Widescreen Gaming Forum

I can answer some of the questions, as i play weekly games of TA in multi:
* Does the game have any singleplayer anomalies or situations where hor+ does not apply?
Not any, to my knowledge. Title page and war room for multi have a fixed resolution, but the game itself is properly renreded at native WS resolution.
By the way the game is still Hor+ in multi, just like in single player.

*Does the game have any cut-scenes?
*If so, are they FMV or rendered, and how are they handled in widescreen?
It has a very short FMV opening, at fixed resolution, that is usually bypassed after 1st launch.

Given its old age the WS support of this game is amazing !

When you say the intro FMV is fixed resolution, do you mean that the screen itself runs at a fixed resolution, or does the intro run at a fixed resolution independent of the screen res? If the former, what is the resolution? If the latter, can you take before and after screenshots?

I'll have to check it out once i can get my TA CDs back, as you can run the game (limited to multi only) without the CDs, and in this case it does not even run the FMV intro (goes straight to title page)... In my memories the intro is like the single/multiplayer menus, run at a fixed resolution (*), independant of any screen resolution or in game resolution.
I'll take screenshots and get exact figures once i get the CDs back (i only play in multiplayer mode..)
(edit) i am limited to 1680x1050 too

(*) 640x480 or 800x600

Owning the full version of Total Annihilation, both expansion packs, and a 1920x1200 monitor I can answer everything:

1) TA seems to support all aspect ratios, 5:4, 4:3, 16:9, 16:10, in fact it seems TA can take anything I can throw at it
2) HUD is always perfectly preserved
3) Intro movie and menus are always 640x480 video output no matter what (that's what my 2405 tells me when I hit the menu button on the monitor) therefore you should enable aspect ratio scaling via monitor or drivers
4) In game WS support is perfect.

Really amazing considering this game came out in 1997.

I've tested and confirmed:
640x480
800x600
1280x960
1600x1200

1280x1024

1280x720
1600x900
1920x1080

1280x800
1440x900
1680x1050
1920x1200


I also have a friend who runs TA at 2048x1536 so that resolution is also confirmed.

I cannot try 2560x1600 but I am positive that it would work.

Also, I ran all of this on WinXP 64-bit on a Dell 2405FPW as well as a 57 inch Toshiba HDTV (don't recall model number). Video card is 7800GTX however TA does not use hardware acceleration so GPU is unimportant. CPU used was AMD64 2.6 GHz and 2GB RAM.

Also note that since TA's performance is entirely based on CPU (and a little bit by RAM), even the fastest modern CPU's encounter slowdown if you are playing a large modded game, once there are thousands of units active in-game.

I am proud to announce, that Total Annihilation is the latest, AND the oldest, game to be on the Certified list!

Yeah, TA was way ahead of its time, and not just technically. The RTS engine and interface and unit AI is still really incredible.

Chris Taylor, the creator of TA, who is now designing Supreme Commander, has said Supreme Commander will feature a customizable HUD where the player can specify if he or she wants it at the bottom of the screen or on the sides. He said this feature was specifically designed for widescreen users.

Also, Supreme Commander features full ingame support for multiple monitors, for example the game will smartly put various views of the battlefield, or maps and info, on secondary monitors. At E3 they had Supreme Commander running on dual 2405's at their demo booths.

If you installed your game before having your wide screen, it may not allow you to play in the native resolution. I had to reinstall it to enjoy my Dell 2007WFP's 1680*1050. It may be linked to the information given by Windows about the maximum resolution...
You can also edit the registry to avoid such pain. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareCavedog EntertainmentTotal Annihilation and modify the DisplaymodeHeight and Width keys to fit your favorite resolution.

Total Annihilation lists the following resolutions as supported.

640x480
720x480
720x576
800x600
848x480
960x600
1024x768
1088x612
1152x864
1280x720
1280x768
1280x800
1280x960
1280x1024
1360x768
1600x900
1600x1024
1600x1200
1920x1080
1920x1200
1920x1440
2048x1536

My monitor on the other hand gets a tad bitchy at 1600x1200 and above.
My theory has been for quite some time that if your monitor supports it, TA will run it.

As for having to reinstall after you get a widescreen monitor, its nonsense. I run all my copies of TA over the network.

Amazing... I didn't believe that anyone besides me remember this great game.

And to think it has built in wide screen modes... Really amazing. :shock: