I am having a big issue with Mass Effect 3 font and HUD size. In particular the size is too small and that results to the subtitles being unreadable and the HUD being too difficult to operate with. Chatting with a person from EA support told me that there is a fix in the works that will allow Mass Effect 3 to display normally in high resolution screens (and suggested that I post asking about it in this forum). Could you please provide me any further assistance on this issue?

I'm the dev for the interface scaling mod. Essentially the way the UI was designed it was not meant to work on non-4:3 or 16:9 screens (if scaled). They designed all the interfaces for 720p and 4:3 (as this is what Xbox supported).On PC you can bump it to 1080 and nothing scales, but it is still passable. At higher resolutions their lack of scaling obviously does not work. They did not implement code to deal with scaling nor non-standard aspect ratios.I added in scaling (so it will scale up to what it would be like at 720p) but there is little flexibility in the interface. Writing code for aspect ratios would be awful to write and requires more resources than I can provide (there are a lot of interface files).Additionally there are no "Trojans" in Mod Manager. The whole thing is open source, you can build it yourself even. Some of the included files have to modify game processes so mods work, that's part of modding the game. The files are relatively new on the latest releases because they were freshly compiled. Lots of AV programs like to flag newly built files that don't have a reputation yet. I'm not going to fork over thousands for a code signing key.

The AHQ is for player-to-player self-help and technical discussions. No one from the development studios, (BioWare, in this case) or EA, ever visits here (except the Community Managers who try to keep us in line.) We're all just fellow players, doin' the best we can... Both BioWare and EA use Twitter and Facebook as their feedback channels. (I use neither.)

It's ridiculous that you have to go through this for a simple problem that shouldn't be there in the first place. It's bad enough that they didn't notice it and even worse they didn't fix it this whole time.

@gragas1234 wrote: It's ridiculous that you have to go through this for a simple problem that shouldn't be there in the first place. It's bad enough that they didn't notice it and even worse they didn't fix it this whole time. BioWare acknowledged the issue when I brought it up in 2012 but they said it was low priority. It's absurd that a design flaw that affects many PC players was considered low priority. Even in 2012, 1080p monitors were the norm, and the GUI is too small on those as well.

@gxw13 You can find a Interface Scaling Mod here. You need to use Mod Manager to install this mod. Instructions are found on the pages I linked, read them carefully.

Mass Effect 3 font size and HUD too small!

17 Replies

holger1405
Hero+
9 years ago
@gxw13

You can find a Interface Scaling Mod here. You need to use Mod Manager to install this mod.

Instructions are found on the pages I linked, read them carefully.
Anonymous
9 years ago
Thank you Holger1405 for your reply. I tried out the mod as well as the accompanying add-on, but unfortunately, this sends the HUD out of my screen for all resolutions but 1920x1080 (my natural resolution is 2880x1800)... Is there anything that can be done about it?
holger1405
Hero+
9 years ago
@gxw13

Try to use a in game 16:9 resolution near your preferred resolution.
Anonymous
9 years ago
@holger1405

Unfortunately, the only in-game resolutions that are available are 1920x1080 (the only 16:9), some with 4:3 aspect ratio and the native 2880x1800, all but the 16:9 having issues with the mod...
holger1405
Hero+
9 years ago
@gxw13

Did you tried windowed mode or setting the game to 16:9?

Go to your "drive":\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Mass Effect 3\Binaries" folder and run the "MassEffect3Config.exe".

Under "Graphic" you can choose Full screen or Windowed mode and you can also choose the aspect ratio of the game.
Anonymous
9 years ago
It's ridiculous that you have to go through this for a simple problem that shouldn't be there in the first place. It's bad enough that they didn't notice it and even worse they didn't fix it this whole time.
Fred_vdp
Hero+
9 years ago
@gragas1234 wrote:

It's ridiculous that you have to go through this for a simple problem that shouldn't be there in the first place. It's bad enough that they didn't notice it and even worse they didn't fix it this whole time.

BioWare acknowledged the issue when I brought it up in 2012 but they said it was low priority. It's absurd that a design flaw that affects many PC players was considered low priority. Even in 2012, 1080p monitors were the norm, and the GUI is too small on those as well.
EA_Archi
EA Staff (Retired)
9 years ago
Hello @gragas1234

I am really sorry for those troubles with the game. And since this issues is still giving headache to some of our players, I will try to get an update on this from the developers. Sorry again for any inconvenience this might have caused.

Cheers,

Archi
Anonymous
9 years ago
Any reply from Bioware? I'm in the same boat, I play on a 40" 4K TV, and the UI options are so small that it's unplayable, even if I sat 2 feet from the screen.

Additionally, the Mass Effect Mod Manager used to install the scaling mod described in other replies appears to contain the hash for two known trojan horse viruses,

So, I can either play in 1K—a resolution where on a 40" screen, you can literally count the visible pixels—, install a mod program which includes two known trojans, or buy a used copy for Xbox.

Hmm. Decisions.
holger1405
Hero+
9 years ago
@OrbitalSexTycoon

The game is 5 years old and BW did not fixed the scaling back as it was new, so I would not hold my breath on a patch.

The Mass Effect Mod Manager you can download at Nexus however doesn't contain any Trojans or Viruses. (I just tested that again.)