Resolution

[Wolfar]

Do not know if this will help or not.

If it helps 1 then the post is worth it.

I reloaded the Steam game of SHIII.

Kept getting the cannot enable 3d crud.

I have a high-end system unless asked I will leave it at that.

I have a 4K 32 Inch computer MONITOR... "Not a TV..."

I set the 32 Inch for 1024x768.

The game runs in BIG WIDE SCREEN!

This is all vanilla I played it big TIME back in the day.

At 66 years old everything in nice and BIG WIDE screen!

[Hooston]

You may not be using many pixels but they are THE BIGGEST DAMN PIXELS IN THE WORLD!!! Woohoo!!!
These days 1024x768 is often used as a default resolution for setting things up when everything goes wrong, so it is widely supported.
Most SH3 mods are about graphical pulchritude, the gameplay in vanilla is not that much worse. I'd miss some of the extra ships and aeroplanes.


The trick to avoid the "cannot enable 3D" trap is:
The monitor AND the graphics card have to both support the resolution needed by your flavour of the game. Both the resolution e.g. 1920x1080 and the refresh rate e.g. 60Hz. Windows display settings or Nvidia settings will give you a list of available modes you can select manually. A modern HDMI monitor will talk nicely to the graphics card and agree the set of available modes, but some old monitors will sulk and give you a black screen when trying to use some modes offered by the computer.
For widescreen mods there is a d3d9.ini file in the directory with sh3.exe. This contains something like:

[ENGINE]
DisplayWidth=1366
DisplayHeight=768
Refreshrate=false

Note I have Refreshrate set to false - this turns off that part of the check and gives you a better chance

You can change these settings to match the hardware you have and/or the GUI mod you are running. If the hardware supports the settings in d3d9.ini you will get something displayed, though it may look a bit strange if it does not match the mod.

[Wolfar]

Originally Posted by Hooston

You may not be using many pixels but they are THE BIGGEST DAMN PIXELS IN THE WORLD!!! Woohoo!!!
These days 1024x768 is often used as a default resolution for setting things up when everything goes wrong, so it is widely supported.
Most SH3 mods are about graphical pulchritude, the gameplay in vanilla is not that much worse. I'd miss some of the extra ships and aeroplanes.


The trick to avoid the "cannot enable 3D" trap is:
The monitor AND the graphics card have to both support the resolution needed by your flavour of the game. Both the resolution e.g. 1920x1080 and the refresh rate e.g. 60Hz. Windows display settings or Nvidia settings will give you a list of available modes you can select manually. A modern HDMI monitor will talk nicely to the graphics card and agree the set of available modes, but some old monitors will sulk and give you a black screen when trying to use some modes offered by the computer.
For widescreen mods there is a d3d9.ini file in the directory with sh3.exe. This contains something like:

[ENGINE]
DisplayWidth=1366
DisplayHeight=768
Refreshrate=false

Note I have Refreshrate set to false - this turns off that part of the check and gives you a better chance

You can change these settings to match the hardware you have and/or the GUI mod you are running. If the hardware supports the settings in d3d9.ini you will get something displayed, though it may look a bit strange if it does not match the mod.

Thank you for the input. Kind of a pain to keep changing the resolution but damn it sure looks good!

[Hooston]

I've just switched to a very old machine with a 1600 x 900 display. As an added complication I'm running the game using the Wine compatibility program on Linux. The Nvidia drivers will not let me use 1366 x 768 even though the monitor is happy with it, so there are no widescreen mods that run properly.
At the moment I'm using 1600x900 in d3d9.ini to run a 1366x768 GUI mod. This causes all the 2D graphics to sit in the bottom left corner whilst the 3d stuff extends underneath it to the edge of the display. Looks bizarre, but works. You've inspired me to try 1024x768 and no widescreen. I'm going to try Fifi's NYGM hardcore without widescreen, I'll tell you how I get on.

[Wolfar]

Originally Posted by Hooston

I've just switched to a very old machine with a 1600 x 900 display. As an added complication I'm running the game using the Wine compatibility program on Linux. The Nvidia drivers will not let me use 1366 x 768 even though the monitor is happy with it, so there are no widescreen mods that run properly.
At the moment I'm using 1600x900 in d3d9.ini to run a 1366x768 GUI mod. This causes all the 2D graphics to sit in the bottom left corner whilst the 3d stuff extends underneath it to the edge of the display. Looks bizarre, but works. You've inspired me to try 1024x768 and no widescreen. I'm going to try Fifi's NYGM hardcore without widescreen, I'll tell you how I get on.

It may be my 32" 4K computer monitor that does it in wide screen. I can not imagine most monitors running wide screen on 1024x768. Just got done with another foray out into the Atlantic. Sure looks great and runs very stable!

[Hooston]

Well I've spent an afternoon playing with graphics settings on my Linux PC and 1600x900 analogue input monitor.
1024x768 on my "1600x900" monitor runs OK but is horribly stretched because of the different aspect ratio. If I deselect fullscreen in SHIII I get the vanilla game running nicely in a 1024x768 window on my 1600x900 linux desktop, which is kinda cool.
I can persuade Nvidia settings to give me 1366x768 by remapping the pixels onto 1600x900 or alternatively by just using a letterbox in the middle of the display but it refuses to output a true 1366x768 mode. This is annoying because the (very slow) open source nouveau drivers will give me 1366x768 on the same hardware. There are probably some other settings I can try - it is very likely that playing with the graphics card settings would do the trick on windows.
The hacked d3d9.dll that comes with the widescreen mod knows I'm cheating and gives me "cannot enable 3d" with my nvidia hacks and also ignores various tweaks I've tried to the Wine program. Deselecting fullscreen in SHIII seems to make no difference.
So I'm sticking with running 1366x768 widescreen MaGUI on a 1600x900 screen and ignoring the fact that the 3D world extends past the 2D graphics.
Does anyone know where the source code for the hacked d3d9,dll in the widescreen mods lives? I think they are all descended from the same mod. It's got me curious as to whether the code could be updated to be a bit more flexible.