murph wrote:
You're right, they have come down in price, but are they a substantial portion of the market?



You have to take into account the % of players that actually use that resolution. I'd say that the devs' emphasis on optimizing a particular screen resolution is roughly correlated to the % of users that actually use it (there may even be additional technical hurdles as well to optimizing, but I'm admittedly not familiar with developing games whatsoever).



Best numbers I could find are % users on Steam. http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey





2560x1440 = 0.98%





1920x1080 = 32.3%

1366x768 = 21.6%

1280x1024 = 7.79%

1680x1050 = 7.67%

1600x900 = 7.60%

1440x900 = 6.44%

1024x768 = 3.18%

1280x800 = 2.97%

1920x1200 = 2.71%

1360x768 = 2.70%

you left 800x600 out. Gosh I hate in when people ignore the sub-one percent

Maybe it's just me - but I think I see why almost 33% of the Steam Users stick with 1920 x 1080 - almost all the Games support this size and run fine on it (e.g. ES too).



As for 2560 x 1440 I've never seen any of my friend having problems with it, but haven't tested with ES.



But you are right, the Zoom could be better.

If the games resolution doesn't scale to such levels, then why not just use a lower setting so the interface is still readable?



Hell I still play games that require resolutions of like less the one thousand, games like theme hospital were never designed for a four digit resolution, so I don't get the problem.



Some games are designed at particular resolutions, its just how they work.

Autocthon wrote:
Requiring all the latest hardware is one thing (they shouldn't) but there's an issue of scalability. The game should at least scale visually into whatever you want to use it at.

In theory. But most high resolutions are still in the "developmental" stage, so support is hard to give and fairly stupid to give because people will blame the game for bad performance.



By "developmental" I am referring to the state at which a technology (in this case a resolution) is technically fully developed but all the bugs haven't been screened out yet.

anc42 wrote:
Really, does a game have to use all those advanced screen resolutions to be a good game? I'd rather they concentrate on stable programming and a deep immersive experience than putting too much to worry about catering to the "newest thing" in hardware every month or so. I've got an AMD Dual Core 3.2 Ghz with 8 GIGs of RAM, a 1 GIG PCIEXpres Nvidia Pixel Shader 5.0 video card, and a Creative Labs X-Fi sound card in my new system and the game works just spiffy now that they appear to have fixed the memory leak problem in the newest patch. Heck, it even ran just spiffy when I was running it on my old Pentium IV Hyperthreader 3.0 Ghz (which is odd, since the game supposedly requires a dual-core). Regardless, I'm glad there is ONE developer that isn't going overboard on the hardware requirements. Thank you, Amplitude, and God bless all.

Requiring all the latest hardware is one thing (they shouldn't) but there's an issue of scalability. The game should at least scale visually into whatever you want to use it at.

Really, does a game have to use all those advanced screen resolutions to be a good game? I'd rather they concentrate on stable programming and a deep immersive experience than putting too much to worry about catering to the "newest thing" in hardware every month or so. I've got an AMD Dual Core 3.2 Ghz with 8 GIGs of RAM, a 1 GIG PCIEXpres Nvidia Pixel Shader 5.0 video card, and a Creative Labs X-Fi sound card in my new system and the game works just spiffy now that they appear to have fixed the memory leak problem in the newest patch. Heck, it even ran just spiffy when I was running it on my old Pentium IV Hyperthreader 3.0 Ghz (which is odd, since the game supposedly requires a dual-core). Regardless, I'm glad there is ONE developer that isn't going overboard on the hardware requirements. Thank you, Amplitude, and God bless all.

Gameslayer989 wrote:
Hmm... it appears my being taken too seriously syndrome strikes again!

Hmm... it appears my being taken too seriously syndrome strikes again!



1600 X 900 is simply the cheaper option to 1600 x 1024, and i don't notice really any true difference at all, meanwhile 1280 x 1024 is just awful. How can some people still use 4:3 i have no idea....



