Aurora 4x

New Players => FAQ => Topic started by: theinevitable on December 15, 2010, 02:08:00 AM

Title: Resolution Fixes
Post by: theinevitable on December 15, 2010, 02:08:00 AM
Just wanted to drop by and share two fixes that I have found while trying to get this game to work.  Like many others I was highly intrigued by the allure of the game so I spent all day trying other to get it to work on my wide screen laptop which unfortunately doesn't have more than 1000px vertical.  I found two methods that can alleviate this problem, unlike countless software fixes like Sdesk that i tried.

1) Non Windows 7
This is the easiest and by far the best work around.  What it entails is changing the driver in windows for the monitor.  It will not damage the screen by pumping a higher resolution image to it, instead it will create scroll bars at the bottom and the right for the part of the image that cannot be displayed.

1) Go to display settings
2) Go to advanced settings
3) Click on the monitor tab
4) Click on properties
5) Click on the driver tab
6) Click on update driver
7) Click on browse manually
8) Click on "Let me pick from a list"
9) Uncheck the "Show compatabile hardware only" box
10) Under manufacturer make sure that "Standard Monitor Types" is selected
11) Under model select "Digital Flat Panel" and a resolution that you want to run at
12) click next, and apply
13) Go back to display settings and now you can choose a higher resolution than before, If you still cannot make sure that a box that says "high uncompatabile resolutions" is unchecked

2) Windows 7
Because the master thinks they know better than us, the ability to run non-native resolutions is disabled in windows 7 and I haven't found a way around it.  The only way I have found is to run the computer in pseudo dual monitor mode, which fixes the problem with the bottom of the games interface being chopped off.

1) Hold the windows key and hit P to bring up the projector enable screen.  While still holding down the windows key hit the P key again twice more to cycle over to the "Extend" option.  Hit enter to select.
2) Go to display settings and make sure that under Multiple Displays that "Extend these displays" is selected
3) Now you have to choose where you want the other monitor to be located in relation to your main screen.
a) At the top of the screen it has two images of monitors, with a 1 and a 2 over each screen respectively
b) Click on the 2nd screen and drag it so that it is positioned over the top screen
4) click apply and you are done

The game should now show the entirety of the interface.  If you cannot see part of it you need to drag the title bar up off the screen.  This can cause you to lose windows if you arent paying attention because you have no way of viewing the second monitor.  In order to find the windows once again:
1) Go to the taskbar and right click on the window in question
2) Click on "Move"
3) Left click without moving the mouse
4) Now as you move the mouse the window should be dragged with it, position the window where you want and left click again to drop it


Not the cleanest of fixes but the only ways I knew to enjoy your game sans ridiculous restrictions
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: ShadoCat on February 06, 2011, 11:55:26 PM
That's great.

One issue (Win 7). is that after moving the window up, I click again to drop it, it then snaps down to the top of the main viewing area. 

Do you know how to turn that off?

I think that this issue is what was keeping some of the other extension methods from working.

BTW, using this method, I can "lose the mouse" off the top of the screen.  That was disconcerting. :-}

I think that I'll turn multiple displays on and off when I'll be using Aurora.
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: Xeno The Morph on February 07, 2011, 05:20:53 PM
Just thought I'd add my two pennies  ;)

Personally I fix this (on a Win 7 laptop with only 1000px vertical resolution) by using the Resize Enable option (see www. digitallis. co. uk), which I found somewhere in the depths of this forum. 
This little utility basically hacks into all of the windows that you open AFTER it is started and allows you to resize them  ;D

You do need to be careful as most static windows don't deal gracefully with this (controls get moved & resized badly, and labels can be 'dislocated' from their boxes), but after a short while you learn too get around this and keep the windows in a usable (& sensible) format.  Basically you just resize the window ONCE in ONE movement, multiple resizes really mixes things up if your unlucky! Then keep that window open until you close Aurora!*

If you do go this route remember it is a Hack so it might not work so gracefully on your machine & I give no guarantees! (been fine on my machine though)

*Some windows need to be refreshed from the F2 'Pop & production' screen, but this is fairly uncommon, also a few windows have to be 'Manually' refreshed i. e.  the 'Task Group' task group list drop down box will keep old/removed task groups in its list until you reselect your empire from the top drop down list which will refresh the TG listing ;)
Also a few listview controls overlay check box controls (e. g.  on the Design View tab of the 'Class Design' window) or don't seem to scroll all the way to the bottom (i. e.  hidden rows) if they are really long, such as the 'Task Group' window and 'Leaders' windows Potential assignment list.  (surprisingly this hasn't ever been a real issue, if you REALLY need to know what is there, as you can use the arrow keys to select it anyway, and if you don't already know you can close the window and reopen it while looking before you resize it again)
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: stamasd on April 27, 2011, 03:32:06 PM
I have a win7 laptop with 1366x768 screen, and none of the resolution fixes here worked very well.  So I came up with my own.

