fix the UI scaling or at least increase the font size

I can barely read it.  the scaling is stuck at 80% for me because I play at 1920x1080.  I use a large TV for a monitor and I'm having to strain my eyes to play the game.  I can't play more than one mission at a time before I have to stop for a while.  It's giving me a headache.

31,920 views 21 replies
Reply #2 Top

I'm in the same situation as the OP except that my resolution is 1680x1050.

I posted a thread about this on the steam forums for the game

http://steamcommunity.com/app/228880/discussions/0/371919771742907942/

 

So far there has bee practically no help.

A developer responded a twice, but since its been complete silence.

First time I was told that it should scale and then it was suggested I try change the settings in the settings.ini file.

This has absolutely no effect, and is being overwritten by the game and reset to 80% every time I start the game.

Making the file read only prevents it from being overwritten, but then settings are just ignored and set to 80% ingame anyway.

Second time I was asked to change the windows DPI settings, this had absolutely no effect either, not that I expected that either.

I'm left with the impression that nobody is really interested in helping or solving this issue.

 

I either have to stick my nose into the monitor to be able to read the text or strain my eyes to read it.

The former is very inconvenient and tiresome, the latter causes me to get a headache after a short time.

In either case it makes the game completely unplayable for me

 

 

 

 

 

Reply #3 Top

It is strange that the 1080 resolution on TV does not allow for UI scaling of 1.0. This would likely be due to the way TV resolutions work compared to monitors.

 

Resolutions below 1080p the UI has to be scaled down to ensure that it fits into the screen. I early pre-alpha there were several cases where people would use 1680x1050 or lower resolutions with scaling of 1.0, and would be unable to click on the orbital build icons as they were outside the screen.

To resolve this, in pre-alpha there was a change to the way the game enforces UI scaling, which effectively rendered the settings.ini file useless for this as it cannot be used to override scaling options.

 

Many users with greater than 1080p have also had issues with scaling enforcing a max of 1.0 when on 4k monitors making the UI far too small.

 

With the way that the down-scaling works, the text gets blurred in the process when using ≤80% scaling.

Reply #4 Top

I believe they are aware there is a problem with scaling, certainly a lot of people have brought it up here and on the Steam forums and I remember a Dev mentioning a bug with it. Things take time to get fixed though and with the small team they have you can' expect personal updates to your forum messages every time. Hopefully a fix will come sooner rather than later.

Reply #5 Top

Why do they impose a limit in the first place?

It should be up to the user what they want, and if it is above 1.0, then fine, throw up a disclaimer.

 

It would also be better if people could move the UI windows around...

Reply #6 Top

We've seen reports of these issues, but it's always helpful to submit a support ticket so we can gather further information if needed.

https://esupport.stardock.com/index.php?/Tickets/Submit

 

Reply #7 Top

Quoting BadVoltage, reply 5

Why do they impose a limit in the first place?

Without the UI scaling limit important elements of the UI would be offscreen at high scaling / low resolution. The UI is sized such that 1.0 scaling fits a 1080p (1920x1080) screen. Any other resolution needs the UI scaled to maintain the same size. That means, for example, 900p needs the 80% (.80) UI scale option because it is ~80% of 1080p. 

Reply #9 Top

1600x900 is the minimum supported resolution.


Reply #11 Top

Quoting AdrianLuff, reply 7


Quoting BadVoltage,

Why do they impose a limit in the first place?


Without the UI scaling limit important elements of the UI would be offscreen at high scaling / low resolution. The UI is sized such that 1.0 scaling fits a 1080p (1920x1080) screen. Any other resolution needs the UI scaled to maintain the same size. That means, for example, 900p needs the 80% (.80) UI scale option because it is ~80% of 1080p. 

This is because the top border are fixed sized, and only the bottom portion of the window gets expanded.

Instead, the starting position of each UI element should be variable, and allow people to move the windows around to where they want them, so they can still have the intended size.

I suppose it could also be the font that is the issue here, no idea what it is, but the text is just too small even at 1080p.

 

 

Reply #12 Top

Quoting AdrianLuff, reply 7


Quoting BadVoltage,

Why do they impose a limit in the first place?


Without the UI scaling limit important elements of the UI would be offscreen at high scaling / low resolution. The UI is sized such that 1.0 scaling fits a 1080p (1920x1080) screen. Any other resolution needs the UI scaled to maintain the same size. That means, for example, 900p needs the 80% (.80) UI scale option because it is ~80% of 1080p. 

 

 

My problem here is that while I can increase the resolution to 1920x1080 which would give me a 100% scaling, my monitor is a 1680x1050 monitor.

That means that if I increase the resolution the screen image will be too large for the monitor and parts of it will be outside the screen, even in windows, and the screen brightness will increase so as to strain my eyes and give me a headache in the long run..

I really want to play this game, but until/unless this can be fixed, I will be unable to play the game because I either have to lean close into the monitor to see whats there which is at bes uncomfortable in the long run, or I have to strain my eyes to see the tiny text on the screen which very quickly gives me a significant headache.

Reply #13 Top

I'm afraid Ashes really does require a HD display. :(

Sorry!

Reply #14 Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 13

I'm afraid Ashes really does require a HD display. :(

Sorry!

Then that should have been listed as part of the system requirements, which it does not.

