BioWare Can't Patch Unreadable Text for Non-HD TVs in Mass Effect 2

[Eclectic Dreck]

Stop telling people to spend more money because Bioware is too stupid to let people change the font size.

Unless you stole the game, you paid money for it yes? I cannot see why so many people are so against improving their games.

People are against spending money on hardware to fix what is a software issue. People should be against spending money on hardware because Bioware could not be bothered to look at their game on the type of display that most Xbox360 owners have. Why is it that videogames seem to be the only software that has difficulty providing people with the option to change the text size when so many of the most commonly used software items, including the one's Bioware used to create the game in all likelyhood have been able to do this for decades now? I write software for a living and I would never approach my boss and tell him that they should buy new hardware because I simply can't be bothered to go inside my own code and make the fonts bigger. First off he would fire my ass, secondly it is generally any easy problem to fix. The only way it would be hard is if I made my program in the most stupid way possible. Why in the hell should Bioware get away with "Oh well it's too hard."

To be honest, I don't quite understand what technical limitation stands in the way of a software resolution to the problem. While I readily admit that there is no reasonable way for them to tell if a player is using an SDTV or an HDTV since anything one might think is a signal can be entirely ambiguous, there is nothing that stops them from allowing the player to choose an interface type themselves.

The only explanation I can fathom is that the current interface would have to be redesigned to compensate for increased text sizes, which could result in a great deal of gratis work on the part of the developer. While I can sympathize with people who have this problem, Mass Effect 2 is hardly the first game that expresses this problem. When I played Dead Rising for example, I was unable to read ANY text in the game thanks to the fact that I had to play it on an SDTV.

 

[shadow skill]

Stop telling people to spend more money because Bioware is too stupid to let people change the font size.

Unless you stole the game, you paid money for it yes? I cannot see why so many people are so against improving their games.

People are against spending money on hardware to fix what is a software issue. People should be against spending money on hardware because Bioware could not be bothered to look at their game on the type of display that most Xbox360 owners have. Why is it that videogames seem to be the only software that has difficulty providing people with the option to change the text size when so many of the most commonly used software items, including the one's Bioware used to create the game in all likelyhood have been able to do this for decades now? I write software for a living and I would never approach my boss and tell him that they should buy new hardware because I simply can't be bothered to go inside my own code and make the fonts bigger. First off he would fire my ass, secondly it is generally any easy problem to fix. The only way it would be hard is if I made my program in the most stupid way possible. Why in the hell should Bioware get away with "Oh well it's too hard."

To be honest, I don't quite understand what technical limitation stands in the way of a software resolution to the problem. While I readily admit that there is no reasonable way for them to tell if a player is using an SDTV or an HDTV since anything one might think is a signal can be entirely ambiguous, there is nothing that stops them from allowing the player to choose an interface type themselves.

The only explanation I can fathom is that the current interface would have to be redesigned to compensate for increased text sizes, which could result in a great deal of gratis work on the part of the developer. While I can sympathize with people who have this problem, Mass Effect 2 is hardly the first game that expresses this problem. When I played Dead Rising for example, I was unable to read ANY text in the game thanks to the fact that I had to play it on an SDTV.

It is fairly simple to tell whether the display is an LCD however. All LCD screens send data to the operating system down to the manufacturer. Depending on the operating system it is not difficult to get the computer to spit this information out in a way that humans can readily understand. In the case of modern consoles all three have a hardware switch for component/composite video signals according to wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_video#Component_versus_composite], so I sincerely doubt that the OS on the 360 is incapable of passing back testable information relevant to display type to any software asking for it.

There are plenty of other reasons for them to redesign the UI, size being but one of them. (Granted important enough in its own right.)

 

[The Bandit]

Why do people buy bioware games on consoles? I'll never understand their logic.

PC games are a greater hassle, and I don't have a computer capable of playing it.

Don't come back saying "nuhuh PCs are teh better!" because I don't want to hear it. You asked, I answered. Your situation doesn't apply to everyone else, just as mine doesn't.

OT: Yes, the small text is incredibly annoying. Luckily, it's usually on stuff that I don't care to read anyway.

