The Display Resolution Dialogue has been deprecated and will be removed in a future version

That is what it says in Project Settings...

Okayyy.... so is there something else we need to use instead or does this mean Unity now simply no longer offers any means for players to pick their resolutions / screen size?

Reading the docs all it says is how to use the existing system. Nothing else seems to be mentioned anywhere. It would appear that the Editor is the only place where you are being told that this system is being removed.

So can someone please tell me what'sthe deal here? Do we now have to buy/create a plugin to do this during gameplay or is there an alternative available or what's the deal?

Thanks

 

You could have just said "Yes, you need to do it yourself from now on"
That WAS the question, after all... Is Unity forcing us to code our own resolution system now / buy an asset to do so or are they offering a new way?

I don't see this tutorial video answering the question posed in the OP... Unity is removing something that has been there since forever. Why? For what possible purpose? What is the reasoning behind it? And why are they just casually saying so inside the edior but not telling anybody anything more anywhere else (forum/documentation/answers...)?

The docs still tell you to use what we've been doing since day 1... but the editor is saying "This will stop working soon"... and all Unity has to say is "No comment". I am asking "Why?"

You are giving one of many tutorials of how to code it yourself. It's probably going to be useful for Unity n00bs in future so thanks, I suppose... but the main question(s) still remain... What's going on? What't the thinking here? What is Unity's intended coure of action for everyone moving forward...?

 

From the 2019.1 announcement:

https://blogs.unity3d.com/2019/04/16/introducing-unity-2019-1/#display

So they are improving or replacing the feature from the wording here. But since they are being tight lipped the plans are likely unsettled. The evolution of the feature could mean though that it is simply being removed. If I were to bet money on a wild guess, I'd put in on the feature is being removed and replaced by a package which implements resolution settings.

Two weeks ago they didn't want to talk about the plans yet for the feature, and I haven't seen anything since, so we'll have to wait.

@Lurking-Ninja's snarky post is probably in response to Unity devs on several occasions stating the resolution dialog is not actually intended for production use. It is intended for developer use when making prototypes, or early in a game's development prior to creating your own options menu. So whether the feature remains or is removed, you're expected to be implementing your own anyway as it is.

 

Thanks for that @Joe-Censored . So Unity is working on an update (which I hoped was the case) but being tight lipped about it (answering my question)... Cool, well that explains it then, I suppose.

I guess then it just boils down to bad taste giving us a warning NOW when they are not yet ready to speak about the alternatives they have planned. Oh well, suppose we can't fault them for the odd bad choice here and there. In the grand scheme of things I suppose this is a minor issue...

Surprisingly enough, though, I never knew this was NOT intended for production use! :O What with the banner image and everything... The reason why I wasn't satisfied by the "How to code your own solution" response was actualyl because I wanted to make use of that feature during development. At publishing time I disable that thing but hard! During development I find it unmissable and thus I was shocked to see they are getting rid of it!

It's for this purpose that I hoped to have a startup option available rather than having to code one for in-game config. CAn you just imagine having to first start the game then navigate through your menus and THEN finally getting to select the rez you want to run at and doing that over and over and over durign development? Ughgh.

So that's the answer then, huh? We just have to sit and wait... Was hoping my post would be seen as fishing for an answer and was hoping to get a nibble or a bite from Unity but if waiting is the only option then I guess that is just how the cookie crumbles, isn't it?

Thanks for the info

 

Spot on!

This is why the in-game consoles exist, also the command line parameters. By the time the screen resolution matters in terms of testing, you usually have a basic backend to change these things and you created something like this (either console and/or command-line parameter-driven options). I don't see this dialogue feature really useful, I don't like it when people leave it in "final" products and I don't need it when I work on my own stuff.
Although I enjoy making settings and such.

 

Yeah ok but then even for testing stage how will you be able to change those settings ? i don't want to enter args in anything when i am just testing for changes i hope they dont get rid of it because it will get old really fast to make networking with multiple instances and having to write what ever res you want instead of just pick one and go

 

Maybe Unity will just buy that asset @Lurking-Ninja linked to above and make that a free asset like they did with Text Mesh Pro and those prototyping tools and like when they gave up trying to make their own new GUI and just hired the guy that made NGUI to come do it for them...

Maybe they have given up on their system and will now take something off the Asset Store and give that to ppl instead... I mean, it's not like they don't have a track record of doing that so...

