Default windows size/position is bad (on dual screen)

[ET3D]

I just downloaded AI War to try it because of the Steam sale. I'm pretty sure I will end up not playing it if I buy it (very little spare time), but I might buy it anyway. It certainly looks like based on this forum that it has great support.

I prefer to play windowed, and it took me some time to find how to do that (I expected that setting to be under "Graphics", not "Interface". Once I changed to windowed, I got an 1600x1200 window that's centred between my two displays, i.e., a half on each display.

While my desktop is 1600x1200, the window was too big for that display (because of its border). Part of it didn't show on the second display (which doesn't have 1200 pixel rows). And certainly the centred position is far from ideal. It took me a bit more time to find that on the left there's a window size (but less time than finding the fullscreen setting).

My suggestions:

- Move the resolution options to the graphics settings page, which has enough space to display them easily and where they will be easily detected.

- Default the window size to something smaller than the desktop resolution. A lot of games use a fixed resolution such as 1024x768, which I think is fine.

- Make sure the window is positioned on just one display.

- Support the maximise button. This allows for the window to take over a display but in a way that's friendly to the OS (takes into consideration the task bar size).

[zebramatt]

Suggestions (and bug reports) now go in the Arcen Mantis bugtracker.

Information here:

http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7935.msg68016.html#msg68016

[shadghost]

I run a non-standord setup for multi moninter with one 22 inch and one 17 inch, it worked perfect centring only on my 22 inch like it should so I think it may be a settings in your OS that is messing it up

[keith.lamothe]

I just downloaded AI War to try it because of the Steam sale. I'm pretty sure I will end up not playing it if I buy it (very little spare time), but I might buy it anyway. It certainly looks like based on this forum that it has great support.

Welcome to the forums   I'm pretty sure you'd enjoy it if you had time to learn it and then jump into (say) a 3 player game, but I can certainly understand having very little spare time.  I've got quite a lot of steam games that I like that I don't have time to play too.

- Move the resolution options to the graphics settings page, which has enough space to display them easily and where they will be easily detected.

Well, that's fair, though I'm not sure it makes enough of a difference to warrant the move.  But we'll think about it.  If you add that suggestion to mantis and it gets a decent amount of support from the other players I don't see any particular reason we wouldn't do it.

- Default the window size to something smaller than the desktop resolution. A lot of games use a fixed resolution such as 1024x768, which I think is fine.

Hmm, yea, does seem like making the windowed resolution default to 20-30 pixels shorter than the desktop in both dimensions wouldn't be a bad thing, or just to 1024x768, I'll see what Chris thinks about that.

- Make sure the window is positioned on just one display.

Regrettably we don't have any control over where Unity (the engine AIW runs on) puts the window, but usually there's not been a big problem there.

- Support the maximise button. This allows for the window to take over a display but in a way that's friendly to the OS (takes into consideration the task bar size).

Yea, we don't have any control over that either (iirc).  But you can tweak the windowed size to the pixel; not as convenient but you get there in the end.  If you mean the faux-fullscreen mode that some games have where it's just a desktop-sized windowed display with no border, we wish we could do that and used to be able to in our old slimdx graphical engine but Unity doesn't support it.

[Nalgas]

- Move the resolution options to the graphics settings page, which has enough space to display them easily and where they will be easily detected.

- Default the window size to something smaller than the desktop resolution. A lot of games use a fixed resolution such as 1024x768, which I think is fine.

Both of those seem pretty reasonable to me, too.  I didn't have a problem finding the resolution options because I always look through all the settings before I even start playing any new game, but most people would be looking for them under graphics, because that's where they are in most other games.

The default window size seems like even more of a good idea, especially after playing on my laptop last night.  Even 1024x768 is too tall in the Mac version on a 1280x800 screen (most 13" MacBooks) because of the menu bar and window title bar, and the bottom of the window gets cut off.  I know that part of the screen at least used to include the buttons for exiting the settings, but it didn't occur to me to check if it still does, because I was only dropping in and out of fullscreen briefly to do stuff like kick Skype when it wasn't working.

I'll definitely vote them up if someone feels like adding them or if they're already in there or something.

[ET3D]

The suggestion to move the resolution options to the graphics tab is at http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=3619. I haven't yet added the suggestion for a default window size.

- Support the maximise button. This allows for the window to take over a display but in a way that's friendly to the OS (takes into consideration the task bar size).

Yea, we don't have any control over that either (iirc).  But you can tweak the windowed size to the pixel; not as convenient but you get there in the end.  If you mean the faux-fullscreen mode that some games have where it's just a desktop-sized windowed display with no border, we wish we could do that and used to be able to in our old slimdx graphical engine but Unity doesn't support it.

No, I just meant to respond to the maximise button of a normal window. I don't like borderless windows that much. I'm perfectly happy with windows that have a border. I would just like the ability to manipulate them in standard ways. I understand that's not possible with Unity, which is a pity.

The default window size seems like even more of a good idea, especially after playing on my laptop last night.  Even 1024x768 is too tall in the Mac version on a 1280x800 screen (most 13" MacBooks) because of the menu bar and window title bar, and the bottom of the window gets cut off.  I know that part of the screen at least used to include the buttons for exiting the settings, but it didn't occur to me to check if it still does, because I was only dropping in and out of fullscreen briefly to do stuff like kick Skype when it wasn't working.

Actually considering most laptops these days have 1366x768 resolution, having a height of 768 is a pretty bad default. I didn't give it enough thought. Something a little smaller, then.