I have VMware with a XP virtual machine.  Inside the VM I can change screen resolution to anything, not limited to physical screen.  You get scroll bars when you use a resolution higher than the physical one.  So I installed Aurora inside the VM, set the VM resolution to 1280x960 and it works great.
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 27, 2011, 06:34:08 PM
I have a win7 laptop with 1366x768 screen, and none of the resolution fixes here worked very well.  So I came up with my own.

I have VMware with a XP virtual machine.  Inside the VM I can change screen resolution to anything, not limited to physical screen.  You get scroll bars when you use a resolution higher than the physical one.  So I installed Aurora inside the VM, set the VM resolution to 1280x960 and it works great.

In case you didn't know, in the latest version there is a new option in the Game Parameters menu called Reduced Height Windows. This changes the maximum window height to 800.

Steve
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: Thiosk on April 27, 2011, 06:45:59 PM
strangely, nothing happened when i clicked that, so i've been rolling in tinytext mode
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: Brian Neumann on April 27, 2011, 07:34:09 PM
In case you didn't know, in the latest version there is a new option in the Game Parameters menu called Reduced Height Windows. This changes the maximum window height to 800.

Steve
Any chance of changing the max window height to 796.  I know this is tiny, but I was looking at new laptops and that seems to be a very common hight maximum for them.  It may not be needed as I havn't tried to play on such a machine, and all it might do is cut off a bit of the bottom buttons, but leave enough to work with.

Brian
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: stamasd on April 28, 2011, 07:50:02 PM
Quote from: Steve Walmsley link=topic=3117. msg34291#msg34291 date=1303947248
In case you didn't know, in the latest version there is a new option in the Game Parameters menu called Reduced Height Windows.  This changes the maximum window height to 800.

Steve

I do know, and it's not enough to be useful on a screen with 768H.   Even with the taskbar set to autohide, it's a matter of chance whether you're able to click the buttons at the bottom or not before the taskbar rises when you move the mouse pointer down.   I'm not trying to play a point-and-shoot game here.   :)

My VM solution takes care of that nicely. 
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: ShadoCat on May 01, 2011, 03:40:54 PM
Any chance of changing the max window height to 796.  I know this is tiny, but I was looking at new laptops and that seems to be a very common hight maximum for them.  It may not be needed as I havn't tried to play on such a machine, and all it might do is cut off a bit of the bottom buttons, but leave enough to work with.

Brian,

The 4px difference isn't noticeable.

The main problem with the reduced height mode is that the Win7 task bar steps on the bottom of the window.  For playing Aurora, I just turn the the task bar to auto minimize.
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: mikew on May 01, 2011, 04:15:21 PM
For Win7, another option that works better for me is to move the taskbar to the side of the screen (only for Aurora, as I can't actually stand to use it there).  I have a 768 vertical res laptop and no external monitor where I am now, but with this and the "phantom display" trick I believe I can actually use every screen with only minor issues with repositioning.

Mike
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: stamasd on May 10, 2011, 02:57:14 PM
Again, I can't say that on a 768H screen the game is playable even with all the tricks in this thread.  Even after moving the taskbar to the side (which I don't like) some elements of the game with reduced window height are inaccessible, such as for instance the bottom row of buttons on the Task Groups window.  And if you apply the phantom display method to that, yes you can drag the window up to access the buttons, but then it's impossible to drag it down again (the method listed in the first post doesn't work because right-clicking on the taskbar does not bring up a "move" option).

Overall, I still find that playing the game on a screen with only 768 vertical pixels is impossible if I don't use my virtual machine method.
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: LoSboccacc on May 30, 2011, 12:58:13 PM
There is a program called alt move that allows arbitrary reposition of windows.  It doesn't do magic but can help if you're off by few pixels
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: Snarf on June 10, 2011, 01:53:08 AM
Quote from: stamasd link=topic=3117.   msg34283#msg34283 date=1303936326
I have a win7 laptop with 1366x768 screen, and none of the resolution fixes here worked very well.     So I came up with my own.   

I have VMware with a XP virtual machine.     Inside the VM I can change screen resolution to anything, not limited to physical screen.     You get scroll bars when you use a resolution higher than the physical one.     So I installed Aurora inside the VM, set the VM resolution to 1280x960 and it works great.   

Hello!
stamasd, thank you for posting this solution.  My laptop as your operate max resolution of 1366x768 so I couldn't run Aurora properly.    Now everything is as it should be.    Making this work took me less than half hour (finding my XP CD, downloading WMware, installing, setting).    The other solutions weren't useful for me.   
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: shireknight on July 19, 2011, 04:48:38 PM
Found this game yesterday after someone mentioned it on the Total War forums, I started playing through the tutorial I found on your Wiki page, everything was fine until I got to the ship design tutorial and was mortified to find I could not see the buttons on the bottom of the page because my laptop only has a maximum height resolution of 768 :(

After a couple of hours hunting though I found a programme called "GiMe space desktop expander" which allows me to scroll my entire desktop up and down and combined with the reduced height windows option just about makes the game playable phew.
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: Beersatron on July 19, 2011, 07:19:45 PM
Found this game yesterday after someone mentioned it on the Total War forums, I started playing through the tutorial I found on your Wiki page, everything was fine until I got to the ship design tutorial and was mortified to find I could not see the buttons on the bottom of the page because my laptop only has a maximum height resolution of 768 :(

After a couple of hours hunting though I found a programme called "GiMe space desktop expander" which allows me to scroll my entire desktop up and down and combined with the reduced height windows option just about makes the game playable phew.

