4K and High Resolution Displays

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Background

Project Zomboid isn't built with high resolutions in mind.

First, the cost to sort art into the correct draw order increases exponentially the more tiles are drawn to the screen. Worse, this has to be done on the CPU, largely leaving the GPU to handle only 3D models and drawing those tiles once the CPU is done sorting them.

Second, for most of PZ's life, it defaulted to only 1280 x 720 res and could barely hit 30 FPS. It was only in 2018 that the game became reasonably playable at 1920x1080 through efforts to optimise the game's rendering code in preparation for vehicles.

Third: PZ is built on the concepts of OpenGL <3.1 and below, as PZ's principle audience was (and still is) almost entirely older computers. 4K, Among gamers, 4k itself remains rare, showing as only <3% on Steam's hardware survey (and makes up far less than that of PZ's audience.

in short, it was a bit of a pipe dream that PZ would ever run in 4K and turned into "a pleasant surprise" that it worked at all when one of us finally got our hands on an ultrawide and then a 4K display.

This is why the UI elements do not scale and the game isn't able to automatically scale itself. This will likely change in the future, but for now we'll have to work around the game's limitations in this area.

Smaller Res In-Game for Best Experience

To get the best experience in PZ, we strongly recommend playing at a lower resolution than 4k. This will ensure you get reasonable framerates.

To do so, find a lower resolution that matches your current monitor's aspect ratio. In Options, set the game to that resolution and then set the game to fullscreen.

For example, on most 4K monitors, 1980x1080

There can be some problems, however, that are described below.

The Text is Blurry/Blocky

It may be necessary to go into your graphics cards' settings and enable GPU scaling instead of relying on the monitor to get readable text when downsampling from your native desktop resolution to a lower resolution in game..

The Game Doesn't Fill the Screen

If you run into trouble playing on a lower resolution and are on Windows, then do the following:

• Go to %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Steam\steamapps\common\ProjectZomboid.
• Right click on each of the ProjectZomboid*.exes (red and black egg)
• Left click Properties from the menu.
• Under the Compatibility tab, disable (override) DPI scaling for Application

An alternative way to do this is to set the DPI to 100% instead of having it scale, but this'll apply globally. To do so, go to Start and type "DPI." You should get an option called "Change the size of text, apps, and other items." Open it and change scale to 100%.

You're On a Mac and the Game is Huge

If the window is far too large to view completely, you'll have to go into Preferences -> Display and set scaling to 100%. Emulated applications, such as PZ, on M1 do not appear allow DPI scaling anymore.

4k and Readability

Still, if this is not ideal (or the game ends up looking too ugly to bear, you can enable larger fonts in the Options screen This doesn't only affect the fonts, but will increase the size of some (not all) UI elements, as well.

There are two separate options, one for inventory font size and one for global font size. Be sure you change Font size, not just inventory font size.

Zoom and FPS

If you choose to play on a high resolution, it is strongly advised that you do not enable Zoom levels over 200%. Frame rate will suffer significantly. Check that 225% and 250% are disabled in Options (they should be by default).

[dragonsphotoworks]

Cant wait for that. I play at immitated 4k on a 3 foot screen. And occasionnaly on our 60" screen. Im getting old so hard see small screens lol

[bjjorick]

Originally posted by dragonsphotoworks:

Cant wait for that. I play at immitated 4k on a 3 foot screen. And occasionnaly on our 60" screen. Im getting old so hard see small screens lol

Hmmm, wouldn't it be better to set your screen size to a smaller resolution for this game? The smaller the resolution, the larger the images on the screen, making it easier to view?

I've never used 4k, so i'm not sure if there's a reason to use it, but since PZ doesn't have ultra HD textures, it seems a bit overkill if it's possible to use an alternative?

[dragonsphotoworks]

yes that is true. Except ive gotten used to higher rez. In majority of games i play you get larger field of view. so i increased monitor size while going higher rez. 29" on low rez would be easy to see yes. but in many games would loose.... "guessing" 30% of field of view. On 42 inch at higher rez get the larger field of view while being larger to see also.

