FAQ: Visual/Performance Problems

[Program Fatebringer]

1. Question: I have a widescreen display and the game looks a little stretched, scrunched, or just plain bad. What can I do?

Answer: You can try selecting a resolution that matches your screen's aspect ratio. If you tried all the resolutions and have not found one that works, the problem must be that windows stretches the game to fit your screen. This must be disabled, since the game will look good only if its 4:3 aspect ratio is maintained.
To make this happen in Windows XP/Vista, follow these steps:

1. Right-click on your desktop and select properties (or Personalize on Vista)
2. Go the Settings tab
3. Click on Advanced
4. Click on the Displays tab
5. Select the monitor/screen you are using
6. Make sure the Scale Image button is checked
7. Select "Expand while maintaining aspect ratio"
8. Hit "Ok" and you're done.

Now, any resolution you pick (even the Default 640x480) should look much better.


2. Question: Why does everything look really small?

Answer: Make sure that you have the Default 640x480 resolution selected in the Options menu. If it is selected, then keep reading.

You need to turn on a Windows feature that scales the game graphics to match your monitor.
To make this happen in Windows XP/Vista, follow these steps:

1. Right-click on your desktop and select properties (or Personalize on Vista)
2. Go the Settings tab
3. Click on Advanced
4. Click on the Displays tab
5. Select the monitor/screen you are using
6. Click on the Scale Image button, so that it appears checked.
7. Select "Expand while maintaining aspect ratio"
8. Hit "Ok" and you're done.

It is possible that your video card doesn't support the feature of "Scale Image." If everything is really small but doesn't look stretched, one thing you can do is go into your display properties and change your own windows resolution to a smaller size. Something like 800 by 600 should do the trick.


3. Question: During the game, there is flickering. Or the game runs slowly. Or some other weird issue is happening.

Answer: Make sure that you have as few programs running in the background as possible. Space War Commander uses DirectX graphics and runs best if it doesn't have to share resources with other graphics-intensive programs.