How to use low-res (176*220) titles on QVGA display
If you have a QVGA Smartphone like the HTC Vox / s710, you know well enough that most existing games and other graphics-based Smartphone apps (Windows Mobile 6 Standard) out there only use a postage-stamp sized screen area. An example of this is PDAMill’s Flux Challenge, which, being designed for the traditional low-res (176*220) Smartphone resolution, only uses part of the available QVGA screen estate:
There were no widely known solutions for the problem. Some developers announced support for QVGA devices (for example, that of Cell Doom – see announcement HERE), but the most (including PDAMill) didn’t.
Fortunately, an excellent White Russian coder has come up with a generic solution, which not only makes it possible to run MANY (but not all!) games at full screen, but, in cases, also lets for using real (!) QVGA resolution with some titles (for example, emulators).
Downloading, installing
Go to this MoDaCo thread and download the ZIP file attached to the first post. You’ll need to register as a forum user if you aren’t able to access it. If you don’t want to bother with it, I’ve also uploaded the file to my database back-end; it’s HERE.
After this, just unZIP it and start GxQvga Patcher.exe. Should you encounter an error message complaining about the lack of the .NET Framework 2, you will need to download it HERE (note that some stated it only requires 1.1. I haven’t checked whether they’re right. The latter is accessible HERE.)
Using
This patcher app runs on the desktop, NOT on the Smartphone. This means you must transfer the main EXE file of the game / emulator / app you’d like to make use of the QVGA screen to your desktop computer first. To do this, use for example Total Commander with the CE file system patch (see THIS for an explanation of installing it) or, if you don’t want to bother, just the “Explore” button of ActiveSync.
Transfer the main EXE files (but nothing else) of the apps / games you’d like to patch to the directory of where the above-mentioned, just decompressed GxQvga Patcher.exe resides.
Now, start GxQvga Patcher.exe. It will present you a dialog:
In there, click “Select exe file to patch…“. Now, select the EXE file you’d like to patch:
After letting it go on, you’ll be presented a message telling you the patching was successful:
Now, all you need to do is:
- Copy the patched EXE file back to your MS Smartphone, making sure you overwrite the original EXE file
- Go to the QVGA subdirectory on your desktop (just under the directory where GxQvga Patcher.exe resides), and copy XG.dll to the same directory on your smartphone
- Start the game / app to see whether it worked; answer Yes to the message.
- If the game / app still only uses 176*220 (and not the full screen), exit it and go to the SCALE (NOT the previous QVGA!) subdirectory on your desktop, and copy XG.dll to the same directory on your smartphone and copy XG.dll to the smartphone, making sure you overwrite the previously copied QVGA XG.dll. Now, start the game on your Smartphone. Hope it’ll use the full screen. If it still doesn’t do this, then, nothing can help, I’m afraid.