.... yeah sorry if you wanted solid arguments :P

Gameslayer989 wrote:
Wow I didn't know more people used 1280 x 1024 and 1600 x 1050 over the awesomeness that is 1600 x 900.

Learn something new every day...

My second and third displays are 1280x1024... I prefer them over 1600x900 for peripheral screens, and if I want widescreen I go 1080p. So I'm not exactly sure what you mean...

Gameslayer989 wrote:
Wow I didn't know more people used 1280 x 1024 and 1600 x 1050 over the awesomeness that is 1600 x 900.

Learn something new every day...

One of my screens is 1680 * 1050; enlighten me why this is bad?

Wow I didn't know more people used 1280 x 1024 and 1600 x 1050 over the awesomeness that is 1600 x 900.

Learn something new every day...

Stealth_Hawk wrote:
you left 800x600 out. Gosh I hate in when people ignore the sub-one percent

If I didn't, I would have been here all day typing numbers! Looking at the list on Steam, there's way more resolutions than I knew existed.

Ok, just what am I talking about?



Quad HD Monitors, that's what... as my 6-year old Samsung 22 inch 1680x1050 is stating to die (capacitors are giving out, takes 20-30 minutes to warm up), I browsed the hardware web sites and found out all about the "new hotness" in monitors, namely the Korean-branded Samsung PLS 27 inch 2560x1440 monitors you can get for a steal.. So I went for it, picked up the X-Star one (QNIX is the other brand talked about, but I wanted a matte screen) via Amazon for $299 (w/ free shipping + no tax hehe).... just a stunning display (and zero bad pixels, oh yea!).



So, I starting trying out the few game I had that I hoped would really take advantage of this tech... and Endless Space is just a total fail with this hardware:



1) no scalable UI. .most of you already know all about this, been talked to death on thread elsewhere...



2) Just *horrible* zoom controls in the galaxy view, one level you can barely see your Stars you control, next zoom "notch" closer in you can often ONLY see one star, have to drag the map to make sure you ship is going to the right destination...



3) Lack of "adequate" galaxy sizes in the game setup menu... I mean c'mon, space is supposed to be BIG! And part of the point of having all those star lanes is to create tactical choices/dilemmas (ok from *which* direction is the enemy gonna attack me from??).. battles is space aren't suppose to look like WWI-style trench warfare ya know... (And yea i know they are mods to get around this somewhat.. but that's no excuse, not several months after release!)





But what bothers me even more is to see how much better Gal Civ II, a 5-year old game does with 2560x1440 support than Endless Space (hell I can almost see the whole tech tree on screen AND be able to read it! Well almost..)... trying out Civ 5 now (but that game has it's own issues, namely the mod scene is all but dead due to much worse support from the devs there than Amplitude by comparison, only mod really worth a damn, Civ Nights is on life support at best :-( )





I can only hope Amplitude addresses these problems eventually.. otherwise no point in me even looking at the new games they are working on, there will be other turn-based 4x game devs that will cater to this now VERY affordable tech...

You're right, they have come down in price, but are they a substantial portion of the market?



You have to take into account the % of players that actually use that resolution. I'd say that the devs' emphasis on optimizing a particular screen resolution is roughly correlated to the % of users that actually use it (there may even be additional technical hurdles as well to optimizing, but I'm admittedly not familiar with developing games whatsoever).



Best numbers I could find are % users on Steam. http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey





2560x1440 = 0.98%





1920x1080 = 32.3%

1366x768 = 21.6%

1280x1024 = 7.79%

1680x1050 = 7.67%

1600x900 = 7.60%

1440x900 = 6.44%

1024x768 = 3.18%

1280x800 = 2.97%

1920x1200 = 2.71%

1360x768 = 2.70%

murph wrote:
No offense filmay, but this is what it comes down to. Got a $3000 sony 4k tv? Awesome, but there's no hardware or real demand for it (due to few people even knowing about higher res screens). Yes, computer monitors have been higher than 1080 for a while, but you have to consider that most games are developed for multiple platforms....and Xbox/PS are just 'upgrading' from 720. Maybe next gen consoles will make higher-res compatible games more commonplace. As far as PC exclusive games like ES, I feel compatibility will get better as higher-res screens come down in price and overtake the 1080 market (will be slow, IMO, but the demand IS there).



