Title Screens with widescreen support

Varlin Saliptor

Varlin Saliptor

Does not hate the future.
Joined
Oct 8, 2004
Messages
1,516
Location
San Antonio, Texas
The other day, I purchased a new laptop to replace my old ThinkPad held together with duct tape. Beautifully, it is a widescreen monitor. Not so beautifully, when I installed and fired up Civilization III, there was horrible stretchage (yes, that is a word). I did a google search, and came up with a fix (see below). Now, everything looked the way it was supposed to, but there were ugly black bars on both sides of the title and city screens.

I opened up photoshop, and made the title screen larger. Voila! Now, it works.

I made a spiffy new screen for it.

I am not the only one, either. Quintillus has been kind enough to create his own widescreen/extended screen masterpiece. If anyone else has any, please submit them!

At BlueMonkey's request, I made a title screen template for the widescreen. All credit goes to DogMouse for it though (all i did was resize).

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=200592&d=1232245126


INSTRUCTIONS ON MAKING CIVIII SUPPORT WIDESCREEN:
ADD THE FOLLOWING TO THE END OF CONQUESTS.INI
Code: 
KeepRes=1

Now they will work at any resolution you choose!

Previews:



The Download:
1280x800 and 1024x768

By Quintillus


Download links:

Widescreen
1920x1200
1680x1050
1440x900
1280x800

Standard (4:3)
1600x1200
1400x1050
1280x960
1024x768
Click to expand...

By WeaselOp



Download (1440x900)
Click to expand...
 
No problem. By the way, the KeepRes thing works for all resolutions, not just my 1280x800, which means you can increase the size of nearly any full-screen graphic to whatever you want to make it fit the screen properly.
 
Thanks, I just got a new widescreen monitor, downloaded and using.:goodjob:
 
Thanks for mentioning the widescreen-resolution-fix, I knew there is something but couldn´t remember anymore.

KeepRes=1 results in CivIII using the same resolution as the desktop - I run everything on 1440x900, I resized your title screen to this size and it still looks very good!
 
Hello, I cannot locate this file. Where is it? I have both CivIII and Conquests expansion.
 
Hi Varlin,
I attempted downloading the file / title screen but I received an error message saying
"Warning: copy(./downloads//ec_tmp/map_title_screens.zip) [function.copy]: failed to open stream: Permission denied in /downloads.php on line 706
ERROR: File not found."
Any idea why it would happen?
 
I am considering getting a wide screen monitor for the first time. Editing the ini file is not a problem I understand that however am I correct in assuming you have to remake the advisor screen backgrounds and as well as the title screen to avoid letterboxing? Does that also apply to the start screen where you choose world sizes etc?
 
Yeah, if you add the "KeepRes=1" then the advisors, world select, and game over screens will all show the map on either side (and above them, depending on your monitor size), rather than the normal black of a letterbox. If you wanted to expand them, it would be quite easy. With this it keeps the graphics at their original sizes.
 
Now that I have the widescreen monitor I need to redo my title screens. Especially since my native resolution is nor 1440 X 900. Have to see what I think of the game screens. If I run into problems I will give you a holler.
 
Not to threadjack, but I saw this thread a month or two ago and thought this was a good idea and nice background, and since I've had more than enough free time recently, I created another widescreen background. Here's what it looks like:



Download links:

Widescreen
1920x1200
1680x1050
1440x900
1280x800

Standard (4:3)
1600x1200
1400x1050
1280x960
1024x768

I've only actually tested the 1280x800, 1024x768, and 1440x900, as 1280x800 is the highest resolution that I have, but unless I made a mistake the others should work as well - if not, post here.

Adobe Fireworks and GIMP are to thank for the backgrounds. Request any additional backgrounds/sizes quickly; my Fireworks trial expires in 8 days.

Technical question: Is there a way to use more than 254 colors for a Civ background? It seems Indexed mode limits it to 254 (plus two more for background/transparency), which somewhat lowers the quality.
 
Way to go! The "hijack" is great. I am going to put that in the OP. Maybe you will influence others to contribute!

As for your question, sadly, no. It is one of the drawbacks of limited palettes.
 
Cool. I've added 4:3 resolutions as well, so those folks with standard displays can use the background as well. I think I've covered the entire gamut of standard displays, but if you've got an unusual 4:3 or 16:10 I can probably make it. The only limits are the 1024x768 Civ minimum, and the 2160x1350 resolution of the master copy I have.

5:4 and the new 16:9 resolutions didn't work out with this picture. Both of them cut off a bit too much of the picture. So no 1280x1024, 1366x768, or 1920x1080 coming up, unless of course someone else makes a title screen of that size.
 
I'm in the beginning stages of trying my hand at some wide-screen work. Is there anything like Dogmouse's title screen template set up for wider screens? If not, would any of you please post how you aligned the button graphics, etc.
 
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