High Resolution Mod for Patrician III (Widescreen, HD, etc)

This guide shows you how to play Patrician III in any resolution you like (including widescreen, HD, etc).

Note: This mod only works with the English version of the game.

Introduction

Dear fellow Patrician III players!

Have you ever wanted to play Patrician III in higher resolutions fit for modern widescreen displays?

Our German friends at www.patrizierforum.net have found a solution a few years ago and after stumbling upon it recently, I wanted to share their wisdom. Their method (which I'll describe in Part 2 of this guide) involves hex editing the exe, altering some configuration files and resizing a couple of images.

If that sounds like too much work, don't worry! To spare you the hassle, I have already edited the necessary files for many different resolutions. Part 1 of this guide will describe how to apply such existing resolution mods in less than a minute.

Part 1: Applying a resolution mod

This part of the guide will show you how to apply existing resolution mods in less than a minute.

Step 1 -- Downloading the resolution pack

Download the resolution pack:

Patrician III 1.1b Resolution Pack[drive.google.com]

The pack currently includes the following resolutions:

1152x854
1200x900
1280x720
1280x800
1280x900
1280x960
1366x768
1440x900
1600x900
1600x1200
1680x1050
1768x992
1920x1080
1920x1200
2560x1440

(NOTE: The resolution pack also includes the 1.1b patch for Patrician 3. This patch was reported to fix some bugs which caused the game to crash (e.g. when taking patrol missions).
The 1.1b patch should be compatible with the Steam version, however if you run into issues, you can also download my first resolution pack which uses the original Patrician3.exe:
Original Resolution Pack[drive.google.com])

Step 2 -- Installing your desired resolution

Create a backup of your current Patrician3.exe (rename it or move it to a backup folder).

In the downloaded package, each resolution folder contains the following:

images (folder)
scripts (folder)
Patrician3.exe


To run your game in one of the custom resolutions:

1. Copy the contents of your desired resolution folder into your Patrician III folder (overwrite existing files)
   
   
2. Run the game with your Steam shortcut
   
   
3. At the main menu, go into Options and select the 1024x768 resolution - this is what activates the custom resolution (the 1024x768 setting has been edited out and replaced with the new resolution so it's 1024x768 in name only now)

Please note that you won't see any changes in the size of the main menu, the mod only affects the actual game.

Enjoy Patrician III in high res!

How to uninstall

To remove the custom resolution, simply delete or rename the "images" and "scripts" folders and replace the new Patrician3.exe with the original.

Part 2: Creating your own custom resolution

Credit for the original discovery/work/instructions goes to brotkohl et al. from www.patrizierforum.net !

(Link to the original, German instructions/thread:
http://www.patrizierforum.net/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=3376&pageNo=1 )

If you want a resolution that's not included in the pre-made pack (or you're wary of downloading executables from the net, which is completely understandable, eventhough I assure you, there are no viruses in there), you can still create those resolution mods yourself. This part of the guide will explain how to do that.

Part 2 - Step 1: Modifying the Patrician3.exe

IMPORTANT NOTE: these modifications only work on original, unmodified versions of the Patrician3.exe. Unfortunately, Steam's Patrician3.exe is slightly different from the original so you will need to obtain an original exe from another source.

The GOG.com version contains such an original exe, so you can either buy Patrician 3 on GOG or simply download the following package in which I have included all the necessary files that must be modified, including a copy of the (English) original exe:

Download - P3 Core Resolution Files[drive.google.com]

Note: Non-English versions of the Patrician3.exe should work okay by default.

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

Now for the actual modification - there are two ways to do this. An easy way and an old-fashioned way.

The easy way - using a patcher:

A very kind fellow user, Pollo905, has created an excellent patcher to automate and greatly simplify this step of the process:

Download - Patrician 3 Resolution Patcher[drive.google.com]

Using it is very simple. Just run it, point it to your Patrician3.exe, select the resolution you want or input any custom resolution and press PATCH.

It will even create a backup of the exe in case you want to restore it for whatever reason.

