IE games on eeepc in widescreen

[Dracc]

First off, uber thanks for the widescreen mod. I installed it last night so I can play Bladur's Gate II on my 46" Sony Bravia... and yes it is in fact glorious in gigantic 720i.

 

Now I am ordering an eeepc from Asustek, and was overjoyed to see that IE games will run marvelously on the little thing, as reported by many users on eeeuser.com (http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewforum.php?id=28)

 

But it seems that while the hardware is up to spec, the screen really isn't. Its maximum native resolution is 800x480 widescreen. Users have turned to emulating high resolutions in order the view the game, and then only in standard width with black bars on the side.

 

I noticed that BG2 supports 640x480, but the widescreen mod requires a minimum of 800x600. So my question is why does the mod require a higher base resolution than the game does? Secondly, can it be changed?

 

I don't know the details of course, but it seems reasonable that the eee's 800x480 could be a compatible resolution based upon the lower supported resolution, but perhaps I'm simply missing something, or it is impossible due to unseen limitations.

 

At any rate, I felt it was important to look into this for two reasons, one being that I want to get the best possible BG experience out of my eee, and also because allot of eee users are looking for good games that will run on their new hardware. BG and other IE games are coming up quite frequently, so I hope to see people discovering, and rediscovering the games. This will of course increase interest in the mod community, so if there is any way to give this group of users a better experience, I feel it will be mutually beneficial. Thanks for your time,

-Dracc

[the bigg]

Yes, it's possible to make 800x480. The reason why it's disabled is because I work by enlarging the 800x600 resolution, and using the same algorithm for reducing the size can have unforseen consequences (when I coded WSM, the eee wasn't out yet).

I'll probably code 800x480 support one of these days (actually having an eee might motivate me). For now, consider that you can already play both TotSC and PST at that resolution

BTW: the IE games all run very well on Linux with Wine, if you want to take advantage of that. Not sure about how you can handle the required HD space, though.

[Dracc]

That is quite encouraging! I also understand why you might want an eee Unfortunately all I can tell you on that front, is do what I did: Join the eeeuser.com forum and haunt the sales subforum. I just picked up a 4G non-surf for 330USD shipped. With your permission, I would like to add a link to this topic in the windows games forum there. Perhaps a show of interest might tempt you to attempt it?

 

I haven't really looked into wine on linux for games. But my brother's eee will be running the stock Xandros OS, so I'll have to get it running for him. Guess that means I will have to learn. Is there anyway to alter the display size under linux?

 

Thanks for the info.

-Dracc

[the bigg]

I'm not going to buy an eee just to test WSM on it - I can just force my screen at 800x480 via the NVidia control panel to run what tests I might need. I was just (jokingly, of course) suggesting that you buy me one

 

And people cheering me up or posting "do it please!!11" will do nothing but make be back away and not do it, so don't do this if you value my cooperation.

 

As for running it on Linux/Wine, it basically works out of the box. I haven't run it on Linux for ages, but if you ask for instructions you should get them.

[Dracc]

Cool cool. I'll just keep lurking here, keeping my eye out. Thanks again!