www.pygame.

org
/docs/tut/DisplayModes.html

Setting Display Modes¶

Author

Pete Shinners

Contact

pete@shinners.org

Introduction¶

Setting the display mode in pygame creates a visible image surface

on the monitor.
This surface can
either cover the full screen, or be windowed
on platforms that support a window manager.
The display
surface is nothing more than a standard pygame surface object.
There are special functions needed in
the pygame.displaypygame module to control the display window and screen
module to keep the
image surface contents updated on the monitor.

Setting the display mode in pygame is an easier task than with most
graphic libraries.
The advantage is if
your display mode is not available,
pygame will emulate the display mode that you asked for.
Pygame will
select a display resolution and color depth that best matches
the settings you have requested,
then allow
you to access the display with the format you have requested.
In reality, since the
pygame.displaypygame module to control the display window and screen module is
a binding around
the SDL library, SDL is really doing all this work.

There are advantages and disadvantages to setting the display mode in this
manner.
The advantage is
that if your game requires a specific display mode,
your game will run on platforms that do not support
your requirements.
It also makes life easier when you're getting something started,
it is always easy to go
back later and make the mode selection a little more
particular.
The disadvantage is that what you
request is not always what you will get.
There is also a performance penalty when the display mode must
be emulated.
This tutorial will help you understand the different methods for querying
the platforms
display capabilities, and setting the display mode for your game.

Setting Basics¶

The first thing to learn about is how to actually set the current display mode.
The display mode may be
set at any time after the pygame.displaypygame module to control the display window and screen
module has been initialized.
If you have previously set the display mode,
setting it again will change the
current mode.
Setting the display mode is handled with the function
pygame.display.set_mode((width, height), flags, depth)Initialize a window or screen for
display.
The only required argument in this function is a sequence containing
the width and height of the
new display mode.
The depth flag is the requested bits per pixel for the surface.
If the given depth is 8,

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pygame will create a color-mapped surface.
When given a higher bit depth, pygame will use a packed
color mode.
Much more information about depths and color modes can be found in the
documentation for
the display and surface modules.
The default value for depth is 0.
When given an argument of 0, pygame
will select the best bit depth to use,
usually the same as the system's current bit depth.
The flags
argument lets you control extra features for the display mode.
Again, more information about this is found
in the pygame reference documents.

How to Decide¶

So how do you select a display mode that is going to work best with your
graphic resources and the
platform your game is running on?
There are several methods for gathering information about the display
device.
All of these methods must be called after the display module has been
initialized, but you likely
want to call them before setting the display mode.
First, pygame.display.Info()Create a video
display information object
will return a special object type of VidInfo,
which can tell you a lot about the
graphics driver capabilities.
The function
pygame.display.list_modes(depth, flags)Get list of
available fullscreen modes
can be used to find the supported graphic modes by the system.
pygame.display.mode_ok((width, height), flags, depth)Pick the best color depth for a
display mode takes the same arguments as
set_mode(),
but returns the closest matching bit depth to
the one you request.
Lastly, pygame.display.get_driver()Get the name of the pygame display
backend
will return the name of the graphics driver selected by pygame.

Just remember the golden rule.

Pygame will work with pretty much any display mode you request.
Some
display modes will need to be emulated,
which will slow your game down,
since pygame will need to
convert every update you make to the
"real" display mode. The best bet is to always let pygame
choose
the best bit depth,
and convert all your graphic resources to that format when they are loaded.
You let
pygame choose it's bit depth by calling
set_mode()
with no depth argument or a depth of 0,
or you can
call
mode_ok()
to find a closest matching bit depth to what you need.

When your display mode is windowed,

you usually must match the same bit depth as the desktop.
When
you are fullscreen, some platforms can switch to any bit depth that
best suits your needs.
You can find
the depth of the current desktop if you get a VidInfo object
before ever setting your display mode.

After setting the display mode,

you can find out information about it's settings by getting a VidInfo object,
or by calling any of the Surface.get* methods on the display surface.

Functions¶

These are the routines you can use to determine the most appropriate
display mode.
You can find more
information about these functions in the display module
documentation.

pygame.display.mode_ok(size, flags, depth)Pick the best color depth for a

display mode

This function takes the exact same arguments as pygame.display.set_mode().

It
returns the best available bit depth for the mode you have described.
If this
returns zero,
then the desired display mode is not available without emulation.

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 pygame.display.list_modes(depth, flags)Get list of available fullscreen modes

Returns a list of supported display modes with the requested

depth and flags.
An
empty list is returned when there are no modes.
The flags argument defaults to
FULLSCREEN.
If you specify your own flags without FULLSCREEN,
you will likely
get a return value of -1.
This means that any display size is fine, since the display
will be windowed.
Note that the listed modes are sorted largest to smallest.

pygame.display.Info()Create a video display information object

This function returns an object with many members describing

the display device.
Printing the VidInfo object will quickly show you all the
members and values for
this object.

>>> import pygame.display

>>> pygame.display.init()
>>> info = pygame.display.Info()
>>> print(info)
<VideoInfo(hw = 0, wm = 1,video_mem = 0

blit_hw = 0, blit_hw_CC = 0, blit_hw_A = 0,

blit_sw = 0, blit_sw_CC = 0, blit_sw_A = 0,

bitsize = 32, bytesize = 4,

masks = (16711680, 65280, 255, 0),

shifts = (16, 8, 0, 0),

losses = (0, 0, 0, 8),

current_w = 1920, current_h = 1080

>

You can test all these flags as simply members of the VidInfo object.

Examples¶

Here are some examples of different methods to init the graphics display.
They should help you get an
idea of how to go about setting your display mode.

>>> #give me the best depth with a 640 x 480 windowed display

>>> pygame.display.set_mode((640, 480))

>>> #give me the biggest 16-bit display available

>>> modes = pygame.display.list_modes(16)

>>> if not modes:
... print('16-bit not supported')

... else:
... print('Found Resolution:', modes[0])

... pygame.display.set_mode(modes[0], FULLSCREEN, 16)

>>> #need an 8-bit surface, nothing else will do

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>>> if pygame.display.mode_ok((800, 600), 0, 8) != 8:
... print('Can only work with an 8-bit display, sorry')

... else:
... pygame.display.set_mode((800, 600), 0, 8)

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