The old-fashioned way - using a hex editor:

If you prefer to go the old-fashioned way, you will need to translate your desired resolution to hex code. You can do that in the calculator in Windows or just google e.g. "1920 in hex". To get the final code, you need to reverse the resulting number. Here are some examples:

768 (dec) = 300 (hex) = 00 03
900 (dec) = 384 (hex) = 84 03
1024 (dec) = 400 (hex) = 00 04
1080 (dec) = 438 (hex) = 38 04
1200 (dec) = 4B0 (hex) = B0 04
1280 (dec) = 500 (hex) = 00 05
1440 (dec) = 5A0 (hex) = A0 05
1600 (dec) = 640 (hex) = 40 06
1920 (dec) = 780 (hex) = 80 07

Now you need a hex editor. I used a free one called HxD (http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/).

Open the Patrician3.exe with the hex editor.

You'll need to search for the following hex value sequence (remember to set the search type to hex instead of text strings):

C7 44 24 4C 00 04 00 00 C7 44 24 50 00 03 00 00

The 00 04 (1024) and 00 03 (768) are the width and height of one of the three existing resolution settings in the game. Since we can't add a 4th setting, we'll have to modify an existing one to activate our desired resolution. In this case, we'll take the game's 1024x768 option and turn it into the resolution we want.

So first you need to replace the aforementioned width and height values with the hex codes of your desired resolution (see the examples above).

E.g. if you want 1920x1080, you'll need to replace the 00 04 with 80 07 and the 00 03 with 38 04 so that it looks like this:

C7 44 24 4C 80 07 00 00 C7 44 24 50 38 04 00 00


You'll need to repeat this step 4 more times for the following lines of hex sequences too:

C7 44 24 18 00 04 00 00 C7 44 24 1C 00 03 00 00

C7 44 24 3C 00 04 00 00 C7 44 24 40 00 03 00 00

C7 44 24 48 00 04 00 00 C7 44 24 4C 00 03 00 00

C7 44 24 24 00 04 00 00 C7 44 24 28 00 03 00 00


After this, you need to do another search for the following hex sequences:

0F 84 AF 00 00 00 3D 00 05 00 00

3D 00 04 00 00 74 1E 3D 00 05 00 00

You need to replace the 00 05 in both of these with the desired width of your new resolution. E.g. with 80 07 if you want something 1920x....

Note: Width is always the first number. E.g. in 1440x900, 1440 pixels are the width and 900 pixels are the height


When you're finished, save the file - you're done with the hex editing part! (You can make a copy of it and name it something like Patrician3_1920x1080.exe so that you have a backup that's also easy to identify)

Part 2 - Step 2: Setting up the rest of the files

Now you'll need to modify the following files (also included in the P3 Core Resolution Files.zip - See Step 1):

scripts\accelMap.ini
scripts\screenGame.ini
scripts\textures.ini
images\Vollansichtskarte1280.bmp
images\HauptscreenE1280.bmp
images\HauptscreenA1280.bmp

Lets go over them one by one, starting with the "scripts" folder (use Notepad to edit the ini files):

accelMap.ini:

In this file, do a search for this exact number combination: "1280 1024" (without the quotes). You'll find 2 instances of this line and you need to replace both with your desired resolution in the same format, e.g. "1920 1080" (again, without the quotes).


screenGame.ini:

Here you need to find the numbers 740 and 996 (you'll find 2 of both) and replace each of them with the width of your desired resolution minus 284. E.g. 1920 - 284 = 1636 so you'd need to replace both 740 and 996 with 1636 if you wanted a resolution with a width of 1920.

(Note for the curious: 284 is the pixel width of the right UI bar. We need to subtract this from the screen width to properly position certain UI elements that end or begin exactly at that right bar.)

Next, do another search for the number 424 and replace it with the height of your desired resolution minus 600. E.g. 1080 - 600 = 480 so you'd need to replace 424 with 480 if you wanted a resolution with a height of 1080.

(Note for the curious: 600 is the pixel height of the minimap plus the interactive middle section of the right UI bar. We need to subtract this from the screen height to position the bottom section of the bar and avoid black borders or an image that stretches off the screen.)


textures.ini:

Here you just need to do a search for "1280 1024" (without the quotes) and replace these numbers with your custom resolution in the same format e.g. "1920 1080" without the quotes.


