RailMaster 'screen resolution' warning message.

[jaguar12]

I run the latest version of Railmaster Pro on my Windows 10 laptop, which has a native screen resolution of 1920x1080 full HD.

 Every time I launch Railmaster, I receive this message, which I have to acknowledge by clicking the green tick:

 The resolution of your screen is below the recommended minimum of 1024x768...

 As this isn't the case, is there anyway to stop the message appearing every time I load Railmaster?

[96RAF]

Is there anything in the additional knowledge base help.

I am on an iPad at present so can’t check it for you.

Rob

[jaguar12]

How do I consult the additional knowledge base?

 The warning message doesn't actually stop Railmaster working correctly, just irritating that it keeps popping up every time I launch the software. I click on the green tick to acknowledge the message and Railmaster loads.

[Chrissaf]

You will find the 'Knowledge-base' interactive program as a file in the same folder where you have allowed RailMaster to install the RM manuals.

[96RAF]

From memory I have an icon on my desktop from the last installation update.

Rob

[Chrissaf]

In my last reply I wrote;

"You will find the 'Knowledge-base' interactive program as a file in the same folder where you have allowed RailMaster to install the RM manuals."

I should have written:

You will find the 'Knowledge-base' interactive program as a shortcut in the same folder where you have allowed RailMaster to install the RM manual shortcuts.

PS - I don't recall seeing anything about this error message in the Knowledge-base. I suggest that you use the internal Help Screen support request within RailMaster to ask this question of HRMS (Hornby RailMaster Support).

[Augustus Caesar]

@jaguar

You may want to try looking at your driver for your laptop. Check video settings too if the driver is nVidia or ATI.

I run my own eLink and RM from a widescreen laptop but when I use a tablet (8 inch and Windows 10) for testing I have the same problem.

 This doesn't mean it is not fixable but generally the program will read the resolution of your screen and compare with internal code to see if it is fully compatible with running RM at its optimum settings even for a smaller screen.

It could be a driver issue as stated or that the program is misreading your sreensize and giving the warning. It's trying to fit everything on screen without you having part of one of the controllers, for example, off screen slightly.

 I've not bothered checking this one out as I said I use the tablet for testing only but may take a look at this closer when I get the chance. It may well be something to add to the Help Site I run for RM as well.

Not much to go on but at least it gives a hint or clue as to where to start looking.

[jaguar12]

Thanks very much for the advice.

 It doesn’t stop anything working and seems to still look fine. Just annoying extra intervention required to clear the message about the screen resolution being 'below' 1024 x 768, when it’s clearly the opposite!

 I will take a closer look at the video settings. I chose this particular Lenovo laptop as the screen is full HD (1920 x 1080), rather than the more common 1368 x 768, seen on many laptops, which isn’t in fact HD.

[Augustus Caesar]

@jaguar

 My own Acer Iconia Tab 8 W1 810 is an older Windows 8.1 model to which I installed Windows 10 to a year or two ago. It can only take 32 bit editions because of the processor and, funnily enough, while I type this I am updating it to Windows 10 v1803 as the 'drive' inside cannot install it as an update. It has to be done fresh from USB.

 Anyway... while I did a test earlier the whole screen is taken up by RM and, indeed, overlaps it so the bottom and right side of RM are off screen. The resolution for this model is 1280 x 800 which one would think would be OK as you say yourself because RM asks for a mere 1024 x 768. Seems to me that the code needs changing to get around this even though RM asks for it as a minimum recommendation.

 One would also think that the windows or dialogue boxes wthin RM would be scalable. They aren't to that much of an extent unfortunately.

 If earlier checks I gave don't work for you consider as has been suggested and contact support to see if they come up with a solution. At this point my tablet is telling me there isn't enough space to create a RAMdisk for the install of 1803. This is bad memory area but there is no bad memory in that tablet. It is also regarded as a bug within tablets, laptops and more that have eMMC memory cards installed instead of a HDD.

 I will continue to see if I get a result anyway and post here but thus far it isn't going to be quick unfortunately.

[Fishmanoz]

I’ve had this bug ever since I moved my RM onto a Yoga Pro with a hi res screen. RM seems unable to recognise these and mistakenly thinks they are low res.  I’ve just cleared it and continued. 

[Augustus Caesar]

Annoying as it is the only thing to do here short term especially is to just clear the message as you say Fishy and continue.

Long term? Can't see the issue being resolved by the authors of RM as more important things seem to be on their minds at this point.

[St1ngr4y]

Is there anything shown in the log file when this message appears? I have just set my screen resolution to 800x600 to force this message and the logfile showed this...

