Fullscreen Sage in Windows 7

[Dogbreath]

I've searched the forums fairly extensively and I've yet to find an answer. How does one run ADOM Sage in fullscreen mode? Thanks for any responses!

[rami]

That's easy (not very convenient though...). Go to device manager->display adapters and disable your display adapter. This will cause your screen to switch to some sucky 800x600 resolution, but now you will be able to put ADOM Sage into fullscreen mode by pressing Alt+Enter, like in Windows XP and earlier.
Don't forget to enable the display adapter again when you finished playing ADOM

This problem is not caused by Sage actually, but the fact that display drivers in Windows 7 do not support fullscreen mode for command line apps. So you need to disable the drivers to enable this mode again.

[Silfir]

Either you hack in a Windows XP graphics driver somehow (not recommended), or you start playing on an online server. The program you use to connect, putty, has a working fullscreen mode. Check for jaakkos' server thread.

There are some sweet extra functions on the server; a starsign selecter and a stats autoroller. Of course, you have to be connected to the internet, and if your connection lags the game lags too. That's about the only way to play ADOM Sage in fullscreen on Windows 7 I've found. You can play the DOS version of regular ADOM in DOSBox though.



To get more precise on the hacking, the issue is that video cards made for Vista and 7 generation don't have drivers that support the fullscreen mode for programs like cmd or ADOM. If the card is old enough, there might be an XP driver for it, which does support that mode, but you have to somehow manage to get it installed on your Windows 7 machine, which is pretty tricky. You lose Vista and 7 graphics features (then again, if your card is old enough to have an XP driver, it might not support those features anyway) and it might not exactly run stable.

Another alternative is to uninstall the official driver altogether and try and use the Windows 7 standard driver thing, which will wreak havoc on your performance in any other game or, for that matter, software using graphics. Don't do that just to get to play ADOM fullscreen.

EDIT: Okay, scratch the above, I didn't know it was that easy. Though personally I'd get mighty annoyed at having to rearrange all my desktop icons after switching back.

[Dogbreath]

Sadly, even after disabling my display adapter it doesn't work. Probably should mention I'm using an HP laptop.

I'll try playing online... I played Nethack online for years and really enjoyed it.

Thanks for the help!

[Dogbreath]

I tried the server, but it lagged too horribly for me to enjoy. It's not a complete loss, though... since I had downloaded Putty again I started playing Nethack again last night.

Are there any programmers out there who've considered making a Win7 compatible version of Sage? I love Sage because it takes the tedium out of playing ADOM - i.e, I can reduce spending an hour and a half collecting herbs to 30 seconds with the macros, same for mining, etc. It lets me focus on the actual game play instead of getting so bored by the "chores" that I quit.

[Grey]

Well, stop doing all those boring things and play the game properly. You do not need to spend hours mining and herb-farming to win the game. If the game is a chore for you you're doing something wrong :P

Which continent are you on? Have you tried the US server run by FFLaguna?

[CheatMan]

My solution for Windows Vista: Download Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 and install Win XP on it. From there, i've installed ADOM-sage, and use the corrected colour shortcut to point to adom-sage. Then it's just RightALT-ENTER to fullscreen the virtual PC window, run adom-sage.lnk, hit LeftALT-ENTER and boom, perfect colour fullscreen mode on my Win Vista Laptop.

For Windows 7: Download Microsoft Virtual PC XP Mode for Win 7. It already comes with win xp installed on it and it's the same steps as above.

[Dogbreath]

Well, stop doing all those boring things and play the game properly. You do not need to spend hours mining and herb-farming to win the game. If the game is a chore for you you're doing something wrong :P

Maybe "hours" is an exaggeration, probably more like 45 min to an hour, but I do like having To and Wi up to 25, and if I play a dwarf, I do like having semi-decent armor, which can take 8 or 9 levels of mining to get enough ore for.

It's not too big of a deal, ADOM is still very fun to play with DOSbox, it's just sage makes it all the more fun.

Which continent are you on? Have you tried the US server run by FFLaguna?

I'm not on any, sadly. I live in the middle of the pacific ocean. The US server would still probably be faster.

As far as XP mode: I sadly run Windows 7 Home Premium, so I'm ineligible to download.

Actually... decided to upgrade to pro. There are plenty of other programs I enjoy that don't work in Win 7... so VPC should solve this problem. Thanks for all the help!

[Dogbreath]

Okay, several hours later, downloaded windows professional, downloaded XP mode, got it running, installed adom sage and sage.lnk...

alt enter

"the video device failed to initialize for fullscreen mode"

*throws computer out window*

I'm off to go shoot myself or something now.

CheatMan: could you please tell me how you got around this? It'd make me very very happy.

[fflaguna]

Dogbreath - Play online on one of the servers! They have some features like autosave backups every 1,000 turns and more. Plus it keeps you from the horrible urge to savescum. Come try it out, see the other thread in this forum about it!

Keep in mind jaakkos also started a new server located in the US for better ping. You'll find that address on the LAST page of the server thread.