Edit: Again, no offense, but this sort of reminds me of people who complain their new $800 video cards, rev. 1.0, don't work perfectly with a some game. New technology has its downsides.

Of course if the monitor was over $1000 I would understand how developers would not be expected to plan for this tech in their UI development, or even $600.. but at $300? That's a different price category all together (and like I said, it's not like I got this direct from some unknown vendor overseas, you can get these Samsung PLS-based monitors from NewEgg and Amazon *right now*... and if you absolutely refuse to by an unbranded one, more well-known brands aren't that much higher; I remember BestBuy selling an ASUS version for like $530 or so...

axhed wrote:


in short: congrats on the awesome hardware that 99% of gamers don't have, and get used to games not working perfectly on it.

No offense filmay, but this is what it comes down to. Got a $3000 sony 4k tv? Awesome, but there's no hardware or real demand for it (due to few people even knowing about higher res screens). Yes, computer monitors have been higher than 1080 for a while, but you have to consider that most games are developed for multiple platforms....and Xbox/PS are just 'upgrading' from 720. Maybe next gen consoles will make higher-res compatible games more commonplace. As far as PC exclusive games like ES, I feel compatibility will get better as higher-res screens come down in price and overtake the 1080 market (will be slow, IMO, but the demand IS there).



Edit: Again, no offense, but this sort of reminds me of people who complain their new $800 video cards, rev. 1.0, don't work perfectly with a some game. New technology has its downsides.

filmay wrote:
But what bothers me even more is to see how much better Gal Civ II, a 5-year old game does with 2560x1440 support than Endless Space (hell I can almost see the whole tech tree on screen AND be able to read it! Well almost..)...

LOL i was in the gc2 beta back when i paid $1000 for a 24" 1920x1200 lcd monitor... that would have been december 2005.... and i made this same thread in their forums.



that's really not a fair comparison, because at the time stardock's primary product was a highly customizable gui that sat on top of windows. galciv2 was basically a 4x game that they shoehorned into their gui. all of the menus and windows and info screens were accessible and customizable in the .xml files (or whatever the equivalent was back then, i didn't get that deep into the beta)



in short: congrats on the awesome hardware that 99% of gamers don't have, and get used to games not working perfectly on it.

filmay wrote:




Yea like 1920x1080 was extensively tested during design (from a usability/customer satisfaction standpoint...) lol, 1024x768 seems more like what they prefer.. and while yea most consumers aren't aware of resolutions beyond 1080 yet (give the TV manufactures 3 years, that will all change now that 3D TVs are dead, they have to start pushing 4K now), indie designers can't design for the masses, they should *expect* their customers to live closer to bleeding edge tech...

Meh, so we disagree on resolution. I have never encountered problems with 1080p, such as the eye-bleeding thing, but peoples preferencesare peoples preferences so I respect your view.

Why would the mechanics need to change? Only if the designers don't balance the empire-wide bonuses you can select between those that scale well and those that don't... and they have seemed to be somewhat aware of this issue...

I'm talking about the fact that (since Disharmony) huge empires collapse very fast. This is a good thing, however, since you can no longer recklessly expand and get away with it. But the catch is that on a bigger galaxy size than 'Huge' each player, understandably, owns more systems. (You can try this with 'The Alternative galaxy generator') This means that just owning your fair share of systems for the galaxy size sends plummeting, and can only be remedied in the late game. While the argument is made that its okay, since all empires suffer from it, it slows the game down pretty badly.

