Years(?) old bug still in...

Hello,

I downloaded demo yesterday, started it up... and deleted after-wards.

The reason? My eyes burn and feel dizzy when I read vertically stretched/compressed text in tool tips, menus and generally in all places where small text is present. As far as I remember from old total war forums - it was due to my resolution (1440*900) and the fact that total war didn't have appropriate fonts for this resolution, thus resulting in the need to stretch/compress fonts which were supposedly native to other resolutions. At least this was the impression I had after looking over patch packs, which included new font files at one point, since which the problem appeared.

I'm not sure how widespread this is (according to wiki - WSXGA Widescreen Super eXtended Graphics Array 8:5 (16:10) 1440 900 10.53% steam users) , but it was a reason I threw this franchise out the window before and will do the same with this new iteration.

Anyone else have noticed this? Do you have any solutions? I know some guys tried playing on lower 4:3 resolutions, which fit into the already not so big 1440*900 resolution, and this seemed to help, but frankly - CBA. Its not my problem to solve and I definitely will not be solving a problem AND paying money for it at the same time.

Thanks for the demo, helped me decide

[gandalfrockman]

What your describing isnt what I would call a bug.
Its what you get for playing at a bizzare (and most likely unsupported) resolution,..... Most games are generally built for standard widescreen resolutions
In widescreen terms this means:
1280x720
1600x900
1920x1080
2048x1152

Does anything run well in 1440x900?

[TehJumpingJawa]

Originally Posted by gandalfrockman

What your describing isnt what I would call a bug.
Its what you get for playing at a bizzare (and most likely unsupported) resolution,..... Most games are generally built for standard widescreen resolutions
In widescreen terms this means:
1280x720
1600x900
1920x1080
2048x1152

Does anything run well in 1440x900?

16:10 IS a standard and relatively common widescreen aspect ratio.

4:3(800x600,1024x768,1280x960),
5:4(1280x1024),
16:9(1280x720,1920x1080), and
16:10(1440x900,1920x1200) are all common aspect ratios for monitors.

Originally Posted by gandalfrockman

What your describing isnt what I would call a bug.
Its what you get for playing at a bizzare (and most likely unsupported) resolution,..... Most games are generally built for standard widescreen resolutions
In widescreen terms this means:
1280x720
1600x900
1920x1080
2048x1152

Does anything run well in 1440x900?

This is the resolution reported by 10% steam users. One of the higher percentages, if wikipedia is to be believed.

No problems on any other game. And as I wrote - event on TW series it appeared only after some patch, so I believe that if this was ruined - it can be fixed too.

Playing at 1440*900, everythings fine?

[MightyPoo64]

Nope, the problem must be something else. My friend is running the game at that resolution and has no problems at all

[soldussnaku]

You'll have to wait for the UI text enlargement mod, like this one: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=252620

It's a lifesaver, I had the same issue you had to begin with, this fixed all of that.

Try searching a bit more next time, modders can solve almost any issue(s) with a game.

@may and MightyPoo64 - are you sure? Look at the text while you are scrolling down slowly. Check the horizontal lines like the ones on T, the capital O etc. If you have something similar to my situation - you'll notice slight anomalies with the letters while they are motion, like horizontal T line getting 2px wide, then suddenly 1px wide. This is without anti aliasing, which would hide this behavior and make everything blurry.
If you still do not see same artifacts as on my system - then I'll start saving for new video card coupled with a bigger monitor

@soldussnaku - sincerely thank you for finding this, but after reading the whole thread one user summed it up correctly: "This really is great. Text is still blurry, but at least its big and blurry"

[MightyPoo64]

Ok well i've just gone into game at 1440x900 and taken a bunch of screens containing text from different parts of the game. I used to play Empire at this resolution and while the text can be a little fuzzy at times, i'd never liken it to anything that'd cause me eye strain and quit the game like the OP complained about

Bare in mind these look worse than in actual game when you zoom in because of the image compression.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/mightypoo/screenshots/

Originally Posted by MightyPoo64

Ok well i've just gone into game at 1440x900 and taken a bunch of screens containing text from different parts of the game. I used to play Empire at this resolution and while the text can be a little fuzzy at times, i'd never liken it to anything that'd cause me eye strain and quit the game like the OP complained about

Bare in mind these look worse than in actual game when you zoom in because of the image compression.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/mightypoo/screenshots/

Yes, this seems to be similar to my complaints.

1. There's no AA and the text is distorder. Notice letter B in the first picture. All lines take up 1,5 pixel, than the upper line - sharp 1. Add AA and it WILL blurr it with the black pixels on both sides. Then again - if you don not feel this is a problem - then it's all in my head
2. Notice the blossoming cherry trees just under the text box in the first picture. EVERY pixel is sharp, no such artificial stretching as it is done with text symbols.
3. Try printscreen for some browser or text document, zoom in and compare letters. TW sharpnes is pathetic at best. On bigger resolutions, when each line of a letter takes up nice full few pixels - its less of a problem.

Is it THAT difficult to properly use sharp fonts? Probably it is... Oh well, back to games which do not have this problem

I previously bought Empire: Total War which became unplayable with my new monitor due to the way the text is rendered. This is a well documented problem affecting numerous people (here and here -screenshots and comparisons).

Basically the game assumes everyone runs at resolution with a 4:3 ratio and scales poorly to everything else.

It is now incredible and unforgivable that this bug has now made its way into Total War: SHOGUN 2. Although text rendering is improved it is still not crisp as it should be. Given that the decision was made to use a very small font for a lot of the UI this is made much much worse.

Quite disappointing.