The video resolution can be changed in-game from the main screen via "Options->Graphics->Advanced Options->Screen Res").
This game only lists the following resolutions in-game:
2048x1536
1920x1440
1600x1200
1280x960
1152x864
1024x768
800x600
640x480
They all happen to be 4:3 aspect ratio resolutions. But all is not lost just yet. 'Paradigm Shifter' posted a way to force not-supported resolutions by changing two registry keys:
There is a fix available in the public FTP archive:
ftp://ftp.westwood.com/pub/emperor/update/
it's named "EmpEngInstFix10.ZIP"... follow the instructions in the zip, and everything's happy. It'll even take the 1.09 update without screwing up. Which is a nice surprise.
Anyhow... following on from that, I tried to get it working in widescreen. It's promising, because of a couple of registry entries, but when I put any widescreen resolutions in, it chopped off the top and bottom of the screen.
I'm wondering if it's driver or card specific, though. Although it's useless for me either way, until I get a widescreen display on my desktop.
If anyone is interested, this is the Reg Key you're looking for:
Code:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Westwood\Emperor\Options\Graphics
Then the options 'ScreenHeight' and 'ScreenWidth'.
Excuse me while I go play this again. Even if it isn't in widescreen...
This allows all of my card resolution to work except for three things:
1. It doesn't take 2560x1600! The game will switch to 640x480 when you make the registry change to 2560x1600.
2. The following resolution will result in the top and bottom parts of the screen missing (some more than others):
(15:9) 1280x768
(16:9) 1280x720, 1360x768, 1600x900, 1920x1080
(16:10) 960x600, 1280x800, 1440x900, 1680x1050, 1920x1200, 2560x1600
3. I found one resolution that actually shows more of the top and bottom parts of the screen:
(5:4) 1280x1024
I'm not sure why it cuts off the screen in most non-4:3 resolutions while in 1280x1024, it shows more. That's something that maybe only the original developers can answer.
One side effect when playing with one of the 'cropped' resolution, the GUI buttons like 'Exit' and 'Back' might be off-screen. Depending on the degree of croppiness, you might not be able to click the button with your mouse. Which makes it hard to exit the game or get back to the main menu if you're in one of the sub-screen (like the new game screen where you pick which of the three house to play). This time around neither the 'Alt+F4' or 'ESC' keys work. You have to 'Alt-Tab' out of the game and kill the game running process.
Another side effect is that the GUI buttons doesn't recognize (feedback is the button hightlighting) when you mouse over it. Depending on which screen you're on, you may need to move the mouse slightly below or above the button in order for the game to recognize that the button is active.
--------
Cut-scenes:
The game includes several cutscenes using FMV including the intro and new game. There is also another one that runs in the background of the title screen. This one is rendered via the in-game engine.
The new game FMV cutscene is definately type Stretch.
You can skip the logo movies by renaming/moving the following Bink video file:
LEGALS.BIK
located in the game folder:
"..\Emperor\DATA\MOVIES"
This will take you directly to the main screen.
---------
This game looks to be Vert- but it's hard to tell because of the cropping.
You have to switch out of the game then kill the game's process in order to completely exit from it in some resolutions, because the 'Exit' button is cut off screen.
Also, it can be annoying to move the mouse slightly up passed the button for the game to actually register the button active. The worse case is when you start a new game and in the screen where you pick one of the three house to play. Say you want to go back to the main screen. You can't if the cropping is bad enough to cut off the 'back' button. Again, on some resolutions, you can still see the top part of the button. That's enough to register a click.
