Overview
How to access a few additional resolutions that are not available in the in-game settings menu, including 16:9 resolutions up to 1920×1080
Intro
By default, Puzzle Quest’s options only allow you to pick between a few resolution options that are limited to 4:3 and 16:10. However, there are a few additional available options that are not exposed to the player. Why Infinite Interactive did not allow us to choose these options is beyond me, but I shame them for it.
Instructions
Puzzle Quest stores it’s settings in the registry. If you are not comfortable editing the registry, turn back now.
Open the Registry Editor by searching for it or by pressing Windows Key + R to open the run dialogue, and typing “regedit” and pressing enter.
If you are nervous, you can export your current registry settings by selecting File > Export and saving the backup somewhere
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareInfinite InteractivePuzzle Quest (make sure to select the “Puzzle Quest” folder here)
You will see a number of entries, one of which is named “Resolution.” Double click to open the “Edit Binary Value” window.
In the “Value data:” section, you’ll see a number of characters, most of which will be 0’s save for the first grouping of two characters. This is the part you care about. Delete that part of the value and replace it with the desired resolution value from the table below.
This editor does not behave quite the same as when you edit text, when you press backspace or delete it will remove both characters and you will need to type both of them again. If you mess up, just press cancel and try again.
Example:
If your current resolution was set to 1920×1200, the first set of numbers would display as “11”
If you wanted to change it to 1920×1080, you would click in the space after the set, press backspace once to clear it out, and then type 10.
Resolution Options
These are all the numbers with their corresponding resolutions. I’ve marked the resolutions not available by default in bold and with an asterisk (*).
- 01 – [480×272]* (broken)
- 02 – [640×480]
- 03 – [720×480]*
- 04 – [720×480]*
- 05 – [800×600]
- 06 – [1024×768]
- 07 – [1280×720]*
- 08 – [1280×800]
- 09 – [1280×960]
- 0a – [1280×1024]
- 0b – [1228×768]*
- 0c – [1366×768]*
- 0d – [1440×900]
- 0e – [1600×1200]
- 0f – [1680×1050]*
- 10 – [1920×1080]*
- 11 – [1920×1200]
Notes
There seems to be some weirdness around these options relating to fullscreen/windowed. If you are having issues, make sure the game is windowed during startup and then switch to fullscreen.
I have not tested all of these extra resolutions fully, but they appear to work. The actual game area doesn’t really change size, it just adds some pillars on the left and right. The actual game was intended to be played at 1024×768 and the assets were designed with that in mind, so they may look blurry or low quality on high resolutions.
When you pick one of the normally unavailable resolutions, the selector will display as blank in the options menu. If you change the resolution in the menu, you will need to edit the registry again to set it back.
I have not been able to figure out if custom resolutions are possible. Given that the game clearly does support 16:9, I would think it is feasible but since the registry key seems to hold a list of incrementing values, it is possible they are hardcoded in the engine. If anyone figures out how to get higher resolutions like 2560×1440, please let me know.
I do not believe there are any more built-in resolution options besides the ones on my table. I tried 12 and it caused my game to crash, and 13 reset the resolution to 1024×768. That leads me to believe that 12 may reference something in the game code, but it is not working. Any higher seems to revert default. If anyone finds info on this, let me know.
It may also be possible to find a way to modify the game files to allow users to access these resolutions without having to edit the registry. I haven’t looked much into it, I did find that editing the GameText.xml file to include the additional resolutions didn’t work, but if anyone out there figures that out, again, let me know.