Widescreen Gaming Forum

I tried out the resolution fixing method described in this thread.

Methodology:
1.) Open EXE with hex editor (in this case I used xvi32)
2.) Edit these two lines:


Change the integer "20 03" to equal the new horizontal resolution (in both lines).
Change the integer "58 02" to equal the new vertical resolution (in both lines).

3.) Start Game.
4.) Open Options panel and change the resolution to 800x600.

I tried:
1024x640
1280x720
1280x780
1440x900

The first three resolutions yielded a resolution of 640x480, with the screen covered in black boxes which had to be refreshed through clicking on the icons for the area they covered. The fourth crashed the game (as it was reported to).

Am I missing something in applying this?

Interesting. I know 1280x720 and 1280x768 work, and I know 1440x900 does not. I'll look into it tomorrow and try to figure out why you're having problems.

Well I was able to (unwittingly) replicate your problem. I found that if your computer isn't set to recognize a certain resolution (say, 1280x720) as "supported" by your monitor, the game will revert back to 640x480, as you've seen. I was pretty annoyed when I went to retest this hack and found I was getting the exact same problems as you. The reason being that I recently installed new video drivers and for whatever reason 1280x720 and 1280x768 were removed from the list of supported resolutions for my monitor.

This is at least how I was able to solve the problem.

Go into your nVIDIA Control Panel and under the "Display" section, click "Manage custom resolutions". Then simply add whichever one you intend on using.



If you have a really high resolution monitor you might try adding 1280x1024 in the hex editor and then using aspect ratio scaling (if your monitor supports it) to see if you like that better than scaling 1280x720 or 1280x768. Nothing higher than that, in my experience, has worked with this game.

Good luck and let me know if it works.

Thanks for looking into this BooTx.

Using the custom resolutions I got the resolutions to work. I'm trying to test to see if the game works in triplehead (of course high resolutions are out of the question) and so I wanted to test it at 1280x800, 1280x768, and 1280x480. I got the resolutions to work, but I can't get a screenshot out of the game.

Printscrn yields a black screen, Fraps won't take a screenshot of it (presumably because it's a non-accelerated game), and the screenshot tool inside of the game says "Screenshot Failed" when I attempt to use it.

I've also tried running the game in Windows 95 compatibility mode to try to alleviate the problem, but it doesn't help.

Do you recall how you attained your screenshots?

I used a program called XnView.

Go to Tools > Capture Screen. Then I selected "Active Window", "Delay (sec) 5", and saved it to the desktop directory. Once you press OK the timer will start and it will capture the active window once the delay is over.

You can try "Open in XnView" if you want, but that crashes mine more often than not with this game. Feel free to try the hot key method, as well.

Thanks, that worked well.

4:3 (640x480)


2.67:1 Faux TH (1280x480)

Hello,

I'm glad that I found this great site and topic. I'm searching for a quite long time for a solution. My native resolution of my notebook is 1366x768 pixels. I'm used to play RCT at 640x480.

How are you calculating the required hex values to replace them in the EXE? I'd like to use something like 854x640 or 1067x600.

How did you find out to replace the proper position in the EXE? I'm just curious about that.

The easiest way to determine what hex values you need for a certain resolution is to go here and check out Tanuki's post.

The second easiest way is to use the Windows Calculator program. Make sure it's on scientific mode (view menu) and then type in a number (say, 1024) and click the "hex" bubble on the left side of the calculator to change to hexadecimal mode. This will change the number to 400, which is the unformatted hexadecimal version of 1024. Without getting too technical, all you have to do to change it to its proper format is put a zero in front (0400) and then take the last two numbers and put them in front (00 04). That's the code for 1024. Do the same with 768 and you'll come up with 00 03. So 1024x768 would be 00 04 x 00 03. mjrpes explains it in more detail.

As for the method of finding the locations of the hex values in a program? Well it's simply a matter of searching for the hex values of resolutions that you know are supported by the game. Sometimes you get lucky and both codes are right next to each other - other times they're pretty far apart, making it trickier to spot them. Sometimes you only need to change one, sometimes you need to change a dozen that are scattered around the executable. Sometimes the codes aren't even in the executable, but in one of the other game files (like a dll or config file).

And just because you find 00 04 or whatever doesn't mean it affects the resolution, either. It's also a matter of trial and error. You back up the executable, change the code, try the game. Maybe it works, maybe it crashes the game, or maybe it has no discernible effect at all.

In short, it can be very tedious.

And once you're done with the resolution, that doesn't necessarily mean you're done with the fix, either. Some games change the FOV (Field of View) automatically, but others don't, and if you can't find a way to change it, the game is just going to stretch, which is no good.

Luckily Rollercoaster Tycoon here has a rendering method where the game resolution automatically determines the amount of game area rendered (more pixels, more game area), so stretching isn't an issue.

Now you should be able to use 1280x768 which is fairly close to your native resolution. In order to do this you would have to change "20 03" to "00 05" and "58 02" to "00 03". Go to my original thread for instructions on how to do so. Click the hex codes for pictures of what they'll look like in the hex editor.

Let us know if you need any help.

Thanks for your description. I just didn't know, that I have to switch the bytes.

If it would be possible to zoom further in, 1280x720 would be ok. But on a 13" Notebook display everything is realy small.

So I testet some Resolution:
- 800x480 --> works
- 848x480 --> not working
- 854x480 --> not working
- 856x480 --> not working
- 1048x600 --> not working
- 1050x600 --> not working

In most cases there are graphic errors ending with an "exception cought". Some of them worked for a short time but crashed then when trying to turn the view.

I'm glad that 800x480 works, thats much better than 640x480 on a 16:9 widescreen.

Hi

I have a small problem:

RCT won't run in fullscreen mode (any resolution) if it is not in compatibility mode for either Win95 or Win98. But if I switch the game to one of these modes, I can't save or load a game. Whenever I try, it crashes to desktop. So basically, it is like this:

Win 95/98 - No saving/loading
WinNT to Win7 - Windowed only

I tried all three native resolutions (640x480, 800x600, 1024x786), as well as 1280x720. They all work in Win95/98 mode, but in any other compatibility mode (or without compatibility mode at all) it always reverts back to window mode. I tried every option in the Compatibility tab already, and nothing seems to have any influence. :(

Who knows how to fix this? Does anyone else encounter these problems or is it just me?

Yeah that's a common problem I believe (it's a game problem, not a problem with the fix). They released a patch (filename rct-us.exe or rct-uk.exe) but Atari doesn't seem to host it on their site anymore. You can download it from Fileplanet, though.

You'll probably need to patch the original unmodified executable, and then use the widescreen fix on the new patched file. I know it solved the problem in XP but I have no idea if it will work with Windows 7 or Vista.

Good luck.

Oh and I don't believe the patch works with the two expansion packs. Either they included the fix or they never bothered to patch them.

i had 'hanfmeier's problem - i wanted 1280x768 in fullscreen-mode. Not windowed! I hex-edited the rct.exe and i landed in window-mode after starting and changing the resolution.

My solution: i have the gog-version of the game, and gog released a unpacked exe file (anywhere in the forum of gog) - and these unpacked.exe worked with the hex-fix which i applied !