Anyone playing on an ultra wide monitor?

[StargazingDog]

I've been curious of ultra wide. Today, I enabled a custom ultra wide resolution on my RTX 3060 and 16:9 monitor. I wanted a feel for how the game and UI would look as well as test the performance.

Wow. There is so much more screen real estate. The UI elements are off to the sides. It feels as thought there is an entire screen in the middle dedicated to just the game's graphics, the land, the cities. I switched back to 16:9 and everything feels cramped.

The downside is that I only get ~55fps when I normally get ~120 (this is in late modern age) with a full map.

I am very tempted to immediately order an ultra wide monitor. Anyone else here with an ultra wide experience to share?

 

[Potworny]

My experience with ultrawide in VII is very good. The only thing that's a little annoyance is that the leader cutscenes have unnecessary pillarboxes on the sides. The civ background paintings get cropped on loading screens, even though they aren't actually 16:9 but wider, as age ending videos show.

In my opinion ultrawide is superior to 16:9 even if the displayed apps have wonky support. Though I wouldn't have gone through with my purchase if it wasn't justified by work and productivity benefits (and it is very much justified).

 

[StargazingDog]

The civ background paintings get cropped on loading screens, even though they aren't actually 16:9 but wider, as age ending videos show.

I assumed this. I was surprised to see that the paintings filled the entire screen. I figured they were just cropped at the top and bottom.

 

[ggalindo001]

I was going to post later about the fact that "4K" in this game is simply upscaled 1080p. Ultrawide in Civ VII (along with Civ VI) is the far better gaming experience from 16:9 at 4K. What is disappointing is that even in 4K, the UI is stillupscaled (it was not in Civ VI -- the UI was at least native) -- so the leader icons in the upper right hand corner take up still a large amount of screen realestate.

At least in widescreen, those elements (the leader icons) are a bit more "reasonable" looking in terms of screen real estate.

I attached some screen shots to show -- the 1 set is focused on my capital at minimum zoom. The 2 set is focused on the upper right hand corner (the edge of my capital's city banner is flush against the right side of the screen, and the edge of Nagtipunan's city banner is flush against the top of the screen).

The 2 set in particular shows just how much more screen real estate you get on the left side of the screen (the true widescreen).

I am hopeful the devs will work on at least UI elements in the future are scaled to 4k.

 

[StargazingDog]

even in 4K, the UI is stillupscaled (it was not in Civ VI -- the UI was at least native) -- so the leader icons in the upper right hand corner take up still a large amount of screen realestate.

Disabling "high resolution UI upscale" prevents this. Whether this makes them too small is up to you.

 

[ggalindo001]

Ahhh -- that makes sense. I am playing almost exclusively on my widescreen, so didn't try that on the 4k monitor.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

I’ve got an older 34’ wide screen and a 16’ laptop. The extra space makes a much bigger difference in 7 as opposed to 6. I’ve been thinking about getting a Xbox controller so I can play on my TV in the living room but I’d to hear how it plays with the controller first.

 

[Blueskies1583]

You can also custom scale your UI quite easily. I took the below information from Steam which in turn took it from CivFanatics. Anyway, I used this and set my own custom scaling values for my ultrawide screen experience and so far, so good.

Not my work. Taken from a post by pokiehl on CivFanatics

1. Civ 7 has a UserOptions config file. It is located in (User) --> AppData --> Local --> Firaxis Games --> Sid Meier's Civilization VII
2. Open up UserOptions
3. Scroll down to ";UIAutoScale" delete the semicolon upfront and change the 1 to 0
4. Now go to ";UIGlobalScale" delete the semicolon upfront and change it to a value between 50-400. For 4K, I think 150 or 175 is looking the best so far! The default for Firaxis when enabling autoscaling for 4k is 200.

 

[bonafide11]

I'm playing on an ultra wide monitor and I like it. It opens up a lot of real estate on the screen to enjoy the map without the UI limiting it.

 

[pokiehl]

Ahhh -- that makes sense. I am playing almost exclusively on my widescreen, so didn't try that on the 4k monitor.

Just quoting to make sure you see the post from Blueskies above on how to scale the UI properly at 4k. Transformed the game for me!

 

[ggalindo001]

Just quoting to make sure you see the post from Blueskies above on how to scale the UI properly at 4k. Transformed the game for me!

Just saw it! This will be good for my 4k monitor -- at least the UI is scaled. The core gameplay is still at 1080p, but at least this is similar to Civ VI.

 

[StargazingDog]

I acquired a new monitor, but I did not get ultrawide. I went for a 27" 16:9 1440p. This gives me some extra working space, but still maintains good performance. I have an RTX 3060 and my framerate hovers between 70-100 in-game.

First shot is at default zoom, second is fully zoomed out. Fun game on standard map!

 

[StargazingDog]

So, strikeout my previous post. That monitor sucked at HDR, so I returned it. I found a guy in my neighborhood selling his Alienware AW3423DW 34" ultra wide QD-OLED.

Yeah. It's awesome.