1280x1024?

[techbear]

I just got a fancy new monitor, so my desktop is finally 1280x1024. Of course, I'm thinkin about making a game in this resolution.

Does anyone know how many PCs out there would run said resolution? Would my game have too few customers due to the screen res?

[Backov]

I just got a fancy new monitor, so my desktop is finally 1280x1024. Of course, I'm thinkin about making a game in this resolution.

Does anyone know how many PCs out there would run said resolution? Would my game have too few customers due to the screen res?

This is the most common size of entry level LCD monitors.. Lots of people with newish, but not necessarily high-end machines run this resolution.

If you're targeting soccer moms though, probably not a good rez to target.

[DFG]

I wouldn't go higher than 1024x768 quite yet. Scroll down to see W3Cs latest stats:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

According to OneStat.com's April 18, 2007 press release, 1280 is only at 17.23%

http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox51_screen_resolutions_internet.htm l

[MrQ]

Our casual game is being developed in 800x600 and 1024x768

Shouldn't be any probs these days.

[MikeRozak]

You SHOULDN'T make any assumptions about screen aspect ratio and resolution. 16:9 aspect ratios are very common in notebooks, and increasingly common in desktops... except that 800x600 might be a minimum, but it ranges from that up to (approx) 1600x1024.

[zoombapup]

Youre kididng me right? I run my 24" at 1900x1600 and my 30" at 2560x1920 or so.

Point being, you shouldnt expect anything about users desktop resolution. Try and handle any size and be prepared for some of them to not work.

[frozax]

Google analytics shows me the following for my website:

1280x1024 : 11.77%
1024x768 : 52.43%
800x600 : 11.46%

[KG_Brad]

I've played games that let you choose everything from 640x480 to 1024x768. Allowing the player to customize it themselves is what I would do.

There might even be ways to detect their resolution using the WinAPI.

I found some articles on Google... (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=WinAPI+%2B+Detecting+screen+resolution)

[Tom Gilleland]

I would target at 1024x768 and then automatically scale or have an option screen to scale to other sizes.

-Tom

[ChrisP]

There might even be ways to detect their resolution using the WinAPI.

Indeed there are; this is what I do and it works quite well:

#include <windows.h>
//...
DEVMODE devMode;
devMode.dmSize = sizeof(DEVMODE);
devMode.dmDriverExtra = 0;
int number=0;
while (EnumDisplaySettings(NULL, number, &devMode)) {
number++;
if (devMode.dmPelsWidth >= 640 && devMode.dmPelsHeight >= 480) {
// Add [devMode.dmPelsWidth]x[devMode.dmPelsHeight]
// to the list of available resolutions.
// I restrict to 640x480 minimum because otherwise
// I get a lot of really unusual tiny resolutions that
// my graphics card supports for some reason, maybe
// backwards compatibility.
}
}

Haven't ported this to any other OS yet but I expect there are similar system calls available on other OSes.

I then make all my display code scale appropriately, shifting the interface around a bit to account for other aspect ratios. You can either scale the interface and game directly (quite straightforward if you're using 2D-in-3D like I am) or just display more of the game area and a smaller interface, or a mixture.

[jetro]

Many new laptops have wide-screen resolutions such as 1280x800.

[James C. Smith]

Most of the ones currently being sold are widescreen. It is hard to find a tall screen laptop.

[TunaBreeze]

Desktop resolution and game resolution are two completely different things. I like my games to be high res, but my desktop I keep at a lower res because it makes all the icons really small.

I think it would be best to have a default like 1024x768 or 1280x1024 and allow the user to adjust it.

[Adrian Lopez]

Why not default to the screen's current resolution and let the user to change it if so desired? Flat-screen monitors look like crap at non-native resolutions, so it's best to respect the user's current display settings, if possible.

You can call EnumDisplaySettingsEx (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms533218.aspx) with a iModeNum parameter of ENUM_CURRENT_SETTINGS to obtain the current display settings.

[TunaBreeze]

Good call.