Any way to run game at 1440 ? or bigger UI

[silent one]

Is there a way to play at a better resolution than the 1280 x 960 proposed in game.  My desktop is 4k and that makes the UI far too small to use.   Is there a way to force the game to be 1440 or have a bigger UI ?  I dont really want to have to alter my whole desktop to accommodate one game :(  Any ideas guys?

[markshot]

There is a file "display size.txt" in your data directory.  Normally, it contains "0 0 0" for default resolution and refresh rate.

I believe you can edit a resolution and refresh rate into it such as:  1920 1080 0; although I am not sure of the required format.

Then, you would either set your display or your video card to interpolate the below native resolution.

Ideally, if you would force the presentation to downscale to an even multiple such that pixels aren't really interpolated, but 4 pixels -> 1 pixel in order to maintain sharpness.

[markshot]

BTW:  I would probably try to interpolate with the video card, as one would assume that it has the more powerful graphics hardware than your monitor.  Of course, if your GPU is hitting the wall (which is usually not the case with CM), then it might be better to let the display do the calculations.

[silent one]

so Id be putting in 2560  1440  0   ? 

Interpolate ?  Id like a solution that doesnt mean I have to change all my monitor settings every time I play one game.   Im not sure what your actually meaning here.  

My gpu is a 2080ti so its not tasked by the game.  But at high res the UI is far too small.  1280 x 960 Looks terrible on a 32in monitor      

Edited December 30, 2019 by silent one

[markshot]

Somewhere the file must be documented.

You do have one other choice.  You can use something like www.ultramon.com which will allow you to create shortcuts to profiles/launch games.  Thus, it changes the resolution and CM just runs full screen.

No, you won't be changing resolution manually.  CM will do it at each launch and it will flip back when you minimize it to the the desktop or exit the game.

Interpolating is the process by which anything non-native is displayed.  A CRT had no fixed pixels, just electron gun.  An LCD has fixed pixels.  When native, you got a 1:1 mapping.  But when you go below native, an averaging process in performed to go from the memory map to the physical display image.  It is either calculated by your monitor or video card.  Usually, even the best interpolation will fall well short of the crispness of native.

In am running 2 displays:  1 32" SONY TV 1080p (1900x1080) and 1 21" NEC Display (1600x1200).  TVs are much better for games, because 1080p remains 1080p from 15" to 83"; the pixels just get larger.  So, Total War, EU4, CM, and many more games look stunning on a 32" TV with no need for UI scaling.  (I had covered this in another hardware thread.)

Many years ago, with multi-sync CRTs developers supported art for the common resolutions like 800x600, 1024x768, 1600x1200 ...  That got dropped with LCDs.  In general the artwork is fixed, and only in the newest games due to 4K are we seeing scalable UIs.  CMx2 is actually quite old already.

[markshot]

BTW, with many games, players have created font mods which boost the size/thickness of fonts.  This has been known to help, but it is very game dependent.

In particular, it depends on how much spare space the developers have left in the game art so that larger fonts don't overrun their fields.

Another problem you are going to have is small control areas to click.  I have suffer from neurological issues which result in tremors/twitches.  I have  a keyboard/mouse with many, many programmable keys.  Even when a game does not have a hot key for something, you can make your own by programming mouse clicks to particular controls and binding them to keys.  This is easily done with www.winbatch.com and www.autohotkey.com ... the same thing could be done for UI controls like the CM VCR which is too small at 4K.

The code looks like this (I wrote this this morning to create a time stamping quick save key for HOI4):

QuickSave.wbt (www.winbatch.com):

MousePos=MouseInfo(2); screen relative
SpaceIndex=StrScan(MousePos, " ", 1, @FWDSCAN)
XVal=StrSub(MousePos, 1, SpaceIndex-1)
YVal=StrSub(MousePos, SpaceIndex+1, -1)

MouseMove(986, 17, "", "")
MouseClick(@LClick, 0)
MouseMove(497, 384, "", "")
MouseClick(@LClick, 0)
MouseMove(581, 716, "", "")
MouseClick(@LClick, 0)
Delay(1)

Base=TimeYmdHms()
NewBase1=StrSub(Base, 3, 17)
NewBase2=StrReplace(NewBase1, ":", "")
NewBase3=StrCat("-", NewBase2)
SendKey(NewBase3)

MouseMove(557, 750, "", "")
MouseClick(@LClick, 0)
Delay(2)

WinActivate("Hearts of Iron IV")

Beep()
Delay(1)
Beep()
MouseMove(XVal,YVal,"","")

[Erwin]

FWIW I run the game at 2560  1440  0. 

It definitely looks better than at lower resolutions.  However, on a smaller monitor than 30" it's hard to read the text.  Am thinking of getting a 40" UHD TV as that has small enuff pixels and should make the game look great at 4K resolution (assuming the game can be run at that res).

Normally I'd edit "display size.txt" to 1920x1200 to make reading the text easier.

Edited December 31, 2019 by Erwin

[silent one]

Thanks guys. Once I found that display size.txt file I now have something I can work with . Just need to find the right res I can live with. Shame i cant just have hi res and scale the UI up interdependently   

[Erwin]

10 hours ago, silent one said:

Thanks guys. Once I found that display size.txt file I now have something I can work with . Just need to find the right res I can live with. Shame i cant just have hi res and scale the UI up interdependently   

Yes, we old-timers have been bitching about that for decades!  You'd think it would be an easy fix, but...