Please! My notebook is 1366 resolution and I feel that prejudice my gameplay, its very bad to play with zoom aways too close 
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Sounds like you need a new PC. That’s way below standard quality now. Have you tried setting the zoom to max though?
Zoom is not a magical feature, it is just an internal resolution rendering method, so in other words, zooming out increases the resolution internally which hits drastically the performance, notebook or other light devices don’t have enough hardware to push it to the limits.
If your notebook has 1366x760 that means the game will run at 1-1 ration when zoom is at 50%, going beyond 51% will drastically increase the performance hit, usually you can zoom out to x4 times the size of your desktop resolution, unless weak hardware detected or using the UHD graphics packs which limits the zoom options.
(First question: I assume you are playing on a 1366x768 screen, with UHD graphics turned off?)
On principle, we, the AoE2 community, deserve better FOV (field-of-view) options as both a matter of UX and a matter of competitive fairness.
- On one hand, there should be an option to decouple player FOV size from screen resolution, and let players choose whichever FOV they want (within a reasonable range). This seems to have already been done in the console edition, which also gives controller players a very far zoom.
- On the other hand, there should be an option to enforce the same FOV on all players in the same match, for competitions, or similar fairness-first situations where people want to ensure no one gains an advantage by using a higher resolution.
With that said, from an objective perspective, I don’t think the 1366x768 FOV is unacceptably small? For the longest time, it was within the FOV range that the game was designed for & enjoyed by a majority of users.
- When the game launched, slower computers had to play AoE2 at 800x600. Looking back, it’s almost a “this is unplayable, how had we survived?” situation.
- Even as computers got better, for many years, most people played at 1024x768, since many monitors couldn’t handle its highest available resolution (1280x1024) very well.
- The AoE2 “HD Edition” targeted 1366x768 as its base resolution.
- DE’s smaller GUI also gives you a larger FOV than AoE2HD.
One can certainly argue it’s not fair, as a greater majority than ever are playing AoE2DE at 1920x1080 now.
Pretty sure the standard is 1920x1080, which is what AoE2 DE is intended for to my understanding. 1366x768 is well below that.
Yeah, to be precise, from the UI graphics, you can see AoE2DE’s target display mode is 5120x2160 (64:27 ultrawide) or 3840x2160 (16:9), with UHD graphics on, which makes the 16:9 mode’s FOV the same as 1920x1080.
As I said, the main issue is players should have the freedom to choose the FOV they like. Within a game designer-determined reasonable range, players’ FOV choices should only be restricted by their CPU and RAM, not their display device.
A related topic:
Another issue is ultrawide modes pulling UI panels increasingly far from the center. There were complaints, but apparently ultrawide users are enough of a minority that this issue is never addressed.
Back at the launch of AoE2HD in 2013, a dev actually stated that it could be seen as a balancing factor: if you want a wider FOV, you have to put up with harder-to-use UI in exchange. Which really isn’t much of an answer.
No, it’s true. If you zoom out too much, you can’t accurately click units, so the game gets harder to play. And if you zoom in too much, you can’t see enough, so making strategic decisions becomes harder.
You can zoom out more if you disable UHD in graphics settings.
Yep, but I wish it hadn’t become the standard. I’ve been using 16:10 resolution (1920x1200) for like ten+ years now and can’t believe it didn’t become the standard instead.
Everything runs fine with it, and the extra real estate space when working in productivity software has been wonderful, and I’ve liked it a lot for gaming, too.
I once tried to “upgrade” my monitor 7 yrs ago, but it was to a 1920x1080 (16:9) one because new 16:10s were so hard to find. There were hardly any options at the time (at least on Amazon). I returned the 16:9 because of all the screen space I lost. It made me feel claustrophobic and disorganized, and I was definitely less productive because you see less and you have to scroll more, etc.
I know it doesn’t seem like much, but it’s 230,400 more pixels to play with.
I could never go back to 16:9… or at least not 1920x1080. No way. However, I’m intrigued by 4K and UHD, because even if they’re 16:9, they would show more on the screen than even a 1920x1200, right? I don’t have firsthand experience with 4K/UHD, but it makes sense to me
I think it must be something relatively simple because in the spec mods it is possible to unlock the zoom and even see the entire map.
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Basically I stopped playing because the other players complained a lot about my performance, when the fault is not exactly my performance but rather my financial conditions, regrettable.
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I heard we can zoom out for a lower resolution monitor with Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR) on a NVIDIA graphic board (after gtx 900). That may be hard to hundle it with low cpu.
(I’ve not test it because I feel good to play with about 1440×810; easier unit control and making eco with resourcepanel, hotkeys, minimap, and rhythmical screen movement)
Reference
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You may find this post and thread breeminator links to there (titled, “PSA: How to zoom out more with an Nvidia graphics card” helpful:
As an example, I was able to achieve this on 1920x1200 using his PSA! Which is a LOT more than what I saw at the furthest zoom normally. This is very similar (or equivalent?) to the area that like 4K monitors might see:
PSA: How to zoom out more with an Nvidia graphics card - #14 by Darkness01101
