Screen Unreadable at High Resolution

[Keith Mair]

Apologies is this has been answered, I have tried to search for a solution.

I am running the game at the default screen resolution (3200 x 1800) on a Dell XPS 13 laptop. The toolbar buttons at the bottom of the screen are too small to be readable.

I have followed the advice in the manual and created a shortcut, adding the line: ‑resolution 2048x1152.

I get an error message detailing that the resolution is not supported on my computer. It is. I can successfully change to this resolution using the 'graphics resolution'command.

Is there a solution to this other than changing my screen resolution?

I am running Windows 10.

Grateful for any advice.

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

Keith, Welcome. I have to admit that we never anticipated a screen of that size on a laptop. My last dev laptop that I bought supports a 1920 x 1080 screen. I recall the guy who sold it to me warning me that things would look small on it. So yes things are going to look real small on a 3200 x 1800 screen squeezes into a laptop format. That arrangement does provide hi definition but it comes at the expense of making apps like ours that do not scale to maintain dialogs at a certain percentage of the screen size basically unplayable. I am afraid there is nothing I can do about that.

However, you could experiment with the screen resolutions. When you launch the game you should see a list of available resolutions. Eg:

Some of these will be greyed out, meaning they are not suitable for your graphics card. The other, though, are. Try selecting one of those. I would recommend 1600 x 900 if you have it. This would keep the same 16:9 format that your screen is exactly half of your screens dimensions. Try that and let me know how you get on.

 

[Keith Mair]

Keith, Welcome. I have to admit that we never anticipated a screen of that size on a laptop. My last dev laptop that I bought supports a 1920 x 1080 screen. I recall the guy who sold it to me warning me that things would look small on it. So yes things are going to look real small on a 3200 x 1800 screen squeezes into a laptop format. That arrangement does provide hi definition but it comes at the expense of making apps like ours that do not scale to maintain dialogs at a certain percentage of the screen size basically unplayable. I am afraid there is nothing I can do about that.

However, you could experiment with the screen resolutions. When you launch the game you should see a list of available resolutions. Eg:
View attachment 3604
Some of these will be greyed out, meaning they are not suitable for your graphics card. The other, though, are. Try selecting one of those. I would recommend 1600 x 900 if you have it. This would keep the same 16:9 format that your screen is exactly half of your screens dimensions. Try that and let me know how you get on.

Hi Dave,

Many thanks for the lighting quick reply, it is greatly appreciated.

I do appreciate that the laptop is very high resolution.

My problem is that the only option given is to 'match current screen resolution'. All the other options are greyed out.

I have no problems running the game on my desktop, but work away from home during the week, so my laptop is my only option then.

Please don't spend any time on this. I appreciate I am in a unique situation.

Many thanks again.

Keith

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

OK I see. But I would recommend you try modifying your shortcut to
‑resolution 1600x900.

It's worth a try. BTW are you running off an onboard graphics chip or a separate graphics card?

 

[Keith Mair]

I have tried that but get the message that the resolution is not available. There is no dedicated video card: Intel® HD Graphics.

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

Ooh Keith I would have opted for a separate video card given the high res. But all may not be lost. If you go into the Display control panel, what resolution options does it give you?

 

[Keith Mair]

Dave,

I am at home for the weekend and don't have my laptop with me. I can change the screen resolution from the control panel, but hoped to avoid that. Many thanks for your help. I believe changing the screen resolution is my only option.

Keith

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

My thinking is to work out what is an acceptable resolution for your machine and then to create a Cmd Ops shortcut with that resolution.

 

[Keith Mair]

Thanks Dave. I will play about with that when I get back to the flat tomorrow.

 

[Kolbex]

I also have a 3200x1800 laptop, which like Keith's makes the windows too small to read. Unlike him, however, I am able to select other resolutions on startup, but I have a different issue. As shown below, when I select 1920x1080 (same ratio as 3200x1800), the game launches fine, but the menus are all black. I think I managed to launch a scenario once like this, and the command windows were black as well (although the map and its counters were fine). It is, sadly, unplayable in this state.

I am running Windows 10, which I know is not supported, and I have an old laptop somewhere I could probably dig out to play, but I would prefer to have it on this machine. Setting the exe to Windows 7 compatibility doesn't help, I'm afraid. The laptop in question has an GeForce GT 750M as well as Intel 4600 integrated graphics. Screenshot of issue below.

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

Kolbex, interesting. How did you manage to launch a scenario? Were you able to see a button control or did you just hit Enter on the keyboard.? Did the scenario options dialog appear normal or was it too blacked out?

 

[Kolbex]

Pretty sure I just clicked where I knew from prior experience the buttons should be. The scenario options screen was also blacked out. I can try to get some more screenshots and any other information for you if you think it would help.

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

Can you please provide a screen shot of the scenario options window and the game once it opened.

 

[Kolbex]

I will do my level best. Give me an hour or so.

 

[Kolbex]

Ok, here you go, scenario options:



Trial and error allowed me to open the scenario:


Couple of things. First, my CO2 is updated to the latest version (5.1.24, I think it said?). Second, this map is zoomed in as far as it will go. The size of the window in the upper left and the tiny size of the counters (what made me try to set it to 1920x1080 in the first place) doesn't look to me like 1920x1080, it looks an awful lot like the native resolution, which looks like so:



Although the image certainly comes out at 1920x1080 as a screenshot. I'm not really sure. I would even play it at some lower widescreen resolution just to save my eyes the strain of trying to make out the counters, etc. if the windows didn't come up black every time.

 

[Kolbex]

Really, I think you just need to implement arbitrary zoom and the ability to cope with Windows text zoom. Easy peasy, right? xD

 

[Rob]

Hi guys,

This probably won't work for either of you -- but you never know. I had a similar "black' areas problem with another (non-Panther) war game last year and the solution was to slow my graphics refresh rate to 60 Hz. Worked perfectly after that!
Hope it helps.......

Rob.

 

[Jacco van Weert]

I have more or less the same problem but even worse.
I try to run CO2 on my new iMac 27inch late 2015 under Windows 10.
The resolution is 5120 x 2880.... the fonts is very small and worse when zooming into the map it is broken into four segments.

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

The game is not designed to run on such large hi res displays. It uses non-scalable fonts, so yes they will appear small. Can you provide a screen dump so I can get a better idea about what you mean by the map being broken into four segments.

 

[Jacco van Weert]

This is a capture of the screen after one tick of zooming in.