Continuum resizer feedback

[Marioman]

Continuum Resizer - Download

Enhances continuum with support for custom resolutions, mouse aiming, a modern direct2d rendering mode, and a better experience in general.
Runs great on Windows Vista, 7 and 8. Requires .NET 4.5 (available here).
XP is NOT supported.

http://i.imgur.com/2bDsGNi.png

http://i.imgur.com/BW0wr.png

Edited June 26, 2014 by Marioman

[Marioman]

Continuum Resizer features:

• Alt-tab quickly and do other stuff while continuum is open in the background. 
• Play at any resolution, including custom resolutions and resolutions greater than your monitor's native resolution.
• Control the ship with your mouse! Mouse aiming is an option to make the game more accessible for everyone. To use mouse aiming, you need to map ship rotation to the left and right arrow keys, and set shooting bullets to CTRL and bombs to TAB (which are all default key settings).
• Direct2D rendering added as an experimental feature to improve the scaling quality and game performance. For best results when using Direct2D, turn off stars and bullet/shrap trails in Continuum's graphics options (they are unsupported due to performance reasons).

Note: To use resizer, please make sure to uncheck "Disable Clipping" and "Avoid Page Flipping" in Advanced Options in the menu.

 

--Changelog--
2.4 Direct2D rerendering option added.
2.3 Continuum icon is replaced, added mouse aim experimental feature.
2.2 Added support for custom resolutions
2.0 Complete rewrite using .NET
1.0 Polished app, persists after being run once, no need to relaunch
    every time Continuum is run.
0.5 Added support for resolutions greater than native resolution.
0.4 Added support for chat window.
0.2 Minor bugfix.
0.1 Initial release.

Edited June 26, 2014 by Marioman

[Cheese]

why are you wasting your time when the game already has windowed and fullscreen options?

[Marioman]

Although i thought i put an explanation in the original post... even if i'm the only one using it like this 1) it'll be cool to see an actual image in aero preview, 2) this is the mode i use on all the games i have installed so i can alttab without stutter, 3) it's not a waste of time i'm learning loads about the windows api, directdraw, and in general refreshing my c.

 

meh. there's no interest so i won't post sorry.

Edited April 1, 2012 by Marioman

[Marioman]

Almost done, will release it soon after making sure it works.

 

http://i.imgur.com/lFquO.png

[Cheese]

id like to see your source code, if any exists

[Marioman]

id like to see your source code, if any exists

 

hahaha although i do have gimp and paint open this isn't an april fools prank or anything. the code does indeed exist... I don't understand/appreciate your deeming this a waste of time and doubting whether it's real though . I might add the source in a zip with the binary, but if you have a bitbucket account i'd rather just make the repository available to you.

[Marioman]

Updated OP with v0.1 Edited April 3, 2012 by Marioman

[»Nude For Satan]

Enjoying this right now. Got a much higher res happening. Thanks for providing!

 

It's to be noted that unless your screen is physically pretty big, you may need to change the text font size in Continuum's options to be better suited, Way too small for me to read under this so upped it.

 

Someone suggested using ProFont to further refine text size but not sure how to do that.

 

Marioman how's about including the cat screen window functionality in future versions

[Plutorus]

I've been hearing great things about this resizer lately, included how effective it is in upping res for laptop users. I provided the link to Kepi a couple days ago, and he's now using it. Thanks

 

-Plut

[BlueGoku]

Hey. I've got windows 8 and this doesn't seem to be working for me. Continuum just seems to open as normal even though I'm loading it through the program. Any thoughts?

[Marioman]

Hey I just saw your forum post BlueGoku and messaged you in game. I can help troubleshoot there, but I think I ironed out the kinks in the most recent version (July 29th upload) so I don't know if I'll be able to help. It's working great for me on Windows 8.

 

For posterity, this thread is kind of old with the changes. I have a new version in the pipeline that has custom resolutions and works with the chat window.

[Marioman]

http://i.imgur.com/pmSZb4P.jpg

 

Aquitas helped test out multi monitor support. You're looking at three 2560x1440 monitors to give a total resolution of 7680x1440...! But yeah such a large resolution impacts performance.

