Tiny on-screen text in modern video games

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I've spent the last couple of years tentatively getting back into video games after giving up on them entirely for nearly a decade. I already had a PlayStation 3 -- which I was using primarily for DVDs, Blu-rays, and downloaded videos -- so I didn't need to spend a lot of money in my endeavor. I've mostly stuck to updated versions of games I was already familiar with: that means Grand Theft Auto IV, Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds, Street Fighter IV, and Twisted Metal instead of Uncharted, Resistance, BioShock, and The Last of Us.

I'm enjoying myself for the most part, although I'm coming to terms with two things: first, that I'm now firmly a casual gamer instead of a hardcore gamer, and second, that there are some modern gaming conventions for which my brain is simply not wired. For example, I absolutely cannot get used to modern first person shooter or driving game controls. The used copy of Turok that I picked up is now a $5 coaster due to the lack of classic first person shooter controls, and Grand Theft Auto IV would be similarly unplayable for me had the developers not included a classic control option.

But in the area of control, I'm willing to admit that the problem is with me and not with the games. There's another modern convention in video games that I can't get used to, and this time I'm laying the blame directly at the feet of the developers. I'm talking about this:



I've heard plenty of complaints from gamers about not being able to read the tiny on-screen text in modern games, but they always seem to be people with older SDTVs for which these games were not designed. I've got a 46-inch 1080 HDTV, my PS3 is connected via HDMI cable, and I don't exactly sit three miles away from the TV when I'm gaming. So can someone explain to me why I have to pull up a chair and sit no more than two feet away from my giant screen when playing a game if I want to read the on-screen text?

Just in case anyone is wondering, I've got 20/20 vision with my glasses. Maybe even better than 20/20, since I can read distant street signs when driving that nobody else ever seems able to see.

It's not just Grand Theft Auto IV, either. Nearly every game I play has this problem. I've recently been jumping into Street Fighter IV, and I've been using the training mode since I've been out of the loop for so long. What do you suppose my biggest issue is? Trying to play a fighting game that was designed for a joystick with a d-pad and analog stick? Nope. Trying to learn the new combo and special power bar systems that are completely new to my Street Fighter II brain? Nope. It's the fact that it's completely impossible to read the button combinations that are displayed on the screen. Even when I stand right in front of the TV, the word "charge" is barely readable because they're cramming the word into the smallest number of pixels possible.

How do people with smaller HDTVs deal with this?

Are you using an HDMI Cable? You can have an HDTV, but if you don't use an HDMI cable as opposed to the basic Red-Yellow-White cables; it'll still output as the Standard Definition displays people are complaining about.

Aside from that, maybe playing a slower-paced game to get you more familiarized with a controller again might be useful. Might I suggest Persona 3 FES on the PSN Store for 10$?

I had a hell of a time trying to read the text in Disgaea 3 before we got our own PS3 and an HDTV. It was microscopic...

Most devs suck at scaling UI to higher resolutions. This especially applies to console devs, who are lazy and just make sure the UI looks proper at the lowest allowed resolution.

There are some technical problems in regards to smoothly scaling fonts in size. But it could be overcome, they just need to basically reposition and resize every part of UI manually for 720p and 1080p.

They are just lazy.

I deal with it by playing PC games instead @_@

Though it kind of sucks playing split-screen 360 games with my friends, I just try to sit a little closer if I can...and a lot of the text likes to cover up the action >_<

Yes, I'm using an HDMI cable. And it's a 1080 TV, not 720. And for Grand Theft Auto IV, which I understand is one of the few PS3 games that can output to 1080 instead of 720, I even changed the TV settings to make sure it's outputting in 1080. I also changed the options in the game to make the text as large as possible, and I still find it ludicrously small.

As far as control goes, that's really got nothing to do with the text problem. That's a "my brain is still stuck in 1995" problem. In a first person shooter, I still instinctively try to sidestep with the shoulder buttons (or right stick) and turn left and right with the left stick. And in Grand Theft Auto IV, I still automatically go for the face buttons to accelerate and attack, not the shoulder buttons, which is why I'm glad that they included the classic control scheme.



I'm starting to think the problem is that they develop these games on computers, sitting with their faces right in front of their monitors, so of course the text looks perfectly readable to them. Makes you wonder if they actually go home and play the stuff they develop on a TV while sitting more than two feet away from the screen on their couch.

DVDs and Blu-rays don't have this problem:



Because movie fans would riot if they were expected to read text like this:



I hope that with Grand Theft Auto V, Rockstar takes some inspiration from Sherlock and just puts the text messages on the screen:



And puts all pertinent text in a reasonably large, easy to read font, as so:

Yes, I definitely find that the text in modern video games and consoles in general is way too small.

I also hate the fact that modern games are pretty much unplayable on SDTV's. Hated the fact I had to upgrade to an HD TV for PS3 in order to play the damn thing.