[bjjorick]

Understandable, it's why i don't adopt 4k, i'm sure it would be nice and I'd love it, but it's barely supported, expensive, and once you get used to it, it's hard to go back.

[Javert]

This needs real DPI support.

[Kinetic Bullet]

Update the demo as well

[theSparktank]

Windows 10, Fall Creators Update, Windows Insider Program... don't show me the old "Disable Scaling".
Instead, it gives me two sets of options to play wtih everything DPI related.

Also, I tried using NVidia's DSR to upscale to 4K then back to 1080p, but it just stays at 4K and I only see the bottom left quadrant of the full 4K resolution.
It should have scaled back to 1080p but something screwed up.
Maybe Java dependencies?

[theSparktank]

"Program DPI" and "High DPI scaling override"
https://image.ibb.co/iW4eyo/Clipboard_1.jpg

I think those are the same in my Windows system settings (new control panel).
System -> Display -> Advanced Scaling
System -> Display -> Graphic Settings

I'm new to DSR, so it might be any of those settings causing problems for me when I try go 4K resolution in the game menu (instead of setting desktop resolution).

[MaebeKnot]

Originally posted by bjjorick:

Originally posted by dragonsphotoworks:

Cant wait for that. I play at immitated 4k on a 3 foot screen. And occasionnaly on our 60" screen. Im getting old so hard see small screens lol

Hmmm, wouldn't it be better to set your screen size to a smaller resolution for this game? The smaller the resolution, the larger the images on the screen, making it easier to view?

I've never used 4k, so i'm not sure if there's a reason to use it, but since PZ doesn't have ultra HD textures, it seems a bit overkill if it's possible to use an alternative?

I play a lot of Indie games, many are 2D games. 4k looks great in them because the scan lines on the monitor are smaller. Helps the colors come to life. My 4k monitor side by side with my 1080p I can easily tell how the 1080p scan lines muddy the colors.

[Johnny]

i am not going to contribute to this discussion in any constructive way, so im warning all before hand. just gonna spill my opinion! this resolution "problem" is not just in PZ...... this problem is the biggest B*TCH there is. it is the MOST annoying "bug" or "glitch" or poorly chosen design choice by Microsoft.... in the history of resolution problems. thank god for "alt+enter" otherwise there´d be games i couldnt play due to this problem. i could write a book with a few pages........ about this! any way.... LOVE PZ!

[RagingBoredom]

Originally posted by EnigmaGrey:

Originally posted by Sparktank:

"Program DPI" and "High DPI scaling override"
https://image.ibb.co/iW4eyo/Clipboard_1.jpg

I think those are the same in my Windows system settings (new control panel).
System -> Display -> Advanced Scaling
System -> Display -> Graphic Settings

I'm new to DSR, so it might be any of those settings causing problems for me when I try go 4K resolution in the game menu (instead of setting desktop resolution).

Oh, joy. They changed it again . . .

I think it's the second option you want to change. Though the first one about setting a specific DPI is definitely intriguing.

Since I haven't seen anyone respond about this setting, I'll share my expereince. I'm playing on a laptop and my native resolution is 3840x2160. I haven't been playing this game for quite some time because of my resolution issues. When I'd start the game before making the change suggested above, I wouldn't get a full screen even though it was set in the options. It would give me a windowed version that was smaller than my native resolution and I could see the desktop around the edges. And it treated it like it was full screen because the window captured the mouse and I would have to alt+tab to be able to move it to the desktop beyond the game window. And since it wasn't actually full screen, the text was impossible to read. I still had issues that rendered the game unplayable when changing to lower resolutions. I suspect that this might be more of an issue on my end than something with the game but I can't say for sure. Regardless, it was bad enough for me to not want to play it until the issue was resolved.

