screen resolution

[kmonica 0]

Hi, does anyone know how is it possible to play the game above 1600x1200 resolution? My monitor supports 1920x1200 (wide screen). Thanks so much!!

[Dolfan348488 0]

The maximum the game will allow is 1600x1200....so no, i dont think there is a way.

[+Guest]

You can change the resolution using your Windows 98 computer. Switch it to down when you want to play the game, and then you can change it back when you've finished.

[MrCinatit 30]

Date:10/29/2004 1:54:35 AM
Author:SiMdOwMaN

You can change the resolution using your Windows 98 computer. Switch it to down when you want to play the game, and then you can change it back when you've finished.

quote>

 

okay. can you tell me how to build a time machine so i can go back and get my piece of junk Windows98 computer?

[simwario 95]

Please let this not become a Windows 98 bashing thread.
Kmonica: First of all, welcome!
I don't know if this is possible, since my monitors biggest resolution is only 1280x960, but i suspect it won't be, because obviously the game can't display any larger resolutions than 1600 x 1200. Maybe you want to try it out, though.

[kmonica 0]

Hi all and thanks a lot for your answers. Appreciate that! Unfortunately there is no way I'm gonna go to Win98, and I was kind of hoping that Simcity4 would support higher resolution.. I think all modern games can go above 1600x1200. Too sad :-(

[AndisArt 2,068]

I'm wondering if you can still see all the buttons on the interface at all if you'd have a resolution higher than 1600. And wouldn't the performance go down drastically anyways?

I play at 1280 and I'm fine with that. Why would you like to play it above 1600? Do you have a giant monitor or is it just interest?

[kmonica 0]

andisart:

I have a 23 flat panel wide screen monitor with native resolution of 1920x1600. Anything you play on it with different resolution than its native simply does not look good. The monitor's wide aspect makes everything looks very stretched at other standard resolutions.

[Lobo ll 0]

Sweet monitor 23!! Sorry can't help but would love to have a monitor that Big mine's only 17 and not a flat screen Big and Bulkie LOL

Roflmao@MrCinatit

Lobo ll

[kmonica 0]

Lobo ll:

thanks. it is brilliant once you get the stuff to play at its native resolution. games that do not support its resolution unfortunately do not look that great...

[+Guest]

It would be awesome if I had a 23 Monitor like yours. Kmonica, are you really sure you don't have Windows 98? Don't you know that SimCity 4 doesn't support Windows 95?

 

Anyway, what happens if you lower your resolution? Can you still play the game with that?

[timotheus4 39]

Date: 10/29/2004 11:16:48 PM
Author: SiMdOwMaN

Kmonica, are you really sure you don't have Windows 98? Don't you know that SimCity 4 doesn't support Windows 95?

quote>

[kmonica 0]

SiMdOwMaN:

I'm using Windows XP Pro. Boy, it's been a while since I used Win 95 :-)

Yes, you can lower the resolution and the game will play just fine. It's just that (as far as I know) flat panels have their *optimal* resolution at which they look the best. If you lower it things don't look as good on them... And unfortunately mine is 1920x1600 and SimCity does not seem to go higher that 1600x1200...

[Duke87 1,070]

Oh my...

 

Don't get me wrong, Windows 98 is a good operating system. It's just old. XP is mostly the same, just newer, and more supported. I still have a computer with Windows 3.1 on it. With an intel 486 processor. great as a classic, but no good for common modern work.

 

I reccomend SiMdOwMaN keeps his precious windows 98 and just gets a new computer to run modern stuff on.

 

But, anyway. I've never seen a monitor that can go bigger than 1600x1200. And I don't see how SC4 would play in wide screen, anyway. Your image of the game wouldn't improve any. To go bigger, you need to keep the 4:3 ratio, and hop to, say 2000x1500. But nothing goes that big. No programs could handle it. Must be a pretty nice monitor you have though....

[+Guest]

Our computer isn't that old, it's got a 1.2GHz Intel Celeron Processor.

 

Kmonica, does your monitor look like this?

 

[kmonica 0]

SiMdOwMaN:

Haha.. nice one! no, not exactly. Mine is 23 Apple Cinema Display: http://www.apple.com/displays/#

[StormD 0]

With most video adapters capable of driving your widescreen display, there should be an option in the advanced video settings that tells your adapter how to handle output to flat-panel/LCD displays in their non-native resolution. In almost all cases, this will default to something like scale to fit, which means in cases where you're using a standard 4x3 aspect ratio output, the picture will be stretched horizontally, to fit your 16x9 display. There will also be options like scale to the correct aspect ratio which will stretch the display to fit your screen as much as possible, while maintaining the correct shape, and cropping off the rest with black bars, and center and don't scale which will use your display's optimum pixel-size, but only render an area of the screen that matches the output resolution, leaving a black outline around the rest.

In your case, either of the second options should work, since your display's 1920x1200 resolution exactly matches one of the games allowed vertical resolutions, so centered output would fill to the top and bottom of your screen, leaving a 160-pixel black bar on each side of your screen anyway. Since my display's maximum resolution is 1680x1050, fixed aspect ratio scaling of the nearest allowed resolution (1280x1024) would result in a bit of pixel distortion, forcing my card to use extra memory antialiasing the whole screen. In this case, only centered output will result in my display using its optimal pixel size, and I wind up with a 12-pixel black border along the top and bottom of my screen, in addition to the 200-pixel black bars on the sides.

Here is what the dialog box for setting this up looks like on my NVidia adapter:



Any other NVidia card will probably have the option located in the same place (Display Settings, Advanced to get to this dialog box, and go to the tab named after your specific card). I'm not sure where it is on ATI cards, but I'd bet it's probably here too.

[xiziz 11]

StorD, yes any other Nvida card with the same Driver version(and probably the newer version too)

About OSes, DOS 3.1 Rules anyone ever had a bluescreen on it?

I guess there might be an INI, Dat, Rul, or someother controlfile where the grafics rules are located, you might be able to fit your screen res in there, tho mot likley it will screw your game up.
Personally im on a 17 TFT. its very old and its highest res is 1024*728 unfortunatley, but i like it, it frees up space on my desk. My Old 17 CRT screen from dell 96, did resolutions up into the 2000sands, tho my GF2 gts(wich i had on my old comp) didnt like that. and Nvida limited it to 1600*1200 in version 2 or 3 of the drivers(and now there up in 50ties and 60th version

But if you dont mid screwing your game up, try looking in the files of the game, it might work, tho the odds are agains it!

Cheers
Xiziz

[kmonica 0]

StormD:

Thank you so much for a brilliant post :-)) You know, I 've seen that setting there like thousand times, and it just never came to that stupid head of mine to try it for once!! Thanks again. Yes, at least it looks normal now. Still though would love to use the whole real estate of the screen... Thanks again.

[kmonica 0]

xiziz:

Yes, the file is called Graphics Rules.sgr. I changed the 1600x1200 there to 1920x1600 but the game it still deafulted to 1600x1200... Thanks. Still searching for solution :-)

[StormD 0]

Date: 10/31/2004 1:51:20 PM
Author: kmonica
xiziz:


Yes, the file is called Graphics Rules.sgr. I changed the 1600x1200 there to 1920x1600 but the game it still deafulted to 1600x1200... Thanks. Still searching for solution :-)

quote>
Shouldn't you have used 1920 x 1200? :-)

[kmonica 0]

StormD:

Sorry, typo on my part. yes 1920x1200. Thanks.

[JimG 6]

Sim City 4 runs fine in 1920x1200 mode.  It just doesn't list it as a menu option.

 

Change the properties in the Sim City 4 shortcut in Windows to:

 

C:\Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe -r1920x1200x32 -w

 

which says run Sim City 4 in 1920x1200 resolution in 32-bit true color mode and make any necessary adjustments to the width of the image

 

I found this recommendation on another forum and tried it expecting to get black bars on the side.  To my pleasant surprise, the image fills the entire screen of my Dell 2405FPW with no distortion.  So the -w at the end of the shortcut is probably unnecessary.

 

If you click on the program menu option, you will see that none of the listed resolution options are checked.

[silverfork 0]

Great Info JimG! You the Man! That little trick totally saved the day!

[jacqulina 162]

thanks for the info it helped me too

[coolotter88 2]

i believe the -w at the end opens sim city as a window that is non full screen.

[Tolomar 5]

ummm guys 1600x 1200 is the highest setting possible with the game, it doesn't get any better than that...doesn't mattter if your setting are higher on your monitor...the game can go only so high... and just reverts to the highest setting when the game opens...I have my monitoer set above 1900...game still plays at 1600x1200

some ppl get distortion in the game when the put their setting higher and use other setting that aren't the same demmensions 1278x768 (or another setting of the same type...different numbers)