Aww PC gaming isn't that hard to achieve. Especially if you are willing to lower yourself to Console standards - BURN!!!

Naw, the point I'm making is part of the reason COD4 seems to play so well (high frame-rate) on Xbox 360, yet may stutter if you play it on PC is because - and I'm surprised how many people don't know this - both the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions are rendered in only 1024x600!!

That is barely better than Standard Definition, it is just upscaled to 720p. Yet people who try to play COD4 on their PC at standard resolution of, say, 1280x1024, well the PC has to work TWICE as hard for the same frame-rate. Console also has only a piddling 2xAA and even then has an average framerate from ACTIVE SCENES of only 50 to 45 frames per second, though it aims for 60 frames per second.

With that in mind, and how the console version usually uses Medium-to-high rather than "Extra" settings as on PC, you'd be surprised how many PC owners CAN in fact play PC games as good as the consoles. And with all the benefit of mouse aim and dedicated servers when you can get 'em.

This extends to Mass Effect 2
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,703669/Mass-Effect-2-Galactic-battle-Geforce-versus-Radeon/Practice/

1280x1024 is 40% larger resolution than used on the Xbox 360, yet is playable on an ancient Geforce 7900 GTX graphics card that was released March 9, 2006.

Personally my PS3 and 360 are mainly for their 1st party games. 3rd party will always have more potential on PC, 1st party will always be the best on the console their own parent company has made. Though many Japanese developers just "don't get" the PC, so for MGS4, Ninja Gaiden, Bayonetta, etc, you'll need a console.
But even that is changing, Street Fighter 4 and Resident Evil 5 were great on PC, and the next MGS game from Konami is coming to consoles and PC simultaneously.

I should have included "I just don't like playing games on my PC" as well, so I could avoid this nonsense.

Your point may be true, I don't know and I will not be testing it. But, it's irrelevant as far as I'm concerned, because PC gaming is just not nearly as fun for me. I despise mouse aim.

 

[Treblaine]

I should have included "I just don't like playing games on my PC" as well, so I could avoid this nonsense.

Your point may be true, I don't know and I will not be testing it. But, it's irrelevant as far as I'm concerned, because PC gaming is just not nearly as fun for me. I despise mouse aim.

You despise mouse aim, huh?

I can guess why so many people prefer console's gamepad over mouse aim. Two words: Aim Assist

Gives the illusion of better quickness and accuracy, but really the game is doing most the work for you. It's basically cheating to compensate for what an inherent disadvantage you have with an analogue stick over the what really is the standard for FPS which is mouse aim. If you want anything in the way of realistic enemies, a regular analogue stick with no aim assist just is impossible.

Gamepad has it's place for games requiring little precision but greater general flexibility like 3D platformers, but I've found the main reason people prefer gamepad over mouse is a matter of familiarity... and prejudice.

I mean you have BIG companies like Microsoft and Sony that HEAVILY advertise the console style of gaming though product placement, even the places you wouldn't expect, it is ALL emphasising how the gamepad is the device for gaming, mouse is for "work". Those ridiculous "Mac vs PC" ads don't help.

It is borne out in your comments:

"Your point may be true, I don't know and I will not be testing it."

Your narrow-mindedness is just so blatant and shameless, you don't give a damn about what is better, you have made up your mind and you will dismiss whatever facts that don't suit you. I've found this with SO many people, they are totally unwilling to take one step out of their comfort zone.

You aren't in the least bit interested in Team Fortress 2 and the so many many extra features that PC gets? What about dedicated servers of COD4, ever wondered what a 50 player map would be like with ultra low lag? Games like Max Payne and all those RTS games.

Sure PC has had some dodgy ports, but the reverse is doubly true, Quake 4 is virtually unplayable on Xbox 360, Valve and Bioware games have consistently had compromised consoles versions.

And most platform or fighting games on PC have full gamepad support so you really have the choice whenever you want it.

 

[seditary]

People are against spending money on hardware to fix what is a software issue.

So its a matter of perspective then, you see it as a software issue you shouldn't have to pay to rectify, I see it as people complaining about not being able to play something the way it was intended on equipment it wasn't designed for.

