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Rise of Nations is a special case of "pixel based"
https://www.wsgf.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=21137		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  cuc [ 21 Dec 2010, 16:56 ]
Post subject:  Rise of Nations is a special case of "pixel based"
I'm not familiar with the forum, and only trying to report what I know...

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/Rise_of_Nations

The site currently describes Rise of Nations as "Vert-", using screenshots of 1152x864 and 1280x800 as example. But AFAIK this is inaccurate. RoN's engine is unique in that it's using a 3D engine to display an isometric world, and the buildings are mostly 2D sprites. These sprites are created for a specific resolution (mostly 1280x1024), which I shall call the threshold resolution. When the game's resolution is lower than that, the game graphics are rendered at a size that shrinks the sprites, resulting in the "Vert-" effect shown in the current example; when the resolution is higher than the threshold resolution, the game behaves like a pixel-based 2D game, keeping the sprites at their original size.

Too bad I have no time to write a fully detailed report. I think there could be more complications: the game has 3 zoom levels, and there may be special cases (for example, 1440x900 is wider than 1280 in x-axis yet narrower than 1024 in y-axis). But the bottom line is, RoN runs beautifully on higher resolutions, and "Vert-" is in fact a very inaccurate description.

EDIT:
After some consideration, I realized that RoN shouldn't be considered Vert-, because the cause of this phenomenon is entirely different from Vert- in fully 3D games. Vert- is caused by FOV, while in RoN's case, what really happens is roughly this:

The program attempts to determine the basic sprite scale according to the resolution, and when resolution has been increased, the scale is also increased, until the scale becomes 1:1, at which point RoN functions just like any other pixel based game. When switching from something like 1152x864 to 1280x800, the increase in basic sprite scale is larger than the increase in screen dimension, resulting in the view field becomes smaller.
Author:  scavvenjahh [ 22 Dec 2010, 10:43 ]
Post subject:  Re: Rise of Nations is a special case of "pixel based"
Interesting. Even without a complete DR, comparing higher resolution screenshots seems to be the next logical step for a solution update.
Still, 1280x800 compared to 1152x864 is just plain Vert- to me...
Author:  cuc [ 29 Mar 2011, 05:30 ]
Post subject:  Re: Rise of Nations is a special case of "pixel based"
I have extensively tested it using window mode and INI editing, which allows me to change its resolution to anything I want. I can now confirm:

The game works in a very peculiar way, which takes advantage of its nature as a 3D engine masquerading as a 2D game. It sort of falls outside of the general paradigm of WSGForum.

1) The minimum resolution is 1024 x 768. The game wouldn't accept any resolution lower than that.
2) When the resolution on the X axis is lower than 1280, the game shrinks the size of game world graphics according to the X axis, not unlike "Vert-".
3) When the resolution on the X axis is 1280 or higher, the game world graphics no longer change size. The game functions like any "pixel based" games. At maximum zoom, the game graphics now are the same size as their original assets (the TGA files in the "art" folder).

When it comes to the user experience, it's all relative.

1) If you compare one X<=1280 resolution to another, the effect is "Vert-";
2) If you compare one X>=1280 resolution to another, the effect is "pixel based";
3) If you compare one X<=1280 resolution to one X>1280 resolution, the effect can be said to be "Hor+", even if that's actually inaccurate.

Sorry, no screenshots at this moment. I hope I've explained this well enough...
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