Re: CF: the begining of crossfire

[David Andrew Michael Noelle <>]

> On Thu, 9 Sep 1999, Kjetil Torgrim Homme wrote:
> > First: What screen resolution should we target?  1280x1024?  Let's say
> > half of it is used for the viewport, that is 800x800 pixels.  Next,
> > how many tiles should the viewport consist of?  With 24x24 pixel
> > tiles, there is room for 33x33 tiles.  The 32x32 pixels => 25x25
> > tiles.
> [snip]

Hwei Sheng TEOH wrote:
> Objection... ;-) I am running at 1024x768 and I'm probably going to let it
> stay that way, because my monitor is a 14" and 1280x1024 would blind me.
> My point is, we shouldn't assume too high a requirement especially for
> resolution, because not everyone has (or wants to use) 1280x1024. For example,
> when I first started playing CF, I was actually at 800x600 (although of
> course, that *is* a little low, and I put up with badly shrunk display
> panels).

    Why not have it both ways?  Make the decision of whether to use the
small 16x16 tiles or the new large tiles a client option.  The small tiles
are still needed for the inventory anyway, so they're not going away any
time soon.  It shouldn't be too hard to register that switch with the server
so it knows whether to send you only small tiles or small tiles for
inventory and large for map.

And now today's math lesson:
		16 x 16 tiles	24 x 24 tiles	32 x 32 tiles
11 x 11 map	176x176	window	264x264 window	352x352 window
17 x 17 map	272x272	window	408x408 window	544x544 window

    When the new graphics are ready, your map view might take up too much
space if you're running at 800x600, but at 1024x768 of higher you should be
okay.  The graphics would fill half your screen and you could arrange the
text in the other half of the screen.  Still, I would recommend that when
the graphics are expanded to include the larger tiles and more of them, both
should be client options.  By all means, default to the big, pretty picture,
but for those unfortunate souls who are trapped in aging hardware, keep the
low-resolution, low-bandwidth options around.  At least until they actually
get in the way.


-- 
            -Dave Noelle,                 
            -the Villa Straylight,  http://www.straylight.org
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Disclaimer: U.C.L.A. doesn't share my opinions; life isn't that good.

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