Gigantic Message boxes and pop-ups

[cblattmann]

I run the game on a 2560x1440 resolution. The map is absolutely gorgeous but the message boxes are absolutely huge. The initial box with message about the start of the war and General Franco covers my entire screen and the pop-ups are huge to. Is there a way to scale this messages down to a more reasonable size?

[Alessandro S.]

The game preferences / "Advanced Prefs" button / "2x popup size" on upper left does control that window.
The game was defaulted to show text very large to have it easy to read.
With that setting at 0 the window should be much smaller.

[terry1040]

Similar Problem here. I am running @ 3840x2160.

I played around with the scaling settings, but it is tough.
I manage to get the black pop-up smaller, but the bottom AREA (incl Fontsize) and the top line ICONS are HUGE.
Tried my best to play around with font settings, window size definintions, etc.

Please provide us some hints, how we can adjust the ini-file best.
I would like to have an initial NO SCALING Options and then work my way up to my liking.

Here are the settings from my modifed ini file:
################################################################################
;Version 165-27
[Options]
WINDOWED = 0 <--- my setting is 1
ScreenSizeX = 1024 <--- my setting is 3840
ScreenSizeY = 768 <--- my setting is 2160
USE_FULL_MONITOR_SPACE = 0
EXCLUDE_TASK_BAR_SIZE = 1 <--- my setting 0
USE_3D_HARDWARE_ACCELERATION = 1
USE_3D_FOR_ANIMATIONS = 1
TRY_ALLOCATE_GPU_CARD_MEMORY_FOR_ZOOM_OUT = 0
;;DEBUG_SURFACE_CREATION = 0
WindowedFinalScreenSizeX = 0
WindowedFinalScreenSizeY = 0
ENFORCE_INI_SETTINGS = 0 <--- my setting 1
GLOBAL_MOUSEWHEEL_SENSITIVITY = 1
KILL_DA_PLAYER_TURN_MESSAGE = 0
PREVIEW_LCU_PATH = 3 ; 1 = dashed line lower plane 2 = dashed line high plane 3 = large arrows high plane
SHOW_PADLOCK_ICON_FOR_STATIC_LCU = 1
FRAMELESS_BASE_FLAGS = 0 ; 0 with frame ; 1 no color frame ; 2 solid colors
LAND_MAP_OVERLAY_ACTIVE_AT_START = 1
SKIP_HEX_TINTING_ON_ZOOM_OUT = 1 ; drawing alpha for 20,000 hexes on zoom out can drop the FPS, so here you can set to skip alpha colorization on zoom out
USE_PROGRAMMERS_USER_INTERFACE = 0
SCREEN_Y_FROM_WHEN_TO_START_DYNAMIC_WINDOW_SIZE = 980; <--- my setting 2160 dynamic font consume more space, thus look bad at smaller size. At least 1400 units of screen height are recommended as border from when to start this.
SCREEN_Y_FROM_WHEN_TO_START_DYNAMIC_WINDOW_SIZE_BASELINE = 740 ; <--- my setting 2160 // the size increase is ScreenY / THIS this. So if you make this smaller, your windows grow larger
SHOW_LCU_LIST_AS_SIDE_BAR_FOR_DEFAULT = 1
SHOW_AIR_UNIT_LIST_AS_SIDE_BAR_FOR_DEFAULT = 1
ALLOW_SCALING_TO_COVER_CONTROL_PANELS = 1 <--- my setting 0
FONT_INDEX_WINDOW_POPUPS = 1
FONT_INDEX_AAR_LOW_RES = 1
FONT_INDEX_AAR_HIGH_RES = 2
FONT_INDEX_UI_3840 = 3
FONT_INDEX_UI_2560 = 4 ;5
FONT_INDEX_UI_1920 = 5 ;3
FONT_INDEX_UI_1600 = 8
FONT_INDEX_UI_1440 = 7
FONT_INDEX_UI_1280 = 9
USE_ANTI_ALIASED_FONTS = 1
NUMBER_OF_STANDARD_FONTS = 10
#######################################################################

Thanks for your support.

Terry

[actrade]

Same here. Changed 2x popup size to 0 but the window at the bottom of the map is massive still.

[Alessandro S.]

The top and bottom interface are normally chosen in a way to fill the monitor width in order to provide as large text as possible.
The preferences "enforce low resolution art" does use the smallest possible UI elements for these and a few window background.
The "2x popup size" does then influence their final size in case they can fit the screen multiple times.

We had just 1 member on team using the small UI.
Everyone else was going for "larger text / larger windows / larger UI"

[potski]

The pop-ups can be tiny if you use 0, but when you put this into 1 some other elements, like the combat messages become very big. But my experience is these are not an issue nearly filling the screen compared to the unusable pop-ups at 0 [for my screen anyway]. And the entire Scenario Editor uses this popup setting in the Preferences, so if you have it at 0 the Scenario Editor can be really difficult to use as everything is so tiny.