Not using string drive is too slow, you have the time to respond (*Unless* your empire's detection infrastructure is so weak that you never see the invaders plod through the empty space, but that's your fault)... actually I like Amplitude's balance with string travel vs. non-string travel... I just want more strings to have to worry about (again, a galaxy is ***supposed to be BIG!!*** Geez even the Star Wars movies get this point across, if only dimly.. Star Wars:Rebellion also did a real good job with this design mechanic)

With late game techs non-string use is acceptable for invasions, in my experience. Besides, in bigger galaxies as we both seem to want, forces stacked at string drives, slash wormholes would have a very hard time reacting effectively to even a relatively large invasion force, as it would take them a long time to reach the "landing point"

filmay wrote:
>> 1024x768 seems more like what they prefer..

You're spot on, it's obvious the UI was optimized for an Nx768 display. Playing this game at 1920x1080 for a few hours makes my eyes bleed from reading microscopic text. I actually pull out my laptop from time to time just so I can play at 1366x768 and not have eye strain. FWIW you can always force the monitor into a lower res (fullscreen maintaining aspect ratio) but you'll lose all crispness -- the fonts will be larger but depending on your monitor, extremely fuzzy. It's a toss up to what is worse.



It's a lose/lose situation. Note this isn't a problem exclusive to ES, there are many newer games that have scaling issues on high res monitors. I'm looking at you CK2/EU4.

filmay wrote:
>>Sorry bro, but 1920x1080 is usually what people are satisfied with, so...



Yea like 1920x1080 was extensively tested during design (from a usability/customer satisfaction standpoint...)

I hope this is sarcasm, because even 1080 works like shit.

The zoom is horrible at best, the building queues are ♥♥♥♥ed beyond measure (only 4, without the option to extend) and no option to customise it.

>>Sorry bro, but 1920x1080 is usually what people are satisfied with, so...



Yea like 1920x1080 was extensively tested during design (from a usability/customer satisfaction standpoint...) lol, 1024x768 seems more like what they prefer.. and while yea most consumers aren't aware of resolutions beyond 1080 yet (give the TV manufactures 3 years, that will all change now that 3D TVs are dead, they have to start pushing 4K now), indie designers can't design for the masses, they should *expect* their customers to live closer to bleeding edge tech...



>> Bad zoom settings? Yeah. Bigger galaxies? For sure, but mechanics would need to vary from size to size.



Why would the mechanics need to change? Only if the designers don't balance the empire-wide bonuses you can select between those that scale well and those that don't... and they have seemed to be somewhat aware of this issue...



>> But a better AI (yes, the new one is not good enough) Would fix the "WWI" trench warfare. If the AI had the brains to sneak attack by Not using string drive, they could actually be a viable enemy.

Not using string drive is too slow, you have the time to respond (*Unless* your empire's detection infrastructure is so weak that you never see the invaders plod through the empty space, but that's your fault)... actually I like Amplitude's balance with string travel vs. non-string travel... I just want more strings to have to worry about (again, a galaxy is ***supposed to be BIG!!*** Geez even the Star Wars movies get this point across, if only dimly.. Star Wars:Rebellion also did a real good job with this design mechanic)



>> (btw, it isn't WWI trench style in MP)



Oh ok, wouldn't know about that, only interested in single player gaming myself (at least when is comes to 4x strategy games)..

Sorry bro, but 1920x1080 is usually what people are satisfied with, so...



Bad zoom settings? Yeah. Bigger galaxies? For sure, but mechanics would need to vary from size to size. But a better AI (yes, the new one is not good enough) Would fix the "WWI" trench warfare. If the AI had the brains to sneak attack by Not using string drive, they could actually be a viable enemy. (btw, it isnt WWI trench style in MP)

1600x900 LCD on my 14inch laptop.



But yes, definitely bad zoom settings.

filmay wrote:
2560x1440 monitors you can get for a steal..........

Jeez, I still have an 800x600 on my home desktop.....