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[Mikael]

I’m doing some tests with 16:9 format for the first time, and encountered something I can’t get my head around.

I’ve set my test project to 1366 x 768, which I thought might be a “safe “ resolution, since very few widescreen monitors use a lower resolution than that.

When running it on my  1920 x 1080 monitor, with “Run in window” unchecked , I hoped that the game would fill the whole screen. I still get quite large black borders around the gaming area though.
 
When checking wme.log, it says that “Game aspect ratio is the same as monitor aspect ratio”, which sounds good that far. It also says “Backup resolution:  1440 x 900”.
Upon checking, it indeed seems like the game changed my screen resolution to 1440 x 900 , and placed the 1366 x 768 scene inside of that (hence the black borders). It also messes up the aspect ratio slightly, since 1440 x 900 is 16:10.

Is there any way to get around this? Am I doing something wrong? What I obviously want is the monitor resolution to be set to 1366 x 768 upon starting the game, instead of 1440 x 900.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[fireside]

I couldn't get 1366 x 768 working either without black borders.   1280 x 720 seems to work fine.  It's pretty much standard for most devices.

[Mikael]

Thank you Fireside! It didn't occur to me to try lower resolutions, and 1280 x 720 works for me too.

However, I've been using 1024 x 768 in my 8 latest games, and I very rarely receive complaints from people who can't play the game due to resolution issues. So it feels kind of awkward to actually step down in vertical resolution.

I know that older types of widescreen TV's used 1280 x 720, but what other devices use it? I figured that all "modern" devices has a vertical resolution of at least 768 p, with the obvious exception of some older mobile devices.

[Mikael]

I found a solution!

When the aspect ratio doesn't fit your screen, you can see a list in wme.log of the resolutions that the engine "considers" before firing up the game. 1366 x 768 is not in the list, but 1360 x 768 is. So, I changed the project settings, and the size of my test splash screen to be make sure how it looks, to 1360 x 768, and it all starts up in no-nonsense full screen. Doing a quick search on Google, I see that 1360 x 768 is also a common maximum resolution, although it's aspect ratio actually is 16:9.04.

Edit: I see now that 1360 x 768 (and not 1366 x 768) is one of the possible resolutions on the screen I tested it on. So that's most likely what's controlling the different resolutions that are "considered" by WME. I just tried the 1360 x 768 project on my laptop, with its 1366 x 768 screen, and it worked perfectly.

[fireside]

That's interesting.  I should have checked that log, but I still wouldn't have thought it would work on a 1366 x 768 laptop.  Good to know. 
Just about everything runs on 720p, which is 1280 x 720, for instance, it's the native resolution for Ice Cream Sandwich in android.  It's on televisions, etc.  Anything that has that resolution or higher will probably run on it.   

[Mikael]

I guess that you can run 1280 x 720 on most, if not all, devices which maximum resolution is higher (or identical to) 1280 x 720. I wonder how many devices that are around today, except for phones and MP3 players, with a maxumum resolution of 1280 x 720 or less. I don't think there are many widescreen Windows machines in circulation today with a lower resolution than 1360 x 768.

So, the question is which resolution to go with, 1366 x 768 or 1280 x 720?

[fireside]

I think either one would be all right for most applications as long as it goes full screen.  I didn't like it when there were borders on a laptop because it's kind of small already.  It might not work on some televisions, but not that many people play computer games on their television.