Ultrawide Support?

[Alzender]

I don't know if it's me but I can't get my widescreen and ratio supported by the mod. When I choose my resolution in the options (3440X1440), the UI gets overstreched and the campaign map is unplayable. During battles it's a bit better, the units look good, but the huge UI takes a huge part of the screen and is distorted too.
I can choose the 2440X1440 resolution, but I get two black bars on the sides of the screen, and I find it frustrating not being able to use the full size of the screen on this wonderful mod.

Is there a way to put the mod in 3440X1440 21:9, or is it a problem inherent to Medieval 2's old age ?

[Gigantus]

The game is simply too old. I am getting a decent result on 1920*1080 which is 1.9:1 and for which the game provides a default setting but anything beyond that ratio simply isn't supported. Considering that the graphics files are designed for a 1024*768 resolution it would be surprising if you would get anything acceptable for a full screen at your resolution.

[Alzender]

Well, 1920x1080 is a bit too small, I am loosing half of my screen filled with 2 huge black bars on this resolution.

I tried 2440x1440 on both campaign and battle maps and the result is much better. I would say only 25% of the screen is lost on that resolution but the units are much more detailed and sharp. The UI is much better too.

However I don't understand why it is so hard to get a decent result on this mod. I played hundreds of hours on DaC and never had these problems. Sure I couldn't use the UW 3440x1440 on campaign map but this resolution works fine on battle map. I don't get why it is different here.

[Gigantus]

It's the same base game, so it's not mod dependent. Have you tried if selecting the wide screen option in the game's graphic options does anything?

I am also puzzled why you would get a black border instead of a full, but distorted, screen.

Messing around manually with the game's CFG file is futile as it resets those values on the next start unless the file is made read only. I like to suggest to install my small mod set up and then have a look at it's CFg file (opens with Notepad), especially the [video] section, these values:

windowed = 1                        # allows for easy Alt+Tab, requires game video resolution the size of desktop or larger
borderless_window = 1                # removes border from windowed mode
battle_resolution = 1920 1080        # enter your desktop resolution
campaign_resolution = 1920 1080        # enter your desktop resolution

Make sure the first two values are as above, enter your desired resolution in the other two. Remove any hashtags (#) in front of the lines, NOT in front of the descriptions.

The main game's CFG file will adopt your final values as default once you have found (and played) a suitable setting.

[Alzender]

Thank you Gigantus for your help, I haven't tried your solution yet. I'll give it a try asap

[Gigantus]

Let me know your findings, I am interested.

[Alzender]

Ok Gigantus, here are my results:

I installed your bare geomod as requested and tried to mess around with the config file.
I had to remove the windowed option since the game opens up in a small window at the top left corner, whatever resolution is chosen.
Actually I quickly realized only a few values were taken into account.

The first one is my own desktop resolution: 3440x1440 : When I put this value in both campaign and battle resolution, the result is exactly the same than when I do it in game in the settings menu: Very distorted campaign map, battle map UI is screwed up. The odd thing is the result is not so bad in DaC or even SSHIP. The battle maps and campaign map are a bit distorted but this is far more enjoyable and I'm sure some might get used to it.
This resolution is the only one that fills up the entire screen.

I then tried 2460x1440, a resolution I can choose in the settings menu and works quite well for me since it's the best in term of image ratio and screen usage. I would say I can use 60% to 70% of my screen with two black bars on the sides taking roughly 20% each.
However, when I choose this resolution in geomod's config file, it is not taken into account and the game chooses and odd 1024x768 resolution by default. I don't know why your config file doesn't save it when I launch the game/other mods.

The last one, working this time, is the 1920x1080 resolution. But I have the same problem, two big black bars, maybe less larger than the 2460x1440 ones, since the image is a little bit distorted with that choice. I prefer the 2460x1440 result.

To conclude, I have exactly the same results than when I change the resolution in the in game settings.

Maybe there's no way to get a proper 3440x1440 resolution without image distortion.
Maybe this is me that did something wrong, but in any case, if you have any ideas or comments about all this, just tell me

[Gigantus]

Nope, won't be you. And my suggestion was kind of a hail Mary. It would seem that the game simply doesn't support that your screen's resolution. Last brain fart: what happens if you set your desktop, to let's say 1920*1080? Nowadays that should be a simple affair via the buttons on the screen or even the default video app and might result in an acceptable, full size game display. Aka if the mountain doesn't come to Moses...

[Alzender]

That was worth to try, unfortunatly the result is exactly the same, my desktop is reduced and black bars appear on the sides. When I change the resolution in game, I get the same results than above.

I think there's something directly related to the mod though, as 3440x1440 is acceptable in DaC or SSHIP but unplayable in ESTW...

Thanks for you help anyway, I appreciate you took time to try to resolve this !

[Gigantus]

Did we ever talk about the 'wide screen' button? Maybe that does something.

I would suggest to have a look at the CFG files of those two mods and check if they have any custom setting in the [video] section. There are a number of settings that are not available through the UI, so it's worth a shot. Knowing this game it's most likely something really obscure and barely related to the issue. Like an additional (left over) fog graphic file in the campaign directory causing zebra striping on the strategic map....

[Alzender]

I was quite busy these past two weeks and didn't answer you Gigantus, sorry.

I tried the widescreen button, and it seems to do nothing.
However, and that puzzles me, the new Unofficial patch from Jadli seems to improve things a bit. The campaign map is less distorted and I can zoom out more on the campaign map. It's not perfect, and the UI is all stretched out but maybe that difference between the vanilla mod and the patch will help the modders to understand what's going on with widescreens.