But to note some screen elements seem to be based on your windows desktop settings. I use 200% for my desktop icons, toolbar etc. and this definitely gets picked up by the game in displaying the text of the menu bar, LCU list and hex bar. Default on a large screen set-up is 150%. If you struggle with some text try that setting, rather than in the game itself. On my PC it is in the:

Display settings -> Scale and layout -> Change the size of text, apps and other items

[HappyHedonist]

I'm grumpy. Should you not have checked if the game is playable on a 1080p monitor before releasing it? Seriously. From a dev to another dev, wtaf.

Edit: I want my money back. This is a mess. Who do I contact?

[BananaConvention]

I'm grumpy. Should you not have checked if the game is playable on a 1080p monitor before releasing it? Seriously. From a dev to another dev, wtaf.

Edit: I want my money back. This is a mess. Who do I contact?

Before you lose your mind over it, let the devs read your comment and come up with a solution. Everything can be adjusted/amended/fixed. Explain what your specific issue so it can be addressed.

[HappyHedonist]

I shouldn't have to. It's 1080p

[BananaConvention]

All you're doing is complaining and not even explaining what your issue is. What's the problem? Where are the screenshots. Show them what the problem is.

[RangerJoe]

I play on a laptop with no issues, no large screen for me.

[HappyHedonist]

Everything is a different size, and pop ups are so big they are literally twice the size of my monitor.

But I shouldn't have to sit here an file bug reports. This is a standard monitor size. If you can't get that right, I have zero trust in the rest of the game.

[actrade]

When I hit the "start new game" the screen with the campaigns and scenarios is huge and very blurry (2560x1440 windowed or not doesn't matter). The scaling looks off, is there anyway to make that look any clearer/better? If I'm not mistaken, it looks like the resolution on this screen is considerably lower than the 2560x1440 the rest of the game/UI is at?

[RangerJoe]

When I hit the "start new game" the screen with the campaigns and scenarios is huge and very blurry (2560x1440 windowed or not doesn't matter). The scaling looks off, is there anyway to make that look any clearer/better? If I'm not mistaken, it looks like the resolution on this screen is considerably lower than the 2560x1440 the rest of the game/UI is at?

You can try different screen sizes in the preferences. I just play on a laptop, not a large screen.

[cblattmann]

I am not supper worried. but the UI could use a little bit more work. I bought the game because it resembles WipAE and was intrigued by a system with nave and land warfare. Also the idea of AI rather than scripts was intriguing.

[terry1040]

I am using a 4K 3840x2180 environment.

At initial Launch with default settings, the game displayed itself with HUGE Graphics (especially the Hex Command Display) and it was pretty unplayable for me.

After tinkering a lot with the graphics settings, i finally came up with the following rather balanced ok'ish approach that works for me for now under the 4K 3840x2180 circumstances.

I still would love to see more options, especially with the font sizes.

How did I do it:
As pointed out before, all started with "Enforce Low Resolution Art" and "Use Ini File Settings".
Also I changed the advanced preferences the 2x Popup Size from 0 to 1.
Modified the initial Zoom Settings, Max Zoom Out Level -4, At Start Zoom Level 2, Min Zoom In Level 8.
Saved the Customer Prefs.
See the orange rectangulars in the screenshot.

Then I modified the file "WIS_Settings.INI". It is located in the Assets folder.
Made a BackUp Copy of the file, just in case.

Here are my current changes for my envirenment. All the rest is default.

WINDOWED = 1; This will for a window of user defined size
ScreenSizeX = 3839; DO NOT USE the official 3840 4K Width. This would almost double the Hex Command Display at the bottom
ScreenSizeY = 2090; My Window bottom ends just above the Taskbar

ENFORCE_INI_SETTINGS = 1; The Game should always use this INI file at Launch
SCREEN_Y_FROM_WHEN_TO_START_DYNAMIC_WINDOW_SIZE = 4000 ; Anything above 3840 4K Width should work
SCREEN_Y_FROM_WHEN_TO_START_DYNAMIC_WINDOW_SIZE_BASELINE = 4000; Anything above 3840 4K Width should work
FONT_INDEX_UI_2560 = 2 ; All other fonts are either too large or too small

With these settings, I am able to play decently. Popups/Fonts are ok in size (red rectangulars), The bottom "Hex Command Display" is of reasonable size, the Jump map is located to the right, though still not at the right end of the window.

Here is a screenshot from my 3840x2160 4K Screen. All looks ok for now. Just the Database Screen remains to BIG for my taste, but I can live with that for now.

I finally can start playing the game.

Hope that helps if you are experiencing similar problems.
I like things small.

Terry

[cblattmann]

Thank you for sharing. Will try this out. Nonetheless less bottom bar and the UI in general need a bit more work QOL.

[MaximKI]

A public beta is out that has fixes to stability and the UI. Please see this post and let us know if the public beta addresses your issues and improves your game.