13/09/18 11:31:52 Message displayed: The resolution of your screen is below the recommended minimum of 1024x768. Although the program will continue to function, you may experience cluttered windows. (328 : RailMaster/Load) - Response=6

13/09/18 11:31:52 Warned user of insufficient screen resolution: 800x600

 At least this will show the user what RM thinks the resolution is.

Ray

[jaguar12]

Thanks for all the replies.

 I will check these out when I have a moment.

 Thanks

[Augustus Caesar]

@St1ngr4y

The detail you give from the log mirrors the error message of course but offers a code where he programmers can look for why that is cropping up.

They aren't always foolproof though and coding is only as good as the writer who created it.

 One thing that HAS crossed my mind though is that occasionally this message may be given before the correct time when certain checks are not done first. In other words the check for resultions should be done first then the error message shown if an error is found. If that code is shown prior to the check then that message is incorrectly displayed thus out of context in terms of the code written.

Mostly though I would assume some level of accuracy in the code but a spurious call to another routine with an incorrectly placed return could result in this message being shown in error.

If your screen is 'normal' and the resolution is correct and larger than that stated by RM then it is not being checked correctly or there is a bug. If your RM 'window' is within the bounds of the full screen and not overlapping edges or the taskbar then that would be or should be sufficient not to cause or create an error message.

[St1ngr4y]

Hi AC,

The point I was trying to make is that the second entry in the log file...

 "Warned user of insufficient screen resolution: aaaa x bbbb"

 ... should show the user what RM is being told by the operating system is the current screen resolution. Now if aaaa x bbbb don't equate to 1920x1080 (what the OP originally quoted), then the method being used by RM to get this information does not work. Whether this is down to the screen driver or Windows itself is open to question. If the numbers shown in the logfile message are correct, then there is a simple flaw in the RM code where it is failing to compare aaaa and bbbb correctly to what it considers the minimum values of 1024 and 768.

Ray

[Augustus Caesar]

@St1ngr4y

 Yeah I get what you were, and are, saying and concur. I did say that also in an earlier post that the code may be misreading the resolution.

Without myself doing a similar test to yours though I wouldn't get the result you achieved. However, that merely confirms that the code is reading some resolutions but maybe not all. Another consideration is that some monitors may even be sending out the wrong information but the chances of that are not too high but it is there as a possibility.

Most likely we are both correct in that RM is misreading.

[St1ngr4y]

If, as has been suggested elsewhere on the Forum, Railmaster is written in VB6, then the screen handling facilities available to that language may be out-of-date compared with modern hardware. In VB6, screen dimensions are expressed in TWIPs. A twip is a measurement of 1/1440 of an inch. In the object-oriented VB6, there is an object called "screen" which has properties of width, height, twipsperpixelX and twipsperpixelY. Width and height are returned as a number of twips, and the calculation to find out the screen resolution in pixels is width / twipsperpixelX x height / twipsperpixelY. Now on a couple of pcs of my own on which I have examined these values, the values of twipsperpixelX & Y invariably seem to be 15 each. However, if a more modern pc and its monitor are returning a much larger value than 15, then these two calculations may result in resolutions < 1024 x 768.

Ray

[96RAF]

... Which is exactly why I prefer to use a width and height of 100% when specifying screen size on web pages. Given it autosizes thus there are times on certain screens when the aspect ratio gets awry.

Rob

[Augustus Caesar]

@St1ngr4y

Well, you certainly grabbed that detail from the depths... I'd actually not put two and two together here and come up with that one.

You're correct of course and RM is written in VB6. I was told that a good while back by a chap in the know but whom isn't on these forums. Anyway, that's a totally useless fact but never mind.

I actually can't remember when I last used the expression twipsperpixelX and Y... my brain isn't allowing me to access data much beyond a few weeks or months so I've no chance with that lol.

Seriously, it was only during a course I touched on those things as they were soon to be old hat and I definitely cannot remember which course... I did so many back in the day. But your argument is persuasive and could well be the likely source for the 'errors'.

@RAF...

Web design is great when done with decent CSS and heights and widths of sites are done in percentages. I don't often used fixed width or height unless absolutely crucial to the design and the client's wishes are considered too.

There is so much flexibility using these dimensions in that way where columns for example can be a real pain when using fixed dimensions. Percentages allow themselves to be utilised for tablet/mobile and large screen displays as you know but I sometimes try and use a piece of code that reads the screen size of the user to give best results. Although even that doesn't work all the time because browser code is altered and removed on each update... happy days.

[Sydney_railer]

Hi everyone

I read through this thread but couldn’t find a workaround for this annoying pop up message.

Is there a solution?

Thanks

Simon

[idlemarvel]

I have an HD screen 1920x1080 and I get that message too. I think it is because they take into account font magnification, which in my case is 150%, which if you do the maths takes the effective resolution down below the trigger value for that message. If I set the magnification to 100% the message goes away.