Time to upgrade the resolutions offered

[jeancallisti]

EDIT : I've replaced the text with a picture to make everything clearer

Spoiler:

I've never used OpenXCom before, but something was obvious to me :
- The geoscape view can be upscaled using filters, but it's obviously to benefit of additional details, thanks to the higher resolution
- The battlefield can be upscaled, but for the same reason :  to benefit of a larger view of the battlefield, thanks to the higher resolution

However, the Base view is stuck at low res.

My issue, though, is not hi-res versus lo-res.
My issue is that OpenXCom is hard to play on modern screens with giant resolutions (1920x1280...) because the base view appears tiny. Even the scaled up geoscape and battlefield views are also starting to reach their limit and could be much larger in the game window.

I think it's time you start thinking about some sort of zooming system in the video options. Just a simple nearest neighbour scaling up in 2x or 3x or 4x (or 5x or more, for the future), to keep the game playable.


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On a side note: I've been part of such projects and I know that this kind of stuff can require quite a lot of refactoring. The simpler way goes through just upscaling the rendering. The harder way goes through rethinking the size and font of buttons and popup windows. With the irritating issue of mixed resolutions (e.g. a higher font resolution in a 320x200 game). We trust you with that

[Meridian]

If you're playing full-screen, just use a different resolution, you don't need 1920x1080... 1280x720 works just as well. Also 1920x1080 battlescape just looks way too zoomed out and loses the original feeling. Also, it starts hitting the noticeable performance loss wall.

If you're playing in a windowed mode, I'd recommend 1280x720 too, I play like that myself (on a 1920x1080 monitor). Battlescape resolution "1/2 display" and geoscape/basescape resolution "1/3 display" works very well in this case.

On a side note: support of mixed resolutions, different font sizes etc. was never a goal of this project (as far as I know) and I don't think it ever will... there were some attempts by others (Xracer made some prototypes), but it didn't make it very far.

[jeancallisti]

EDIT: I've replaced the lengthy explanations with an image in first post.

Spoiler:

I did not understand your answer. as I said my issue is not about hi-res versus low res. My issue is that everything is too tiny.
Changing the "resolution" in the game only changes the size of the rendering window. The contents size follows its size. therefore, if I choose a small resolution, I'll have a tiny window containing tiny graphical elements. If I choose a large resolution, then I'll have a large window, but its contents still use up an insufficient portion of it, and are therefore still too small on a 1920x12xx physical screen.

That's my point: no matter the resolution, the base is always too small for the eye.

[Meridian]

I do not understand your answer.

If you have let's say 1280x720 and let the default scaling, it will be tiny.
If you change scaling to "1/2 display" it will become bigger.
If you change scaling to "1/3 display" it will become much bigger, almost taking up the whole available space.

I can make a few screenshots later in the evening to illustrate...

[jeancallisti]

EDIT: I've replaced the lengthy explanations with an image in first post.

Spoiler:

These filters are not available for base view. That's my point. Only for geoscape and battlefield -- and they were created for very specific purposes (either enhancing resolution, or enlarging the view). The issue here is that the base view is tiny no matter what.

[yrizoud]

https://openxcom.org/wp-content/gallery/v1-0/13_options.png
Use geoscape scale "original", and all base screens will fill the entire screen/window, no matter the resolution.

[jeancallisti]

Use geoscape scale "original"

Oh. Well that's weird. OK, good to know. Thanks.

[yrizoud]

I'm glad this clears the misunderstanding.
The settings "original" mimic the original game. The other settings let you see more things at a time, but many dialogs (windows, menus) are not as pretty in these modes.