 

To verify:

http://i.imgur.com/skVIMi0.png

Updated version with tutorial to come shortly (probably).

Edited August 18, 2013 by Marioman

[Marioman]

Tutorial video: http://www.twitch.tv/weasalss/b/501900456
 

[GHOST251]

Is it possible to run the resized on a mac?

[GHOST251]

resizer*

[Marioman]

I can't guarantee, but resizer uses .NET 4 and other windows APIs which are supported by Wine. Try and report back

[Werew]

I can't get it running on Linux, or Continuum for that matter now.  (I couldn't get the resizer running in Linux when Continuum would run.)  I'd imagine Mac's would have similar problems.  Giving some error messages out might help folks with similar problems help troubleshoot, GHOST251.

 

That Aquitas screenshot is mindblowing.

Edited June 2, 2014 by Werew

[Marioman]

The biggest complaint that i've gotten from people who use this program is that the resized fonts are terrible. This is true because the scaling algorithm that directdraw uses sucks. [DirectDraw is the graphics api (things like opengl, directx) from like the stone ages (pre-2001?) that continuum is using.]

However, a recent message gave me the idea that I could take the game image and repaint it to the screen using DirectX11 with an improved scaling method. I'd have to implement it to see how it effects performance/latency... but it could be something i release down the line.

[»Nude For Satan]

I find that the text fonts via resizer are "wonky" but far from terrible. Chat and kill/death messages are still totally readable for me. Of course the text inside the game is different - eg the text in the 4v4 arenas' statboxes is too small to read but a physically small monitor is more the problem there.

 

One thing that gets a little frustrating is: when alt-tabbing to access the chat screen, the alt-tab list of open apps tends to give a false order position for that screen. I'll Alt-tab-tab-tab-tab to the chat screen and let go, and it won't be on that chat screen at all. I'll alt-tab again and it's spot on the pecking order will have changed. Not sure what's at fault there but it only happens with resizer. Pretty small-fry compared to other issues, given.

 

Still a godsend overall, though!

[Marioman]

Nude, i'll try alt-tabbing a bit to see what you're talking about but i believe the behavior you're referring to might be a side effect of how i coded it. (It might not idk) But to explain why there's even a "chat support" feature... what normally would happen with alt-tab was: you alt-tab while in-game to chrome... and BOOM, the chat window pops up infront of chrome. I was constantly annoyed by that so i messed around to get it like it is now.

 

Anyway, i worked on Direct2d. Bad news: people who complain about fonts - there may not be any improvement at all. I checked side by side, and (at least for me on win8) directdraw was using linear interpolation to scale the game... which is the same way it'll be scaled with Direct2D.

 

Good news: using direct2d to render the game massively improves performance and can potentially lead to more stuff down the line like replacing everything with vector gfx.

 

I tried doubling my resolution from 2560x1600 to 5120x3200 and the game was still running at 60fps vsynced. And without using d2d the game managed 21 fps.

 

New (BETA) version is uploaded. Changes include (but aren't limited too): new tray icon, slightly touched up settings ui, fixed a bug where the game would crash using mouse aim, new direct2d rerendering option. Please test it, it's beta cause i haven't tested it much and some things are still not perfect with the direct2d rendering.

[»Nude For Satan]

I guess its true, I was so used to alt-tab always bringing up SS chat regardless of what you tabbed to, that now I'm cranky that it doesn't do it!

[Marioman]

Beta 2 is up. Looks great.

 

Changes: Game looks normal now, except i made some things (radar, the scorelist, the map when you press alt), appear semitransparent (cool!).

 

Notes: Bullet and shrap trails, along with stars in the background won't be shown. So you should disable those in Continuum's graphics. FPS will max out at your refresh rate. Taking screenshots won't work in D2D mode. On the performance side of things, code is messy, there are minor optimizations and clean up i will eventually get to.

[Marioman]

Feedback from the first beta: someone got an error on Vista, another person was able to run D2D but the game would show a black screen when he'd get in a zone sometimes. If you have an issue find me in game and I will do my best to troubleshoot and fix my code. I don't do much error checking

[psyanide]

pretty damn cool. i can now see the entire 4v4 map at the same time.  Nice job Cres.  I especially like how you snuck a keylogger in the background :)