My monitor is 1440x900, and I can run older games at that resolution. I do drop it to 1024x768 relatively often, but that's usually for games with a lot of 3D stuff going on -particles, reflections, etc- or that aren't very optimized.
So given the choice, you would prefer to run at higher resolution? Alot of laptops feature resolutions at that size, so I've been carefully considering ensuring I can run in the odd 1400x resolutions.
Yeah my game is 2d, despite using OpenGL. And by the way, there are no "3D only" features. OpenGL is always 3D. You can make a 2d game with it, but it's essentially just ignoring 1 axis. So I'm wondering what texture features you don't think you can use.
As for UIs... yeah, they're hell. I made a lot of progress by using icons rather than long names for things like items. The trick is figuring out how to display only information that is absolutely necessary, just to save space.
I don't use the rendering process of a 3D engine. I stick to straight forward memory blits rather than rendering using primitives and textures. That's what I mean by not using the 3D features. Basically instead of drawing a flat square on a 2D axis and texturing it with a tileset, I'm copying straight from the tileset to the screen buffer in old school 2D methodology. I did it that way because I felt it maximizes compabitility with older machines. My test machine is my gf's old Dell Intel with integrated Intel Express graphics card. If it can run it, almost anything should be able to. My IPhone is faster than her desktop, lol.
For the UI's, I found that making the initial one was a PITA, but after that, it was just copy and paste whatever components I needed. I built mine using a structured format, so I pass the GUI builder things like how many buttons, what they say on them, etc, and it builds them to suit. Then I assign a controller object to the GUI it just built with toggles for the buttons and the rest is cake. But I'd rather floss with razor blades than ever make GUI's for a living.. lol.
My computer's monitor's native resolution is 1200 x 800. That one's broken. The CRT screen I have (pavilion mx50) is 1024 x 768. That's the highest it'll go.
The graphics card I have (Intel GMA) allows for the more intense games- oblivion for example, to only be played at the horrible levels of 640 x 480 or 800 x 600.
Sims 3 runs at 1024 x 768 fine though.
I'd say that I run most games that aren't exceptionally graphics heavy at 1024 x 768.
Based on my menu designs, I'm guessing 1024x768 will probably be the absolute lowest I can do. I am planning on starting the process of scaling tomorrow and see how it goes.
1920x1050!? Holy crap, I thought my 1280x1024 monitor was big!
Heh, I'm actually running a dual monitor setup of two 1680x1050 monitors side by side. I'm hoping later on to possibly expand my game to allow for dual monitor setups... perhaps a map and inventory/stats screens on one side and the game world on the other or something along those lines. It's surprisingly easy to eat up that kind of resolution when you're designing menus and such. I constantly find myself wishing I had more space.
This is really helpful responses, I had no idea the variety of resolutions out there. Most of my game playing friends are running high-end rigs with dual monitors, and I always felt like the "little" guy only having dual 1680's when most of them are running 1920 at a minimum. Had I not decided to post this poll, I might have ended up making the minimum resolution WAY too high. Please keep the opinions and personal setups coming in, it is NOT going to waste!