[Solved]Fullscreen/screen scaling problems. Dealbreaker. ): (2024)

So, I downloaded XP a few days ago and had a ton of fun messing around making a quick little game with it. Said "screw it, this is worth $25!" and went ahead and bought it.

Only one problem now though. I tested my game on two computers, and it doesn't scale to fullscreen correctly on either one of them. On one computer, it overscales and the game is displayed on the left side of the screen, so that a quarter of the game screen is impossible to see, and on the other, the game goes "fullscreen," but the game itself doesn't scale up - it just displays a huge black border to most of the screen surrounding the play field. This is a deal breaker for the program, unfortunately - who's going to want to play a game on a modern monitor when the actual game only takes up 30% of their screen?

Please help, guys! Is there any way to fix this? If not, is there an easy way to get a refund/upgrade to MV? MV scales correctly, so it's something the developers have fixed. I do like the default look and the three layer system of XP though, and it's nostalgic because it's what I used as a kid. Any help solving this would be much appreciated. I was all excited to start making a big RPG in this, but this took the wind out of my sails, obviously. Google results weren't very promising, either. It is an older program, but I thought since it was still being sold that it would've been upgraded to fix basic compatibility problems like this. ):

Thanks, everyone!

The way it scales is completely dependent on your display settings and has nothing to do with the game or the engine.

Right click on the desktop and choose Display Settings. See if there's something in there about aspect ratio, scaling, etc.

And it's something that depends on your computer, so if you spend the time getting it looking good on yours, it might not be the same on someone else's, and likewise if it looks bad on yours, it might look good on someone else's.

@Shaz: I mean, by definition, the way it scales has everything to do with the engine, right? MV and other engines scale just fine, across various PCs regardless of display settings. Unless you're just saying that the way Rpg Maker XP scales is completely hard wired and unchangeable, in which case I'll have to upgrade to MV or another engine, unfortunately. I should've used more of the free 20-day trial, so if I lose the $25, that's on me, I guess. ):

Was really hoping there'd be a way of changing something as simple as how the game scales, though. It's true PC settings can change the way a game scales, but most engines have a way around that...a game I made in a competing engine, for example, got funky looking on PCs with DPI settings other than 100%, but I was able to work around that in the engine. That said, my PC is set at my monitor's native resolution at a 100% DPI, which is about as basic as you can get, so I don't know what would be causing the overscaling in the first place. :x

Oh well. Open to any advice anybody else has. Unless this problem really is unsolvable in RPG Maker XP, in which case I'll have to scrap a few days worth of work and move it to another engine I guess, which would be too bad.

Also, just checked out Yume Nikki, which was apparently originally made in RPGM2k3. It scaled with the same problem my game has right now - cut off the screen. Downloaded the Steam version, and it scales correctly. I don't know if they completely ported it to a newer engine or if they just solved the problem in RPGM2k3, though.

Since it is done by graphics cards, there is NO way to code it in. It is all dependent on the resolution you set your game to run at and the resolution of the monitor. If you go to full screen it has to fill all those pixels regardless, and that is where the scaling comes in. No game or engine can magically make a monitor set to 1920 x 1080 to look good for 512 x 388 as it has to scale it to 1920 x 1080 and guess at the missing pixels, of which there are 1920 - 512 of them across and 1080 - 388 of them up/down that have to be guessed at and filled in. About all you can do is force the monitor to run at your games resolution which might be possible with a call to windows, or using administrator mode to force 640 x 480 (under compatibility issues).

If there was a magic way to do this identification of criminals would be so much easier from security footage. And yes I say that as this is a real world problem as police have issues with this all the time trying to make out what the security camera caught then making it bigger but still able to read it. Image scaling is a tough problem that does not have a good solution yet.

RHC2019 said:

So RPG Maker XP has absolutely no scaling functionality at all programmed into it?

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None of the other engines do, either. Not in the way you're talking about - switching between windowed and fullscreen. Any scripts/plugins to add this also do not control the scaling, but leave it to the hardware.

Ace lets you change resolution to 640x480, and MV lets you set your own resolution, but those change the number of tiles you can see in the game window, rather than scaling the same number of tiles to fit the larger size.

ALL of the fullscreen scaling in any of the engines is done completely by your graphics card.

