Fallout1 High Resolution Patch and 16 bit

[hal900x]

For whatever reason, I cannot initialize any 16-bit modes. Does it matter? It is unfortunate that many of the higher-res widescreen presets require it, for some reason. But I can live with 720P I guess. My first question is, does forcing this game to 16-bit have any appreciable effect? It is an 8-bit game, is it not? If it does improve the visuals in any way, then we can move on to troubleshooting:

I have the GOG version, which reportedly already has 1.2 applied, but the readme for patch 1.3.5 was very specific: manually install 1.2 regardless. So I did. After 1.3.5 I put the NPC mod 3.5. Lastly the high res patch. Patched the .exe and reran to verify. Get the error message that it cannot initialize the resolution. I have tried several resolutions definitely supported by my monitor, problem seems limited to 16-bit mods, regardless of res.

I tried setting my windows xp desktop to 16 bit which did not help. Also unproductive was incrementally dropping the troubleshooting slider nearly all the way down.

I do not have sfall installed. I have no idea how sfall interacts with the high res patch, and am curious if installing it would help, perhaps by introducing ddraw.ini tweakability.

I run an Nvidia 8800GTS 512, recent drivers. I have GPU scaling disabled, not that it should matter when choosing widescreen resolutions, but you never know.

I searched here and via google. I did not find any specific answers to the above. I didn't find an option to search titles only(message text only, yes. Which is backwards IMO). Am I just not seeing it?

 

[Mash]

For whatever reason, I cannot initialize any 16-bit modes. Does it matter?

The 16bit mode is there to overcome the wacky colour problems that randomly occur sometimes when running 8bit games, otherwise there's no visual advantage. If the colours look fine stick with 8bit.

I have tried several resolutions definitely supported by my monitor, problem seems limited to 16-bit mods, regardless of res.

Resolution choice is greatly dependent on your monitor. I personally lack the technical know-how to give you a proper explanation but 16bit mode generally seems to have fewer options then 8bit in my experience.

I do not have sfall installed. I have no idea how sfall interacts with the high res patch, and am curious if installing it would help, perhaps by introducing ddraw.ini tweakability.

If you were playing fallout2 I'd recommend using one of sfall's graphics mode settings. But the fallout1 version has not been updated for a while and the graphics modes don't work well with the hi-res patch. You may still find some of sfalls other features useful though.

 

[Sduibek]

As far as I can tell, 16-bit via sfall (for Fallout1) doesn't do anything at all. It says as much in ddraw.ini

However, 16-bit via f1_res does work, (although to do this ddraw MUST be set to "0" (8-bit) graphics mode -- as Mash said however, I don't think it makes anything look better -- sometimes I think it does, but that could easily just be placebo effect :/

The one thing I *do* like about 16-bit mode is it slows down (lengthens) the fade times, which is nice because on newer systems the fades are almost instant.

But, it also makes the loading screens not display