OOLite set my desktop to a resolution my monitor can't use

[artao]

Using OOLite 1.74.2 ...
Only just found OOLite, and let me tell you I'm excited and it looks awesome!! Elite has needed a graphically updated rendition for many many years. Thank you.
However.
I was running the game in fullscreen, and accidentally hit the F11 key. This set the resolution beyond what my monitor would display. Even upon exiting the game, the resolution stayed the same. Needless to say, I could see nothing on my screen, as the monitor was in 'sleep' mode, i.e. the 'on' button was yellow, not green. I rebooted, figuring that would reset whatever happened .... but no, still no monitor display. ....
Very very bad !!!!
Thankfully, I'm rather experienced at troubleshooting computers.
After spending close to an hour trying to reset the resolution from safe mode, reset it 'blind' with help from my notebook (so i could see the menu structure), looking up the issue online from safe mode .... I eventually had to boot normally using VGA mode, then reset the resolution, then reboot normally again.
This, to me, seems to be a MAJOR bug. A user not as familiar with their system as I am would be rather hard pressed to fix this. My next step was to uninstall my graphics drivers from safe mode, reboot normally, then re-install them. What a PITA !!!! Very glad VGA mode helped fix the issue.
Really tho, NO software should be setting the display mode of the desktop. At All. I have never before seen an app that set the resolution outside of itself.
Also, I've got to ask, WHY is the F11 set to change resolution?? Is a hotkey for that REALLY needed?? How often are people going to be changing their resolution anyhow? Also, it's far far to easy to accidentally hit that key when going for, say, F12 or F10. Is there no way to disallow the game from accepting resolutions not supported by the monitor??
Also, I am certainly NOT going to see if this bug is repeatable. It was way too much of a PITA to fix.

in the meantime, while you fix this, is there a way I can disable the F11 key in-game?? please??

not that it really matters for this issue, my system:
Win XP SP3
AMD Athlon XP 1800+
ATI Radeon X700 256meg
1 gig RAM
SB Live! soundcard
Saitek Cyborg 3D joystick
Logitech wireless mouse
std keyboard

[Commander McLane]

Hi, artao, and first of all welcome to the boards and of course to this great game!

Apart from the obligatory greeting I can't be of much help, I'm afraid. But I'm sure that someone more knowledgeable about Oolite for Windows will be there soon.

[Eric Walch]

Using OOLite 1.74.2 ...
I was running the game in fullscreen, and accidentally hit the F11 key. This set the resolution beyond what my monitor would display. Even upon exiting the game, the resolution stayed the same. Needless to say, I could see nothing on my screen, as the monitor was in 'sleep' mode, i.e. the 'on' button was yellow, not green. I rebooted, figuring that would reset whatever happened .... but no, still no monitor display. ....
Very very bad !!!!

Hi, artao, also a welcome to the boards and to this great game!

I also can't really help as I was not even aware that the F11 key did something. A text search gave me from the changelog for Oolite 1.73

Code: Select all

* SDL & Windows fixes: reworked Windows port to resize game view without
  texture loss. Splash screen for both Linux and Windows. When switching
  fullscreen resolutions using F11 Oolite now saves the new fullscreen
  resolution.

But I am on a Mac so F11 does nothing with me. On the mac the key for a windowed/fullscreen switch is ⌘F

However, I did also had resolution problems myself when I transferred Oolite to my new computer. First I thought about a bug, but (after a few days) I realised I had to set resolution for my new screen in the preferences. Maybe your problem is related as there was never a default resolution defined. It sounds as an Oolite bug than.

Really tho, NO software should be setting the display mode of the desktop. At All. I have never before seen an app that set the resolution outside of itself.

That sounds like an operating system bug that allows programs to change those settings on their own without reverting to the system defaults when quitting the application.

Browsing a bit through the code it looks like you can browse through the available resolutions with F11/shift-F11. Maybe the OS lists an resolution that does not exists? Anyhow, there are probably window users that know better how this should work.

[artao]

Thanks for the welcomes. sorry my first post here is a bug report, but then I prolly wouldn't have registered (yet) had I not had this issue
I did get it fixed, but IMHO I never should have HAD to fix it. Perhaps it is an OS issue, but then again I've never had an app reset my desktop resolution on me before. That leads me to believe it's something to do with OOLite.
Regardless, i really really see no reason for the F11 hotkey resolution switching. Please leave it in the config menu where it belongs ... I was going for F12 when I accidentally hit it. Didn't even know it did anything ...

[Cody]

Hi artao and welcome aboard.

Just a thought… in Windows XP - Display Properties – Settings – Advanced - Monitor, you can check the ‘Hide modes that this monitor cannot display’ box… this may help. (It should always be checked, actually).

[JensAyton]

But I am on a Mac so F11 does nothing with me. On the mac the key for a windowed/fullscreen switch is ⌘F

F12 is the equivalent of command-F, and it works under Mac OS X as well these days.

