fireemerald / settlers4-widescreen-tool

Unlocks resolutions up to Full HD in The Settlers 4 (Die Siedler 4)

The Settlers 4: Widescreen Tool

Veni vidi vici - Gaius Iulius Caesar

Introduction

This Tool allows you to play The Settlers 4 in resolutions up to Full HD.

Supported resolutions

• Default Resolution
• 1024 x 600 Pixel (17:10)
• 1280 x 720 Pixel (16:9)
• 1280 x 800 Pixel (16:10)
• 1366 x 768 Pixel (16:9)
• 1440 x 900 Pixel (16:10)
• 1680 x 1050 Pixel (16:10)
• 1920 x 1080 Pixel (16:9)
• 1920 x 1200 Pixel (16:10)

Preview image

In-game compare (1280x1024 <> 1920x1080)

How to use

Just run the The Settlers 4 - Widescreen Tool.exe. No installation required.

FAQ / READ ME

The Tool was tested under Windows 7 and The Settlers 4 - Gold Edition (v2.50.1508).

• Q: If you fight as mayan the music stops to play after a fight.

A: This is a known bug, it was never fixed. You can start the music again, if you move ingame the Sound FX slider under Settings > Sound settings.

• Q: The Game doesn't start in a virtual machine. (Software/Hardware 3D : Error initializing Graphic Interface !)

A: There are a couple of threads where people write about this problem, but none of them found a way to start the game... me too.

• Q: Fatal error: Exception 0xc0000005 at 0x00468bd0!

A: Occures if something went wrong while using trading routes via ship (but not limited to this). It's a bug from the game itself.

Requirements

• Platform: Windows (32/64bit)
• Supported: Windows 2000 until Windows 7. You may get errors from the game itself under Windows 8 and newer!
• .NET Framework ≥ 3.5
• Microsoft Visual Studio ≥ 2013

Reporting issues

Use the Github Issuetracker to report a bug.

Submitting fixes

Fixes are submitted as pull request via Github or as code in a issue.

Copyright

Copyright (C) 2015-2018 by FireEmerald

License: GPL 3.0

settlers4-widescreen-tool's Issues

S4.exe is not available

Hey,

i tried to use your widescreen tool, but I have a problemselecting the files.
The original Game .exe is named S4_Main, so i changed it to S4.exe. This worked so i was able to select it. But after that the tool does not find the other files ("\Config\GameSettings.cfg or \Exe\GfxEngine.dll doesn't exist!")
But it's there, it's on this location C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\games\thesettlers4\Config\GameSettings.cfg

Do you know what's the error?

Michael

Upcoming changes

Due to the fact that Settlers 4 doesn't run on a native Windows 10 system i'm going to rewrite this tool, which will include the following features:

• New: Any resolution is now supported, including 4K and custom resolutions.
• New: Possibility to extend the GOG version with the AddOn "Die neue Welt".
• New: Possibility to swap the default terrain style to the AddOn "Die neue Welt" in all old maps.
• New: Possibility to change the language of the game itself.
  • Includes translation for 14 languages (text only).
  • Includes full translation for German and English (text + all sound files).
• New: Possibility to apply a compatibility fix for The Settlers 4 on Windows >=8 systems.
  • Includes multi-monitor support and border scrolling without any additonal tools.
  • Fixes the black terrain graphics bug when you scroll over the map.
  • Note: New versions of the Settlers installer from GOG do already contain a compatibility fix.
• Change: Project has moved from Visual Basic to C# including WPF and MVVM.
• Change: The UI uses now a dark design.
• Improvement: The Readme was extended with useful information about the game.
• Improvement: Removed most of hardcoded DLL's with in place binary editing.

Please add 1280x768 resolution

Hello, I think 1280x768 resolution would be perfect for the Steam Deck, since there is native 1024x768 support, so the height would be the same and 1280 is Steam Deck's native resolution width.

1280x720 cuts bottom part and 1280x800 does not work at all.