You're done with the ini files and almost ready to play! All that's left now is resizing two images in the "images" folder and you're good to go:


Vollansichtskarte1280.bmp:

Open this image with an image editor (even Windows Paint will do) and simply resize it (change its width and height) to your custom resolution (e.g. to 1920 width,1080 height).


HauptscreenE1280.bmp:

Open this one too and change its height to the height of your custom resolution minus 600, e.g. 1080 - 600 = 480, so resize the image's height to 480 if your desired resolution will be 1080 pixels tall. Make sure you don't change the width on this one, just the height!


(I've also included a copy of the top screen border in HauptscreenA1280.bmp. If your resolution has a width other than 1280, the top border will either be too short or too long. It'll just cut off or repeat itself so it's hardly noticable in play, but if you're bothered by the imperfect fit, you can edit it with a better image editor to make it the perfect width. Ideally, its width needs to be your custom resolution's width minus 284, e.g. 1920 - 284 = 1636.)


And that's it. Now you just need to copy the "scripts" and "images" folders into your Patrician game folder, along with the hex edited Patrician3.exe (backup/rename the original one first).

Launch the game with your Steam shortcut. Go into Options and make sure to pick the 1024x768 resolution in the game because that's the one we just edited to carry our custom resolution.

Enjoy Patrician III in high res!

Additional notes and troubleshooting

• If you get black borders/bars/spaces around the screen after applying the mod and you're absolutely sure both the "scripts" and "images" folders are in the right place (e.g. .../Patrician III/scripts), check to see where your game is installed. If it's somewhere in the C:\Program Files (x86) folder, move (or copy) it to a new location (e.g. to the regular Program Files folder) and try launching it again from there.
  Credit and many thanks go to fellow user OneManRevolution for this solution!
  
  
• Windows 10: If part of the screen appears cut off, try disabling "display scaling on high DPI settings" in the exe's compatibility options. Right click the Patrician3.exe --> Select Properties --> Compatibility tab --> tick Disable display scaling on high DPI settings.
  Credit and many thanks go to fellow user Hammer for this solution!
  
  
  
• If you created a custom resolution by editing the files (instead of using the pre-made pack), but the in-game city view appears messed up with half of the screen being black, then you either forgot to edit one of the values or made a typo while editing one.
  
  
  
• If the game crashes with some SetDisplayMode error when you try to start a scenario, that means your custom resolution isn't supported by your monitor/display.
  
  
  
• If your custom resolution has a widescreen aspect ratio (e.g. 16:9, 16:10), the in-game objects might appear slimmer (horizontally compressed) than what you're used to. This may feel unusual but it is actually the game's original look. In reality, it's the previous 'default' visuals that were distorted as they were made of 4:3 aspect ratio images stretched to fill your widescreen display.
  
  On the other hand, I personally got so used to those stretched images that the proper widescreen resolutions feel too slim and unnatural to me now. If you happen to feel the same way, you can get the familiar (stretched) look in high res by making/applying custom resolutions with a 4:3 aspect ratio (e.g. 1280x960, 1600x1200, etc.).

Hope you found this guide helpful -- if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to add them below.

[GD | Aiwendil]

Thank you very much sir!

[Zebedee]

You absolute saint for including 1.1b too. Just found my old original CD and installed. Thank you.

[SnaX]

Trying for 1920 x 1080 but when game starts, the horizontal resolution is extremely small, looks the screen was smashed together.

[Darkoz Krull]

1024x600 link please.

[Crez]

Guide is very bad.
But if you know what you are doing the guide does provide the necessary values to make it work.

[BOT]

nice guide.. but to heavy for me to follow . still thanks

[Fabolicious -,=,]

I get stuck in a "Please run P2Setup.exe..." loop when I try to start the game

[Doomstack]

Hi, I'm on windows 11, 1440p, but 1080 patch works best, I also run it in Borderless Gaming helper app with Title and Muted options. Nostalgic game

[Calak]

This is great! The instructions were easy to follow and it worked for me on linux. It also fixed the issue where the game would get messed up after opening the options menu.

[reitman1]

I tried to install this, but in the game settings screen, there is no option to select 1024*768. It only has 800*600 and 1280*1040. Any help would be greatly appreciated.