View Issue Details

IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0022737AI War 2GUIFeb 10, 2020 12:27 pm
ReporterOlivier Rojon Assigned ToChris_McElligottPark  
Severityfeature 
Status resolvedResolutionfixed 
Product Version1.320 Intelligence Intensifies 
Fixed in VersionBETA 1.323 Everybody Buff Now 
Summary0022737: Font choice or a clearer font for the game.
DescriptionHello!

I dont know if my problem is related to my installation of ai war 2, if it is a general issue or simply a bug to be ironed out.

ever since I have launched it for the first time (bought on GOG, playing the OpenGL version), I consider the font in basically all aspects of the game to be too blurry to be acceptable for a playing session that is longer than 30 minutes. After this time it really starts to irritate my eyes, something which I have literally not experienced before with a video game.

I play on a 24" monitor with 1920x1080.

Ever since I have played the game Cogmind, I came to appreciate the impact that font selection can have on the overall game experience and how different the expectations of a "good font" can be (note that I play Cogmind in ASCII). Thus, instead of simply finding a "better font", why not implement the possibility to choose from like 10 different fonts, possible even in different sizes?

Please do something about this or help me fix it, since it really drags me away from actually playing the game - which is unfortunate, since I reeeeeally dig the idea and cant wait to play it!
TagsNo tags attached.

Activities

Olivier Rojon

Feb 1, 2020 7:51 am

reporter  

Blurry Font.jpg (319,455 bytes)
Blurry Font.png (1,036,424 bytes)

Chris_McElligottPark

Feb 1, 2020 1:37 pm

administrator   ~0055859

Wow, that is so blurry it immediately hurts my eyes just to look at it. Holy cow!

What... is your general settings set up to be like? Have you set the in-game resolution to be the same resolution of your desktop? I'm wondering if there's some sort of strange upscaling happening on your monitor.

Chris_McElligottPark

Feb 1, 2020 1:44 pm

administrator   ~0055860

Regardless, I'm going to try to increase the sampling sizes on the fonts, as there are some edge cases where they can be unacceptably blurry as it is, although not THAT blurry on any monitor I've seen before.

Chris_McElligottPark

Feb 1, 2020 2:17 pm

administrator   ~0055861

I still think some sort of upscaling is happening on your monitor to cause that amount of blur, but there were a few bits that were blurry in a way that annoyed me when the screen was small in particular anyway (I often play with a tiny window on my screen and it can be problematic there, but it's been a low priority to fix since nobody else would reasonably do that).

Coming in 1.322:

* All of the fonts used in the game have been re-imported using a few new settings to help with clarity when they are drawn extra large or small.
** First of all, they are using vastly larger atlases now for their data (1024x1024 or 1024x512 as the case may be) instead of 512x512. This lets them have more precision.
** They are also now all using SDFAA_Hinted rather than just SDFAA, which should help with some small corners being rounded when they should not be, etc.
** We're also definitely importing the kerning pairs from all the fonts, in case any of them have any such information that is useful. Most fonts lack that.
** And lastly we are now using a padding of 20 between characters instead of a padding of 5, which makes it so that when fonts are drawn very small they shouldn't accidentally get some extra bits in from neighboring letters anymore.

Olivier Rojon

Feb 2, 2020 6:16 am

reporter   ~0055866

do I see an emacs (org-mode) user here ;-)?

For the "general settings", I need to know more precisely what you mean, because I dont understand it. Unfortunately, I don't know what upscaling means for my monitor and what I could do to prevent or change it. One thing that might be of note is that this problem has remained the same whether I open the game with an integrated graphics card and a separate one - i.e. the problem seems to not lie in the computer hardware-level.

In-game and desktop resolution are the same, 1680x1050 in both cases.

Thanks a bunch for the envisioned changes, and feel free to suggest stuff I should to on my part to solve the problem (apart from buying a new monitor, this one is rather obvious :D).

BadgerBadger

Feb 2, 2020 2:53 pm

manager   ~0055868

Which OS are you running?

BadgerBadger

Feb 2, 2020 3:01 pm

manager   ~0055869

Last edited: Feb 2, 2020 3:01 pm

Upscaling here basically means "Instead of generation a 1680x1050 image, it's generating a smaller image then increasing its size to be 1680x1050". This means that the image will look blurry and fuzzy, because there isn't actually enough detail in the original image to look crisp at the larger resolution.

You can get some sense of how this works (albeit in a different context) here: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/upscaling-how-does-it-work-and-is-it-worth-it/. This is done at the OS level or the monitor level, not by the game.

Olivier Rojon

Feb 8, 2020 5:36 am

reporter   ~0055922

I am running a flavour of Linux (Manjaro Linux), and use the OpenGL version of AI War 2 (last time I tried I was unable to launch the other version, maybe because I dont have native drivers for my new graphics card).

I am quite certain now that the whole issue was related to upscaling. I purchased a new monitor (27", 1920x1080), and all of a sudden, the font is quite a bit clearer. Still, I think the changes make sense because I am quite certainly not the only AW2-playing person on the planet for whom upscaling is a thing.

Thanks for your support, I am amazed by how responsive you guys are!

Chris_McElligottPark

Feb 10, 2020 12:27 pm

administrator   ~0055953

Glad that this resolved the problem! I'd be careful of any up-scaling that happens in general with the other monitor, then, as basically every game will become blurry with it if it is happening by accident or on purpose. It's actually really useful with dynamic resolutions for FPS games being common, but usually the GUI/HUD is excluded in order to keep text clear.

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
Feb 1, 2020 7:49 am Olivier Rojon New Issue
Feb 1, 2020 7:49 am Olivier Rojon File Added: Blurry Font.png
Feb 1, 2020 7:49 am Olivier Rojon File Deleted: Blurry Font.png
Feb 1, 2020 7:51 am Olivier Rojon File Added: Blurry Font.jpg
Feb 1, 2020 7:51 am Olivier Rojon File Added: Blurry Font.png
Feb 1, 2020 7:54 am Olivier Rojon Description Updated
Feb 1, 2020 1:37 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0055859
Feb 1, 2020 1:44 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0055860
Feb 1, 2020 2:17 pm Chris_McElligottPark Assigned To => Chris_McElligottPark
Feb 1, 2020 2:17 pm Chris_McElligottPark Status new => feedback
Feb 1, 2020 2:17 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0055861
Feb 2, 2020 6:16 am Olivier Rojon Note Added: 0055866
Feb 2, 2020 6:16 am Olivier Rojon Status feedback => assigned
Feb 2, 2020 2:53 pm BadgerBadger Note Added: 0055868
Feb 2, 2020 3:01 pm BadgerBadger Note Added: 0055869
Feb 2, 2020 3:01 pm BadgerBadger Note Edited: 0055869
Feb 8, 2020 5:36 am Olivier Rojon Note Added: 0055922
Feb 10, 2020 12:27 pm Chris_McElligottPark Status assigned => resolved
Feb 10, 2020 12:27 pm Chris_McElligottPark Resolution open => fixed
Feb 10, 2020 12:27 pm Chris_McElligottPark Fixed in Version => BETA 1.323 Everybody Buff Now
Feb 10, 2020 12:27 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0055953