Nevertheless, my use case scenario, I just want to see how the game runs and make sure thisor that feature works or I want to have a client and server open at the same time but I still want access to the rest of my screen so I can go back to other stuff and still see the game running. If the default resolution is full screen and I want to have multipe windows open then having to first build, then make a shortcut to add custom parameters or first run then go into a config panel to change the resolution before I can open up the next one and do it again.... what a pain.

Seriously, man, it seems the best solution to all the Unity issues cropping up nowadays is to just download Unreal and delete Unity. Did you see how they totally mucked up the Unity editor interface in 2019.1? "this looks cool to us" is more important than "This is functional/practical for you". I mean, the went and broke the bloody slider of all things... You can no longer click above or below the thumbnail to skip ahead X lines, no, now when you click on it you are selecting the thing that is beside it instead....Why? Why break what isn't broken?

This thing where they now unilaterally decide "Nah, people won't want to change their resolution before playing. We will now force them to mess around with command line settings or change the screen size via code they first have to go write themevles or buy on the Asset Store. They don't need the built in functionality that has been there for 12 years now"... that is jut plain daft no matter how you look at it

 

Ever saw a game made by <insert random game studio here> that had a Resolution Dialogue? Me neither.
It's not hard to create your own resolution switcher. It's mostly done in the game's settings where it belongs.

 

Have you ever seen a game made by <insert random game studio here> where they take away convenience during development and replace it with hassle until the day it is ready for users to take over?

I use that rez box during development when I just want my stuff to start without me having to go messing around with menus after the thing has started before I can get back to what I was doing. I never use it in the final build. They are making development harder and you are saying "Yeah, but that's okay because when you buy GTA in the shop it doesn't have that box" ....cause THAT reasoning makes total sense...

 

Heck... if you are all so keen on comand line seettings then why not petitioin Unity to always start all builds in headless mode and require you to add a command line switch to make anything show up?

 

You do realize, that this one can be implemented like once. And then just re-used in your every game?
And you won't need that ugly piece of trash dialog?

Option settings is not that hard to do, even as a beginner.
For development purposes, you can export it as a .unitypackage and import in each project you like.

 

Why should I NEED to when it has already been a part of Unity for 12 years? It is alwasys there. 0 effort needed.

NowI first have to create a settingsscreen once and export it to a package.
Then, for the rest of my life and every project I do I have to first navigate my HDD to find the location where I exported the package to, import the package into the app, add the scene that uses the settings to the build settings, run the game, go to the settings, change the values, exit the game, go back to Unity, remove that scene fromthe build settings or remember to rearrange it's order later, create my ACTUAL first scene, add the script that tells theapp to fetch y saved settings from playeprefs and then change the app size using those values and NOW, now I can finally do what I used to be able to with a single press of Ctrl+B...

What possible reason is there to take somethng that has always been there and available with 1 keyboard shortcut and replace it with all those steps in every projectfro now until the day I die?

 

You do realize you can change your default resolution via player settings, right?
Remove tick from the "Default is Native Resolution"

Also, all that non-sense depends on how you implement it.
Nobody stops you from loading it additively by default (or by creating with DontDestroyOnLoad) and keeping it as a part of a dev build (e.g. UI is triggered by the button combo press).
[RuntimeInitializeOnLoad] in the code and its loaded even without MonoBehaviour in the scene.
You just need to drop the package to the project.

Backward compatibility comes at expense. Each time something changes that feature has to be tested and fixed if its somehow broken. I'm glad that Unity removes some legacy stuff.

To be honest, if you're targeting PC / Mac / Linux you 100% have to implement a settings screen. That's like 101 user comfort requirement.

On Android / IOS there's a trend where only native resolution is used. Nothing really matters there.

 

Oh FFS @xVergilx ... The only thing I hate more than people treating me like an idiot is when they SHOW me I'm an idiot..... lolol!

I've been using that popup since forever and like to do what I'm used to so no, I never use that setting. I knew it exists but my mind never leans towards using it... Oh FFS... now I have to live with sounding like a complete moron in all my previous posts...

you have successfulyl put me in my place and given me 2 perfectly valid and equally simple methods to duplicate that functionality. I will now live with that egg on my face and stand corrected... Thanks.
/me joins the other sideof the line and call for that "ugly pieceof trash dialog" to be killed hard!