I don’t know offhand where the F11 thing came from, but if it isn’t a convention of some sort I don’t see a need for it.

(As a side note, it’s an utter disgrace for the computer industry as a whole that combinations of hardware and OS still exist that can’t detect compatible display modes properly. It’s utterly contemptuous of users. The problem was solved in the mid-nineties. Unfortunately, there’s nothing Oolite, as an application, can do about it.)

[Cody]

I don’t know offhand where the F11 thing came from

F11 is the Windows function key for toggling through 'available' resolutions.

[Mauiby de Fug]

Not just Windows, it does it in Ubuntu as well!

[JensAyton]

F11 is the Windows function key for toggling through 'available' resolutions.

Yes, I know. What I don’t know is why we have/need one. :-)

[Eric Walch]

But I am on a Mac so F11 does nothing with me. On the mac the key for a windowed/fullscreen switch is ⌘F

F12 is the equivalent of command-F, and it works under Mac OS X as well these days.

I don’t know offhand where the F11 thing came from, but if it isn’t a convention of some sort I don’t see a need for it.

When the F11 is only used for resolution settings on windows I agree that setting it in the game preferences should be enough as it only needs to be set once for most players.

On the F12 working for the Mac OS X, I must say: not for me. On one computer it activates the widgeds and the other computer does increases volume. (fn-F12 activates widgets there).

Playing with the F keys I noticed a bug with the F8 key:
On my 10 year old i-mac keybord the key works as it should, but on my 6 months old keybord that is on my other computer, the F8 does nothing. (F1 till F7 do work as they should). I never noticed as I always uses the normal '8' on that keybord. And fn-F8 activates 'spaces' so is no option either. (Changing the setting for the activation of fn keys in keybord preferences does not help)

[JensAyton]

On the F12 working for the Mac OS X, I must say: not for me. … on my other computer, the F8 does nothing.

When F-keys are mapped to systemwide functions, they aren’t put in the event queue, so Oolite doesn’t see them. This is an entirely sensible design decision on Apple’s part. We could go out of our way to see them anyway (at least in full-screen mode), but unless there’s widespread confusion I don’t see a great need to do so.

[artao]

Yeah, I've got the box checked to not display unsupported resolutions. That only seems to affect the windows desktop settings tho. No game I know of respects that checkbox. oh well.
also, the F11 key is not a Windows standard hotkey for switching resolutions. it IS however a semistandard key for full-screen toggling, several apps I have use it thusly. yet another reason for F11 to NOT be mapped to changing resolution ...

I looked into the key config files, and saw no way to remove the F11 mapping ... is it possible? any help on that ??

[Kaks]

Hi,
first of all about the use of F11/F12 in windows & linux: no idea how they came about either, I'm araid.
However, I have tested Oolite on 3 different windows based computers, and no matter what I did, exiting Oolite restored the original screen resolution.
I don't seem to have 'undisplayable' resolutions myself, however oolite does ask the operating system which resolution it's allowed to use. If windows does send Oolite the 'wrong' resolutions too, I'm not entirely clear how we'd be able to tell the wrong & right ones apart...


F11 & F12 are hardcoded in 1.74.x (and all previous versions of Oolite that react to those two keys).
We can - however - change that for 1.75. I suppose we'd have to come up with a convention for 'disable this key' inside keyconfig.plist, though...


And finally, did Oolite crash when you where in full screen mode & with an odd resolution? That's the only case I'm aware of that could prevent Oolite from restoring the original desktop screen resolution.

If that was not the case, can you let us know which monitor you've got, so we can try to replicate the problem?

[artao]

Interesting. Thanks for the reply.
No idea if OOLite crashed, couldn't see anything. I don't think so however, as I was able to shut the machine down normally with the keyboard power key.
My monitor is a Veiwsonic G773.
I'm hesitant to attempt repeating this problem myself. Perhaps I will try, now that I know exactly how to fix it.

EDIT: hmmm . . thinking about it, I guess I'm not even certain I was able to exit the game. I DID hit shift-Q to exit the game once the monitor turned off. I guess I just assumed it had actually exited. Perhaps it didn't. As I said, I couldn't actually see anything. Perhaps rebooting from that state is what caused the resolution to not return to normal. hmmm

[artao]

uh, ok ... coulda sworn I added another post about an hour ago ... ohwell ...

I looked into it further.
I do indeed have my machine set to not display unsupported resolutions ... in the graphics card config i.e. Catalyst Control Center ..
So I looked into the monitor settings.
Turns out I had my monitor installed as "Default Monitor". huh
Installed the Viewsonic G773 drivers, and now OOLite doesn't show unsupported resolutions.
Go figure.
I've had to reinstall my OS 4 times this year, and I guess this last time I didn't do the monitor driver install.
Oh well. Got it now.
heh. funny. D'OH
...
still tho. please remove the F11 resolution switching hotkey, as it can certainly be dangerous ...