If you force a high resolution display into low resolution, game maker will resize and reposition all non-fullscreen windows to fit into the lower resolution. This is intrusive and annoying.
If you force a low resolution display into a higher resolution, there's a good chance the user will just see a black screen.
Further, if a GM game crashes after making changes to the display resolution, these changes will persist!
If you force any kind of resolution change on a multi-monitor setup, all monitors will be forced into that resolution if the user is running windows XP. This is very annoying.
There are all sorts of different aspect ratios out in the wild. If you don't account for all of them and provide an option to select the right one, your game will look bad.
Which brings me to the solution:
Please, start your game in windowed mode and provide an option to change into full screen with res change. Never ever have your game change the resolution by default[

While I agree games should start in windowed mode, I disagree that setting the resolution is a bad thing..

Using scaling -especially when interpolation is turned on- really put high stress on your computer (at least mine). Of course the difference depends on the game, but it's mostly around a 1/8-1/4rd drop in frame rate from even the windowed mode...

While going in full-screen from a windowed mode - and even if the resolution would be the same as the original resolution increases performance a bit!

Another reason would be that lower than native resolutions look like crap on LCD monitors, but I suspect (hope, at least) everyone already knows this.

It seems really low resolutions like 320x240 aren't supported anymore on newer graphics cards, not on Nvidia cards anyway. I don't know about ATI.

Yes.
That res change should be taken out of gm since some people insist on using it all the time *coughcactuscough*
There are other methods to prevent the upscaling blur, however a less intrusive way of changing the resolution and/or a non-interpolated upscaling so you don't need to change the resolution would solve the prtoblem.


This is false.

How is it false? "at least on my computer" so it's obviously happened to him. It's happened to me as well.
But in general, keep the resolution changes optional and not default so as not to screw up people's windows.

I've never had this problem, because all my windows are usually in tabs, and even if they're not, its always in fullscreen.

*starts any of his (useless) test-gamemaker-documents
*enables "switch screen modes when pressing F4" as well as "keep aspect ratio"
*presses F6
*watches f/s be around 55-60
*presses F4
*watches f/s drop to 30 followed by a stable 45-50 again
*presses F4 again
*another drop in f/s to 20, followed by a stable f/s of 55-58

I'm crazy?

For any of my full screen games, I automatically detect the user's resolution and change room sizes/views based on the user's resolution.

The standard screen resolutions on Game Maker make Widescreen monitors look vulgur.
I agree, I hate resolution changing without a warning or an option.


This is a good idea, I once created an application in Game Maker which used this theory, and it does work very well.

i agree. actually most of low resolution games could be stretched to 640x480 windowed and look as if 320x240 full screen (that's the way i do it). it's really annoying when something changes my resolution and resizes all my windows (from which most of them are not maximized).

In Game Maker 5 there use to be option to use "exclusive graphics mode" which pretty much solves all the problems described in first post.

What happened to that option. Why was exclusive graphics mode removed?

Stretching low-resolution games to my 1440x900 resolution looks horrible and it's annoying. So please don't do it. You could make it an option, but don't ever force it.

If there's listed "Changes resolution: yes" in some interesting game, I'm least likely to ever download it. When there's not said that, and it still changes the resolution, I'm least likely to ever play that game (again so to say).

So please people, making the resolution change optional, making it optional whether to go fullscreen with it or not, is not really that difficult. It may make the game run faster or look a bit better than simply stretching to fullscreen, but 640x480 resolution is just pretty ridiculous resolution for the today's standards. Atleast ask the player whether to proceed before changing the resolution: "if show_question('resolution change?') display_... etc." now how hard was that?

Exclusive mode had it's problems. Any time you went into exclusive mode any time the resolution changed, all open windows that were larger than the screen resolution were resized, it was particularly annoying. There were also many functions that were no longer available in exclusive mode.

I don't recall exclusive mode having that window resize problem.

I do know that exclusive mode had it's limitations like not been able to show other windows e.g. messages, highscore list, or game information also debuging in exclusive mode was not possible, but in my opinion the all those limitations were small amount to pay for proper full screen mode.

