What screen resolutions should be supported?

[Gothic Lolita]

I was thinking, that the player can chose which resolution to use.
Now is the questions, what resolutions I should use?

For 4:3 resolutions I thought about:

Spoiler

640x480800x600

1024x768

1280x960

1600x1200

Here I'm unsure about:
1920x1440

Because here the most users would have a screen of 2560x1440 or a 3840x2160 screen.

For 16:9 I was thinking about:

Spoiler

800x450

1024x576

1280x720

1600x900

1920x1080

Here I'm unsure about:

640x360

Because most of the menus would be cutted, while they become to large. :/

For 16:10 my thoughts go for:

Spoiler

800x500

1024x640

1280x800

1680x1050

1920x1200

Unsure about:

640x400

Some screens are a bit too close to the bottom here. But everything is shown on screen.

I got a good reason, why I don't go above 1080p much, because then the framerate drops below 10 FPS and is way too slow, even for an RPG.
The game works fine up to 1280x960 pixel, but above it becomes laggy. A framerate of 15 - 17 FPS, is what I'm talking about. So what would you suggest me to use? (\s/)

 

[Iavra]

Note that if you offer multiple resolutions, you will have to make sure to resize some of your assets or you will have, for example, black borders around your title screen on higher resolutions. Personally i think, RM games should stay in the lower resolutions, because not only you easier get lags otherwise, but your screens have a tendency to feel empty.

 

[Gothic Lolita]

I'm aware of that. I know I need to do every picture for every resolution.
If I only would take 3 for example, then it would be 640x480, 1280x720 and 1680x1050. What makes one picture in 3 different sizes in the graphics folder.
On the file size it doesn't change that much. But it's a lot more of a work to do.
Because simple resizing makes it all blurry or very pixelated. So everything need to be done seperate. (\s/)

 

[Andar]

There are other problems with screensize as well - because that is what you're really doing, increasing the screen size (not the resolution, it's just commonly called resolution even if that term is not correct technically):

You increase the minimum map size, because the engine requires all maps to be the minimum of one screen.

If you allow changing of the resolution, than you'll have to check for the largest possible values (in your examples 1920x1440), recalculate that into tile size (60x45 tiles) and make every map in the game that size as a minimum.

But at the same time, the game has to be playable at lower resolutions - which means the game has to work with both lower and higher screen content.
The area that the player can see on the screen will always affect gameplay - for example a labyrinth is only difficult if you see only part of it on the screen. If you can suddenly see the entire labyrinth due to larger screen size, that will change the behaviour of the player - but if you make a labyrinth larger to keep it a challenge on large screens, it will become tedious on small screens.

A lot of people forget those effects of screensize on gameplay when they wish for higher resolutions...

 

[Touchfuzzy]

I would point out that a HUGE number of laptop screens are 1366x768. Like probably the most common laptop resolution.

 

[Scythuz]

There's also 1360x768 for 16:9

 

[Gothic Lolita]

But at the same time, the game has to be playable at lower resolutions - which means the game has to work with both lower and higher screen content.

The area that the player can see on the screen will always affect gameplay - for example a labyrinth is only difficult if you see only part of it on the screen. If you can suddenly see the entire labyrinth due to larger screen size, that will change the behaviour of the player - but if you make a labyrinth larger to keep it a challenge on large screens, it will become tedious on small screens.

That is actually a thing I nevet thought of.

But I think people with high resolution screens can cheat on that and I can't do much against it. -.-'

For the minimum Map size I was aware, that it would be 60x45 tiles huge. Because you need devide by 32 Pixels each tile, to get the new screen size.

But I was thinking to go not above 1280x720 pixel, because all over that drops the FPS below 15 and isn't really playable. :'( (\s/)

I would point out that a HUGE number of laptop screens are 1366x768. Like probably the most common laptop resolution.

I will add the resolution of 1366x768 Pixel. Never had a laptop, that's why I didn't known that.

And if I would buy one, it would be a 1080p or 4K laptop after all. /)

Thank you for all the reply, it gave me a way better look on resolutions so far.

I was also thinking of reducing it to 10 screen sizes in total, else it would take forever to pick one resolution.

*edit*

Here is a small example on how laggy 1080p gets. :'(

Spoiler

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