 

"Display Resolution Dialog (also known as Screen Selector)

Based on user data and customer research, the Display Resolution Dialog is “disabled” by default as of this release. You can still enable it via the Display Resolution Dialog drop-down menu in your Project Settings. You’ll find it in Player, Resolution and Presentation, in the Standalone Player Options group. More information about the evolution of the Display Resolution Dialog will be shared in the near future."

So it looks like this is gone completely now in 2019.3.x giving us no option at all.

I'm currently in development and don't have time to re-create this functionality at this stage. While the resolution selector we've had for years is ugly and will ultimately be replaced before release of my game, It makes no sense at all that it was removed as an option for people that are still in development. It's also weird that this was removed in a rush.

 

- It makes more sense than using a beta software which you knew in advance that won't fulfill your requirements
- they announced this in advance
- it wasn't rushed, by the time 2019.3 goes into prod it will almost be an entire year
- judging by the wording they probably will deliver some solution for this (it may never happen, honestly, options is very game-related thing, so whatever)
- you have your tools to test your software in the mean time, just read back a couple of posts

 

- During development it *does* fulfill my requirements.
- They announced this in advance and quickly and completely removed it in less than a major version of Unity. There is no reason why this could have not remained optional for 1 or 2 major versions of Unity like other major features they have depreciated in the past
- It was rushed, it was less than a major version
- I *have* to deliver some solution for this, but it has completely screwed with my timetable for no good reason.
- No actually I currently don't have the tools I need, if you read the issues involved and understand the implications involved on a development studio. I used to have a resolution, fullscreen and graphical fidelity selector that testers could use that added ZERO development time and effort, I don't now.

Your trying to defend the indefensible here and it's not working. The simple fact is that Unity by removing the *optional* dialog has put game developers in a position they should not be in, and for no good reason.

 

Implementing a resolution dialogue is not the worst thing in the world, but what about the functionality to select which monitor the game plays on? In my experience all the suggested hacks to do this at runtime in Unity don't work in 2019.
Of course there's the keyboard shortcut (windows key+shift+arrow (right or left)) to do this, but it would be nice to be able to do this in-game or before the game starts.

 

I am in the same boat. This is what i was typing when I noticed your question:

Here is the problem we have come across- it does not appear that unity supplies a cross platform method to select the display you wish to use. If anyone knows a way to programatically select which display you want to use without platform-specific code, please share.

 

If your requirements include the resolutions dialog, then it clearly does not fulfill your requirements. A year isn't rushed, no matter what importance you place on version numbering. I'd expect, just like with the Unet HLAPI, that by the time 2019.3 releases they will release a package which implements this functionality. When you pick up early betas for use in development, this is the kind of thing which you should already be expecting.

Really though, implementing a resolutions options menu is about 2 hours of work for someone experienced, or a day's work for a brand new intern.

 

you are almost correct, except there appears to be no way to implement the display select functionality as it exists in the dialog without developing a specific solution for each platform. we use unity to avoid that sort of thing.

 

Hi. We are starting several Unity applications who are stream over spout to an main application.
Without the screen selector on startup i cannot say on which monitor the applications should start anymore.

Are they any tips for an solid replacement?

 

You'd probably set which display to use via the Display class

https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Display.html

 

Also check the command-line arguments for standalone player, it may recognize some useful things out of the box on some platforms.
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/CommandLineArguments.html

 

^ this does not do what the display select in the dialog does...

 

I feel like it's a bit odd that they removed the feature entirely (disabling by default makes sense) without having something to replace it. Like, yeah in a year or two we'll get a replacement, but that doesn't change the fact that the feature is gone now. It was a nice tool for bootstrapping development

 

it's not gone yet. like the 'guilayer' i assume that it will continue to exist in a deprecated state for years...

 

GUI layer is gone in 2019.3 though

 

It's a shame this is what they do after giving a statement that "More information about the evolution of the Display Resolution Dialog will be shared in the near future.". Now there will be even less standardization among new developers, and all gamers will have to suffer whenever someone doesn't properly implement something, e.g. if some games force a cutscene/tutorial before exposing the settings, if they don't provide windowed/fullscreen windowed/fullscreen options, and most importantly, the Input bindings will become a completely forgotten relic of a past. Oh, and don't forget the effort we'll have to put into making our own custom "config files" for persistence

