Decisions, decisions

[Guitarzan]

Green Analyzer doesn't seem to work in W10, at least in my situation.

[Still Linksing]

Green Analyzer doesn't seem to work in W10, at least in my situation.

Did you read the thread in tech forum about it? What happens with yours?

[Guitarzan]

I haven't checked the tech forum in ages. GA not only freezes Links, it crashes my computer. When it doesn't do that, it zooms away. It's really not a deal breaker as I never used it in the past and I only decided to try it when I read this thread.

[Still Linksing]

Ok. There appear to be some mixed results with it for different people. I had it crash in the past on Win 7, maybe even back to Win XP but after a quick play could not get it to do anything wrong in Win 10. Regardless, I'm thinking I likely won't use it either.

[Danny D]

Yes, 19 inch. It's the ideal monitor option if you don't want widescreen. If you do want a bigger screen size as well as no widescreen, then there is no way of doing that other than making compromises.

The 3440x1440 Ultra-wide monitor I'm using does in fact play Links at full screen top-to-bottom at 4:3 ratio, at 1600x1200 resolution. No compromises made... It does not display it in wide screen.

Dan

[Still Linksing]

Yes, 19 inch. It's the ideal monitor option if you don't want widescreen. If you do want a bigger screen size as well as no widescreen, then there is no way of doing that other than making compromises.

The 3440x1440 Ultra-wide monitor I'm using does in fact play Links at full screen top-to-bottom at 4:3 ratio, at 1600x1200 resolution. No compromises made... It does not display it in wide screen.

Dan

If you have the image going all the way to the top and bottom with no black bars, compromises have been made. It should display with black bars all around. You should have much bigger black bars on the sides than you do top and bottom.

[Danny D]

Yes, 19 inch. It's the ideal monitor option if you don't want widescreen. If you do want a bigger screen size as well as no widescreen, then there is no way of doing that other than making compromises.

The 3440x1440 Ultra-wide monitor I'm using does in fact play Links at full screen top-to-bottom at 4:3 ratio, at 1600x1200 resolution. No compromises made... It does not display it in wide screen.

Dan

If you have the image going all the way to the top and bottom with no black bars, compromises have been made. It should display with black bars all around. You should have much bigger black bars on the sides than you do top and bottom.

When Links graphics is in FULL SCREEN mode, the game expands out to the top and bottom of the monitor. Links res is set at 1600x1200, so it gets expanded from 1200 to 1440. The sides only spread out to create a perfect 4:3 AR... Here is a screen capture from the start menu. As you can see, it's perfect 4:3. If I select WINDOWED MODE, then I will get a 1600x1200 window on my desktop. I prefer the larger game with black on both sides. I don't have to make any special adjustments to get this. It's the only res that Links has on the list that looks normal. All other resolutions stretch the screen and distort it.

[Still Linksing]

We went through some of this on the old forum, I'll go through a couple of things again.

You are using 1200 vertical resolution coming from Links and then displaying it on a 1440 vertical resolution screen.
1440 - 1200 = 240

This means there are 240 pixels which need to be black top (120 pixels) and bottom (120 pixels) as Links resolution is not 1440, it is 1200.
So what is happening, the 1200 pixels are being spread over 1440 pixels (called scaling) to give an image all the way to the top and bottom of your screen.
Doing this results in a loss of sharpness. It is exactly the same as what occurs if you set a LCD monitor to less than it's optimum resolution. The pixels get spread to fill the entire screen and the text/images are not sharp. To get perfect sharpness, you need each pixel from the game, to fill only one pixel on your monitor screen. So if you set 1200 pixels in Links, you want that displayed to only 1200 pixels on your LCD screen. That's pixel for pixel or in other words, what is termed a 1:1 pixel ratio.

If that's not enough, here's more to blow your mind. Ideal aspect ratio for Links is 5:4 and not 4:3.
1600x1200 is 4:3
1280x1024 is 5:4

Links was designed for 5:4. You will notice from your splash screens for example, they are 1280x1024. If you display them at 1600x1200, the aspect ratio changes as does the sharpness of the splash screen as the pixels need to be spread.

That's why I use 1280x1024. It's what the old games were created to be displayed on and work best on without any compromises needing to be made. I could also display Links perfectly at a 1:1 ratio on my widescreen monitor but I really don't like the black bars. Physical image size on the widescreen is around the same as the 19 inch, sharpness is exactly the same and aspect ratio is exactly the same, 5:4 on both. The only real difference are the black bars. As I play many games at 1280x1024, a monitor built purposefully to display exactly this resolution was certainly the best option for me. I totally love the monitor or monitors I should say as I now have enough of them to last out my lifetime.

[HillBilly]

Ok. There appear to be some mixed results with it for different people. I had it crash in the past on Win 7, maybe even back to Win XP but after a quick play could not get it to do anything wrong in Win 10. Regardless, I'm thinking I likely won't use it either.

I have noticed that the problem occurs with greens that use multiple textures, so using XP 7 8 or 10 would not flag up this problem or indeed any course that only uses a single texture for the greens. It is a hard one to pre-judge (is that a word) as course designers rarely mention how many textures they use on a green. I would use as many as needed when I designed but this problem stops this way of course creation.

[Still Linksing]

Ok. There appear to be some mixed results with it for different people. I had it crash in the past on Win 7, maybe even back to Win XP but after a quick play could not get it to do anything wrong in Win 10. Regardless, I'm thinking I likely won't use it either.

I have noticed that the problem occurs with greens that use multiple textures, so using XP 7 8 or 10 would not flag up this problem or indeed any course that only uses a single texture for the greens. It is a hard one to pre-judge (is that a word) as course designers rarely mention how many textures they use on a green. I would use as many as needed when I designed but this problem stops this way of course creation.

Hmm...there are a few theories on GA. I'm honestly not sure anyone has nailed the issue yet. I never looked into it in the past. I can't remember courses that gave me problems except one, Wentworth West because I did use it for quite a few tournaments in the past.
I know with Wentworth West, hole #2 was always the big issue and where the first problem began. Then there were other holes but I can't remember which other holes were a problem. Trying everything on Win 10, I could not get the GA to crash on hole #2. If textures were a cause, it should not just occur on certain holes. The other APCD theory also didn't add up.

The other thing that doesn't add up with some of these theories is there are at least 2 separate issues, crashes and a zoom out issue.

I started a season but didn't include Wentworth West. I'll go and change things and add it to my season and then use the GA for this 4 round tournament. If the GA does not crash, I would say all the theories are wrong. I know I never got through a Wentworth West round without GA crashes. I think I also likely played it across 2 different PC's.

It's good we still have something about this game to work out! lol

Edit: Just found I can't change courses without screwing up the season. I'll add Wentworth to the next season so going to be a while.
Edit #2: Just found I set up my season scoring so it's too easy. Have to start another season so I'll play Wentworth first using GA.