..Yeah, we're not talking about that, or atleast the first post wasn't. Full screen doesn't count as resolution change.

Indeed GearGOD. It annoys me when I play Game Maker content which changes my screen resolution or gamma. But you can find that most PC games do that; except these games will still restore your resolution if the application unexpectedly stops. That is why I recommend that you don't mess with resolution or gamma in Game Maker.

It's not so bad to start full screen mode though. The game scales itself up but doesn't change resolution. It even maintains the proper aspect ratio if the resolution is widescreen and your game is using 4:3.

It's just a bit annoying for instant play I guess and they advise against it, but if you don't plan on using instantplay starting in full screen mode should be no problem.

Hmm, I have to agree here. The amount of times a crappy WIP has crashed and left me with an unusable resolution... there is no reason why we should be forced to take on an unsuitable resolution.

That's why the rules in Creations (I don't know about WIP) say to state if your game changes the screen resolution.

I agree that it is very annoying when games change ur resolution without warning, but its not really the end of the world.
All you have to do is just right click ur desktop, and click properties, than go to settings, and reset it...

It also moves all your windows around when it changes the window resolution.

Bah. If game does not force a change in screen res then there is no point in playing it.

I believe (hope) that they are going to delete the "fullscreen mode" and "change resolution" choices from the settings menu in GM8. As far as I remember, yoyo have already said that it is recommened not to check those if your game is submitted to one of their competitions. I believe that removing those checkboxes would make less games set with those settings.

No. The change resolution options perhaps, but a fullscreen mode can be vital to a game's play. If they want to change them to work nicer, fine (even though fullscreen really doesn't have any problems, besides looking bad on some monitors), but the fullscreen option should stay. It's the screen resolution changing that messes with the computers.

There are still GML functions for those. Besides, fullscreen mode is perfectly fine (except for a little bit of pixellation) if you keep the aspect ratio (i.e. do not use full scale) and do not change the resolution.


This is highly commonplace in GM games and I do not welcome it. Most GM games that resize the resolution do so to 640x480. According to OneStat.com, 54.02% uses 1024x768 and 24.66% use 800x600. That leaves 21.32% who may be using 640x480. Exclude those who use widescreen resolutions from that, and you'd be left with almost nothing (i.e. <5%). Choosing to change resolution to 640x480 will annoy practically every potential player.
In addition to resized windows, it also causes icons on the desktop to shift after playing. For those using screens of a different aspect ratio, game graphics become non-uniformly stretched and unsightly during play.


Much less of a problem than the former, given the current market share of screen resolutions. Despite the very small number of players that will be affected this way, it's still a potential problem.


A GM game doesn't look much better to a player when it crashes in windowed mode than in fullscreen mode. But still changed resolutions that need to be changed back are annoying.

GameGeisha

I said that they should remove the checkboxes from the settings menu. That does not mean that they should remove the functions. It is just a way to make less people start the game in fullscreen and/or with a resolution change. We could still make both settings an option in the game, useing the functions. My point is that the checkboxes encourage people to make their games have startup settings that neither yoyo or yoyo's users want.


My point exactly. But eventhough the fullscreen has no problems, (except for netbook users it seems: http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=425253) yoyo still don't want the games to startout in fullscreen. (From the competition rules: "The game should not change the screen resolution and should run in a window (rather than full screen)."http://www.yoyogames.com/docs/comp_02/comp_02_rules.doc).

Regardless of how my computer handles resolution change that one thing that really bothers me to the point that I stopped playing a game is having control of my computer taken away from me. That should be the first and foremost thought in your mind when making your game; do not take take control away. In other words...

• Allow the player to make changes to their computer's setting, preferably through menu choices. It's their computer after all.
• No unskippable cut scenes. Ever. Cut scenes are fine but make sure there's an obvious way to bypass them.
• Never let 'Escape' simply end the game; always go back to the menu and quit from there. The player may have wanted to change something and try again.
• Allow multiple key patterns or allow the player to reassign keys. "Arrow keys-Shift-Space-M" might work for you, but not for everyone else.

