[NOT-FIXED]Full Screen Resolution Bug (Category: Graphics)

[whfkhd]

Hi everybody!

I downloaded and installed the game, and have encountered the following bug. Maybe someone has an idea, I was REALLY looking forward to the game.

If I run the game in full screen, the picture is so "big" that only the top left corner of it is on the screen. It looks as if it was trying to display an image on a screen with a lower resolution than the image resolution (e.g., trying to display a 2560x1200 image on an 800x600 screen, so everything beyond the 800x600 gets cut off). Running it in windowed mode 800x600 resolution resolves the problem (the entire picture is displayed in the window). As soon as I switch back to a higher resolution, the problem comes back, even if I switch the setting in-game.

After seeing the problem, I installed the Windows 7 patch, which did not seem to make any difference. I used run as administrator to install the patch and it showed that it finished successfully. I changed the settings with run as administrator (otherwise I get the error reported here), and have tried to run the game both with and without run as administrator.

Here is my system information:
-> What kind of CPU/Processor you are using in your computer.
Intel i7 870, not overclocked.

-> Amount of physical RAM you have installed on your computer.
DDR3, 8GB.

-> What kind of Video Card you have installed in your computer (manufacturer, card model name).
ATI Radeon 5870, not overclocked. Screen resolution set to my monitor's native 2560x1200 (it's the Dell 30inch).

-> Operating System you are using.
Windows 7 Professional, 64bit.

Thank you!

[wilco64256]

Your computer might be attempted to spread the screen to a second monitor when you run it in fullscreen, have you tried cycling through your laptop's secondary screen settings?  This is usually done with the Fn key plus one of the "F" keys, on one of my laptops it is F4 and on another it's F6.

[whfkhd]

Thank you for the fast reply!

Unfortunately, the computer is not a laptop, it's a desktop. I only have the one screen connected to it (and have never had another one). To make sure, I have taken a look at the monitor settings in the ATI Catalyst utility, and it only shows one display.

[wilco64256]

Sorry I totally missed that part in your first post, I can play around with a desktop in a bit and see if I can recreate this one.  This happens any time you set the game to run in Fullscreen mode no matter what resolution you pick correct?

And have you tried changing the resolution for your computer itself?  Like to just 1024x768 or 1900x1200 or something like that?

[whfkhd]

I have now tried it after changing the resolution for the computer and still get the same result.

Just to be safe, I have also updated my graphics driver (my version was a couple of months old), and that has also made no difference. I'll be gone for the afternoon now, but will try to reinstall the game tonight on my D drive, just in case this is a Windows 7 permissions thing (even though it doesn't look like a problem with that, and run as administrator should have taken care of it even if it was).

One last observation I thought I'd share, even though I don't know if this is relevant to the troubleshooting. The mouse will not go beyond the screen limits when the bug appears, so on some level the computer / software still recognizes the correct screen size. (I get out of the game via the task manager, since the exit button is off-screen.)

Again, thank you for looking into it!

[k3n]

assuming you are using a dell 30" 2560x1600 monitor, does it work in fullscreen mode at 1280x800 or lower? i wondering if this is a dual link dvi issue...
-ken

[Vertius]

I'm also having this problem. In fact, I've had this problem for quite a while with a number of other games, but I've never seen anyone else have the same issue up until now.

My specs are about a generation behind. It's also a desktop, but is running Windows Vista 32-bit with an Intel Core 2 Quad processor, 4GB of RAM, and an ATi Radeon HD 4800 series GPU. Not bad by any means, though I'm still pretty jealous of your comp, whfkhd! 

I took a screencap of the main menu to help illustrate the issue, which you can see here. That's as much as my screen shows, and like the OP, I can't move the cursor off the screen that I can see, meaning I can't even quit using the menu!

I'm running the game at 1680x1050 on a 22'' widescreen monitor. Although I'm having a separate issue trying to change the configurations, where it saves settings but doesn't apply them, and I thusly can't play it in a windowed mode, changing my desktop resolution similarly has no effect.

I also checked my display settings, and the second monior settings were already void, so there was nothing that could be done there.

I ran out of ideas for this a long time ago, so any insight you can give would be great! I've noticed that it happens on games with pre-rendered openings sometimes. For example, if I run a game by Valve, say, Team Fortress 2, their opening logo will be at this reduced size, but as soon as it hits the game, it re-adjusts to suit my monitor. I was never too bothered by this, though, just where the game doesn't fix itself. I can give you more screencaps of other games or I could try and skip into TSL itself to give you a look at the in-game screen if that would help. 

[B'rrr]

I took a screencap of the main menu to help illustrate the issue, which you can see here. That's as much as my screen shows, and like the OP, I can't move the cursor off the screen that I can see, meaning I can't even quit using the menu!

I'm running the game at 1680x1050 on a 22'' widescreen monitor. Although I'm having a separate issue trying to change the configurations, where it saves settings but doesn't apply them, and I thusly can't play it in a windowed mode, changing my desktop resolution similarly has no effect.

Just wondering, since you can not access the window mode option from the main menu, can you start the game and reach the options menu from within the game, I think that is located higher up the screen and so you might be able to reach that instead.

Doesn't solve the problem but perhaps you can play that way?

[snabbott]

You should be able to access the configuration without launching the game - TSLConfig.exe in the Phoenix Online folder. Remember to run as administrator if you're using Vista or Win7.

[wilco64256]

Although I'm having a separate issue trying to change the configurations, where it saves settings but doesn't apply them, and I thusly can't play it in a windowed mode, changing my desktop resolution similarly has no effect.

Simplest resolution to that is just making sure you're running the configuration tool itself as an administrator.  Let me know if that doesn't fix it.

[Vertius]

Hm, I didn't mean to take away from the fullscreen issue, but I will say that I took B'rrr's advice and tried to change the options in-game, and I was able to force the game into a windowed mode where I get the full image. Not a solution, but at least it can be played this way. I'll see if I can edit Setting text files on the other games that are affected by this and see if I can actually play those as well.

If I tried to run the Configuration tool without being an Administrator before, and it came up with errors saying that it "Failed to write settings file." I saw this was addressed in the Resolved Issues forum, and when I ran as Administrator, it was able to save the changes to the setting file, but the game wouldn't apply them. I'd untick the Fullscreen box, it'd save that change, but launch fullscreen anyway. Very peculiar, I thought, but at least the in-game options work.

I noticed that, despite my settings, it was launching in 1024x768, so I changed the resolution to 1680x1050 and you can see the fullscreen result here. I notice the black border has to do with the lack of widescreen, but it's still missing a bit of the top bar and the bottom, so no luck there... It's a strange problem, eh? Nonetheless, it's great to find someone else having it too, after all these years of confused looks whenever I brought it up.

[wilco64256]

Well I'm glad you were able to get the changes made in-game so you could at least play.  The fact that it's happening with other games does suggest to me that it's something weird that the card itself is doing.  There are a decent number of complaints about the way your particular card handles fullscreen gaming, so that may just be it right there.  Hopefully you'll still be able to play the other episodes the same way.