UPDATE - Optimized Galactic Civilizations 2 for modern displays (1080p)

[Varainger]

In case anyone missed it due to whatever...

News :
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/202200/view/544482209590935608

"... optimization for modern displays, specifically catering to 1080p resolution. For many players, this means that the visuals and details of the game will now shine even brighter on contemporary screens..."


Your opinions, experiences ?
I'll post too later.

[Fulano]

Huh... I was wondering what the update was, figured it was just Steam doing it's Steam things again.
Wild that they updated such an old game.
I just played a while in Windowed mode, didn't notice anything different. I wonder if it fixes the alt-tabbing crash.

[Adam Beckett]

Just re-installed the game to test if this update still works with Linux/WINE/Proton. Everything works fine, so far. High performance. No issues.

I do not remember how it was before. I assume, 1080p update is new as in supporting 16:9 aspect ratio and proper UI scaling, without 'stretching'?

Having said that, 1920x1080 widescreen makes the UI look nice and clean. It is just too 'big' for my old man eyes. The tiny font is 'tinier' in high resolutions, while still everything looks neat and tidy.

Thankfully, the game still knows how to handle way smaller resolutions, which I then use in fullscreen mode. Even in 1024x768(!) the UI knows not to overlap and put things in the 'right place', making it easy to read and navigate through.

Overall, this game has very good UI, fonts and an extraordinary amount of 'graphic settings', letting the player decide, which one to toggle on or off for performance gain. Though - in 2025 - those 'disable ...' options are not really necessary anymore?

I am playing this game right now on a 15 Watt Intel Alder-Lake-N MiniPC (4 e-cores only, meager iGPU). Maxed out, in 1080p, I still get 60FPS ... though not needed with a turn-base 4x game.

-----------------

Speaking of old 4x games. Most other, older games were made in that era when UI was not a 'separate thing'. "UI Scaling" was an afterthought ... if any thought was given at all?

Especially, with the 'one-man' or 'small-group' 4x dev teams, making UI heavy games with fixed, non-scaling fonts, message boxes, UI visual elements? If the post-release localization efforts did not break the screen, too high resolutions would. Even worse, running into memory failures and crashes.

It is funny, if people remember the Stardock reputation and early game releases. Bugs and crashes were haunting them, as they did our machines, back then. It is funny (and pleasant) to see, how these old games run mostly stable and smooth in 2025.

[Varainger]

Yeah first impression is truly quite good.
It appears to look sharper and chrystal clear (relatively) now.
Nice, very nice.

I wonder if they did anything else or if those changes affect the mouse cursor bug (when not using hardware mouse cursor) or the turn-never-ends issue..

[vurt]

Is anyone running this (GC2TwilightOfTheArnor.exe) on Windows 11? Doesn't work for me, the original .exe and Dark Avatar does work with no issues at all, which is a bit odd. Running through Steam (which starts GC2TwilightOfTheArnor.exe) just gives me a black screen.

[FireFox]

Originally posted by vurt:

Is anyone running this (GC2TwilightOfTheArnor.exe) on Windows 11? Doesn't work for me, the original .exe and Dark Avatar does work with no issues at all, which is a bit odd. Running through Steam (which starts GC2TwilightOfTheArnor.exe) just gives me a black screen.

I am, running it on Win 11 24H2 64-bit, no issues except the "out of memory" crash but that's typical for older 32-bit games.

[vurt]

Originally posted by FireFox:

Originally posted by vurt:

Is anyone running this (GC2TwilightOfTheArnor.exe) on Windows 11? Doesn't work for me, the original .exe and Dark Avatar does work with no issues at all, which is a bit odd. Running through Steam (which starts GC2TwilightOfTheArnor.exe) just gives me a black screen.

I am, running it on Win 11 24H2 64-bit, no issues except the "out of memory" crash but that's typical for older 32-bit games.

Ok, thanks. I guess it doesn't like either my Ryzen CPU or some driver then.

[Varainger]

Originally posted by vurt:

Originally posted by FireFox:

I am, running it on Win 11 24H2 64-bit, no issues except the "out of memory" crash but that's typical for older 32-bit games.

Ok, thanks. I guess it doesn't like either my Ryzen CPU or some driver then.

