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View Full Version : Widescreen on a Normal Moniter


Derek
03-27-2007, 12:14 AM
This is how to play CNC3 (or at least the demo) in widescreen on a regular monitor, its actually quite simple. You may be wondering why you would want to do this, I'll get to that later. First, the how to:

1. Go to the graphics settings and adjust the resolution to a widescreen resolution, keep the width the same as your nomral resolution, and reduce the height. So for example, 1280x1024 become 1280x800. You can run the game like this, but it will be stretched and ugly.
2. To fix this, go to your CNC3 shortcut and add "-win" to the very end of the target line. This will make the game start in windowed mode.

This is how the end result will look:
http://i13.tinypic.com/2lcmkaw.jpg

Now, you're probably wondering why you would want to go to all this trouble. Here is why:

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s211/Geleba/Widescreenview-1.jpg
(credit for picture goes to Celebrimor at GR.org)

The inside rectangle is the viewing area at the normal aspect ratio. The large rectangle (the entire picture) is the viewing area at a widescreen aspect ratio. You'll notice that its a lot bigger on the widescreen, and not just on the sides (where you would expect it), but on all sides. This confers a significant advantage in play. There are downsides however. Because it is windowed, your cursor can go off screen. This results in two known bugs: 1, you can scroll be placing your cursor at the edge of the screen. This is trivial because thats a terrible way to scroll in the first place. 2. If you click and drag (ex, selecting groups of units, right click scrolling) and drag out of the window, when you let go the game will not detect it, when you come back on screen it still thinks you have the button pressed. The only way to fix this is to press the button again to correct the game.

In conclusion:
Pros: Much larger viewing area. Also makes minimizing easier, a minor issue.
Cons: Bugged when the mouse goes off screen.

Personally, I will not be using this unless a way is found to fix the mouse bug, because when this bug affects right click scroll it can lead to disaster. However, were it not for that I would definately use this.


(To any mods, this might be worth stickying, at least for now. I guess it depends on what you think)

SgtRicko
03-27-2007, 03:06 AM
I'm assuming that the retail version would have probably fixed this issue, and also made a widescreen option or something in the game as well.

However, as for this getting stickied... eh. That bug you mentioned is reason enough why NOT to promote this little trick, for it might end getting nastier under certain users and conditions (i.e., n00bs and obscure monitors).

Spider786
03-27-2007, 05:25 PM
neat XD


watch out for me and my widescreen laptop :p

JBV3737
04-05-2007, 12:33 PM
i think this is more negitive then positive, you may be able to see more but what makes you the win is your actions not your views. plus the mouse buggering up, i rather stay at 1280x1024 :P still very intresting.

ChopBam
04-13-2007, 10:48 AM
I am certainly glad I have a widescreen monitor. :D

1440 x 900 ftw!