Widescreen Gaming Forum

This is basically a repost from the HTPC Gaming Forum on avsforum.com, in which I was told to visit here.. So.. here goes!!

My set up right now for my HTPC Gaming is a PC equipped with a Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition AGP card outputting to a Sony XBR970 via component plus using the latest Catalyst drivers.

I recently got the import version of the game Phantasy Star Universe and it doesn't support widescreen resolutions. The only resolutions it supports are 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x960, and 1280x1024

The only resolution I can get this game to run at fullscreen on my TV are 640x480.

When I try 800x600, it shows up on the TV just fine, but there are bordesr all around the image. (It runs in 720p mode.. so there is a considerable amount of screen real estate not being used..)

When I run it in 1024x768, the whole image doesn't show on the screen vertically, but there is once again screen estate not being used on the left and the right..

1280x960 and 1280x1024 don't fit on the screen completely either..

I've tried installing Power Strip and modifying the settings for some of the resolutions there, but the adjustments I make don't really seem to do much at all. It's like.. if I barely adjust anything.. the image on the screen disappears..

Does ANY one have any advice for me? Optimally I'd like to run the game in 800x600 full screen on my TV..

In addition.. I'm sure this game does not support custom resolutions..

I've only done a little research and the game's INI file (which is updated via the configuration program) only has a line that reads:

RESOLUTION=x

X is a single digit which represents the screen mode used for the game. 0 = 640x480, 1 = 800x600, 2 = 1024x768, 3 = 1280x960, 4 = 1280x1024

If you try 5 or higher, it just sets to 640x480.

I then looked in the main executable for the game, searching for "resolution" and the HEX value for 1280 and 960, but it appears the EXE is compressed (with what tool, I have no clue, probably something custom.. MAYBE..) so I can't hex edit a new resolution into it...

I'm not much of a program hacker or cracker, though, but when I encounter compressed EXEs that I can't uncompress.. I usually give up right there. =P

And, yes, I have tried playing with the XBR970's zoom/stretch features but nothing good comes from it.. zooming in on 800x600 looks nasty and is zoomed in too far..

Thanks in advance!!!

(The domestic version of this game comes out on October 24th.. so maybe I'll have to wait for you guys to help then.. haha.. But I'm hoping for some general tips and tricks to try for now with my import version..)

I'm not optimistic about getting this to work. I love Sega, but they don't have much experience programming PC games (aside from a few ports of their console titles...and those may have been done by a vendor). Your best bet is to start a letter-writing campaign to Sega of America once the game is released here. They can add that in a patch if they feel the need.

(How's the game?)

Your best bet is to start a letter-writing campaign to Sega of America once the game is released here. They can add that in a patch if they feel the need.

(How's the game?)

Yeah, I was thinking of doing that... getting some people, including myself, to submit like an inquiry or something in regards to it. Also, maybe the option for auto frameskip, and lastly, having anti aliasing actually WORK in the game. (Even when forced from an ATI Catalyst Control Panel or Nvidia.. the anti alias setting is ignored.. the anisotropic filtering isn't, though.. Although the Anti alias thing COULD be a problem with Nvidia and ATI's drivers.. but why both? The game must be forcing AA to be turned off if that's the case.. )

Anyway, well, I guess we'll see. =P

EDIT: And, oh yeah, the game is awesome! Haha.. http://www.ro-world.com/psushiz/ for some videos and movies I took from it.. the ones that end with _60 are @ 60fps. There's a couple of others at 60fps too, like solo_shikon, that I forgot to label.

Thanks for the screenies (having trouble connecting to the vids). Are you living in Japan, or did you import? In either case, did you need to sign up for online service to play multiplayer?

You can't "connect" to the videos, because they're not streaming. (AVI isn't a streamable format..)

You have to save the entire AVI to your HD before you can play it.. and they're encoded with the XviD codec. You can find the XviD codec on http://www.koepi.org

But.. to answer your question.. I imported. =P And, yes, multiplayer is ONLY online.. so you gotta sign up.

phantasy star ftw , its a shame its a pay monthly game [which i cant afford]

why cant people do a guildwars style online [pay once] >.>

I found the resolution list in the options.exe file. I changed them all but the game appears to default to the last selected 4:3 resolution.

I thought this might mean the current res is kept elsewhere but everything I found had no impact.

Perhaps these resolutions are cosmetic and the real resolutions are buried in one of the game files.

Sorry.

I did some file isolating and it looks like the location that holds the current resolution value is not in the PSU folder or the Sega folder in Documents and Settings. I disconnected and it is also not stored online.

The registry for PSU and GameGuard also looks bare.

Perhaps there are some Gameguard files hidden somewhere with the value?