Warcraft III Widescreen..

hey is it true warcraft 3 will not support a widescreen on any sized laptop? if so, will it support widescreen desktop monitors?

 

Older games only support resolution until ~1024x768, 1280x1024 if you are lucky so no, you can't use widscreen resolutions

 

Warcraft does not have widescreen resolutions in the list of default resolutions. However, warcraft 3 does support widescreen resolutions. You need to go into the registry to manually set the game resolution. Be sure to enter the number as decimal and not hex. The keys are under /hkey_current_user/software/blizzard entertainment/warcraft iii/video
One key is named resheight, and the other is reswidth. Change these to the width and height of your desired resolution. For example, on a 1280x800 screen, set reswidth to 1280(decimal) and resheight to 800(decimal). You can get to the registry using the command regedit. Go to start, click run, type regedit and click ok. If you are running vista, type regedit in the search box and press the enter key.

 

No widescreen support for Warcraft III. I really wish there was though, so stretchy when I play it.

 

dosen't it support 1280x768?

 

It does support widescreen. You just have to force it. Read my post above.

I do not think that is one of the options. You can still force that resolution. You should be able to force any resolution that your display device supports.

I have forced 1280x800, 1280x768, 1680x1050, and 1920x1200.

 

out of curiosity, it still plays thought? you just get black bars? how would the black bars show up on a 1280x800 screen? i've thought about picking this game up but was worried about compatibility/problems since neverwinter nights doesn't play too well on my 8600m gt.

 

I don't mean to pick on you in particular, but could all of you stop trying to tell the OP that it can't be done? It very well can be done- people have been doing it for years, since the game come out.

Do a quick google search and see for yourself. You can force widescreen resolutions and it will work fine. You can't change the FOV, but you can definately play in widescreen resolutions.

 

Yes. I'll type out a response in little bit when I have time. To put it simply, it depends on whether or not you want bars, and how you setup your computer. I see that you have an nVidia graphics card, and I am not familiar with their configuration options, so I cannot give you specifics like I could if you had ATI.

 

pukemon,

Short answer: you can play it in a fullscreen resolution on a widescreen monitor. Whether it gets stretched or you see black bars depends on how your system is configured.

Ok, if you try to play any game in a fullscreen resolution(including warcraft), what happens depends on your system settings. It will do the same thing that your desktop does when you set your desktop to a fullscreen resolution. Most computers by default will stretch the fullscreen image to the entire size of the screen, like stretching a low resolution on a big resolution screen. The other thing that can happen is that the image is not stretched to fit the screen. It fits in a small portion of the screen, centered in the middle, with black all around. If you play in a fullscreen resolution where the height is the same as the native height of your monitor, you will only get black on the sides.

Under ATI drivers, the setting is called centered timings. If you enable this, non-native resolutions will not be stretched. I do not know if you can control this under nVidia drivers.

 

thanks for the answers. i wasn't too concerned about "having" black bars. just making sure it would still play with no other issues that could possibly make it harder to play or unplayable.

 

Does this work while playing games under battle.net? I always wondered if it would give a player an unfair advantage, actually that is why I thought they disabled it in the first place!

 

will the overall image look very awkward after forcing it with stretch?

 

This works at all times while playing warcraft. It can be used on battle.net. You do not get to see any more than people playing in fullscreen(the FOV cannot be changed). This will let you play in your native resolution, so the picture looks nicer. The aspect ratio/perspective is a little off, but I don't even notice it. It looks nicer than playing in a fullscreen resolution stretched to widescreen.

You're not forcing a stretch. Yes, the image will be a little distorted, but I didn't even realize it after playing warcraft for years.

 

thank you JPZ now i can feel safe in the future when i get my widescreen monitor or laptop when playing wc3

 

I personally notice the stretch when playing at a widescreen resolution on Warcraft 3 very much, and it annoys the hell out of me. I play Warcraft3 at a 4:3 resolution with bars on the sides of my screen.
I guess it depends on how sensitive you are to distorted images.

 

would a 22" desktop monitor at widescreen make it better?

 

The only problem with the registry fix is that if you go into the settings menu on the main WC3 page, then the resheight and rewidth keys will be rewritten and you will have to change the keys again if you want widescreen the next time you play WC3.

 

Only if you change the screen resolution in the settings page within WC3. Maybe that was a problem in earlier versions, but I've never had that happen to me. I've played WC3 since release up until today. I played it for about two years on various fullscreen monitors, and from then until now on widescreen. Everything from a 14" fullscreen lcd to a 21" fullscreen CRT to a 13.3" widescreen lcd to a 24" widescreen lcd. I normally play on a 15.4" or 24" widescreen at 1680x1050 and 1920x1200, respectively.

I've never had a problem with settings being reset, nor did I even realize that the FOV was constant and that the images were slightly distorted in widescreen until a little while ago. I am normally rather sensitive to image distortion... but clearly there are people who cannot stand it at all in wc3. If you find you can't stand it, you can always use centered timings and play with bars on the sides.

 

Oh, I almost forgot. I hate to double post, but I already edited the last post. You can also run WC3 in a window instead of fullscreen. Then you don't have to worry about resolution or widescreen or aspect ratio.

 

On a Mac with the latest patch, 1280x800 is supported. Only the UI is stretched.

 

Hmm, I wonder if the windows version has been patched so that only the UI is stretched... time to check.

 

would be nice if they could patch it to fit widescreen at least at 1280x800