[SDL] [OT] Minimum resolution

[Peter Mulholland]

Hello Nicolas,

Tuesday, December 19, 2006, 7:03:04 AM, you wrote:

> Hello there,

> It's more a conceptual and design question than a pure SDL question.  
> But I think you may be a source of good expertise on this one.

> We are currently working on a game, and we are designing the  
> interface. Our designer came to me with a project (very nice), but it
> will require to use at least 1024x768 resolution.

> So, is it ok to put 1024x768 as a minimum requirement these days? I  
> mean, in your experience, do you often deal with old 800x600 or  
> 640x480? I already worked very hard to give a very efficient "level  
> of details" option. Even if the full game engine require an ati 9200  
> with 512mb vram, it can run on an old ati with 8mb ram. (ok, to go  
> under 32mb ram, you have to disable textures... But it works!)

> But the interface is one of the keys of a game. So, we need it to be  
> good. First design my designer gave me was for 1280x1024, but I  
> thought it was a bit exagerated. (he said, but that's small on my  
> 1920*1200 screen!)

> Best regards and wishes for new year and xMas. (I use little endian,  
> I swap the things around)

The only thing that I think this might affect, is people who play on
laptops. 1024x768 would be fine on pretty much any desktop.

Perhaps you can have two user interface designs - one for 800x600 and
one for 1024x768 and larger. The 800x600 one would obviously have to
cut some things away or shrink some buttons etc... but it would work.

This used to be a fairly standard thing to do on old DOS games - there
would be a UI for 640x480 and one for 800x600.

-- 
Best regards,
 Peter                            mailto:darkmatter at freeuk.com