Although I enjoy HD, I completely hate how inconsistent image quality is. In the same frame you can see parts of the image that are stunning and parts of the image that look absolutely horrible.

I also hate how I have to put in so much work into getting a typical LCD HD tv to look good, and having to go through the process for every single different source. After going through all the calibrating stuff, you never really get an overall great picture. There's always some kind of major compromise. Either the TV doesn't handle blacks very well, or has poor color, or poor detail, or bad motion, or extreme glare, or overall picture is too dark and can't get it brighter, etc. etc. There's always an issue with these damn things. Not to mention that SD material generally looks horrible on almost all of them.

Definitely miss the plug and play and minor set-up/adjusting of SDTVs. I've been completely content with the SDTV's I've owned (except when getting into HD gaming of course). Never been content with any HDTV.

I mostly have gamma issues with my HDTV (which goes up to 1080p and is connected to my PS3 or Xbox 360 via HDMI cable). Most of the time it's too dark to see anything, sometimes (like when I got Ni No Kuni) it's too bright to even look at. My HDTV is a two year old plasma screen that has a 42" screen.

I can read things fine, though. I noticed the whole "reading the small text" problem on my friend's LCD TV. I guess it depends on what you get.

I took a couple of pictures with my iPhone earlier tonight while playing Street Fighter IV to help illustrate this problem.

This picture was taken while standing about four feet away from the screen:



Keep in mind that this is a 46-inch 1080 HDTV, connected to the PS3 via HDMI cable.

This is in Challenge Mode, where you learn the basic moves. The button combination for an attack is in the top left of the screen under Vega's name. It's almost unreadable from this distance, and completely unreadable a few more feet away on my sofa.



This picture was taken while standing right in front of the screen. You can see that they crammed the text into such a tiny space that the letter M before the picture of the boot is distorted and barely readable.

I just about did myself an injury, when trying to read the text for Breakout Quest while playing my PSP3000.
What's the problem, here ? It's not like game developers have to pay for text by the pixel.

The sad reality is that computer games are intended for PC monitors, not televisions. Hence, the coding is designed with that in mind. If you made the text idea for SDTV, it'd be enormous on anything better.

Many games are designed on PCs, but are fully intended to be played on either a TV screen or a portable console screen.
It's just lazy coding if game developers can't be bothered to make their game text legible when played on the consoles for which those games are designed.
Especially when the text can't even be read on a 46-inch HDMI-enabled TV.

Even if game developers are designing the games on some sort of syscraper-sized monitor, there is no excuse for them to not bother tailoring the text of games to suit the console/TV setup for which they were intended to be played.

Plenty of game development companies manage it perfectly well.... the rest are just being lazy and crappy.

Oh, it's understandable, but as more and more people don't have SDTV, I can see why they get sloppy.

Consoles used to only be for TVs. Serious gamers use monitors. I had to buy a VGA cable for my 360 because I didn't intend to use it on a TV...fortunately, they made them.

Much of the artwork in games cannot be appreciated on a SDTV, so I'm sure the QA department doesn't invest too much time seeing how good it looks on a older style TV.

It's just as how much stuff on the Internet is crafted with broadband in mind...even though there is a sizable population that does not have broadband access. It's not hard to buy a HDTV..they are quite inexpensive. Heck, a decent LCD monitor can be had for under $150. They probably figure that anyone who can afford a console and games will spend the <$200 to buy a good display to play games on.

Now, if it looks bad on a high-end display, that's just sloppy QA.

My understanding is that the topic is about how annoying it is when game text is too small on even a HDMI - enabled High resolution 46 inch TV.
There really is no good excuse for text being small and crappy on such a TV.

I do agree with your point though, that low-resolution TVs are pretty archaic nowadays and high-resolution TVs or monitors are really not so expensive as they used to be (especially for the smaller kinds).

For example, as well as my larger TV I also have a portable 9.2-inch HDMI-enabled portable screen that you can plug the Xbox 360 into.
I got it for £50 six years ago, so they're probably cheap as chips nowadays.

I'm not even asking that they make the text readable on SDTV screens; I'm asking that they make it readable on my HDTV that's three and a half feet across, the kind of TV for which modern games are supposedly designed.

When I have to get up and stand right in front of a hi-def screen that large just to read the text, and when the text is usually hard to read even at that distance because they're cramming every letter into about four pixels, something's wrong.

I'm sure this looks fine on a computer monitor that's about 12 inches in front of your face:



But at four feet on my huge HDTV screen, the button combo under Vega's name is practically unreadable; and the rest of the text, while mostly legible, is still too small.

Check out how easily I improved it in about one minute:



I don't think any reasonable person can say that's too big, and it would be clearly readable on any HDTV.

It's propably not really 1080p, the games that do output 1080p on a ps3 are pretty rare, I know ICO output real 1080p at 30fps, but it's a remake from a ps2 game.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv5oOJ7oT34[/youtube]

Of course, even if it's not real 1080p, the developper should make the texts readable.