Higher Resolution Loading Screen

[AlwaysAndForever]

Question: Is it possible to have a higher resolution loading screen than the one mentioned here? (1024x768)
Photoshop Loading Screen Template

 

[Dr Super Good]

I mean higher resolution with the entire page, If warcraft III no longer supports 1024x768

If you want higher quality loading screens in modern Warcraft III then yes. For example a resolution of 1440x1080 would be optimum for most computers (with 1080p displays). That said it would only work in modern Warcraft III versions which allow loading of textures with dimensions larger than 512, which is the backwards compatibility problem that was mentioned before.

 

[pyf]

As far as I am aware all versions of Warcraft III supported non power of 2 textures. This is because the support is entirely up to the underlying graphic driver, and all modern graphic cards (eg the trash one gets integrated into a processor or the lowest end budget card from 10 years ago) and drivers support non power of 2 textures. [...]

Hardware NPOT Textures support is part of the OpenGL 2.0 specs.

According to Wikipedia, "R300 and R400-based cards (Radeon 9500+ and X500+) are incapable of generic NPOT usage, despite allegedly supporting OpenGL 2.0 (which requires full support). These cards only allow you to use NPOTs if the texture has no mipmaps. NV30-based cards (GeForce FX of any kind) are incapable of NPOTs at all, despite allegedly OpenGL 2.0 (which again requires NPOTs). It will do software rendering if you try to use it."

Also, Voodoo3 video cards (which were officially supported for WC3 by Blizzard) do not have an official OpenGL driver with hardware support for NPOT textures, according to the database of OpenGL Extensions Viewer 3.37

Spoiler: OpenGL extensions supported by the driver of Voodoo3 video cards

(21 Extensions)

3DFX_set_global_palette
GL_ARB_multitexture
GL_EXT_abgr
GL_EXT_bgra
GL_EXT_clip_volume_hint
GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array
GL_EXT_packed_pixels
GL_EXT_paletted_texture
GL_EXT_point_parameters
GL_EXT_shared_texture_palette
GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp
GL_EXT_texture_env_add
GL_EXT_vertex_array
GL_SGI_compiled_vertex_array
GL_SGIS_multitexture
GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp
WGL_3DFX_gamma_control
WGL_ARB_extensions_string
WGL_EXT_extensions_string
WGL_EXT_gamma_control
WGL_EXT_swap_control

** Edit (November 6, 2018) **

Erratum: Instead of "According to Wikipedia", please read "According to the Khronos Group".

 

[Dr Super Good]

Hardware NPOT Textures support is part of the OpenGL 2.0 specs.

According to Wikipedia, "R300 and R400-based cards (Radeon 9500+ and X500+) are incapable of generic NPOT usage, despite allegedly supporting OpenGL 2.0 (which requires full support). These cards only allow you to use NPOTs if the texture has no mipmaps. NV30-based cards (GeForce FX of any kind) are incapable of NPOTs at all, despite allegedly OpenGL 2.0 (which again requires NPOTs). It will do software rendering if you try to use it."

Also, Voodoo3 video cards (which were officially supported for WC3 by Blizzard) do not have an official OpenGL driver with hardware support for NPOT textures, according to the database of OpenGL Extensions Viewer 3.37

Or the person could buy a 10$ GPU second hand which has full NPOT support. Any computer with a modern Intel processor has NPOT support due to integrated graphics. It used to be an issue but is not an issue anymore.

 

[pyf]

Or the person could decide not to.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Or the person could decide not to.

Which is then not a problem seeing how modern Warcraft III requires...

minimum: NVIDIA® GeForce; 6800 (256 MB) or ATI™ HD 3650 Pro (256 MB) or better
recommended: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT (512 MB) or ATI Radeon HD 4850 (512 MB) or better

All of which support NPOT textures. The recommended even supports D3D10 and is more powerful than a Xbox 360...

Like I said, one can assume everyone can run NPOT textures in 2018.

 

[pyf]

Map / campaign creators are not bound to *any* version of Warcraft 3. The same goes for the loading screen template in the OP, which should not require the use of any specific game version / hardware to display properly, as long as texture creators follow the 'best practices' widely known in the field of computer game development in order to achieve maximum compatibility among the widest possible range of video card hardware.

There has been much confusion lately about OpenGL support and v1.30.x on some computers (Macs, notably), on THW as well as on the Battle.net forums. So far, my questions still have been unanswered. As of this writing, there is also still no detailed list of supported video cards for Warcraft 3 (even though such lists do exist for other Blizzard games).

 

[pyf]

Update:

For now the image must be composed/created with a 4:3 aspect ratio in mind. Additionally one can probably use non power of 2 textures for a higher resolution loading screen.

I mean higher resolution with the entire page, If warcraft III no longer supports 1024x768

If you want higher quality loading screens in modern Warcraft III then yes. For example a resolution of 1440x1080 would be optimum for most computers (with 1080p displays). That said it would only work in modern Warcraft III versions which allow loading of textures with dimensions larger than 512, which is the backwards compatibility problem that was mentioned before.

