GalCiv on a laptop

Forgot to mention that I am using ZoomText for screen magnification so I can use this tiny screen. FYI, it is set to 2x and no, I did not use it on the old PC.

Galciv runs in 1024x768 resolution. If your laptop (or any LCD monitor) has a higher intrinsic resolution, you have two choices:

(A) Do not run the screen expansion - this will make GalCiv clear but small.

(B) Run the screen expansion - this will make GalCiv big and ugly.

I prefer A over B, but it's a matter of taste.

Well, laptops generally use LCD screens right? To my knowledge, LCD screens have preset resolution sizes (as one pixel represents one, err, pixel)...

Do you have any idea what the set resolution is?

A 15 inch LCD is general 1024x800, while a 17 is 1280xsomething...

~SDC~

As it is, my laptop has two resolutions: 1024x768 and 800x600. Hmmm, I may experimet with the other resolution. Because I do have poor vision and the game doesn't seem to like ZoomText; I'll have to try the 800x600 screen size.

T,
A 17in has a resolution of 1280x??? It is a good thing I didn't get a laptop with that size monitor. Stuff would be way too small. The only reason I can use this laptop is mainly because of ZoomText magnifying everything so I can generally see what is going on.

I have laptop (IBM T23) with 14" monitor and 1400x1050 resolution and GalCiv fits in perfectly. I always play it in windowed mode so can check things while playing... and using full mode doesn't give any benefits (no bigger map or anything) just scales graphics.

But if your laptops has exactly same resolution as GalCiv you should use it. That should give you best quality.

But how many colors your laptop can show on that higher resolution? It could be that your graphics card can't give enough colors for GalCiv with higher resolution and it uses smaller one?


~SDC~

jK,

I am not sure of what you are askig. Are you talking about the color depth setting? Mine is set to 32 bit. I'm only given a choice of 16 or 32 bit I can tell you that the graphic looks actually sharper and better on the laptop than on the old desktop PC. I was not talking about graphic quality. I love the quality on this puppy.

I was refering to fact that everything looked so much tinier on the 1028 screen size. Incidentally, I am now using the 800x600 screen size and combined with ZoomText, I'm using the laptop in a much better fashion. Translation: I'm not sitting 2 inches away from the screen.

Now, if Brad would just fix the game to work right with apps like ZoomText (from Ai Squared Software); I really can enjoy the game in the other screen size.

Brad,

I hope you're reading this thread because I found a possible bug.

Last night, I decided to switch from the standard 1026x768 screen resolution to the 800x600 screen resolution so I can actually see the game info better. After the switch, I clicked on the game icon and got a much smaller mouse cursor and a black screen with the music and sound effect running beautifully. I moved the mouse to the right to see it go off screen.

This did not even change when I got to the menu system to play a new game. I switched out of the game and proceeded to switch back to the 1028 screen size and STILL got that black screen when I popped back into the game. This morning, I started my laptop and made sure I was in the larger screen size and went to see if I would be able to play the game. Nope. That screen was still there. Yes, I am using a HP Pavillion laptop

It is only the game that has the problem. My system runs fine, otherwise. No, I disabled ZoomText befoe playing. Beside, the first time I played the game, Zoomtext was automatically disabled. I had to restart that app to get it going after exiting GalCiv.

Yes I was talking about color depth setting. Wasn't sure what Windows you had and if others than XP have other settings besides 16 and 32bit. Reason for this is that I have my laptop which I use both in work and home, in office I have second monitor (well today got my home monitor back too) and for that reason my computer has used 1 or 2 monitors depending where I am.

In both configurations my screen 1 which is always laptops LCD can run 1400x1050 but in 2 screen configuration it can only show 16bit color.

And when I play Combat Mission which used 24bit color, and haven't rememberecd to select 1 monitor configuration, game selects smaller resolution than 1400x1050 I want it to use.

I think people shouldn't use resolution to change size of items in screen. For GalCiv resolution doesn't matter because it anyway takes your full screen (in 800x600 mode possibly scaling graphics and running LCD in non-ideal resolution resulting poorer quality). And in normal usage you can resize any Windows font/icon from preferences.

I think your only option to get it look bigger is to have bigger monitor size, 17" or bigger. So I think you need to use external monitor, if your old CRT screen doesn't fit on the table get bigger table or bigger external LCD monitor.

Or other option is to try to see if you can play game without minimap which is too small for you. Have you tried F9, it shows same map as minimap but you can't change display options in it.

But hopefully you get your game running and find out good solution how to play it


~SDC~

I haven't tried F9. I did get the zoom button to zoom in on the minimap. The rest of the main display was fine. I'm guessing that I'll have to reinstall GalCiv to get it back to where it should be.

As for a second monitor, my old CRT is about 10 years old and normally displays graphic quite nicely. It is a CTX monitor that is cross platform compatible. My brother teasd me about it weighing 400lbs. LOL

I'd just like to take a moment at this point to say I was referring to LCD monitors, not necessairly Laptops. I could be horribly, horribly wrong. :notsure:

~SDC~