My question though, is there some viable alternative to provide a standardized kind of a Launcher, which is multi-platform and runs before the game (before GPU rendering)? I would prefer some standalone app, which could be distributed e.g. as a Settings.exe file, so that it is completely optional, but gives gamers complete freedom should they want to use it. Obviously, it would have to share settings from Unity, e.g. if we have multiple profiles of a Scriptable Render Pipeline, they would be updated automatically. And it would be great if it even provided some of the detailed, standard graphical settings (which, as far as I know, can be overridden on a per-app basis in NVIDIA Control Panel, but that isn't very user friendly). Anyway, most importantly, I hope there'll be some initiative when it comes to standardizing this, so that nobody relies on any third-party "executable" (for self-evident security reasons) I believe it's irrational to expect every game to implement their own unique graphical settings, in spite of everyone already doing it. Just look at some older games and you'll find plenty of issues in their implementation. We should strive for Unity, pun intended, because gamers deserve some guarantee as long as it's reasonable to support it (frowning at you, companies who disable Fullscreen Windowed mode, forcing us to use apps like ShiftWindow!)

 

uh oh
so I wanted to show how much better the game looks on a 144Hz monitor than on a 60Hz and ... well can't do that anymore because dialogue's gone.
I'd have thought launching the game on the monitor would start it on that monitor but nope, it choses ... what's the "heuristic" to chose the monitor?

Anyways I ain't here to bitch about Unity's recent madness so what's the easy trick to display a build on a specific monitor?

-monitor N

take that command line

 

Check the Spaceship Demo.
It has an Resolution and and Fullscreen, Windowed.... menue implementation.

I miss the old one too.

 

thanks, I'll... probably forget until I need a menu

 

Stupid solution to the problem.
They didn't have to delete it.

 

I'm still in development and removing this windows has put back my plans by a good few weeks. I wasn't going to do any menus until I had got most of my gameplay through a first QA step and now I have to stop and build a bunch of menus before any gameplay QA is done. I need to know if my game is fun and a menu system isn't going to help with that. Also it's made making devlogs more complex because I could have filmed windowed mode in 1080p.

Bad move, Unity. Bad move.

 

Perhaps, since Unity decided to remove this feature, we should build our own.

- During post build, launcher is copied to build location with correct name, icon, etc. Other game data is copied to a settings file for launcher to access
- Launcher accesses playerprefs registry and modifies required values
- Profit

There could be a few helpful features added later on:
- Have option for original build exe to be named "game_[name].exe", and the launcher to be named "[name].exe"

Seems reasonable, and making it simple like the original should replace it easily for anyone who wants it. The only issue is making it work on other devices, I'd be able to build something like this for windows but not mac or linux. If I do make something like this, it'd be on github tho.

Ah yes, classic Unity. Why make features (or in this case, maintain) when the people will do it for you.

 

A mindbogglingly stupid decision to remove this.

 

I also think that removing this feature is stupid. Yes, I definitely won't use it in production, but it's incredibly handy during development builds (especially for testing multiplayer games).

One thing that annoys me sometimes about the recent Unity releases is the deprecation of features without an actual replacement yet (or reason at all). I am working on a multiplayer game that used Unet, but they deprecated it before they even have any stable multiplayer replacement. In the process of migrating I had to constantly get 300 warnings about deprecated methods without a way to suppress them.

So yeah, I'd really appreciate if the resolution dialog feature comes back. It of course can be disabled by default, but it really should stay.

 

I had to use the resolution dialog in an installation because unity did just ignore the command line arguments about resolution and the screen to use..... Removing it steels one working option out of our pallet of options.

 

that's cool, you could put that stuff in a package so people have no reason to complain.

 

That's a good way of handling it, it'd be super nice if it was in the package manager at some point in the future.

 

Thanks, it was great for development purposes, but a pitty its not included by default anymore.

 

Just come across this change, I recently upgraded my project to 2019.3 and the Display Resolution Dialog was gone. Then I found this thread, I don't know why Unity removed it.

 

So how do you set resolution without it? In-game only? As I have recently learned, Steam's controller-only setup doesn't work with Unity's Scrollbars.

Gamepads can't select drop-down menus, Steam failed my build for it because it had a gamepad configuration set in the store, and I ended up having to pull the in-game menu and reenable the DRD.

 

@abbapamela
Thanks for the sample! Any way to change the info being displayed in the launcher? And this seems x64/x86 only, how could I implement this example for mac? Thanks!

 

Exactly, I'd like to change the infos being displayed. Meaning the information on display, resolution and quality levels, potentially even in other languages.
If that's too hard, I'd really appreciate it, if we could get another sample mac executable. Seems like those examples would go a long way in helping fix this gap for now!