There is a stupendous learning curve and some nice 'features' that could stretch the patience of a saint but if you stick with it (and remember that it is free) then you will start to love it - a simple interface and an active imagination works wonders!
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: viperfan7 on January 16, 2012, 11:48:52 AM
well time to go hard mode, I'm going to try to get aurora to work on a netbook, 1024*600 resolution, think it can be done?
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: georgiaboy1966 on January 16, 2012, 06:52:50 PM
well time to go hard mode, I'm going to try to get aurora to work on a netbook, 1024*600 resolution, think it can be done?

I have done it. if you are running windows XP, you can do it by expanding the screen resolution to the needed size.
If ysing windows 7, then you need a work-around program. I will check when I get home to see which one I used. It was a program for testing other operations software.
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: Trent on January 19, 2012, 04:23:23 AM
I have a Windows Vista laptop with a 1366x768 screen size

I tried to extend the resolution (with the first method), but the box "hide modes that this monitor cannot display" which allow me to try an higher resolution, is grey (and not accessible). 

So, is there a solution to access this box ? I search for this but I don't find any solution.  They just explain that it's maybe not a good thing for the screen or the graphic card.
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: viperfan7 on January 19, 2012, 11:58:49 AM
I have done it. if you are running windows XP, you can do it by expanding the screen resolution to the needed size.
If ysing windows 7, then you need a work-around program. I will check when I get home to see which one I used. It was a program for testing other operations software.


please do, stupid thing is running windows 7 starter edition, and I haven't found any programs that would allow me to scroll the desktop
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: georgiaboy1966 on January 19, 2012, 12:39:51 PM
The Program is VMware, is a program for IT people to run multiply operating systems on the same computer. Unfortunatly, it does not replace your normal operating system, so it dividesthe memory between both systems.

You will have Vista/W7 running in the backgroud, with VM running on top, but seperate.
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: viperfan7 on January 21, 2012, 11:52:08 PM
I don't think this netbook would have enough RAM to be able to run any OS in VM ware except for maybe some light weight linux distros
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: LoSboccacc on March 16, 2012, 04:58:23 PM
please do, stupid thing is running windows 7 starter edition, and I haven't found any programs that would allow me to scroll the desktop

AltMove
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: anonguy on February 24, 2014, 01:09:37 PM
my monitor size is 1440x900 I can see everything just fine accept for "assign" button and things in its place when the window is as big as the govoner screen. . . . . I am not sure how to fix this as I have not gotten the dual monitor fix thing to work
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: MarcAFK on February 24, 2014, 09:15:15 PM
Did you turn on "reduced size windows?"
Your screen resolution is the same as mine and the main problem I have is the task groups screen cuts off the bottom buttons, but I can drag the window up a few pixels from the title bar which shows the top half of them( the pop up tool tips help here"
I should note that you need to drag your task  bar to one side to get extra screen height, also one problem is that the new order template covers up the current cargo window.
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: Kentucky6996 on March 15, 2014, 03:20:13 AM
i have 1280x1024 screen resolution however the right side of the game doesn't show.  it's cut off.  any work around? i'm trying out the VM route now but any way to get it to run on my native os? win 7 64bit
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: Griswel on March 24, 2014, 12:59:00 PM
i have 1280x1024 screen resolution however the right side of the game doesn't show.  it's cut off.  any work around? i'm trying out the VM route now but any way to get it to run on my native os? win 7 64bit

I did it for having 768 top to bottom, but the little program AltMove solved my issues.  It takes a little more work to get some things done, and resizing windows makes some things disappear, which was inconvenient for me and might be more serious for you.  But it's real easy to DL and use and is the only reason I can play on the laptop.
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: eTo on April 15, 2014, 05:50:13 PM
There is also this little program called Infinite Screen (hxxp: ynea. futureware. at/)
It can be set up to scroll when pushing with mouse on screen edges, or while holding hotkey.  Works for me better then AltMove.
Title: Re: Resolution Fixes
Post by: Tor Cha on January 08, 2017, 02:32:58 PM
After a couple of hours hunting though I found a programme called "GiMe space desktop expander" which allows me to scroll my entire desktop up and down and combined with the reduced height windows option just about makes the game playable phew.

Is that the Complete Program Name?? If so Where did you find it? Can you post a Link to it?