You are making the game for other people to play. There's no point in making it so the player can't play it as comfortably as possible.

I do not believe that they will get rid of fullscreen and resolution functionality simply because a few people use this feature incorrectly.

I would also like to see 1900x1200 supported at least in code. Displays are headed there it seems, and most of the older games I play (2005 and before) only support up to 1600x1200, which makes the display stretched.

As for creating an options panel, for any game that is more than a simple windowed arcade game, there should be options for resolution, fullscreen etc.

Pretty much every retail game does it.


I didn't even notice the stretched graphics on the wide screen of a friend of mine when we played a few of my - fullscreen 640x480 resolution-changing - games over there...


I'm the other way around. If a game is good, I want to play it full screen with an appropriate resolution. If a game has 640 x 480 graphics and is in a window, it's a pretty tiny window in the middle of my screen, with my desktop background distracting me, preventing me from ever getting immersed in the game. If it is fullscreen but doesn't change resolution, the graphics are stretched with makes the game so much uglier that I often refuse to play like that. If the graphics are designed for 640 x 480, then use 640 x 480 when using fullscreen. That's the way to show your game's graphics as crisp and clear as possible to the player.

There's nothing wrong with a little warning, but if you use fullscreen, use the correct resolution for your game, or adapt your game's graphics to the user's Windows resolution. Whatever you do, don't scale your graphics, it looks horrible and you know it.


You can't blame the games for that. The solution is that YYG fixes that issue with Game Maker. Besides, if your game is really immersive, I could care less about a few resized windows (I'd close most of them anyway if I am going to play a game that I know will keep me occupied for some time).


The resolution change option shouldn't be removed if YYG wants us to make games that look professional. If GM8 doesn't have a resolution change option, I won't use GM8; I want my games to be playable with the resolution of my choice.

Yes, that's true. But I think the option whether to stretch the graphics to fullscreen or to change the display resolution for it divides opinions. Some of us still prefer a little less quality on fullscreen over the resolution change. That's why I'll go the comfortable way in my games: let the user determine custom resolution out of any (sensible) dimensions, whether to fullscreen it and whether to change the resolution.

I might even add an option of whether to not stretch the view port when going into fullscreen mode. That could help those that are somewhere between you and me: those that don't like resolution change, but don't want to get distracted by the desktop either.

Those who are drawing mainly on primitives (such as in 3D) but are just too lazy to make such menu system could easily change the resolution of their game according to the display resolution. That's another good alternative.

I far, far prefer resolution change than blurry graphics and it irritates me like crazy when so many GM games just stretch to fill the screen as their 'fullscreen mode'. I just then stop playing them rather than make my eyes go sore.

Sure people should start the game in windowed mode but so many people's games do not offer a true fullscreen mode at all and that's what annoys me about the majority of GM games.

Pretty much the only thing that makes resolution changes attractive is the removed blur.
There are other ways to prevent the blur than to force an intrusive resolution change that might even stay if things go bad (have fun resetting that 320x240 resolution to normal) you can stretch the viewport or draw everything on a surface and stretch that to fulscreen.
So there's no need for that.


Yet none of them do it the way gm does it, try reading on how much messes up.


Like I said, you can stretch the viewport or use a surface.
Even stretching it to 2x removes most of the blur already.

Besides if you work in a resolution of 640x480 or even higher, the blur is so minimal that it isn't really worth the effort...


Can't blame the games but the game makers that know about those issues yet still do it because they think 'people could care less about a few resized windows and the possibility to screw settings all over, I wanna be immersive and proffessional lawl'.



How does annoying players make you look 'proffessional'?
More like the opposite.

Anyway it's astonishing how many people cling to that brute force method no matter how many flaws it has...

Only if the current resolution is an exact multiple of the game's required resolution. A 320x240 game scaled to 1024x768 even cleanly stretched using a surface will result in pixels of different sizes which again is ugly.

