From WSGFWiki

Game Information

By: Firaxis, Atari
Genre: Historical Fantasy, Action-Adventure
Release Date: December 3, 2004
Players: 1
Version: This report applies to a full game with latest 1.02 patch installed.

Sid Meier's Pirates is a remake of a classic strategy game from 1987 (Sid Meier's Pirates), featuring an intoxicating blend of action, strategy, role-playing, and fun. It was released on Dec 3, 2004 in USA and Europe.

Widescreen Support

Method

There is no native support for widescreen in game settings, but you can edit config.ini file (located in My Documents/My Games/Sid Meier's Pirates!/ in Windows Vista) and set the game to any desired resollution. However, this stretches the game horizontally and on static backgrounds it cuts off the top (and sometimes even bottom) of the picture, it dispositions the game hud and game menus and the game becomes barely playable.

Changing the resolution in config.ini file:

[User Settings]
Gamma = 1.000000
KeypadStatus = 1
DisplayShadows = 1
TrilinearFiltering = 1
DisableShaders = 0
AdvancedLighting = 1
WindowWidth = 1024 -> 1680 (instead of 1024)
WindowHeight = 768 -> 1050 (instead of 768)
WaterDetail = 3
WorldDetail = 5
ObjectDetail = 2
MasterVolume = 1.000000
MusicVolume = 1.000000
SFXVolume = 1.000000
DanceVolume = 1.000000
IsSlowMachine = 0
MyName = Misa
3DAudioDriver = Creative Labs EAX (TM)
CustomSail =
CustomFlag =

Screen change

The game does stretch horizontally, and it cuts off game information and game hud by positioning it half way out of the screen. It cuts off top, somewhere top and bottom of the screen in game menus and static scenes, and it positions text in wrong place in cut-scenes.

1024x768

1680x1050

Surround Gaming support

None

Known Issues

Game hud and game menus become partly invisible after resolution change. This affects the gameplay negatively.

After the top and bottom of ingame menus has been cut off, viewing game menus becomes little bit tricky - you need to click little bit below the option in game menu to make a choice. The same happens when you want to click on game hud, you need to click little bit above the ordinary place on game hud to make a choice.

There is distortion in the picture in sword-fighting parts of the game, this may be caused by Vista nVidia Beta drivers, but it may be part of incorrect stretching of widescreen resolution as well.

When you enter the town or when you are just about to enter battle with another ship, the picture strangely changes display mode, and you notice menu flickering for half a second as it adjusts itself for this "new display mode"..

Also, there is a DirectX initialization error at 1440x900

Condensed detailed report

WSGF links

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6730

External links

http://www.2kgames.com/pirates/pirates/home.php