If You Want to Manually Increase the Font/UI Size with Skywing CE

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Maecius
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If You Want to Manually Increase the Font/UI Size with Skywing CE

Unread post by Maecius »

This conversation took place among our NWN2 creator community, and I thought I would copy-paste it here for those who might want to manually scale up their own UI:

User Today at 10:48 AM
(Paraphrased) I don't understand this message:
Image

Skywing (NWN2 Infrastructure)Today at 10:53 AM
Yeah, open to suggestions for a better way to word it. The help text was also written before someone changed the property sheet in Windows as the latest Win10 releases show something different now. What the Windows display scaling compatibility layer does is to just have DWM do bitmap scaling (i.e. pixel stretching) and hides the true DPI and claims standard 96ppi DPI. On my machines, this mode typically got automatically enabled, but it's not desirable for native high DPI support as we need to see the true DPI. If you see the game with blurry pixel rendering and the game thinks it is at some fraction of the full resolution, then DWM scaling is in use.

User Today at 10:54 AM
I just don't really notice any difference toggling it on.
Do you have a before and after screenshot of the difference with it enabled and disabled?

Skywing (NWN2 Infrastructure)Today at 10:57 AM
Just checking: Did you drop back to the main menu and reconnect to the server (or load a module etc.) after /dpiscale on?

User Today at 10:57 AM
Yea

Code: Select all

Cleaning up defunct resource manager instance 'NWN2CliExt_29332'...
Failed to set DPI awareness.
DPI awareness: PROCESS_DPI_PER_MONITOR_AWARE; DPI X = 96, DPI Y = 96
UIWindowBase: TextInputWindow: DPI change (96:96)
UIWindowBase: TextInputWindow: DPI change (96:96)
UIWindowBase: PlayerListWindow: DPI change (96:96)
UIWindowBase: PlayerListWindow: DPI change (96:96)
UIWindowBase: MapWindow: DPI change (96:96)
UIWindowBase: MapWindow: DPI change (96:96)
UIWindowBase: AreaChooserWindow: DPI change (96:96)
UIWindowBase: AreaChooserWindow: DPI change (96:96)
Is Failed to set DPI awareness a thing?
I'm just confused which settings you want us to change in windows.
It's not clear.

Skywing (NWN2 Infrastructure)Today at 11:05 AM
Here's an example pair of screenshots of a high DPI (200% - 192 DPI) display with and without DPI scaling on.

With CE DPI scaling:
Image

Without DE DPI scaling:
Image


User Today at 11:06 AM
Yea mine just keeps looking like the "without"
I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I typed in /dpiscale on
Then closed out and restarted with the NWLauncher provided with CE.
As for which windows settings to change on what, it's not clear.

Skywing (NWN2 Infrastructure)Today at 11:07 AM
If you go to Settings > Display in Windows Settings, under "Scale and layout", what do you see listed for "Change the size of text, apps, and other items"?

User Today at 11:09 AM
(Screenshot of their settings)

Skywing (NWN2 Infrastructure)Today at 11:12 AM
Yeah - this display is set to 100% DPI (96ppi) mode, that's likely why. If you JUST want to scale NWN2 only, you can do this:

1. Create autocmds.txt in "Documents\Neverwinter Nights 2" (make sure it's autocmds.txt and not autocmds.txt.txt, i.e. if you have extensions hidden don't add an extra .txt on the end).
2. Put in: /forcedpi value

Where value is the pixels per inch value. Standard DPI (100% scaling as Windows calls it) is 96. Most high DPI monitors are one of 125% (120), 150% (144) or 200% (192). So /forcedpi 120 or /forcedpi 144 or /forcedpi 192, as you prefer.

Then restart the game (make sure you did /dpiscale on). Unfortunately, I didn't add a save the last /forcedpi value to registry without having to use the old autocmds.txt mechanism as that was mostly intended for debugging purposes.
If you want to scale everything at a higher DPI factor, can change the "Scale and layout: 100% (Recommended)" to something else, but be note that this applies to everything not just NWN2. Whereas the /forcedpi trick just overrides what the CE thinks the monitor DPI is to a manually specified value that only applies to NWN2.
You may want to play around with different /forcedpi values if you are manually setting the DPI to find one that you prefer... this was written assuming that you had a monitor already in high DPI mode natively, by default.
Also, note that the main menu is never DPI scaled, only the in-game GUI, so you have to load up a module or connect to a server to see any changes take effect.