It only lists minimum screen resolution, no mention about requiring HD

But even so my monitor does meet the minimum requirements(1600x900 < 1680x1050), so I still do not understand why the UI is not designed to be scalable to at least 100% even for the minimum resolutions, preferably more for those with less than optimal eyesight, but are instead forced to use less than 100% UI scale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reply #15 Top

Quoting Bansheedragon, reply 14


Quoting Frogboy,

I'm afraid Ashes really does require a HD display. :(

Sorry!



Then that should have been listed as part of the system requirements, which it does not.

It only lists minimum screen resolution, no mention about requiring HD

But even so my monitor does meet the minimum requirements(1600x900 < 1680x1050), so I still do not understand why the UI is not designed to be scalable to at least 100% even for the minimum resolutions, preferably more for those with less than optimal eyesight, but are instead forced to use less than 100% UI scale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can fit the entire display at 1680x1050.  The issue here is that you don't think it's readable at the absolute minimum requirement.  I'm not sure what to tell you on that.  

Reply #16 Top

 

Quoting Frogboy, reply 15


Quoting Bansheedragon,






Quoting Frogboy,



I'm afraid Ashes really does require a HD display. :(

Sorry!



Then that should have been listed as part of the system requirements, which it does not.

It only lists minimum screen resolution, no mention about requiring HD

But even so my monitor does meet the minimum requirements(1600x900 < 1680x1050), so I still do not understand why the UI is not designed to be scalable to at least 100% even for the minimum resolutions, preferably more for those with less than optimal eyesight, but are instead forced to use less than 100% UI scale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

You can fit the entire display at 1680x1050.  The issue here is that you don't think it's readable at the absolute minimum requirement.  I'm not sure what to tell you on that.  

 

Instead trying tell me what I do and do not think can I ask that you please read what I said and try to understand the situation?

I do not think that its not readable, the 80% scale make the text too small for me to read without having to either lean into the monitor which is uncomfortable or strain my eyes to read the text, which eventually leads to me getting a headache from the strain.

I use a TV as my computer monitor and my distance from the monitor is 140 cm, which to me is a comfortable distance.

I do not have any other options and I cannot afford to by a new TV/monitor. 

All I ask for is the option to scale the UI to 100-120% at my current resolution so that I can comfortably play the game.

Is that really too much to ask for?

Is it really too much to ask of a developer to actually consider those people who dont have optimal eyesight to be able to read and make the text scalable to a point where they can read it too?

 

 

Reply #17 Top

Quoting Bansheedragon, reply 16

All I ask for is the option to scale the UI to 100-120% at my current resolution so that I can comfortably play the game.

I don't think the scaling works how you are thinking. If you scale up the whole UI like you ask then it will go off the end and you will lose part of the UI. 

I think the UI text could be thicker or perhaps in bold to make it easier to read though, people on the low res end and the high res end both seem to find it hard to read.

Reply #18 Top

Quoting Ticktoc, reply 17


Quoting Bansheedragon,

All I ask for is the option to scale the UI to 100-120% at my current resolution so that I can comfortably play the game.



I don't think the scaling works how you are thinking. If you scale up the whole UI like you ask then it will go off the end and you will lose part of the UI. 

I think the UI text could be thicker or perhaps in bold to make it easier to read though, people on the low res end and the high res end both seem to find it hard to read.

As I mentioned above, this can easily be fixed, just by allowing the starting position of the windows to be moved up, and then it could be scaled correctly to fit the size whatever the user wants.

I think people will be willing to have less overall space dedicated to the main screen in order to have a more readable UI (which is a very important part of the game) and move the starting position of the UI higher up, or even add sliders to the windows so everything fits.

 

Reply #19 Top

Quoting Ticktoc, reply 17


Quoting Bansheedragon,

All I ask for is the option to scale the UI to 100-120% at my current resolution so that I can comfortably play the game.



I don't think the scaling works how you are thinking. If you scale up the whole UI like you ask then it will go off the end and you will lose part of the UI. 

I think the UI text could be thicker or perhaps in bold to make it easier to read though, people on the low res end and the high res end both seem to find it hard to read.

 

 

Making the text thicker would not make the text anymore readable for me if the size remains the same, quite the contrary it could possibly make it harder for me to read.

And it really do not matter if I do or do not understand how the scaling works, because the way it works is an at best poor implementation.

There are plenty of other games that allows for a much greater range of scaling on their UI without any problems, so why should it be any different here?

 

 

 

 

Reply #21 Top

Dear Developers,

Time has passed, yet you still haven't fixed the issue making the game unplayable. I was forced to refund my purchase and I'm still waiting for you to fix that ridicoulous bug.

Here you can find an infographic on how the scaling really works, not like it's currently in the game but how it should be.

https://gyazo.com/5da8f5dd8d7227bbbae5f92988ae3f2b

Get it? You don't cross the borders even when going beyond 100%. Borders are rock solid forced by the resolution. You scale each part of the UI. It's not a god damn rectangle. The UI is built from parts. You enlarge each one of them and make the live action part of the screen smaller when the UI is scaled up. C'mon guys, those are basics of game development. If your game provides 1280x1024 resolution it clearly wasn't tested. I wish I could get closer to the screen to see the text, but that does nothing. that is the max res of my display and any in-game text other than unit name is absolutely unreadable and since you've decided to never add voice lines I had absolutely no idea what was going on with the plot and what my mission objective is. You can see clearly I was forced to demand a refund on a game that has the potential of being best RTS this year.