How to get Civ3 to run at any resolution

[D0NIMATRIX]

I have seen people running Civ3 at resolutions greater than 1024x768. How do you do this without simply stretching the screen?

 

[darski]

I would like to know how to get it to run at the 1024x768 resolution. My screen always reverts to 800x600 and drives me crazy.

 

[Padma]

The opening movies run at 800x600. The game itself will not run at less than 1024x768.

 

[darski]

The opening movies run at 800x600. The game itself will not run at less than 1024x768.

Well that makes sense. It just leaves the rest of my browsers running at the 8X6... oh well c'est la vie

 

[Bartleby]

I have seen people running Civ3 at resolutions greater than 1024x768. How do you do this without simply stretching the screen?

You can add the line

keepres=1

to your Civ3 (or PTW or C3C) ini file and this will force the game to run at your desktop resolution (assuming that's > 1024*768).

C3C is great at 1920*1200.

 

[D0NIMATRIX]

Which one is the .ini file?

 

[Quintillus]

In the Conquests folder, there's a file called "conquests.ini". That's the one you want to add "keepres=1" to. I think it's civ3ptw.ini in PTW, and civilization.ini in Vanilla.

 

[Stormrage]

I had an old 17" CRT screen, I can`t remember on what resolution I played, I think it was 1024x768, and civ looked great.

I now have a 19" LCD screen, I tried that resolution, civ is ugly. Its not just ugly, it fell from the ugly tree and it hit every branch on the way. I tried 1280x1024 and its.. still ugly. Everything looks smaller.. but its still ugly.

BTW, I tried the keepress thingy he suggested.

 

[D0NIMATRIX]

But if I insert that line then all that happens is that there's a black border around a 1024x768 Civ screen. Is there any way to get 1440x900 pixels of actual Civ?

 

[Stormrage]

The black border is only at the Menu Screens, it goes away once the actual game begins. And it still sucks for me, help!

 

[D0NIMATRIX]

The black border is only at the Menu Screens, it goes away once the actual game begins. And it still sucks for me, help!

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Stormrage]

You`re quite welcome

Whats your desktop resolution, and would you care to post a screenie of your Civ games now?

 

[Macezek]

It depends what resolution you are running your OS in. "Keepres = 1" will force Civ3 to keep the resolution you are currently using in your OS so if its running at 800x600, thats what Civ3 will run at. If you have your OS set to the screens highest native resolution, then Civ3 should run pretty nicely. It also depends on what your screen scaling option is set to on your video card. If I were you, I would find out what the maximum native resolution is of your screen, set it to that resolution, disable screen scaling, and add "Keepres = 1" to the .ini files. That should do it, though when you are in the main menu, city screens, and advisors, you will only get 1024x768 with black bars around.

 

[D0NIMATRIX]

@Stormrage

Here is my 1024x768 menu:

Spoiler :

and here is my 1440x900 menu:

Spoiler :

Here is my 1024x768 game:

Spoiler :

and here is my 1440x900 game:

Spoiler :

Do you know what the maximum resolution for your game is on your monitor? If so, do you know how to change it? If so, does it still suck at the high-res and at 1024x768?

 

[Stormrage]

It also depends on what your screen scaling option is set to on your video card. If I were you, I would find out what the maximum native resolution is of your screen, set it to that resolution, disable screen scaling

How do I find that out, and how do I disable that other thingy? Not good with computer gimmicks.


Thanks, Dom.

 

[Macezek]

You posted on another thread that your monitor is Philips 190C, so from what I looked up, its a flat panel 19" not wide screen? If so, your resolution should be 1280x1024. This is kinda long, so bear with me...

Scaling is another word for stretching. If your computer has image scaling enabled, then images that are smaller than your screen will stretch to fill the entire screen. The image looks bigger but looses quality because your video card is just pulling at the edges to fill the screen without taking into account what the aspect ratio of the image is. So if you have scaling enabled, when you change your resolution to 1024x768 on a 19" monitor, it should fill the entire screen but looses sharpness because the entire image is stretching to fill what a resolution of 1280x1024 should fill. If you change your resolution to 1280x800, it will also stretch to the edges of the screen, even though it distorts the image by stretching only one side.

If you disable scaling, whenever you run something that has a different resolution than your monitor's native resolution (1280x1024 in your case Stormrage), it will stay in the middle without stretching, instead you will get black bands around the image. So if you want to play something at 800x600 for whatever reason, instead of filling the entire monitor space of 1280x1024 and loosing sharpness, it will stay its original 800x600 size in the center of the screen and you will get black empty space around it. Its good for playing old school games and classic games like Starcraft or Red Alert, where you couldn't change the resolution of the game, and it ran at 800x600 or lower.

To disable it, you have to go to your video card settings. Where the option is depends on what brand of video card you're using. If you have an NVidia card, right click on your desktop and click on "Nvidia Control Panel". If you've never been there before, it will ask you if you want to use standard or advanced view, select standard (or advanced if you want). On the left side there is a menu tree, open the "Display" list, and click on "Change flat panel scaling". Here you can change your options, it even gives you a little preview on the side of what it would look like. You can select "Do not scale" and on the bottom of the screen click Apply.

If you have an ATI card, then I have no idea how to change the settings there, I haven't used an ATI card for over 4 years so I wouldn't know what the ATI control panel would look like. But I would imagine it's the same kind of options you have in the settings, you would find Display Settings/Options, Scaling Options, or Flat Panel Scaling, or something along those lines. And then change it so that the screen does not scale images.

 

[Stormrage]

I got it to work! Thank you!

 

[D0NIMATRIX]

On a totally unrelated note, if you check the two maps I posted, do you think it fair that Lord_Megahertz should get Southern Arabia and Ethiopia when we invade? He's trying to stretch his end of the bargain, which was originally just to Baghdad.

 

[Macezek]

I don't quite understand, who owns Baghdad, you? Are you allied with Lord_Megahertz? Are you planning on attacking Spain? Cause you own Southern Arabia, and Egypt and parts of Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia are owned by Spain.

 

[D0NIMATRIX]

I own Baghdad (I'm China). It's pretty much us vs the rest of the world, and when all else is gone, then we'll either fight it out or end the game and start another. He has more % of the world under his control, though.