Font size?

[rich12545]

I play SPWW2 and SPMBT. Great games. At 1920x1080 I can barely see the font. So I play at 1024x768 and it works fine. But this is a windows conversion of an old dos game. I'm thankful to be playing it at all.

Distant Worlds is a new game. Really, it's the dev's responsibility to provide fonts that are easily readable at popular resolutions. It's not up to players to try to find a fix. Apparently this is nothing new. The dev has been aware of the problem and it still exists. Looks like a nice game but I guess I'll pass. I want to get enjoyment from a game, now anxiety. Thanks to everybody for your answers. You just saved me $50.

[DrWolfsherz]

ORIGINAL: Paul Roberts
I do think gray-on-black is part of the problem.

THIS! On Wide-Gamut Screens it is horrible!
Please let us change the font-colour. This would actually help a LOT!

[Bingeling]

Readability depends on screen size, resolution, distance to screen, eyesight...

There was a nice little post on the Steam forum by Rakilonn, but I am not sure how to link there. Anyways:

How To : Improve the fonts (Windows 7)
Fonts in the game appear to be affected by ClearType (which is not so surprising).

So to improve how the fonts are displayed go to Start -> Control panel -> Display -> Ajust ClearType text

And select what you like the most.

Here are 2 screenshots made with differents ClearType settings at 1920x1200
http://i.cubeupload.com/11nHQq.png

From the screenshot it seems to help quite a bit.

[Osito]

ORIGINAL: elliotg

We've attempted to improve this in several areas: The Selection Panel at bottom-left can be enlarged, the Research screen has larger text, the Empire Summary screen is clearer, etc.

Admittedly some of the text might still be small for some.

We're willing to try and improve this further though, if there's specific places where players feel the need for bigger text.

Thanks
Elliot

I find the fonts ok at 1920x1200, but they could be improved.

I think the parts that need most work are:

1 the toolbar running down the left hand side (and the information that pops out when you click on the toolbar);
2 The message log at the top of the screen; and
3 The cashflow information at the top right.

Thanks,

Osito

[Lego]

ORIGINAL: towerbooks3192

Not sure if it is a font size issue and I posted this months back in the technical forum. Any way to fix display in windows 8.1? I am having these problems where screens would not display at times despite disabling DPS scaling like on the research tab above would not show % when the percentage is on 2 digits and some words overlap on that tiny screen on the side and I have to expand it.

I have the same problem and with a resolution of 2880x1800 fonts are absolutely tiny in some places.

[Ohsirus]

Please FIx the Fonts, as everyone has noted they are wayy too little and I can't enjoy a good play thru from all the squinting.

[Franky007]

If i am not mistaken, the font (xnb files) are Binary data file created with XNA Game Studio Express.
These are Bitmap fonts.
I tried to find tools to edit them, but without success!
Maybe Elliot could give us a hint on how to edit them?
[;)]

[FireLion1983]

I upped my fonts from small to medium in windows and the galactopedia and research button have adjusted, but I think that's it.

[zakblood]

something to try and works also in windows 8.1

tm.asp?m=3617868

altering the font size that is

[Garravesh]

Just purchased the game last night from STEAM.

After 20 minutes or so I was suffering a headache and eye strain from all that squinting.

The FONT, for me, is too small.


Places like your MONEY9top right side), and the reports box on the top of the screen are just plain painful to try and look at.


Many pleasant folks have recommended changing fonts, lowering resolution but to no real success.


I would recommend increasing the font size by about 20% in those specific areas or better yet all around.


The bottom left hand corner has a box you can increase in size..that is splendid.

[Gelatinous Cube]

ORIGINAL: FireLion1983

I upped my fonts from small to medium in windows and the galactopedia and research button have adjusted, but I think that's it.

I've found that small (100%) is nigh on unreadable but medium (125%) is readable in some spots but difficult in others (Income in the upper right corner; the message box on top of the screen; the side-bar on the left-hand side of the interface, and some others). Anything too far above that will certainly make things easier to read, but the interface will start to overlap itself in ways that might break the game or at the very least make it uncomfortable to play, though perhaps better than squintingly small font for some.

[Icemania]

I don't have difficulty with the font sizes but this post on Steam sounds interesting?

https://steamcommunity.com/linkfilter/h ... page_id=80

[MrK]

Hello

I thought that you were reading steamforums but as I don't see a reply and someone gave me this direct link to the same issue, I made an account here to post this.

steamcommunity DOT COM/app/261470/discussions/0/540742667511462814

The game needs serious changes on fonts as a lot of them are hard to read and a total pain to the eyes after long sessions.

Also, your game modifies my system settings, I don't like smooth fonts on windows and your game changes my settings without asking or telling me and will not change to my default after closing it. That's not nice.

You should use default fonts that are readable under any condition and doesn't need smooth or cleartype blurry settings. A lot of studies have showed that smooth/cleartype fonts are harder to read than normal ones on low resolution displays and most people see it as blurry instead of sharp, and low resolution is less than ~250 dpi. That means that only some phones will benefit from smooth fonts but no pc will do even if you have a 4K display.

I can't post the images here as my account is new and I can't post links for a week, I'll try my best to workaround this

pastebin DOT COM/LHgakK1F

[Athelas2211]

why not leave players to modify the UI? font size, colors and location of boxes?

[stormbringer3]

For me, having the boxes expandable like the one on the lower left would be great.

[Spidey]

The reason these things aren't made mod options, I'm guessing, is because the game was never designed for it. The windows are probably hard coded and I doubt there's much in the way of automatic resize in case a text doesn't fit into its textbox, which means it's going to be hard as hell to get everything exactly right. And I'm pretty sure the grey font is in fact reasonably white but gets greyed out a bit because of the font anti-aliasing that happens in the game. And before someone asks why the UI team screwed up like this, it might be worth considering how large the UI "team" actually is. I believe the entire staff of Code Force counts one person in total, with recurring guest performances from Matrix Games.

@ MrK

The game changing your system setting sounds like a bug. I've just tested how it looks without this setting and I personally didn't like it, but you're quite right that it should've been returned to what it was upon exit. I'd recommend that you make a topic about it in the Tech Support forum with an appropriate title. That way there's a good chance a Erik or Elliott is going to see it.

Oh, and since that pastebin option is painful, please allow me to give your links a hand...

Bug:
http://i.imgur.com/pWfuepE.jpg

Hard to read fonts:
http://i.imgur.com/C5MMm69.png
http://i.imgur.com/MOizz7T.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/swrYvet.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/u73OUyM.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GFX5SZe.jpg

I'll note that I agree completely about those things being anywhere from not easy to moderately painful to read at 1920x1080 and beyond on my 22" monitor, but I've scaled down to 1366x768 through Display Changer and then it's actually not a problem. A more flexible system with scaling fonts and windows and whatnot would've been awesome but given the circumstances in which this game was developed, I'm not really too upset.