HELP!! Games appearing small in vista, clueless when it comes to computers..

froggy1985

Basically, i recently got a new laptop with vista and while trying to run a game after it installed fine etc... it only runs in a very small screen surrounded by a big black border. I have tried running it in compatibility mode for earlier windows etc but no joy, I am not very good with computers so any help would be much appreciated..

Cheers

P.S: The game is monkey island 3

AtomicHorror

Sounds pretty odd, It may be as simple a matter as adjusting the video options for the game itself. Not sure about MI3 but most games have an options menu on the title screen. Try adjusting the game resolution to match your computer screen's native resolution. You can find out what that is under your windows display settings or just by reading the basic specifications for your laptop. Should be a number like "1024x768" or something similar.

The game is a few years old so it may not support your native resolution, though I'd have thought it would automatically upscale.

froggy1985

Yeah theres no options in-game to change the resolution as far as i could tell, and as far as i can remember the last time i played it was on XP and it worked fine and automatically adjusted and everything. Have had a quick look on the net and the counter to any problems with monkey island on vista seems to just be downloading scummvm and running it through that, but i'd like to avoid that if possible. Thanks for the input i'll try fiddling about with the resolution settings when i get home if i can

sink

There probably isn't an option to change resolution due to it being over 10 years old. It's probably only got a default resolution of 640*480. If you were using a CRT monitor with your old XP pc, the monitor itself was able to scale the picture to fill the screen. LCD's use a different technology that is not able to scale as well so you are probably stuck with having black borders around the edge.

froggy1985

well i wouldnt mind if it was just some small black borders i could deal with that but the game screen is running about the size of a postcard and the rest of the screen is black so its completely ruinous...:(

Myxomatosis

If you have an ATI graphics card you can change an option in the Catalyst Control Center which should allow you to view the game full screen.

If you have an Nvidia card then I'm sure there's a similar option.

The ATI or Nvidia Control Centers / Panels are unlikely to have come pre installed on your machine so you'll have to go to the relevant website and download it.

Here's a screen shot of the ATI Control Center, change "Scaling Options" to full screen.

froggy1985

Thanks, well you seem like you know your stuff will definitely try that later as im sure this will happen with more older games i plan on using also. And it would save me running all the programs through seperate emulators etc.. hopefully anyway. Surprised i couldnt find anybody with a similar problem on the net after searching but thanks a lot for all your input!

Overheal

froggy1985 wrote: »

P.S: The game is monkey island 3

Monkey Island is Ancient. Hope this works out for you cos I'd have no clue.

You can also go to the game shortcut and add "-window -noborder" to the target string: right click on the shortcut and select properties.

Anti

Seriously lads... This is rather simple..

Op The best way to sort this for you is to

1. Right click the games .exe file. This will probably be in c:\program files\Monkey island Or similar.

2. Right click the .exe and go to properties.

3. Now click on the compatibility tab and look for the "settings section" tick the box (display 640x480)

Here is a pic:

Overheal

or that..

froggy1985

Well that was the first thing i tried but no joy with that

Myxomatosis

Manties wrote: »

Seriously lads... This is rather simple..

froggy1985 wrote: »

Well that was the first thing i tried but no joy with that

Ziiiinnngggg

rockal

Perhaps some help is here http://www.worldofmi.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6916&p=65337&hilit=vista#p65337

ShooterSF

You could always download a program called VirtualPC it's free and acts as a seperate pc on your machine. You can then install an older OS. I did this and installed Windows 98SE and installed my old games on that. Works like a charm.

You dedicate a section of the hard drive to it and some ram when it's running. You can start and shut down the virtualPC without affecting your vista machine.

You'll need to get an OS installation disc if you don't have one though.

Anti

Myxomatosis wrote: »

Ziiiinnngggg

In Theory it should work, i used the same method with day of the tenticle and it was fine. OP try running it in windows 95/98 compatibility too, might make a difference. What ShooterSF said could work too. There is another version if it dosent work, search for "dosbox"

froggy1985

OK got it sorted last night...finally. Myxomatosis' answer was the closest thing, found a similar program on my computer and changed the scaling options for certain programs to full screen, works a charm. So after trying to download different game launchers with vista patches, trying to run it through an emulator and everything else. Just basically having a look around the computer and clicking on random options did the trick:), kind of ironic considering the nature of this game is that of problem solving point-and-click eh? Thanks to all for your input, much appreciated