I wonder what you meant with "original exe"in your earlier post..
PS: Oh likely the DreadLords base game exe. Got it.

Anyway,...
Try setting the prefs.ini to NOT start in fullscreen mode.
That sometimes helps with other games.
So C:\Users\username\Documents\My Games\GC2TwilightArnor\Prefs.ini
Set Fullscreen to 0.

It it already is, then it's something else, but worth a check.

[vurt]

Originally posted by Varainger:

Originally posted by vurt:

Ok, thanks. I guess it doesn't like either my Ryzen CPU or some driver then.

I wonder what you meant with "original exe"in your earlier post..
PS: Oh likely the DreadLords base game exe. Got it.

Anyway,...
Try setting the prefs.ini to NOT start in fullscreen mode.
That sometimes helps with other games.
So C:\Users\username\Documents\My Games\GC2TwilightArnor\Prefs.ini
Set Fullscreen to 0.

It it already is, then it's something else, but worth a check.

Thanks. I previously removed the folder GalCiv2 entirely to see if that fixed it, but your post made me realize the folder is nowadays called GC2TwilightArnor, so i removed it and now it works :) Yay!

[Varainger]

Originally posted by vurt:

Thanks. I previously removed the folder GalCiv2 entirely to see if that fixed it, but your post made me realize the folder is nowadays called GC2TwilightArnor, so i removed it and now it works :) Yay!

Good to hear that it works now.
Nice.

You removed the fullscreen activation or the folder ?
If the latter, then maybe there were broken files or old incompatible stuff in it and it needed a refresh, a new variant. Happens.

[vurt]

Originally posted by Varainger:

Originally posted by vurt:

Thanks. I previously removed the folder GalCiv2 entirely to see if that fixed it, but your post made me realize the folder is nowadays called GC2TwilightArnor, so i removed it and now it works :) Yay!

Good to hear that it works now.
Nice.

You removed the fullscreen activation or the folder ?
If the latter, then maybe there were broken files or old incompatible stuff in it and it needed a refresh, a new variant. Happens.

the entire folder, probably some really old stuff from 10+ years ago or something in there.

[Varainger]

Originally posted by vurt:

Originally posted by Varainger:

Good to hear that it works now.
Nice.

You removed the fullscreen activation or the folder ?
If the latter, then maybe there were broken files or old incompatible stuff in it and it needed a refresh, a new variant. Happens.

the entire folder, probably some really old stuff from 10+ years ago or something in there.

LOL 10 years ?! Same harddisc ? Wow, impressive.
Holy sure then. There have been quiet a few changes and updates, when we include the community patch mod integration. Thanks for the info.

[vurt]

Originally posted by Varainger:

Originally posted by vurt:

the entire folder, probably some really old stuff from 10+ years ago or something in there.

LOL 10 years ?! Same harddisc ? Wow, impressive.
Holy sure then. There have been quiet a few changes and updates, when we include the community patch mod integration. Thanks for the info.

Not the same disc, rocking a new NVMe actually.
/Documents (and thus /My Games) is always copied..

I wonder if this update will break any mods, like for the last version before this? Likely not i hope..

[Varainger]

Originally posted by vurt:

Originally posted by Varainger:

LOL 10 years ?! Same harddisc ? Wow, impressive.
Holy sure then. There have been quiet a few changes and updates, when we include the community patch mod integration. Thanks for the info.

Not the same disc, rocking a new NVMe actually.
/Documents (and thus /My Games) is always copied..

Ah yeah of course, i tend to do this too.
Cheers

I wonder if this update will break any mods, like for the last version before this? Likely not i hope..

Just visual updates, not gameplay features, so rather not, but i don't realy know.

[Fulano]

Originally posted by vurt:

I wonder if this update will break any mods, like for the last version before this? Likely not i hope..

The Community Update mod or whatever it was called seems to be running fine.

[unca.alby]

I believe I do have the update ... 2.21, correct?

All I can tell is that it goes full screen, but it wrecks the aspect ratio. I.e., it's like it's still expecting an old 5:4 monitor instead of 16:9, so it's full screen, but stretched.

It doesn't bother me, or rather, that's better than having black empty sidewalls.

Is that what's supposed to happen?