@bgillisp: I'm not sure you understood my post. You're saying it's impossible for engines to control how a game is scaled, but that doesn't make any sense. Like I already said, the competing engine I'm using for my other project has plenty of options for me to work around scaling problems, and my game made in that engine scales correctly on every PC I try it on, thanks to some coding. Also, like I mentioned in my earlier post, RPG Maker itself doesn't have this problem in the newer MV version, so obviously there are differences between engines when it comes to how they handle scaling, right?

Yes, engines can't magically create pixels out of nothing. I've been making games long enough to know that. I also know that you don't have to create pixels out of nothing to upscale a game without having half of it display off the screen, hahah. Again, my other games made in other engines all scale correctly, thanks to the engines actually allowing me to code solutions to these scaling problems.

@Shaz: Again....you're saying none of the other engines scale any differently, and this is all handled by the graphics card, but every engine obviously handles scaling differently, since I can get my games to display properly through code in engines that allow it. Even RPG Maker itself scales differently between different versions. If "ALL of the fullscreen scaling in any of the engines is done completely by your graphics card.", then why does every engine scale differently?

Maybe the other engine is calling the graphics card? That could get around it some. Though NO scaling is perfect. Unless your game is magically the same resolution as what someone sets their monitor to, someone is going to hit a scaling issue out there.

True, it shouldn't go offscreen, but that might just be an issue with the OS you used too. For instance, XP support ended before Windows 10 was ever made, so getting those games to run and scale right on Windows 10 could be an issue.

Edit: Also in my experience, having just released a game that runs at 640 x 480 resolution back on 9.12, the number of people who complain about scaling issues is very small. I've yet to get 1 in 2 weeks after release actually. There's always going to be someone who wants every game to magically run at 3026 x 1980 but they are a very small group from what I've seen. Best to just use the engine you want to use that works for you, as those who complain hard about graphics are probably not going to buy a game made with a game engine anyways. At least that's been my experience.

Edit2: What I know about XP is little though, as I use ACE. You can try a thread in RGSS1 script requests and see what people have? Or if there is code to call the card directly that you can use?

bgillisp said:

Maybe the other engine is calling the graphics card? That could get around it some. Though NO scaling is perfect. Unless your game is magically the same resolution as what someone sets their monitor to, someone is going to hit a scaling issue out there.

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Could be. Is RPG Maker MV calling the graphics card? The newer engine scales just fine.
Yes, no scaling is perfect, but again...most engines give developers options to come up with their own solutions. I understand that RPG Maker XP is a very old engine, and might be an exception to that. Finding that out was the point of this thread, so thanks for answering.

RPG MV does scale properly on my computer, so the way it's handling scaling works out for me on this PC, but like you said, scaling is always an issue for different PCs. Do you know whether MV gives the developer more flexibility for getting around any potential scaling/resolution issues users might have, or is it hard coded into the engine itself, like it seems to be in XP? I love the way RPG Maker is set up as a whole, but I don't want to exclude any players based on their random hardware configurations. :x

Thanks again, guys.

For XP/VX the resolution and how it is handled is hard coded into the dll. ACE there is a project to use DirectX instead that is in Beta that does give you more control, but since it is a Beta many scripts might not work.

MV has all the code in the engine, and you can edit anything. I've seen people write code that calls Windows and code to move more things to the GPU since the default code doesn't use it much (due to it having mobile export and many phones have no GPU).

bgillisp said:

For instance, XP support ended before Windows 10 was ever made, so getting those games to run and scale right on Windows 10 could be an issue.

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Well, I have a few Win10 users who are XP users. They've never relayed any fullscreen mode issues. Now if someone (*hint hint enterbrain*) decided to release RMXP Ace... and fix the editor's stupid 3-line [SHOW TEXT] limit.

Just for perspective: The original 'Diablo', with all its visuals and spectacular graphics, was a mere 640x480 res game.

DerVVulfman said:

Now if someone (*hint hint enterbrain*) decided to release RMXP Ace... and fix the editor's stupid 3-line [SHOW TEXT] limit.

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I was making an editor on-and-off for a couple years, but kinda turned my attention to other projects instead. Didn't think it would be worth the effort either since the XP scene is hardly there anymore. I had quite a number of plans for it too, some that would tie in with the XP Ace system I maintain.