Windowed gameplay

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by uberkingkong, Jul 12, 2022.

  1. Dre. Altoholic

    WTB fullscreen window (borderless)
    Stymie, Waring_McMarrin and Zunnoab like this.
  2. What again? New Member

    Could we get an explanation why you removed the choice to have the client start in full screen?
    This is not fixing anything I can see so just curious as to why the change.
    Preventing the eqclient.ini from even recognizing starting in full or windowed doesn't address the gamma issue, doesn't address the UI not saving changes, and only causes players daily grief.
    Yinla, Aenvar and Ranger Dave like this.
  3. Zunnoab Augur

    Some bug or another, but they really should have implemented full screen windowed first. Directly specified borderless window locations and sizes with no title bar would be a good option too.

    The not saving changes issue is interesting. I had a similar issue with maps until using a subfolder for them.
    Hobitses, Elyssanda and Stymie like this.
  4. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    Since fullscreen still works fine if you swap it on at character select, I would guess the "unknown bug" is related to how the client is initialized before the "3d-render" is initialized.

    My guess is that the current GFX-system is almost at "maintenance-mode", and that the devs will rather remove functionality, than touch the code of the GFX-system and try to fix the issue.

    It could be a sign that they have given up on maintaining it, or that they plan to replace it completely in the near future...
    Stymie, Wdor and CatsPaws like this.
  5. Knifen Augur

    I must be the only one that is glad this happened. My game has been so pooched for years that I have had to do this buy manually forcing my eqlient to open in windowed mode then alt tabbing at char select screen. Otherwise it would load to black screen and hose up. And I tried all the fixes, directx, reinstall run as admin blah blah blah. How they have it now saves a step for me.
  6. Thunderkiks Augur

    If your UI isnt saving make sure you're camping out slowly. Fast camp doesn't seem to save but I had no issue with slow camp.
  7. Kahlev Al-Calen Augur

    So.. .Everquest has 2 graphic settings it works with, the "Patcher" settings/configuration and the in-game settings. Initially both were the same, so if you set the patcher to, let's say, 800x600, the game would run like that, and then if you changed it in-game to 1024x768 the patcher would reflect it.

    At some point, probably around DoDH graphics revamp, the in-game settings and the patcher settings became out of sync. They added a lot of new graphic options in-game, including support for higher resolutions and wide-screen monitors, but they never bothered to update the patcher configuration program to include those configuration options, so now you could have the patcher running still at 640x480x16bit full screen, have the windowed version of either the server select screen or ingame screen run at 1920x1080x32bit true color and have the in-game full-screen version running at 1280x720 with custom gamma. Even so, the game would still work fine, the UI configurations between different window sizes and resolutions was saved properly, and the gamma setting would autocorrect itself when you switched between full screen, windowed or exited the game. That, until they first broke the gamma settings a few months ago (the patcher would become almost pitch black for no reason, and then when you exited or tabbed your windows desktop would have like 50% more gamma).

    And now, not only they did not fix the gamma bug, but made it so if you played at full screen before your UI will go totally bonkers unless you remember to switch back to full screen at the character selection window, because once in game it is already too late.
    Stymie, Yinla, Hobitses and 1 other person like this.
  8. Svann2 The Magnificent

    Even if I cant imagine what it was, I have to guess there was an exploit. Nothing else makes sense that it would be serious enough to be worth this much complaint.
  9. Szilent Augur

    The complaints of those whose functionality changed are as nothing compared to the real situation of those whose game did not function.
    Jumbur likes this.
  10. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    That is true. There were occasionally posts in tech-support about people just getting "black-screen" after login and being unable to play at all.
    Most likely what Knifen describes above.
    My guess is that this change is a workaround related to that bug.

    I can't imagine any exploits being related to how full-screen is initialized in the startup procedure...(although I don't claim to have a good imagination anyway.:p )
    Stymie likes this.
  11. Stymie Pendragon

    I hope they take advantage of 64 bit (2005) and finally update it.

    Directx 9.0c released 18 years ago next month. In my opinion, that's more like "set it and forget it" mode, and they may be running into compatability issues that have came up since Windows XP SP3 was the operating system widely in use.
    Hobitses and Jumbur like this.
  12. Cicelee Augur

    Was answered in the Test Update thread IIRC.

    BTW what is the over/under on how many more threads over the next 90 days are going to be created that ask a version of this thread? I am putting my money on the over...
    Wdor, Hobitses and Nennius like this.
  13. Nennius Curmudgeon

    I hear the folks in Vegas are going big on over. Gonna be bigger than crypto. Honest!
    Stymie likes this.
  14. Svann2 The Magnificent

    If that was it they could have just told those few people to startup in windowed mode as a workaround till they fix the underlying problem. It doesnt make any sense to force an unpopular change in behavior for everyone based on a very small percent that had an issue. Not when theres a simple fix.

    Also, even aside from comparative number of people with a problem theres also the fact that its less disruptive for the people that forget to go windowed and crash then have to try again than for those that forget to switch to full screen before entering game and then have to redo their ui.
    Stymie likes this.
  15. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    True, fast camp has never saved UI changes, and neither does exiting by choosing "offline mode" while in /trader.

    If you want to save changes you made to the UI, you have to just plain /camp
    Wdor, Hobitses and Thunderkiks like this.
  16. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    How do they tell those players to start up in windowed mode if they don't know who is impacted? Isn't it much better to ensure that the game works for all players instead of forcing some of them to have a work around in order to be able to play at all?
    Wdor likes this.
  17. Svann2 The Magnificent

    By making a forum announcement that if you have a problem logging in try switching to windowed mode before you enter world. And if you think its not fair for the people that dont read the forums they can also announce it in that window that opens when there is a patch.
    No, not when the fix disrupts more than the workaround.
    Stymie likes this.
  18. Vumad Cape Wearer


    Good information. I never understood the advanced setting options for resolutions that are available in the patcher. That explains it.



    Good tip. I never knew this. Now I know if I make a UI error I can /ex. Infrequent but good to know.
    Stymie, Wdor, Hobitses and 2 others like this.
  19. Fooba Augur

    I have a 4k monitor, but I play EQ full screen at 2560x1600. I had to change eqclient.ini to windowed mode every single time I launched the game, so this is a welcome change for me.
    Hobitses and Knifen like this.
  20. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    A forum announcement? How many people are completely unaware of most things that are changed in a patch even though the patch notes are displayed both on the forums and when you enter the game after a patch. There is no way to ensure that anyone who is having problems would know to check the forums to find out about a work around for their problem. From Daybreaks perspective it is much better to have players manually switch back to full screen when playing then not being able to play at all.
    Wdor and Knifen like this.