User Today at 11:19 AM
I'm not sure why, but I couldn't get the autocmds.txt to work.
But, if I type like /dpiforce 144 in the game.
Then go to menu and back to load module it works.

Skywing (NWN2 Infrastructure)Today at 11:20 AM
Yes, that works too. autocmds.txt is just a way to run a list of commands every time the game starts. (If you re-open the CE's Send message window, you can type /forcedpi 144 into that without loading a module, alternatively.)

User Today at 11:20 AM
When I launch the game it forces it to 96 for some reason.
I'm not sure if the autocmds are run.

Skywing (NWN2 Infrastructure)Today at 11:21 AM
Oh. Just /forcedpi 144

User Today at 11:21 AM
Oh i mistyped.
Got it.
My bad
Yea it's good now.
Thanks this will help me a lot, I've struggled reading the tiny font in the game.

Skywing (NWN2 Infrastructure)Today at 11:22 AM
You can use the /forcedpi trick like that if you just want to increase the font/GUI sizes a bit even on a "standard DPI" machine. If people are finding this useful I'll add in support to remember the /forcedpi value in the future so you don't have to go through all the work to set up autocmds.txt, which is kind of awkward.

User Today at 11:23 AM
Editing the fonts in the ini helped somewhat, but all the clipping issues made it not a real solution.

Skywing (NWN2 Infrastructure)Today at 11:24 AM
Yes, the CE DPI scaling also scales all the UI elements too (or most of them). Basically, it multiplies the scaling factor in to font point sizes and a bunch of other UI element pixel dimensions as the game is reading them from the XML files.
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Re: If You Want to Manually Increase the Font/UI Size with Skywing CE

Unread post by Agog_Fr »

Thank you.

Very useful feature for me.

I am using a +25 % scale now (from DPI 96 to 120). It's better for me eyes.

Going bigger will make your difficult to have a clear interface. Unless you have huge monitor.


The most important feature to control here it's that :
1. Create autocmds.txt in "Documents\Neverwinter Nights 2" (make sure it's autocmds.txt and not autocmds.txt.txt, i.e. if you have extensions hidden don't add an extra .txt on the end).
2. Put in: /forcedpi value
It allows you to automatiquely set the required DPI.
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Re: If You Want to Manually Increase the Font/UI Size with Skywing CE

Unread post by K'yon Oblodra »

Heya guys,

I am currently trying to get this sorted out for myself.

The /dpiscale on could I put that into the autocmds.txt file? Is this done in the console? If I try to open my console it looks comepletely mutilated any text is just "I II II I I I" so I can not read a thing and have no clue if anything I type there actually does anything.

Also what do I need to adjust in the windows settings? Or do I have to do anything there at all?

Currently nothing seems to happen and I haven't been able to achieve anything at all in hours now ;(.

I am trying to play on 4k and just can't read anything as is XD.

Thanks for your time and help in advance.

Cheers K'yon
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Maecius
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Re: If You Want to Manually Increase the Font/UI Size with Skywing CE

Unread post by Maecius »

I think if you just log in on the Client Extension: "/dpiscale on"

Then close out of the entire game. Then reload it with the Client Extension, it should be fixed.

We don't "officially" support the Client Extension, as it's not software we developed or control (it was created by community superstar Skywing), so I don't know how exactly it works. But I suspect it does make adjustments in the fontsize file in your NWN2 documents folder. You can also do this manually, but it's a lot of trial and error if you do that.
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Re: If You Want to Manually Increase the Font/UI Size with Skywing CE

Unread post by K'yon Oblodra »

Thanks Maecius,

I actually tried adjusting the UI but that would only change the UI size not the font and also I failed miserably XD.

My laptop had issues with the console it would just not show text but these weird stripes instead.

So I couldn't see if the console would work. Also I suppose one needs to allow commands first?
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Re: If You Want to Manually Increase the Font/UI Size with Skywing CE

Unread post by SiaSacham »

I didn't understood anything about it, and I tried the /dpiforce 144 and it didn't work
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