Confused graphics below building menu

On my laptop (Dell Latitude E7440, Win 10) the game's native resolution is 1280x1024 (the GOG GOLD version). Native resolution of the laptop is 1920x1080.
After applied this tool, every resolution where height is above 1024 pixels, there are graphics glitches below building menu. During scrolling screen. Every other area on screen works correct. But the menu width is only 1024 pixels, there is some place below this menu and it has confused graphics during scrolling (and it stays confused also when not scrolling).
The glitch is there with hardware textures and filtering and also using software renderer.

Windows 10 compatibility

The Settlers 4 isn't compatible with a OS > Win 7 - this includes Win10.

Nevertheless it is definitely possible to get the game running on such a system but it needs some special dll's which perhaps doesn't work on every Win10 system.

I will update the widescreen tool... if i find some time, we will see.

MacOS fatal error exception

There's an error when running the patched version of Settlers 4 on MacOS with Wineskin. Only original Gfxengine.dll works correctly. Would be nice to find out what's the problem and fix it. Not sure what's going wrong with the patch under Wineskin launch.

[feature request] Inverting in-game scroll direction.

Would be great to swap scroll axes to achieve natural scrolling direction.

Won't work on Windows 10 w/ 2 Screens

started it with Compatibility mode, game switches resolution a few times and starts on 2nd Monitor with like 320x480, cant move mouse.

GameSettings.cfg does not exist

Hi!

It does not work for me. I specify my path such as :
C:\Settlers 4\thesettlers4\S4_Main.exe
or S4_MainD.exe
Dont really know the difference. I downloaded Settlers 4 through Uplay,

Anyhow. I open the The Settlers 4 - Widescreen Tool.exe and specify this path. But always get the error :

Checking existing files...
\Config\GameSettings.cfg or \Exe\GfxEngine.dll doesn't exist!

I really dont know why this comes. I do have the \Config\GameSettings.cfg.
My InstallDir should be C:\Settlers 4\thesettlers4\ and in that case C:\Settlers 4\thesettlers4\Config\GameSettings.cfg does exist!

I really cant understand why this error still pops up. Please help. Thank you!

Game crashes after patching

Details:
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate
Game: GOG 2.50.1516
Patch resolution: 1280x800

After I patched the game, resolution stayed at 800x600. Manual patch (replacing the DLL) did nothing as well. When I tried to change resolution to option 1024x768 (which I assume is the patched one) the game crashed with error: Exception 0xc0000005 at 0x18c2fc0e. Now, after running the game and launching any mission I get the crash.

Is there a way that I can play at 1280x800? (If I replace the DLL back to default, it doesn't crash and runs on 1024x768)

Add steam deck support (1280 x 800 dll need to be fixed)

Earlier I tested this tool on other computer with Windows 10 and works perfect for FullHD, but there is a problem on Steam Deck at least with one resolution 1280 x 800, game seems that do not accept that dll.

There is a workaround to still have widescreen, using file 1280x720 but bottom part of the interface is cut off.

Steps to reproduce my current working state:

1. Override GfxEngine.dll by file GfxEngine_1280x720.dll (or from folder named 1280x720)
2. Set in Config/GameSettings.cfg:
3. WindowHeight = 768
   WindowWidth = 1024
   Screenmode = 2
4. Result below
   
   I have old Gold Edition and old version of this fix/tool/mod where dlls where in folders instead of renamed files

Steps from Readme file

with these files it's possible to play Settlers IV in the following resolutions (see above).
to install the resolution you want:
1. open the folder of your desired resolution and copy the GfxEngine.dll.
2. open the "Exe" folder in your Settlers IV directory and overwrite the existing GfxEngine.dll (you might want to do a backup)
3. the 1024x768 resolution has been overwritten by the resolution you chose. (keep in mind that you have to use "Screenmode 2" / 1024x768 in order to profit from this patch)
enjoy settling in high resolution!
-----------------------------------------------
one last note, i tried 1080p and its kind of slow (fps wise), so you might want to try a lower resolution.