As always with such fun arguments, neither one is totally wrong.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

It is fairly simple to tell whether the display is an LCD however. All LCD screens send data to the operating system down to the manufacturer. Depending on the operating system it is not difficult to get the computer to spit this information out in a way that humans can readily understand. In the case of modern consoles all three have a hardware switch for component/composite video signals according to wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_video#Component_versus_composite], so I sincerely doubt that the OS on the 360 is incapable of passing back testable information relevant to display type to any software asking for it.

There are plenty of other reasons for them to redesign the UI, size being but one of them. (Granted important enough in its own right.)

I will restate - in general there is no way to unambiguously determine the native resolution in general. Data is only passed to a console when certain connections are leveraged, the user is free to force alternate resolution on the system and there is no guarntee that every LCD screen is, in fact, capable of displaying an image in HD. The only way to resolve the problem entirely is to allow the user to manually make the switch to SD if they desire but this would likely require the a significant time investment as the UI is redesigned to compensate for larger text sizes.

Personally, I have no vested interest in seeing such a change made seeing as I have an HD tv but I can understand how some people might be upset. Still, it is a common enough problem with the new generation of consoles, and I am torn between siding with the downtrodded who are unable to afford a new TV and siding with a company who should not be required to consider such silly things when producing a game expected to have HD features.

 

[Shycte]

Jesus, just buy a moniter and a VGA adapter and stop whining.

Yeah, because I have all this money just laying around I and don't have to spend my money on anything else then games because I'm cool. Like, who needs clothes and that sorta things....

Yeah...

 

[BLARGENFRAUDE]

Best option for those unfortinate people is to buy a vga cable, which will allow you to hook your 360 / ps3 up to a computer monitor. All monitors for years have been HD by default.
An official cable can be around £20 (GBP) but its sure as hell cheaper than a new HD TV.

 

[shadow skill]

It is fairly simple to tell whether the display is an LCD however. All LCD screens send data to the operating system down to the manufacturer. Depending on the operating system it is not difficult to get the computer to spit this information out in a way that humans can readily understand. In the case of modern consoles all three have a hardware switch for component/composite video signals according to wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_video#Component_versus_composite], so I sincerely doubt that the OS on the 360 is incapable of passing back testable information relevant to display type to any software asking for it.

There are plenty of other reasons for them to redesign the UI, size being but one of them. (Granted important enough in its own right.)

I will restate - in general there is no way to unambiguously determine the native resolution in general. Data is only passed to a console when certain connections are leveraged, the user is free to force alternate resolution on the system and there is no guarntee that every LCD screen is, in fact, capable of displaying an image in HD. The only way to resolve the problem entirely is to allow the user to manually make the switch to SD if they desire but this would likely require the a significant time investment as the UI is redesigned to compensate for larger text sizes.

Personally, I have no vested interest in seeing such a change made seeing as I have an HD tv but I can understand how some people might be upset. Still, it is a common enough problem with the new generation of consoles, and I am torn between siding with the downtrodded who are unable to afford a new TV and siding with a company who should not be required to consider such silly things when producing a game expected to have HD features.

Uhh yea there is at least for anything using EDID [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_display_identification_data], which is pretty much any LCD screen. It then becomes trivial to simply have a catch all that picks a text size (In this case.) that is less likely to suck. If a game developer tells you that it is hard to find out this kind of information they are either ignorant, or they are lying to you. The only real problem should be the display itself reporting shitty data to the console OS or any application that asks for the data. Something like the former is an actual hardware issue they would not be responsible for.

 

[GamingAwesome1]

Is it really that big of a problem to just make the fucking font size bigger?

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Uhh yea there is at least for anything using EDID [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_display_identification_data], which is pretty much any LCD screen. It then becomes trivial to simply have a catch all that picks a text size (In this case.) that is less likely to suck. If a game developer tells you that it is hard to find out this kind of information they are either ignorant, or they are lying to you. The only real problem should be the display itself reporting shitty data to the console OS or any application that asks for the data. Something like the former is an actual hardware issue they would not be responsible for.

