little too slowly for some strange reason. But the clear difference is that it looks visually fine - the units are a good size and easy to see and work with, and the map, icons and text don't look too tiny, or fuzzy.

that is simply impossible

icons, maps etc. in opengen have the exact same size than in pg2, so my guess is that you don't use smaller resolution for opengen

don't forget, you should restart the game after swtiching the resolution

btw. i'm not sure opengen supports 800x600 anymore, maybe 1024xN (n depends on 4:3 or 16:9 ratio) is the smallest supported resolution

anyway, changing resolution can be a good solution, but i prefer using the original resolution (1680x1050 on my 24" desktop screen) and using 200% zoom as sympatyk suggested and also 144dpi for fonts instead of 96dpi

[Holmes301]

"z" + "+" -> magnification
"with" + "-" -> zoom out
"z" -> 100%
"ctrl" + "mouse wheel" -> increase / decrease

Thanks, that sounds promising, I will test it out and get back to you.

[Holmes301]

What sympatyk said

So with the amount of effort that has got into this game I am surprised that this is an issue and that it's not possible to customise the size of the units, icons and hexes in the game better, because it obviously majorly affects the user experience.

to the forum Holmes

Speaking about the graphics, there are more than 1500 maps and more than 17000 icons or whatever the number is, created my many different designers. And we could make good use of some more thousands of icons and more maps... Nobody will ever create all these maps and icons in a new scale. The community has been shrinking vastly over the years and there is nobody left for such an (any) effort. The scale is determind fom PG2 and you would have to start from zero to create another scale It a mission impossible.

Of course I didn't mean the graphics should be redone, it's the scaling of the existing graphics I'm talking about, and perhaps also the ability in OG to choose to scale the units slightly differently to the scale of the map, to make them appear larger or smaller on the map as desired.

[Holmes301]

But recently I got a newer laptop which has a higher 1920 x 1080 resolution

first of all, imo 1920x1080 on a 14-15" laptop is insanly stupid idea. not only for opengen, but entirely. idk why it industry forces this madness, but it's only my personal i use 1280x720 or 1366x768 depending the hw support, if you don't want to become blind, a 27" screen is mandatory for a 1920x1080 fortunately most recent laptops can be opened up to 180 degrees

For comparison I ran the original Panzer General 2 game on the same new laptop, it is stable and works fine although the units move a little too slowly for some strange reason. But the clear difference is that it looks visually fine - the units are a good size and easy to see and work with, and the map, icons and text don't look too tiny, or fuzzy.

that is simply impossible

icons, maps etc. in opengen have the exact same size than in pg2, so my guess is that you don't use smaller resolution for opengen

don't forget, you should restart the game after swtiching the resolution

btw. i'm not sure opengen supports 800x600 anymore, maybe 1024xN (n depends on 4:3 or 16:9 ratio) is the smallest supported resolution

anyway, changing resolution can be a good solution, but i prefer using the original resolution (1680x1050 on my 24" desktop screen) and using 200% zoom as sympatyk suggested and also 144dpi for fonts instead of 96dpi

I had 1366 x 768 with a 14 inch screen on my old laptop and now 1920 x 1080 on a 15.6 inch laptop. I don't agree about 1920 x 1080 being too much for that screen size, the new laptop is great and much superior, and I'm really enjoying it. Laptops naturally are positioned closer to your eyes than a desktop screen, so 15.6" looks relatively larger to your eyes because it's closer.

There is a web browser game which I play and its dialog boxes looked chunky and too large on the old laptop resolution, blocking the game view, but on the new one with the higher resolution it looks much better, so when a game is designed for that higher resolution, and scaled correctly, I think it looks fine. Text doesn't look too small to me on the new laptop. So it shows my eyes are fine, yet I am struggling with Open General. Everyone can have their own opinion of course.

I don't believe it is impossible, I have taken screenshots to illustrate and will post when I can.

OG closes automatically after changing resolution, so it always forces a restart.

OG clearly says I am running in 800 x 600, so it does still support it.

I will test the zooming options I didn't know about.

[lvjtn]

OG clearly says I am running in 800 x 600, so it does still support it.

okay, that's great.

actually, the original pg2 runs on 640x480, which is definitely not supported by opengen, so your real option will be the zoom factor, if opengen is too small on 800x600

btw. 640x480 was introduced for the old 14" monitors, so if you want the same look, maybe you should use 300% zoom on your laptop

[zjorz]

Honestly have to say that the lack of graphics scaling is also the main reason i'm not playing open general. If only it used the standard windows DPI settings and got upscaled to 150%, or had pixel doubling or something. Right now even PG2's resolution is better since you can at least read the interface there.