Re-sizing pre-set game window during runtime?

** edit - I'm using 2.5 Dev

Hi all

This is something that I've been wrestling with trying to figure out a solution for a while, and hopefully I can clearly explain here what I'm trying to do. I'm working on a couple different projects, one is a metroidvania that I want to be able to re-size the game window based on the user's resolution. Right now, the game is a 480*360, and I use Ultimate Fullscreen to fill the screen. My monitors on my desktop that I am using to develop on are 1920*1080 resolution, which means it's pixelated 3x, with solid black borders on the side for the sake of a retro look. No borders on the top/bottom, because 360 goes into 1080 perfectly.

My laptop on the other hand, is 1366*768, in which the 480*360 game window resolution is 2x ratio, but now has black borders on the top and bottom as well because 360 doesn't perfectly factor into 768.

What I would like to be able to do, is based on the user's resolution, is calculate the right game window size and re-size it to that number, and then have Ultimate Fullscreen do the rest to stretch it from top to bottom. I don't want to resize to fill, because it looks horrible and kills performance. And, I'm not talking about resizing the actual window of the application, I'm talking the actual game window that you set in the prefs within Fusion.

Is there a way to do this internal to Fusion or via extension? I have heard it's possible on iOS and Android, but I dunno about Windows. If not, is this something that an extension could handle if someone made it? Would someone want to go in on getting someone to program an extension with me?

Thanks!
Chris

I seem to recall some voodoo trickery using a subapp and window control object, but I don't remember the specifics at all and not sure where to find an example. Maybe someone here knows where to find it or how to do it. Sorry, I know that wasn't much help :P Fusion needs more resolution options. Like the user being able to select their own resolution at runtime like any other game. As far as I know that's currently not possible.

Shawn, thanks for the input. I used subapp years ago and haven't touched it since, but maybe I'll mess around with it and see what I can do. If it can truly possibly solve the problem, that'd be ideal.

Your post did get me thinking though about how to work around the problem. One of the things I was thinking was to do some calculations to detect the resolution and then set the proper scale based on that. Then, if the scale height is larger than what's supported, force it to do that anyway, which would result in some of the visible window screen being cropped on top and bottom. Then I wonder if I could calculate based on the resolution and the scale, what part of that viewable area is not visible, and re-position things like life bars, status windows, etc.? It wouldn't necessarily solve the problem, BUT it would appear to be solved, which at this point is all I can hope for.

Anybody have thoughts on this approach?

yes... What I want to do is now is ...believe it or not... it has come down to actually fully creating newer objects for different types of screens displays.

its going to take awhile and but..you get the job done perfectly.

Aw man....yeah. That was my last resort/worst case scenario. I don't think I'll go down that path if it comes down to it...way too much work.

Sorry to bump - but I just played the Odallus: The Dark Call demo (available here - http://www.moddb.com/games/oniken/do...-demo-v01fixed) and they figured out how to do it. I tested on three different PCs at 3 different resolutions, and the pixel scaling is perfect on each one.

I took a screenshot of the window, and the resolution they used was 427x240. I can't make sense of why 427, it doesn't factor into anything. My only thought is maybe they set it much wider than the 240 height, and used Ultimate Fullscreen type 3 to match width?

Anybody have any insight? I tweeted them and asked but I'm not really expecting a response.

I wrote Ultimate Fullscreen specifically so I'd never have to use that subapp hack ever again!

It's actually quite easy to do what you described - just set UFS to pixel-perfect mode. Example attached.

Thank you! I'll check this out when I get home from work. I guess the one thing I'm wondering is (and as I'm re-reading, it may not be clear) is that regardless of being able to re-size the window during runtime, I really just want to be able to have fullscreen capability with proper scaling on any resolution. My game currently runs at a 480*360 res, which perfectly works on my 1920*1080 monitor. The 360 scales up x3 into the 1080 height, scales the 480 x3 to 1440, which leaves cool retro-ey solid black bars on the side.

But when I test on my laptop, which is some other resolution (1440*900 maybe?) I get it scaled up height/width x2, and it's essentially floating in the center with black borders all around.

I guess my ultimate question is how I get that perfect scaling on any resolution, or if that's even possible. That said, I'll try the example when I get home. Thank you :)

If you .. Really have made a Cool Game that looks marvelous in every detail and worked hard. I see no reason why you cant Total create all new objects for different displays.

I see the game, just played marvelous! that would do fine in my system to. well yes that will scale anything ,Pixel game. I though you were using like large 3d objects like a snooker ball made with adobe photoshop.

For other people's reference, here's a copy of the response I sent to chrisperry's PM:

Quote:

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The sizes of the pixels will be inconsistent if the screen resolution is not an integer multiple of the game resolution. So, if your game is 360 pixels high, and the screen is 1080 pixels high, each "pixel" will be 3x3 real pixels, since 1080/360 = 3.

With 1050 you have a slight problem, since 1050/360 = 2.9. To fill the screen correctly some pixels will have to be 2x2 --- but it will only be very few of them. It's possible these pixels could go unnoticed on a big screen; maybe this is why Odallus looked OK.

In pixel-perfect mode, UFS will detect that 1680*1050 is too small to display a 360 pixel-high game at 3x resolution, and will step down to 2x, which will appear as a subrect in the middle of the screen. If Odallus fills both a 1080p and 1050p monitor, then it isn't doing "pixel" perfect scaling, it's just doing screen-fill nearest neighbor and possibly getting away with it because its resolution is so low. For example, if your game was only 180 pixels high, it would be staggering 5x5 and 6x6 pixels in 1050p --- not a big enough difference to see visually. To help learn the difference, you could take screenshots of Odallus on both resolutions, magnify them in photoshop, and measure the pixel sizes.

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I suppose it's worth mentioning that you could achieve pixel-perfect scaling on every resolution, if you are willing to have your game's visible resolution change depending on what's best for the monitor it's running on. Players would get to see more or less of the gameplay depending on what monitor they have (similar to hor+ or vert-). There is no built-in option for this in UFS (personally, I prefer a consistent experience on all monitors; I threw in hor+ and vert- as more of a courtesy) but you could manage to do it if you used UFS's manual scaling options. If the resolution isn't optimal just expand the game rect size until part of it is cut off, but it's the correct size for pixel-perfect scaling.