Need help with undersized hud

[CarpeNemo]

First off, let me say that as an old-time member of other (unrelated) forums, I know the first-post-need-help kind of topic is lame and nobody likes them. I apologize in advance.

But I haven't found what I'm looking for just by searching (which I've spent a lot of time doing last night, and this morning after I registered). I did find a topic on how to change font sizes, and while this helped a little bit it's still not alleviating my problem. :EDIT: Also - changing the font size to anything above 10 seems to make half the font disappear into the button. Hard to explain. This would have fixed my issue, had the buttons adjusted to font size.

I sit about five feet away from my monitor, which is 24". I sit this far back because my supposed-to-be-temporary-but-I-like-it-too-much computer chair is a recliner, and I love being able to kick back and get my game on.

The problem is that all of the HUD is too small for me to read. I have to sit on the edge of my chair, and that strains my back after a while because I have to hunch over to keep my balance.

Rather than get rid of my awesome gamerlounge, I was kind of hoping I could get some help with maybe a mod or something. I'm sorry if the answer is glaringly obvious or if I'm just not using the right search words, but I'm not finding anything. I dug through the pinned mod list thing, and the GUI mods I did find seemed to be just recolours and not enlargers.

I'd really appreciate the help, and I'm sorry for the help-me first post.

[irR4tiOn4L]

Hmm there are mods that make the HUD SMALLER, but thats mostly the buttons and graphical elements, not the actual text, maps etc.

If you are actually trying to make the text inside maps and various screens larger, it doesnt sound like thatd be either easy to mod or change.

Have you tried lowering the resolution?

[meremale]

buy a monitor swing arm, or grab some wood and make a stand for the monitor that places it in a better position for when your seated.

[X2-Illuminatus]

Increasing the font size is possible. On this site you find two larger font files as well as a program called "x3fontmaker", with which you can make own font files for X3. (Here you also find a little tutorial.) Though, increasing the font size is probably only possible to a certain extent. Increasing it further will lead to text overlapping the HUD-elements or not displayed text due to limited text field sizes.

[CarpeNemo]

Hmm there are mods that make the HUD SMALLER, but thats mostly the buttons and graphical elements, not the actual text, maps etc.

If you are actually trying to make the text inside maps and various screens larger, it doesnt sound like thatd be either easy to mod or change.

Have you tried lowering the resolution?

I did lower the resolution, and discovered my (natively 1080p) monitor doesn't like smaller resolutions. Crashes the game on startup. You can get around this by running it in windowed mode (which I'm doing now) but it visually doesn't seem to make anything larger.

buy a monitor swing arm, or grab some wood and make a stand for the monitor that places it in a better position for when your seated.

I'm a particularly broke college student, so the long story short is that I really don't have the means to buy a mount nor the material to make one. I've more or less got what I've got on hand, and I have to make due with that.

Increasing the font size is possible. On this site you find two larger font files as well as a program called "x3fontmaker", with which you can make own font files for X3. (Here you also find a little tutorial.) Though, increasing the font size is probably only possible to a certain extent. Increasing it further will lead to text overlapping the HUD-elements or not displayed text due to limited text field sizes.

I found that program last night, and am currently using Dungeon 10 Bold as my font, but 10 is as big as it will get before it will start overlapping, as you said. Bold didn't seem to increase the size of the font much, but it did help readability.

I know it sounds strange, but the games I usually play that are this moddable are Fallout 3 and Oblivion, which (some believe more than others) were targeted at console gamers first and foremost, and have naturally large HUDs. You actually have to use DARN-UI (for Oblivion) and DARNified UI (for Fallout 3) just to make the UI feel like a PC game's UI.

And I love the vanilla setup of X3TC's UI, I just wish there was a way to scale it up. I'll keep tweaking with fonts but at this point in time, I'm inclined to agree with irR4tiOn4L and assume that scaling it may not be possible. Here's to hoping, though!

[CarpeNemo]

Alright, I've more or less given up when it comes to adjusting the font sizes. I've moved my monitors forwards on the desk and that helps immensely, but it also leaves them awkwardly positioned. Hopefully, they won't do anything strange.

I'll see if I can't find a way to bring my monitor closer, but for now this will work.

Thanks for all your help, great peoples. I'll still be here but I'm more of the lurking type anyways.

[Halconnen]

Look into getting a monitor swingarm, as recommended above, then.

Those help a lot with positioning, without desk issues.

[bl3ek]

Increasing the font size is possible. On this site you find two larger font files as well as a program called "x3fontmaker", with which you can make own font files for X3. (Here you also find a little tutorial.) Though, increasing the font size is probably only possible to a certain extent. Increasing it further will lead to text overlapping the HUD-elements or not displayed text due to limited text field sizes.

I know you posted this what, 7 years ago - but I registered to say THANK YOU!

The 11 size font is just about legible on my 34" ultrawide.

I can play the game at 3440x1440 in relative comfort.