XWA Upgrade

Does anyone know how to adjust the video settings in XWA to play in true widescreen format WITHOUT making everything look distorted? Thanks.

did you try changing the resolution under settings?

Andrew<P>The problem is that the game's resolution settings all assume a 4:3 aspect ratio, which is what the CRTs of the time all used. I forgot what the exact aspect ratio is for a wide-screen LCD (which is the same a screen in a movie theater), but I'm sure no resolution setting in the game follows it.<P>Edit: Aspect ratio for a movie screen is 16:9.<p>[ 14 July 2005: Message edited by: Wildstar, Blue 9 ]

Oh ok.....

I'm hoping maybe there's an ini file somewhere that could be tweaked either by replacing the existing default resolution or by simply adding another option to the setup screen so that u can select a widescreen resolution.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by elvandrik:<BR><STRONG>I'm hoping maybe there's an ini file somewhere that could be tweaked either by replacing the existing default resolution or by simply adding another option to the setup screen so that u can select a widescreen resolution.</STRONG><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Not going to happen. End of story.<P>Topic closed, it can't happen

There may be a third-party utility that can convert video data meant for 4:3 screens to 16:9, but that might make the game so slow that it's not worth playing.

It doesn't work. It would just stretch things rather than actually change the resolution to a 16:9 aspect so I'd be more worried that it'd look like crap

Never say never.
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/fo ... hp?t=13717

I've already posted this in the Software/Hardware forum, but I thought I'd repeat it here in case anyone missed it (I only ever really look in the Pilot's Lounge and XWAU forums). Last year someone posted a hack on the Widescreen Gaming Forum for using custom resolutions (including widescreen) for X-Wing Alliance, and I'm not sure if anyone noticed it here. Anyway the link is http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/fo ... hp?t=13717

Let me know if you get any joy with this - I intend to try this next time I'm in front of my desktop. Also I'd be interested to know which of the various font fixes works best with it.

Thank you for posting that, Legion!!!

Yes, thanks for the very helpful post, Legion. Now I haven't tried any TIE cockpits yet, but would I need to reinstall all the TIE opts with the 1152 x 864 cockpit resolutions? I currently have the 1280 x 1024 ones installed and I don't know if they'll work with the game thinking it's using 1152 x 864 when I'm actually using 1680 x 1050.

Holy crap! I just tried it and it works perfectly!

XWA on 1680x1050 looks so beautiful!

Eheheh... nice to see the positive comments
Legion, it seems you got a point
I'll try it out soon on a 16:9 screen
May i propose to put it to stick or even in guides?

General_Trageton wrote:XWA on 1680x1050 looks so beautiful!

Pics or it didn't happen.

Legion wrote:Pics or it didn't happen.

There you go!
Clickie
Clickie
Clickie
Clickie
Clickie

Impressive... most impressive. Looking forward to trying this out myself.

Hi General_Trageton...what kind of mod is this on those pictures? I`ve never seen it!

The first four are from my Blue Phantom Project
The last one is from my Episode III: Battle over Coruscant Shipset

I tried this and had to reinstall in the end, but that's because my resolution only goes up to 1024x768 in game. I'm on a laptop and its native res is 1280x800. The lines for 1024x768 aren't indicated, so I tried it in the 800x600 field, and it works! It's beautiful...but it only works for a single run. If I exit and run it again, it won't open, so it's not practical. Yeah, I backed up the exe, but it doesn't always work. Subsequent tries were a crapshoot. It doesn't like being renamed or moved. Sucks for me. It would probably work if I replaced the lines where the 1024x768 resolution is in the exe. I don't suppose anyone could indicate where those are?

Sorry to hear you're having troubles. I'm not sure if this will work, but what you could try to do is use the normal solution (1152x864) and then select 1152x864 in the Config.cfg file. The file is in the base XWA directory and if you open it with a text editor you'll find a line for "screenres1". If I'm not mistaken...

