Age of Empires II HD - tiny menus on Surface Pro 4?

[QuentinJ]

Age of Empires II HD - tiny menus on Surface Pro 4

Hi,
I recently purchased Age of Empires II HD during a steam sale. It launches fine and the main menu looks ok. However once I start a game (be it campaign or one player or multiplayer): the menu elements are tiny... it is almost impossible to see/read or click any of the elements.

I have tried lowering desktop resolution with no help (at 800x600 the cursor is huge but the menu elements are still small); I have also tried compatibility mode with no help...

If anyone knows of a fix to make this game playable on Surface Pro 4 that'd be very appreciated!
I also bought AoE III and Age of Mythology which both work well; it's a shame I can't play AoE II and it's expansion though...

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[Chintan Gohel]

Re: Age of Empires II HD - tiny menus on Surface Pro 4

Hi,
I recently purchased Age of Empires II HD during a steam sale. It launches fine and the main menu looks ok. However once I start a game (be it campaign or one player or multiplayer): the menu elements are tiny... it is almost impossible to see/read or click any of the elements.

I have tried lowering desktop resolution with no help (at 800x600 the cursor is huge but the menu elements are still small); I have also tried compatibility mode with no help...

If anyone knows of a fix to make this game playable on Surface Pro 4 that'd be very appreciated!
I also bought AoE III and Age of Mythology which both work well; it's a shame I can't play AoE II and it's expansion though...

Thanks in advance for the help!

it seems the developer forgot a piece of code for resizing menus - can you try contacting the developer?

 

[QuentinJ]

Re: Age of Empires II HD - tiny menus on Surface Pro 4

I've posted on the support forum but haven't found how to contact the developer (Microsoft studios/Skybox labs) directly... Searching on the internet it seems to work on Pro 3 but issues with Pro 4...
The problem I think is you can't set the resolution in the game and the game does not scale..

 

[rdubmu]

Re: Age of Empires II HD - tiny menus on Surface Pro 4

Does it do the same when you hook it up to a monitor?

 

[QuentinJ]

Re: Age of Empires II HD - tiny menus on Surface Pro 4

Same thing on my 1080p 16:9 monitor be it in duplicate or extend
also must say i tried launching the game both in and out of tablet mode

 

[Andre Hendarman]

This is what usually fix the display scaling issue for me
How to fix apps that look small on high DPI and high resolution displays

Good luck

 

[Chintan Gohel]

Same thing on my 1080p 16:9 monitor be it in duplicate or extend
also must say i tried launching the game both in and out of tablet mode

This is what usually fix the display scaling issue for me
How to fix apps that look small on high DPI and high resolution displays

Good luck

just be sure to read the many warnings in the guide

 

[seremify]

I'm also curious if anyone found an easy/reliable fix... I also bought the game during Steam sale but I bought enough other titles to entertain me in the meantime!

 

[NJ1193]

Re: Age of Empires II HD - tiny menus on Surface Pro 4

I found a solution. Change your resolution to 1440x900 (I believe that's it). Works perfect for AOE II HD.

 

[QuentinJ]

sorry for taking so long to reply...

i tried 1440x900 still no go

What worked however is to disable the display scaling from 200% back to 100% and lower resolution to 1440x900 or 1920x1080 - takes a few steps as need to log out and back in but that's much easier than other solutions. I do hope the game is eventually updated for high dpi scaling... although I don't think it'll happen

Thanks all for the help

 

[Skoen]

You don't really need to disable scaling every single time.. just
1. Disable scaling in the "AoK HD.exe" (steamapps/common/Age2HD..) --> go "Properties" + "compatibility" to disable scaling
2. install the "module-mod" akahttp://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=141103430&searchtext=resolution)--> follow the instructions below (1920x1200 worked well for me)
3. Start the game, go to settings and change from "full desktop" to windowed mode + Press Alt+enter = Now the game should be playable

2b: INSTRUCTIONS: (copy from "Change screen resolutions"/workshop-page)
1. Download using the link above and extract everything into the AOE2 root folder.
2. Close the game and go to the \modules\ directory (NOT ''mods''! it's MODULES, my own folder in the zip!) under your Age2HD directory in steamapps.
3. Open the SetResolution.ini file and change the values to whatever resolution your monitor supports.

Worked on my SP4 :wink: