Higher screen resolution or windowed mode for Alpha Centauri?

Stephan Hoyer

Conquering Civ IV...
Joined
Aug 6, 2004
Messages
121
I guess the title says it all. I'm curious if there's any way to get Alpha Centauri to play at a higher resolution than 1024x768 (my laptop screen is 1400x1050) or if you can play it in a window in Windows.

Thanks for your help.
 
You can put this line in the [Alpha Centauri] section of the Alpha Centauri.ini file...

DirectDraw=0

What it does is force Alpha Centauri to run at your desktop resolution... It looked a bit funny in the default videomode (the layout of the bottom bar looks odd, most noticably), but works pretty good in the 1024*768 videomode...
 
Yes and this way it is possible to play SMAC with say 1920x1200 resolution as I am. Looks pretty neat :D
 
i dont have the voice "directdraw" in mi .ini file
is this because ive installed alien crossfire?
help me plz
 
The directdraw=0 line is not present in the original ini file. If you want to have it there, you have to add it manually. I hope this answers your question.
 
it works fine! the effect is not so beautiful as i expected but the string works.
thanks again
 
The directdraw=0 line is not present in the original ini file. If you want to have it there, you have to add it manually. I hope this answers your question.
This didn't work for me running the original SMAC, but it did for Alien Crossfire. In SMAC the resolution change worked, but the controls were all screwed up. The menus on the start screen were invisible, although still clearly there (they reacted to mouse clicks, if I could figure out where the mouse was without visual feedback) and the information bar during gameplay showed up in the middle of the screen, not at the bottom. Everything worked great in Alien Crossfire.

I realize this is really an old thread. And it's not a big deal since it works with the Alien Crossfire extension, but I thought this was worth posting in case someone searches for "Screen Resolution change" sees this and tries to run this resolution fix in SMAC and not Alien Crossfire.
 
This didn't work for me running the original SMAC, but it did for Alien Crossfire. In SMAC the resolution change worked, but the controls were all screwed up. The menus on the start screen were invisible, although still clearly there (they reacted to mouse clicks, if I could figure out where the mouse was without visual feedback) and the information bar during gameplay showed up in the middle of the screen, not at the bottom. Everything worked great in Alien Crossfire.

I realize this is really an old thread. And it's not a big deal since it works with the Alien Crossfire extension, but I thought this was worth posting in case someone searches for "Screen Resolution change" sees this and tries to run this resolution fix in SMAC and not Alien Crossfire.


Nice one!

I did just this (actually, I searched for "windowed mode" in google but did find this thread). I get exactly the same problems with the original SMAC with "DirectDraw=0". Guess I'll have to root out Alien Crossfire :)
 
Playing in "window" (I use it in work :) ):
Run 1st SMAC/SMAX
Run 2nd SMAC/SMAX
Close one SMAC/SMAX game
Your resolution will be back on normal and one SMAC will be on upper left corner in standard resolution
Sometimes other screen is black
 
Wow that actually worked, at first I was thinking ya right it can't be that easy this guy is full of ****, but it seriously does work. Thanks for giving that info I am certainly going to use it. I even attached a screeny of it. :)
 

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You can put this line in the [Alpha Centauri] section of the Alpha Centauri.ini file...

DirectDraw=0

What it does is force Alpha Centauri to run at your desktop resolution... It looked a bit funny in the default videomode (the layout of the bottom bar looks odd, most noticably), but works pretty good in the 1024*768 videomode...

This is great. Not only gives me a bigger map to look at but the menu animation smoothed itself out. Felt very crisp and clean.
 
Hmm, this doesn't appear to do anything for me. I've added it to the ini file as follows:

[Alpha Centauri]
DirectDraw=0


is this correct? the [Alpha Centauri] and the  were there already.

That last character () shouldn't be there, since the ini file is pure text. Are you saving the file with a pure text editor, such as notepad?
 
Does your ini file also have a line such as video mode=800 or video mode=1024? IIRC, either of these commands will override the directdraw command. If still no go, please post your ini file.

Petek
 
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