As I said, some screens and connection types do possess the capibility to report data back to a device. Not all devices have such a capacity. Some screens are perfectly capable of reporting they are HD, and a handful can report they are SD. Regardless of the fact that a portion of TV's can do this sort of thing, my point still stands: the software solution to the problem requires a user switch precisely because not every TV can report back to the console.

But my assertion was never that there were any substantial technical issues with such a change, and this is the only one I can think of - and it's relatively minor. The real issue it would seem is that the UI redesign would result in a "patch" that is too time consuming to produce (depending upon how it's integrated into the rest of the game it may be a challenge to start yanking pieces and moving them around), or perhaps exists in such a fashion that a simple UI redesign would require a substantial overhaul of interdependent systems. From the higest level of the concept of the required change, what we really have is an art problem (or design if you prefer) versus a technical challenge. But this assertion is made without any real knowledge of the underlying systems in play. Given the Unreal based technology however, my suspiction is that the changes are perfectly possible and as such the most reasonable guess as to why a change has not been made is that it has been deemed too expensive to resolve with respect to the number of people playing.

The question I suppose is, should this be classified as a bug? After all, the game was made for a console that distinguishes itself from it's predecessor primarily on the basis of graphical fidelity. One cannot deny that some portion of the population will have trouble as a result of resolution and aspect ratio mismatches but again is this oversight actually a software problem or a hardware problem? To those who cannot afford the hardware solution, I'm sure they will argue at length that we are facing a software problem. For myself, it seems as though the baseline issue IS in fact a hardware problem exacerbated by software oversights. This is hardly the first HD console game to express the problem so the oversight is not unheard of.

 

[kelwina]

My TVs a decent size but standard and I can't read a damn thing even if I'm sitting three feet away, but I have this problem on all xbox games so I wasn't blaming mass effect

 

[duchaked]

Why do people buy bioware games on consoles? I'll never understand their logic.

Well despite Bioware being a long standing PC developer. The first Mass Effect premiered on the 360, with a PC release coming later. I don't see how it's that far outside of logic that many people would purchase the game on the console. I bought it on the PC, but some people simply prefer gaming on their consoles.

some people simply use computers for work and social networking and keep gaming on the consoles
at the end of the day, don't judge how we choose to waste our time =)

besides, the heart of PC gaming is Facebook ^^

 

[Tears of Blood]

Why do people buy bioware games on consoles? I'll never understand their logic.

We don't have to worry about DRM and other retarded nonsense like that. We get to play our games right when we buy them as often as we want whenever we want on any 360/PS3 we want. :3 There is no installation or performance issues, no extra equipment to buy so that we can play the game without shitty graphics. There is no way to accidentally mess up your files and have to reinstall.

Consoles can't get viruses either so even if our computer is out of comission we still have games to play. You could plug controllers into your PC, I guess, but that still requires more equipment while a console comes with a controller. Consoles are also far more portable. You can take your console to any TV in your house and play the game. It's much more difficult to do that with all of your PC equipment. (Monitor, stereo system, tower, modem, router, etc.)

So, I guess there is one major advantage to PC gaming in that you guys get easy access to user-created mods and things like that, but some of us don't like user-created mods. Most DLC and official material (besides the odd exception such as TF2...) is realeased on the consoles as well. And, who knows? Maybe games will begin to go the way of Little Big Planet and users will be able to share mods and things like that somewhere down the line.

 

[karmapolizei]

Reminds me of a Valve GDC presentation about developing for consoles that I once read the slides to... on interface design, the slides read verbatim: "Be readable in 4:3 SD? in German."
Makes you wish more people listened to Valve.

 

[Altorin]

the strange thing is that it's not just size.. the HDTVs, even the ones smaller then my 27inch SDTV can read the text just fine. it's innate HDness makes it hard to read on SDTVs.

 

[Snotnarok]

Why do people buy bioware games on consoles? I'll never understand their logic.

I think the same thing at my friend when he got Dragon Age of all things on console.

OT: They had the same problem with Dead Rising, I couldn't read a thing till I got my HDTV