1920x1080 Loading Screen

 

[Dr Super Good]

follow the 'best practices' widely known in the field of computer game development in order to achieve maximum compatibility among the widest possible range of video card hardware

Except all video cards that one will make a game for support NPOT as it has been a very long time since cards that did still existed... Even modern versions of Warcraft III require hardware with full NPOT support. Hence outside of more efficient GPU memory management and mipmaps, both of which are not a issue for a Warcraft III loading screen, there are no practices against it.

As of this writing, there is also still no detailed list of supported video cards for Warcraft 3 (even though such lists do exist for other Blizzard games).

I am sorry Google is not working for you...

minimum: NVIDIA® GeForce; 6800 (256 MB) or ATI™ HD 3650 Pro (256 MB) or better
recommended: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT (512 MB) or ATI Radeon HD 4850 (512 MB) or better

As specified by
Warcraft III System Requirements
Obviously every card newer than those specified will work because such hardware was created with backwards compatibility in mind. For example the game runs perfectly on my GTX 760.

1920x1080 Loading Screen

That does not work and can be considered deprecated. Warcraft III now supports textures larger than 512 in any dimension hence one can use a single 1920x1080 image. However since loading screens are forced to 4:3 aspect ratio it is impossible to correctly display the 16:9 ratio of 1920x1080 and hence such image should rather be 1440x1080 for square pixels to avoid for easier production. If you insist on using non square pixels for some reason, then it would need to be produced with a pixel ratio of 0.75:1 in order to display correctly.

 

[pyf]

Except all video cards that one will make a game for support NPOT as it has been a very long time since cards that did still existed... Even modern versions of Warcraft III require hardware with full NPOT support. Hence outside of more efficient GPU memory management and mipmaps, both of which are not a issue for a Warcraft III loading screen, there are no practices against it.

Again, people are free to develop maps/campaigns, and/or create loading screens for any version of Warcraft 3 they want.

As specified by
Warcraft III System Requirements [...]

I am already aware Blizzard copy-pasted some time ago parts of the system requirements for SC:R onto the official Warcraft 3 system requirements (even though there is afaik no official announcement regarding any remastered version of WC3).

Also and to quote myself once more, "As of this writing, there is also still no detailed list of supported video cards for Warcraft 3 (even though such lists do exist for other Blizzard games)." For people with a maybe broken search engine, this is what a detailed list of supported video cards looks like (this one is for SC:R). Thank you DSG for providing us a link to an equivalent list for Warcraft 3, since maybe "your" Google works better?... (and btw, I generally use DuckDuckGo).

That does not work and can be considered deprecated. Warcraft III now supports textures larger than 512 in any dimension hence one can use a single 1920x1080 image. However since loading screens are forced to 4:3 aspect ratio it is impossible to correctly display the 16:9 ratio of 1920x1080 and hence such image should rather be 1440x1080 for square pixels to avoid for easier production. If you insist on using non square pixels for some reason, then it would need to be produced with a pixel ratio of 0.75:1 in order to display correctly.

It certainly works for the versions of the game it was designed for.

I am sorry Google is not working for you...

Regarding the official WC3 system requirements, have you noticed how the minimal display resolution is now 1280x720 for Windows, but is 1024x768 for Macs?

 

[Dr Super Good]

It certainly works for the versions of the game it was designed for.

It did not work even then if one used the correct 4:3 aspect ratio that Warcraft III was designed for...

"As of this writing, there is also still no detailed list of supported video cards for Warcraft 3 (even though such lists do exist for other Blizzard games)."

Why does such a list even exist? I mean if it runs on a 6800 and a 8800 it will certainly run on a RTX 2080 Ti, which all such lists are missing due to the obvious maintainability problems with producing such lists. The minimum requirements literally say even a piece of trash that is somehow still alive and supports D3D9 will run Warcraft III. I am pretty sure finding a reliable/working 6800 card is difficult task. My 6800, 8800, 280 and even a 460 (I think?) all died long ago.

Anyway sorry Frotty for going off topic and I will not be responding to any more such posts.

 

[pyf]

[...] Anyway sorry Frotty for going off topic and I will not be responding to any more such posts.

The tutorial in the OP was posted on May 21, 2014, and was therefore created with v1.26a in mind. Patch 1.26a was released on March 24, 2011. Any reference to other more recent versions of the game should therefore be considered irrelevant.

Now, I am wondering who made such references first in this thread...

It did not work even then if one used the correct 4:3 aspect ratio that Warcraft III was designed for...

Approved tutorials work for the versions of the game they are designed for.

Why does such a list even exist? [...]

Ask Blizzard?

 

[PurgeandFire]

@AlwaysAndForever @Dr Super Good @pyf I had previously deleted some of these posts, but I've now restored them and moved the discussion to its own separate help thread. Feel free to continue the discussion here!