Fix for Steam client tiny text in 4k

[WoodenSaucer]

Ever since I started PC gaming on my TV, I've searched high and low for an answer for this. In high resolution setups, the text in the Steam client is tiny and hard to read. It was bad enough with 1080p, but when I recently switched to a 55" 4K TV, it became ridiculous. You literally have to have your face right in front of the screen to be able to read anything. I've seen tons of people beg for a setting for resizing fonts, but nothing has ever been done. The only solutions I've ever found were to use a larger text skin (which aren't large enough for 4k), and people saying we shouldn't expect something like that from Valve, and we just need to lower our resolution. Well, I'm not going to lower my resolution just because one program I use doesn't work well with hi-res setups.

Anyway, I was screwing around with things to try to fix another Steam problem, and I accidentally discovered exactly why it is like this and how to fix it! For some crazy reason, they have the Steam exe file set by default to disable display scaling, which means the text is going to be exactly the same number of pixels no matter how high your system resolution is. That means the higher the resolution, the tinier the text and everything else will appear. So here's how you fix this issue:

Go to your Steam folder in Windows Explorer, and find the Steam.exe file. Right click on that file, and choose Properties. In the dialog window that comes up, click on the Compatibility tab. In the Settings section, you'll find a checkbox that says, "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings." Make sure that box is unchecked. You don't want scaling disabled. Now press OK, and you're done. Make sure to restart Steam for the effects to take place.

Now, the Steam client will actually go along with whatever scaling you have Windows set for to enlarge the user interface to be readable. I have no idea why it's set that way by default, but this is how you fix the issue. In my opinion, there have been enough people struggling with this issue, that this thread should probably be stickied.

[Ren]

How to fix your tiny text in your game on window mode on a 4k resolution laptop

I searched for 2 hours... not in full, but the collective minutes I used in the past few days because I got frustrated quickly.

But to give back to the community (as my mother would say), I want to share my solution with anyone who got a shiny new laptop but can't seem to figure out why even though the display settings on the desktop are normal, you're playing Rues or Papers Please and it looks like they were set to someone who had far vision their whole life... not a pretty comparison.

But to be even more specific, if you play the game on full screen, no problem, the UI, or buttons you press are the predicitable size. Though you might have noticed when you press the two buttons to bring up the steam overlay... it shrunk. dramatically so.

So we're going to skip the part I did, which was;

-check the display settings on the desktop
-check ... any settings on steam
-check your game's settings usually in the graphic section
-remember not to get made at your very expensive hardware after searching online for a solution with no clear answer and potentionally harm it

Until... finally I found something that did do something helpful.

So here is what you are going to do (if you want the madness to stop or not squint your eyes when someone messages you a funny or sadness notes):

Locate "Launcher.exe"

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\(gametitle)

Then all you have to do is a little micromanagement.

Right click it
Go down to Properties
Select the Compatibility tab
Now look in the Settings section
tick 'Disable display scaling on high DPI settings'
Apply, and everything in the universe is exactly as it should be... reletively.

I hope this is actually useful to someone like me, but that thought terrifies me. Keep in mind I not an expert at the tech savy stuff, just a regular pc user with waaaaay too much time on her hands. And who happens to be feeling Alturistic at the moment.

Keep in mind, if this doesn't work, and someone found out way, I reccomend following up with how you fix it on the forums hell post it here. Make some random person on one side of the hemisphere happy. Besides the one you'r in... you know who I'm talking about.

[Justified]

This worked for me!

[SaxBeast™]

Hi, by default, mine is uncheck. On 4k resolution, my steam is scaled but the font and UI is pixelated :( i guess that is the best for now, while we wait for 4k resolution to be more common.

[WoodenSaucer]

Yeah, it's pixelated, but it's better than not being able to read anything. Plus if you sit far enough back, it doesn't look nearly as bad as if you're close to it.

[Northerncold]

"Locate "Launcher.exe"

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\(gametitle)

Then all you have to do is a little micromanagement.

Right click it
Go down to Properties
Select the Compatibility tab
Now look in the Settings section
tick 'Disable display scaling on high DPI settings'
Apply, and everything in the universe is exactly as it should be... reletively."

I found the above on another stream discussion. This will help increasing the text / interface size in-game. I just upgraded to a 65" 4k TV as my monitor. It was horrible trying to read some text in-game. This is a huge help.

[Northerncold]

You are a god-send. Thank you. I just upgraded to a 65" 4k TV for my monitor. This will help so much!

[awk]

Originally posted by WoodenSaucer:

Yeah, it's pixelated, but it's better than not being able to read anything. Plus if you sit far enough back, it doesn't look nearly as bad as if you're close to it.

If you go into the steam settings and unckeck the setting "Enable DirectWrite for improved font smoothing and kerning" in the "interface" panel, then it helps a bit with the blurriness.

[watsituna]

Okay, I've tried doing as suggested here, restarted steam, but to no avail, it just keep re-ticking the box when the game starts up, can someone help me here?

[cOMMANDER]

Originally posted by <3Breaker:

How to fix your tiny text in your game on window mode on a 4k resolution laptop

I searched for 2 hours... not in full, but the collective minutes I used in the past few days because I got frustrated quickly.

But to give back to the community (as my mother would say), I want to share my solution with anyone who got a shiny new laptop but can't seem to figure out why even though the display settings on the desktop are normal, you're playing Rues or Papers Please and it looks like they were set to someone who had far vision their whole life... not a pretty comparison.

But to be even more specific, if you play the game on full screen, no problem, the UI, or buttons you press are the predicitable size. Though you might have noticed when you press the two buttons to bring up the steam overlay... it shrunk. dramatically so.

So we're going to skip the part I did, which was;

-check the display settings on the desktop
-check ... any settings on steam
-check your game's settings usually in the graphic section
-remember not to get made at your very expensive hardware after searching online for a solution with no clear answer and potentionally harm it

Until... finally I found something that did do something helpful.

So here is what you are going to do (if you want the madness to stop or not squint your eyes when someone messages you a funny or sadness notes):

Locate "Launcher.exe"

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\(gametitle)

Then all you have to do is a little micromanagement.

Right click it
Go down to Properties
Select the Compatibility tab
Now look in the Settings section
tick 'Disable display scaling on high DPI settings'
Apply, and everything in the universe is exactly as it should be... reletively.

I hope this is actually useful to someone like me, but that thought terrifies me. Keep in mind I not an expert at the tech savy stuff, just a regular pc user with waaaaay too much time on her hands. And who happens to be feeling Alturistic at the moment.

Keep in mind, if this doesn't work, and someone found out way, I reccomend following up with how you fix it on the forums hell post it here. Make some random person on one side of the hemisphere happy. Besides the one you'r in... you know who I'm talking about.

Originally posted by watsituna:

Okay, I've tried doing as suggested here, restarted steam, but to no avail, it just keep re-ticking the box when the game starts up, can someone help me here?

I'm with you on this man - am trying to play Xenoverse 2 and the checkbox seems to get re-checked everytime when the game starts.

Not sure if there's a way to force the launcher from preventing the re-checking.

[Pickl3]

So just a quick tip for everybody that has the issue with reseting settings every time they exit the game, press the administrator button to change settings for every user, so that should lock the settings and it cant be changed further