4 ms·

I've read the Deck's 7 inch screen will make some games unplayable due to the game text size being designed for bigger monitors.

darkstar999 5y ago
Yes, that is a problem on the Switch with bad ports. UI scaling should be a feature of any game targeting multiple platforms.
WithinReason 5y ago
I don't see how smaller text could make a game unplayable, you could just squint harder.
- caymanjim 5y ago
  I suspect you are under age 40.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - yoyohello13 5y ago
    I've been complaining about small text in games since the beginning of the HD era in my early 20s. It's gotten better, but I'm baffled that it's still a problem in many modern games.
    - brnt 5y ago
      I hate Netflix doesn't let me scale subtitles. Not everyone watches on 100" screens!
    - caymanjim 5y ago
      I play a lot of older games, and have to lower my displsy resolution to get a usable font size in many of them (from native 4K down to 1920x1080 most of the time).
- anotherman554 5y ago
  That would be incredibly unpleasant for a text heavy game. Valve has standards for this: "text legibility: interface text must be easily readable at a distance of 12 inches/30 cm from the screen. In other words, the smallest on-screen font character should never fall below 9 pixels in height at 1280x800...we recommend aiming for 12px whenever possible.)" https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/compat+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/compat+&cd=2&hl...
- Duralias 5y ago
  800p screen does not do well with small text. I would certainly not want to play a word heavy game like Disco Elysium without text scaling.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
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- FractalParadigm 5y ago
  Not completely unplayable, but I distinctly remember the first Dead Rising on Xbox 360 having completely illegible text on CRT displays[0]. No amount of squinting harder could have fixed that. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Rising_(video_game)#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Rising_(video_game)#Recep...
  - hombre_fatal 5y ago
    I feel vindicated that there's a whole section about this. I couldn't read a single thing when I played it and never knew what the objective was, so I just killed zombies until my dad bought our first HDTV.
- mmis1000 5y ago
  It's probably fine for English, because it has only 26 characters with simple stroke. But for CJK, it will be a real problem. Some characters like 病, 歸 hava far more horizontal/vertical lines compare to English characters. 12px is already bad, 10px/8px will be totally unreadable. Fun fact: windows actually have different font size in setting page depends on which language you are using. For most Western languages, it is 12/10, but for cjk, it is 14.

darkstar999 5y ago

Yes, that is a problem on the Switch with bad ports. UI scaling should be a feature of any game targeting multiple platforms.

WithinReason 5y ago

I don't see how smaller text could make a game unplayable, you could just squint harder.

caymanjim 5y ago
I suspect you are under age 40.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- yoyohello13 5y ago
  I've been complaining about small text in games since the beginning of the HD era in my early 20s. It's gotten better, but I'm baffled that it's still a problem in many modern games.
  - brnt 5y ago
    I hate Netflix doesn't let me scale subtitles. Not everyone watches on 100" screens!
  - caymanjim 5y ago
    I play a lot of older games, and have to lower my displsy resolution to get a usable font size in many of them (from native 4K down to 1920x1080 most of the time).
anotherman554 5y ago
That would be incredibly unpleasant for a text heavy game. Valve has standards for this: "text legibility: interface text must be easily readable at a distance of 12 inches/30 cm from the screen. In other words, the smallest on-screen font character should never fall below 9 pixels in height at 1280x800...we recommend aiming for 12px whenever possible.)" https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/compat+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/compat+&cd=2&hl...
Duralias 5y ago
800p screen does not do well with small text. I would certainly not want to play a word heavy game like Disco Elysium without text scaling.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
FractalParadigm 5y ago
Not completely unplayable, but I distinctly remember the first Dead Rising on Xbox 360 having completely illegible text on CRT displays[0]. No amount of squinting harder could have fixed that. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Rising_(video_game)#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Rising_(video_game)#Recep...
- hombre_fatal 5y ago
  I feel vindicated that there's a whole section about this. I couldn't read a single thing when I played it and never knew what the objective was, so I just killed zombies until my dad bought our first HDTV.
mmis1000 5y ago
It's probably fine for English, because it has only 26 characters with simple stroke. But for CJK, it will be a real problem. Some characters like 病, 歸 hava far more horizontal/vertical lines compare to English characters. 12px is already bad, 10px/8px will be totally unreadable. Fun fact: windows actually have different font size in setting page depends on which language you are using. For most Western languages, it is 12/10, but for cjk, it is 14.