0 - 640x480
1 - 800x600
2 - 1024x768
3 - 1152x864
4 - 1280x1024

And I assume 5 is 1600x1200, though mine doesn't go that high.

I was able to find the codes for 640x480, 800x600, 1152x864, and 1600x1200 pretty easily, but I had some issues with 640x480 when I first tried it. Let me know if the above solution works and if it doesn't we can try something else.

Thanks for the help, but unfortunately, it didn't work. I tried both the fields for 1162x864 and 800x600 and neither of them worked. I get an error message from the launcher which says...

Unable to start the X-wing Alliance game program. Check to insure that the X-wing Alliance CD-ROM disc is inserted into the CD-ROM drive and that the game is installed or try running Alliance.EXE directly. Also make sure you have the latest DirectX drivers installed on your system.

Yes, I have have the disc in.

If I run the .exe directly I get another error message...

XWINGALLIANCE.EXE is not a valid Win32 application.

It won't even start up once this time, worse than when I initially tried getting this to work. I would think it has something to do with my graphics card, but that doesn't explain why it worked the first time I tried it. I tried it with vanilla XWA v2.02 and after installing the UCP. I haven't made any changes to my system since then, other than reinstalling XWA. I think I have DirectX 9.

Well the problem certainly isn't your computer, because I just tried it on my older system which has a 1280x800 LCD and I ran into what looks like your initial problem. I can mod the exe, start a battle and it will work fine, but then if I go back to concourse and start another battle the game will crash ('failed to start game' error message or somesuch).

I believe I know what the problem is, though. For some reason the game defaults back to 1280x1024 every time you leave a battle and go back to concourse. You can get around the crashing problem by going into the settings menu and re-selecting the modded resolution. You should then be able to play another mission (worked for me), but you'll have to do the same the next time you leave the battle. That's pretty annoying and I'm not really sure why it keeps defaulting back to 1280x1024. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with whether or not the video card / monitor supports the resolution because this CRT supports both the original (1152x864) and modded (1280x800) resolution, and it has the same problem.

Unfortunately my 1440x900 LCD died, so I am back on this CRT and I can't test whether or not this has always been a problem or not. I certainly don't recall ever having this issue with that monitor. Does anybody else have a problem with the resolution defaulting after every mission?

I can say however that I've never had a problem with the hack breaking the executable in any way. As long as you only change those four values I can't imagine why it would cause a problem. You usually get the '...is not a valid Win32 application.' error when you modify the wrong value in the hex editor. Check your PM.

I got your PM. Thanks for your help.

I'm glad you were able to replicate the problem. This time the .exe rendered my backup useless even afterwards. You're right though, the resolution sets itself to the widescreen res, cause in the options it says 1280x800 after flying and when I set it back to 800x600, it works! Too bad I have to do this every time I return from the hangar. It is doable, by a very slim margin. I'd rather not submit my fingers to any further repetitive movements though. I'm more susceptible to carpal tunnel since I've had it before. The unmodified exe works too, now that I see the problem. I just can't believe I overlooked such a simple thing. I'm better than this.

I wonder why no one else has had this problem? Is it a native resolution issue on LCDs maybe(?) as you said you tried it on a CRT. It could be that no one else is having problems cause their monitors are capable of using the highest resolution available to them, which happens to be the 1152x864 key by coincidence? I would propose finding the 1024x768 field and modding that, too bad I can't read hex.

Hey GT, I don't know if you have an Nvidia card, but if you do, is that your own personal font fix you created?

OK, I just installed the UCP again, and apparently it replaces the exe, (I always thought it just modded it) so I modded it for widescreen, and again I get the error messages, no matter what I set my resolution to in the config file. I'm editing the 20 03 and 58 02 values to the specified ones for 1280x800 that are given in the post on line 0010a330. I have left the 00's alone. Am I editing the wrong line? I'm using the hex program they suggested in the post: Be.HexEditor.

This sounds useful. makes me want to go dig out my old cds and give it a go. Next vacation when I'm home