A different window scaling problem

Deleted my earlier post on window scaling because I solved the problems I was having..Then I ended up with bigger problems..much bigger problems.

I ended up going with the "zoom method" where you set display resolution, layout size, zoom, scrollx/y, and check unbounded scrolling.. the only method that doesn't blur graphics on most video cards, and the same method everyone recommends using. I finally got it working right with my game, and I was stoked!!

Then I realized that the bigger the window gets, the bigger the VRAM usage gets.

I don't just mean a little bit, either. Without any window scaling the game in it's current state uses 0.56mb VRAM. Upscaled we're talking 14mb VRAM. That's RIDICULOUS! Especially when you consider I've hardly even added anything to the game yet; there's 1 player, a couple of objects, 3 tilesets, and a background, all 8x8 on a 128x112 resolution. And people wonder why I make games with such tiny graphics..

Aside from that, using this method breaks a few things like "Is object on-screen" and screws up object positions on layers with 0% Scroll Rates.

All that said.. Is there seriously no other way to upscale the window without blurring graphics and having to come up with a bunch of silly workarounds?

/rage

Construct appears to use textures for the black borders, the amount depending on the amount covered. That said, I know people often here talk about keeping vram usage to a minimum, but 14 mb of vram really isn't that much. Any even remotely recent computer should be able to manage that and plenty more no problem.

Also, do you have any full screen canvases or layer effects? That could affect vram usage.

Otherwise, I guess my best recommendation would be to make the layout size always bigger than the screen resolution and make the pillarboxing yourself.

Edit - there are workarounds for is object on screen (check distance) and the UI (have a camera object, set position of ui elements to it + the offset - there's probably a better way than that but I'm not sure of any others atm. You could even make a ui family with xoffset and yoffset variables and set the offset at the beginning of the layout if you don't want to have to hand code the offsets, etc).

I guess its safe to say p^2 might have an effect as well.

14mb is nothing for a full game, sure, but again I just started this game a couple of weeks ago; there aren't many graphics in it, and what is there is *tiny*.

I use a level editor, and intend to paste loaded tiles to a rather large canvas before deleting them, so that canvas itself is going to take up a good chunk of VRAM. I might even use 2. What I'm getting at is by the time all of the graphics and everything have been added, I'll probably have ~50mb VRAM without any window scaling. With this method of window scaling, VRAM will be soaring into the hundreds.

Sorry, but I don't know what you mean about the pillarboxes. All I'm doing is increasing display resolution, layout size, and zoom rates, then setting the scroll X/Y. There are no pillar boxes, just a larger window.

I just tried using MagiCam's zoom instead of System Zoom. I thought that would keep the VRAM from increasing, but it only helps a little bit; I get 9mb instead of 14. Odd.

Personally I don't use the zoom method, it's too hacky for me. What was your problem with the window object?

Personally I don't use the zoom method, it's too hacky for me. What was your problem with the window object?

I don't like using it either..however, using the window object results in blurry graphics on most videocards. It's not THAT big of a deal with high resolution games, but I'm using a tiny res here and I don't want to s*** on my graphics

..Unless there's some other way of using the window object so graphics don't get blurry. It doesn't happen for me, so I can't mess around with it and try to find something.

Are you sure it's not just some videocard setting that makes the graphics blurry, and not the videocard itself?

I guess it's video card driver settings, at least I have options like "use application settings\use global videoard settings" in my catalyst.

Btw, if I override settings it makes graphics blurry just a little bit, not like with linear sampling

Ok I've decided to just go with the window object. I'm not entirely sure, but I think you can get around the blurry graphics by messing with your videocard settings, or atleast bring it to a minimum which at this point is good enough.

So I've got everything regarding window scaling figured out, but what about full-screen?

Using the window object's "maximize" works nicely, but my game's res is 128x112 so you can only imagine how bad it looks on a widescreen monitor. Is there any way I can add pillarboxing/windowboxing or something?

We seriously need some tutorials on this stuff..