[casual_games] Full Screen or Windowed Mode?

[Ricky Haggett]

I'd suggest producing art resources at the highest resolution you're ever
likely to need. For example, if it's at all possible you might target xbla
at some point, you'd want to be able to display your game at a higher
resolution than 800x600 (or 1024x768).

We have an in-house engine which currently handles everything at 1280x960
internally, but allows switching between fullscreen and windowed, and
scaling the resolution all the way down to 640x480. On startup it can choose
a suitable resolution for the machine its running on.

We make all our artwork for a resolution of 1280x960 - if we hit a
memory/filesize limit before release we scale down the largest images -
usually the background ones (scaling the images down by a fixed amount is
trivial with a Photoshop action or similar; obviously the impact on your
game code depends on how it's been written).

Ricky

-----Original Message-----
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of James Terry
Sent: 14 January 2008 13:54
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [casual_games] Full Screen or Windowed Mode?


>From what I have seen from the casual portals, games are required to run

at a minimum of 800x600 and start by default in full-screen mode. There
are a good number that are 640x480, and that's the largest mode they go
to, but rather than force the resolution in full screen, they will
stretch to the current resolution of the monitor.

A lot of laptops run at 800x600, especially if you are hooking them up
to a non-HD projector or S-Video cable, as higher than 800x600 will
require scrolling on a standard definition TV.

When you start getting into the new monitors and such, like the 24 inch
widescreens that run a native resolution of 1920x1200, a 640x480 game is
very small, and for the multi-taskers, windowed mode is a priority.


>From a filesize standpoint, it can be a good idea. If you take a

1024x768 game and reduce the resolution to 800x600, you are cutting out
more than half of the filesize. The drop from 800x600 to 640x480 is only
about a third of the filesize reduced.

James R. Terry
Game Developer
Yatec Games 
(225) 274-1550 Ext. 104
jterry at yatecgames.com
www.yatecgames.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org
[mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Lum
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 4:45 PM
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [casual_games] Full Screen or Windowed Mode?

Hi Everyone,

I think people are misunderstanding my question. I expect that 95% of 
users are running at least in 1024x768.
However, 95% of casual games are developed in 800x600.

The real question is how many casual gamers play in Full Screen Mode. I 
expect that most casual gamers won't be able to tell a huge difference 
between 640x480 and 800x600 while in Full Screen Mode. However, this 
will very obvious in Windowed Mode especially if they are running at 
resolutions higher than 1024x768.

Additionally, I don't recommend any developer to developer their game in

higher than 800x600 resolution for filesize reasons and for the lack of 
windowed mode support on 1024x768 monitors.

Andrew Lum

Aaron Murray wrote:

> Andrew - hopefully someone will chime in with a link to support their

> statements, but we just went through this decision and I was quite

> suprised by the results...something like 95% of users run 800x600 or

> higher, and 60%+ run 1024x768 or higher/wider.

>

> In addition, if someone is still running 640x480, what are the chances

> that they are:

> A. using a PC with enough ram/disk to play your game

> B. going to purchase it

>

> Just my 2 cents. Like I said, hopefully someone can provide a link to

> some recent portal stats.

>

> -Aaron

> Tandem Games

>

> On Jan 11, 2008 4:26 PM, Andrew Lum <andrew at fugazo.com> wrote:

>   

>> Hi Everyone,

>>

>> Fugazo is working on a new game and we are considering making the

entire

>> game in 640x480 resolution to save on space. We've decided that the

art

>> style looks fine in Full Screen 640x480 but we're not sure how many

>> users play casual games in Window Mode. At 1024x768 a 640x480

windowed

>> game isn't too bad but we're concerned about users who have a

1280x800,

>> or 1280x1024, or higher.

>>

>> Does anyone have any sort of data on what percentage of casual gamers

>> play games in Windowed Mode? Additionally, does anyone have any data

on

>> what percentage of customers have monitors set to higher than

1024x768?

>>

>> Thanks!

>>

>> Andrew Lum

>>

>> --

>> ____________

>> Andrew Lum

>> andrew at fugazo.com

>> 206-349-7805

>> CEO, President

>> Fugazo, Inc.

>>

>> _______________________________________________

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>>

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Q

>

>   



-- 
____________
Andrew Lum
andrew at fugazo.com
206-349-7805
CEO, President
Fugazo, Inc.

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