But making the changes suggested above, it allows me to go full screen. And the text is still small. But I can read it at least. Here's what it looks like after making the changes above:

Main screen: https://i.imgur.com/hsqaxmR.jpg
In-game: https://i.imgur.com/NhfvLMa.jpg

I do prefer the text to be a bit bigger but it's not a dealbreaker, especially in comparison to the issues I was having before. I might end up switching to 1080p because that looks a lot closer to what I was used to before switching to this laptop. But for now, I'm going to stick with native resolution and see how it goes.

[Kinetic Bullet]

Originally posted by RagingBoredom:

Originally posted by EnigmaGrey:

Oh, joy. They changed it again . . .

I think it's the second option you want to change. Though the first one about setting a specific DPI is definitely intriguing.

Since I haven't seen anyone respond about this setting, I'll share my expereince. I'm playing on a laptop and my native resolution is 3840x2160. I haven't been playing this game for quite some time because of my resolution issues. When I'd start the game before making the change suggested above, I wouldn't get a full screen even though it was set in the options. It would give me a windowed version that was smaller than my native resolution and I could see the desktop around the edges. And it treated it like it was full screen because the window captured the mouse and I would have to alt+tab to be able to move it to the desktop beyond the game window. And since it wasn't actually full screen, the text was impossible to read. I still had issues that rendered the game unplayable when changing to lower resolutions. I suspect that this might be more of an issue on my end than something with the game but I can't say for sure. Regardless, it was bad enough for me to not want to play it until the issue was resolved.

But making the changes suggested above, it allows me to go full screen. And the text is still small. But I can read it at least. Here's what it looks like after making the changes above:

Main screen: https://i.imgur.com/hsqaxmR.jpg
In-game: https://i.imgur.com/NhfvLMa.jpg

I do prefer the text to be a bit bigger but it's not a dealbreaker, especially in comparison to the issues I was having before. I might end up switching to 1080p because that looks a lot closer to what I was used to before switching to this laptop. But for now, I'm going to stick with native resolution and see how it goes.

On a laptop it's not a dealbreaker but if you're playing on your living room 4K tv, you cannot sit so close to the TV to read the text. That's why I gave up on this game and did not bother to respond!!

[RagingBoredom]

It didn't work. When I pasted the text into my text editor, it wasn't formatted at all. Just a long one line run on. So I formatted it line by line, saved the file, changed the DPI setting back, and ran the game. It was in 1080P resolution because I was testing that last and it loaded up and the text was noticeably bigger in 1080. So I switched the resolution back to my native. And for some reason, only a portion of the settings menu could be seen. It was as if the resolution was changed to a much, much higher resolution than my native and my screen was like one panel of the total disaply. As if it was a multi-monitor setup or something. Deleting the manifest file and changing the DPI settings back put it back to how it was last night. So I'm just gonna roll with that until the next build comes out.

Thank you for taking the time to offer help.

[Coiote]

Originally posted by RagingBoredom:

It didn't work. When I pasted the text into my text editor, it wasn't formatted at all. Just a long one line run on. So I formatted it line by line, saved the file, changed the DPI setting back, and ran the game. It was in 1080P resolution because I was testing that last and it loaded up and the text was noticeably bigger in 1080. So I switched the resolution back to my native. And for some reason, only a portion of the settings menu could be seen. It was as if the resolution was changed to a much, much higher resolution than my native and my screen was like one panel of the total disaply. As if it was a multi-monitor setup or something. Deleting the manifest file and changing the DPI settings back put it back to how it was last night. So I'm just gonna roll with that until the next build comes out.

Thank you for taking the time to offer help.

How i can fix that, it happen to me and i cant fix. i cant click on options menu, i even can see the bar of the options...

[Uziel]

The font mod work for me, but the guide for the advance DPI scaling is out of date, windows 10 as a new settings..
By the way whit the game whit a 4k desktop run right only in window mode, and the framerate drop a lot when i zoom out...(my rig is a i5 4690k, 8gb ram, nvidia 970).