Resolution why not higher for Casual games?

[Tank]

I am new to the boards and also the Casual market; my studio is coming from a GBA development background. We are having the great debate between management and developers, is there any advantage for this market to have a casual game downloaded with 1024 x 768 graphics rather than the traditional 800 x 600 or 640 x 480. In ether case would have the ability to scale the game to the end users monitor needs.
Management feels with the level of monitors out there in homes right now this shouldn't be an issue an they would be able to handle the larger format. Developers feel it’s just an unnecessary size bloat, and most would have to play it at the 800 x 600 resolution any way; and the graphics wouldn't be a crisp if scaled down.
My question is this even an issue anyone else in studios right now?

[soniCron]

This has been discussed many times in the past, and the general consensus is that higher resolutions offer little more than a bigger download. It's like using 32mm film instead of 76mm -- filmmakers may care, but the audience doesn't.

[Ska Software]

I'm all about 640x480! That is, I was until I got a widescreen laptop that doesn't support that resolution *at all* (yes, they exist). Now I'm all about 800x600!

Speaking of which, look out for all those with widescreen computers. We paid extra for the whole wow factor and then realized that we can't play our own stupid games.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

1024 x 768 would add 63% to the size of your graphics, which are the major factor in download size.

Also, about 2-3% of users can't run above 800 x 600.

Also, about 30% of users are running their desktop at 1024 x 768. If your game runs at 1024 x 768, it can only run in windowed mode at higher resolutions - users with 1024 x 768 desktops would have to run full screen, but many prefer windowed mode for casual games (bounce between casual game, e-mail, browser, IM, etc.)

I think we're at least a year or two away from a widespread transition to 1024. The transition from 640 x 480 to 800 x 600 only really happened last year.

[dan]

We thought about 1024x768 because such a high percentage of users can run it, but opted for 800x600 because we didn't really need the higher rez, and the space savings are significant.

If you're going to support 800x600 anyway, going higher doesn't make much sense. Depends on your target market, but if you're really doing a casual game, there's little reason. If I was doing an indie strategy game that really needs more rez, diff story.

[Sharpfish]

800x600 here. Was thinking of offering 1024 in FULLSCREEN (because it is a 3D game) but there are some issues with that and for consitency 800 became the sweet spot all round.

I agree about the windowed mode if your game is remotely casual it will need it and it should be smaller than the average desktop size.. show a warning if it isn't and give an option to go to fullscreen instead.

For pure 2D games with lots of graphics - even 640x480 is still valid if it means you save a lot on filesizes.

I have some internal flags that a simple registry addition (patch) can enable, this will allow other resolutions in the future should the users of the game be requesting it in great numbers.

[gosub]

I'd like to see all games support 1680x1050 (my laptop resolution). It's so disappointing to see yet another Indi game switch to 640x480. Obviously that means you would have to support any resolution.

-Jeremy

[Sharpfish]

I always intend to support the common (older) laptop widescreen res of 1280x800 in any games I make with multi-resolution. This is not just simply setting the res but also the aspect ratio in your projection matrix and what have you. My old code supported 16:9 and 16:10. This was before I realised that there was no market for the kind of game I was making that used that res and it was best left to hardcore games. :)

[electronicStar]

My game is a Fullscreen 2d game but using 3d for the sprites, so I propose a choice of resolutions (640,800,1024).
The change doesn't affect the looks of the game too much but I think it's better to leave the option with the increasing number of people using LCD displays and the fact that resolution scaling sometimes gives bad results on these screens.

[Vectrex]

my laptop has problems with 640x480 fullscreen and freaks out at anything lower :) I believe loads of casual gamers have or will have laptops if the non-gamers around me are anything to go by (I hate it when they have a better computer than me! :D). 'Normal' people love laptops

[Sharpfish]

Yeah but most laptops have scaling in fullscreen (now) which looks bad but should work - or you can run it with the borders. Failing that WINDOWED mode is always available to laptop owners and I often run most indie-demos in windowed when testing them on my laptop anyway because I don't use scaling and don't want a massive black void around the 640x480 "fullscreen" :)

I personally think that the number of casual gamesplayers is far higher on desktop systems permanently wired to the net, with "usually" better hardware.

[dxgame]

"For pure 2D games with lots of graphics - even 640x480 is still valid .."

Agreed! Especially for fast action games. I've downloaded a bunch of casual games that run dog slow on our HP test machines in 800x600 or higher resolutions but run fine at 640x480 if available from the game. I think alot of casual developers forget that onboard intel graphics are the most popular video cards.

[Tank]

Thanks for the feedback on this issue; I think the way we will go is the 800x600. Have the art team prepare the graphics for a higher resolution, and maybe offer the larger resolution as an option to the consumer when downloading the game.

This will settle some office fights :)

[Phil Steinmeyer]

I used to be a firm believer in multi-rez graphics. Source the art at 1600 x 1200 (or higher), and then do batch processing to downsample for your target rez(s) to preserve flexibility.

For my current game, I just went straight at 800 x 600. It was easier to deal with, and probably sped up my artist's creation time (versus, say, sourcing at 1600).

I think I'll stay with the current system - one rez, one set of source art.