For those of you struggling with ui scaling/character portraits not appearing

[moleman122]

I've seen a lot of different posts on ways to fix the common issues (resolution fixes, fullscreen=false to fix the no mouse bug) but i've yet to find a single comprehensive way to scale the UI up while allowing you to play the game in 1080p. Unfortunately, at present I don't think it's even possible to play the game at 1080p and upscale the UI (not counting a font mod or two out there)

For some people this is fine, but for me and a lot of others it frankly just hurts trying to read the tiny text and interpret the tiny UI. I've also been repeatedly frustrated by the bug where your character's portrait disappears after upscaling resolution... Here's the only fix i've found:

1: In your launch options (you should know the drill if you've been troubleshooting this game already) set the game's launch resolution to 1280 x 720. I know your modern brain struggles to accept anything shy of TEN-EIGHTY-PEE, but it will make the UI a lot more legible and still render the game at a much higher resolution than it had in 2005.....

2: Set your computer's active resolution to 1280 x 720, NOT just in-game. This seems to prevent a scaling bug that comes from launching the title screen and loading the game when the computer's resolution is set higher. THIS is the first step to allow your character portrait to load correctly.

3: Launch the game. Continue your save or start a new game, whatever it takes for the game to change to the full rendering. Once you are in game, hit that sweet maximize button and everything should be clean, character portrait right where it belongs.

OPTIONAL: Get borderless gaming and activate it ONLY AFTER YOU HAVE COMPLETED THE FIRST 3 STEPS, doing it earlier will cause the character portrait bug in my experience

Congratulations! Your UI is a decent scale, and the game still doesn't look like ♥♥♥♥. Get over the pixels, you've played worse.

YMMV, i'm on windows 10 and using the base game, I'm not sure if enabling broken world fixes any of these issues

[龙骑士★★★]

Hi there,

Thanks for sharing, I would like to share how I get UI scale with my 4K monitor.

Steps:
1. Right click program with "properties" menu
2. Choose "Compatibility" tab
3. Click "Change high DPI settings"
4. Uncheck "Override high DPI scalliing behavior."
5. Done

You are able to play the game as usual, max window mode, it works like a charm with Window 10 version 1809.

Cheers!

[DarkteK]

Originally posted by 龙骑士★★★:

Hi there,

Thanks for sharing, I would like to share how I get UI scale with my 4K monitor.

Steps:
1. Right click program with "properties" menu
2. Choose "Compatibility" tab
3. Click "Change high DPI settings"
4. Uncheck "Override high DPI scalliing behavior."
5. Done

You are able to play the game as usual, max window mode, it works like a charm with Window 10 version 1809.

Cheers!

thx!!!

[The Major Gear]

Originally posted by 龙骑士★★★:

Hi there,

Thanks for sharing, I would like to share how I get UI scale with my 4K monitor.

Steps:
1. Right click program with "properties" menu
2. Choose "Compatibility" tab
3. Click "Change high DPI settings"
4. Uncheck "Override high DPI scalliing behavior."
5. Done

You are able to play the game as usual, max window mode, it works like a charm with Window 10 version 1809.

Cheers!

Is that the *only* thing you did? Or did you also add command line arguments to the game launcher?

I've been trying to get a set of arguments that work. this works but with unreadable tiny text.
"nointro=true fullscreen=false width=1920 height=1080"

I'll try you DPI settings. I'm also on a 4k display.

[flixization]

Originally posted by Genesis:

You can also use this trick, it requires a wrapper though.

https://github.com/GenesisFR/DS2TroubleshootingGuide#increase-ui-size

Thanks this worked well for me. I was able to run the game at my native 2k resolution but keep the interface at 720p.

[Partakith]

https://siege-two-launcher.weebly.com/ another method for fixing a multitude of issues. Meant to be used with the patches found here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/dungeon-siege-2-windows-10-broken-world-patches-no/f45cee5b-417f-49b6-947e-c43260218ae5

May seem like a lot to read and do, but honestly it keeps things simple once you understand. If anyone's willing to make a quality video I'll upload it on the program website.

[killbill32167]

Originally posted by The Major Gear:

Originally posted by 龙骑士★★★:

Hi there,

Thanks for sharing, I would like to share how I get UI scale with my 4K monitor.

Steps:
1. Right click program with "properties" menu
2. Choose "Compatibility" tab
3. Click "Change high DPI settings"
4. Uncheck "Override high DPI scalliing behavior."
5. Done

You are able to play the game as usual, max window mode, it works like a charm with Window 10 version 1809.

Cheers!

Is that the *only* thing you did? Or did you also add command line arguments to the game launcher?

I've been trying to get a set of arguments that work. this works but with unreadable tiny text.
"nointro=true fullscreen=false width=1920 height=1080"

I'll try you DPI settings. I'm also on a 4k display.

Do the DPI setting and use the parameters: fullscreen=false width=1024 height=768
Works perfect on my 4K screen! (And my character finally has a portrait. Any higher res and it starts going out of frame)

[Real Awesome]

I read a fix somewhere using dgVoodoo as a wrapper, cannot find the source right now, it's somewhere on the internets.
dgVoodoo works fine with me, i used geforce 4 titan or geforce fx 5700 ultra as emulation in dgVoodoo. in the directx tab you select your native screen resolution and in the dungeonsiege2.ini respectively dungeonsiege2brokenworld.ini (under mygames/dungeon siege 2 or mygames/dungeon siege 2 brocken world) you set your wanted GUI resolution (in my case 3440x1440 in dgVoodoo>directx and 1600x900 in dungeonsiege2brokenworld.ini).
my game renders in beautiful UWQHD and the UI is pixelated and a bit asquew (16:9 warped to 21:9) but readable and enjoyable, i hope this helps you folks.
reminder: if you play Broken World deactivate any Virtualization Technology in your BIOS CPU settings (both amd and intel), then it will run at fine fps numbers.

[InconspicuousBlackVan]

Can confirm, dgVoodoo works great for countering UI scaling issues in older games. Also works for DS 1. I go for 1920x1440 (the highest 4:3 resolution that fits on my screen, hate stretching 4:3 content to widescreen) and use 1024x768 in game. It makes the UI a little blurry as it's upscaled from a much lower resolution, but everything is still perfectly readable and you don't need a magnifying glass to read it. The rest of the game is in a very nice, crisp resolution.

With DS 2, you just have to make sure to have dgVoodoo actually emulate a stronger GPU (like the mentioned GeForce FX 5700 Ultra). If you keep the default Voodoo card selected, the game will not launch as it will think you don't have a strong enough GPU in your PC.

[S.T.A.L.K.E.R.]

That does not work in bordeless fullscreen mode which the game should be played on in actual 2k or 4k resolution

[tadastalalas]

Is it possible to fix character portrait without adjusting UI? I like 1920x1080 because I can have great expanded vault mod.