Did you try?
You're not even gonna notice that that 'pixel' is actually 1 pixel wider than the other pixels.
If you're looking at those kind of things... well using a resolution of 320x240 on a monitor with a native resolution of say, 1280x1024 will always look ugly to you, no matter how you change resolutions.
What you may have seen might be the glitches that can occur if you stretch the viewport (which is a pain. Always subtract 1 from the values), doesn't happen with the surface.

I agree with Carnivac and Erik Leppen -- while I don't think resolution change should be forced, and that it should be user-selectable, it is the most professional, the fastest, and the crispest. There is a problem with rearranging the window sizes and icons on some computers, but that's what the resolution change .dll is for. I too would not use GM8 if it took away resolution changing. There are very few professional games which do not change the display resolution or do not have the option to, and there's a reason for that.

We pixel. If we don't notice something such as one pixel wrong than we aren't doing a very good job
Although now you've got wide pixels stuck in my head and I need to go fiddle around on my c64.

Nobody has suggested that the ability to change resolution/fullscreen mode be taken away. The suggestion was to remove them from the Game Settings menu.



Removing it from the Settings menu would address a lot of the fullscreen/change resolution abuses. Specifically the automatic switch at game start.

This doesn't mean that it would prevent people from abusing it, but it would prevent those who only know how to do it by clicking options.

True. But I believe that the group of people who don't know that you should treat the player with enough respect to let him chose weather or not to change hi's resolution, are the same people who only know how to do it by clicking options. Generally speaking of course.

Under all circumstances, the checkboxes are encouraging people to make their games have startup settings that, as this topic describes, can be quite annoying.

I might agree with change resolution, but why the heck would they delete fullscreen mode? It deletes the clutter from the background. My games are always fullscreen and keep scale in 100%. Which means no stretching, or changing of any resolution, and the background is all black, or the color I choose, and my game is perfectly viewable in the center of your screen. It doesn't resize any windows, it just looks good.

Yeah because we all love tiny windows with massive black borders and no opportunity for *real* fullscreen.
It's just awesome and totally adds to the immersiveness of games. Who needs the whole screen anyway?

That's totally not almost more annoying than the forced res change.

Why do you do this? You shoot down my way of doing things without thinking. It isn't bad, it isn't annoying. Who would do multiple things while playing a game, anyway? I say the player should leave my game if you want to do something else, because obviously he opened the game to play the game.

EDIT: Also, my game isn't big enough to fit someone's entire screen, and it needn't be.

And then, there are the people like me that use Winamp or AIM or anything else and if someone contacts me, or a song that sucks comes on, then I can change it easily. What's the point of making a game fullscreen, when the only usable part in the game would be a 640x480 box in the center of your 1440x900 screen?

I cannot relate to anyone that would IM while playing a game, it doesn't make any sence to me. What?

Also, I don't see your points as making any sence at all, I mean, if an IM does pop up, pause. Then you go read your IM, its not like I'm forcing you to see the screen at all times.

If a game designer's goal is to make the playing experience as comfortable as possible for his/her audience, then this shouldn't be a matter of preference- since it appears that a majority of people do not like resolution changes or blurry screens, as a game designer you should be catering to these people.

This is only true of the people on this forum, though. Many of us don't make games just for the people on this forum. It's a bad idea to judge what people like based on the people who speak up about it in any case, because often there is a vocal minority and a silent majority. In any case, making it selectable pleases more than forcing one particular way, and most professional games make it selectable. There's no need to choose one or the other.

Ok, well in that case making it selectable is catering to your audience!

My point was mainly that we shouldn't be debating the pros and cons/expressing personal preference of screen changes.

Maybe, but only in the way that making controls configurable is catering to your audience.

I second this.

You miss my point.
Why do you think it's a good idea to have a tiny 640x480 surrounded by a thick black border?
I don't want no border, I always want to see the game full screen and not in a tiny window and if you activate fixed scaling, there's no way to make it fullscreen via f4 anymore because you most likely didn't add an option for that because you got used to looking at tiny screens with thick black borders. :U