Gamers with Poor Vision

[mattyg118]

Hello all, I have been a gamer pretty much my whole life and I have also had pretty bad vision my entire life. I really did a number on my eyes during college and back when I used to read a lot of books but lately I have noticed every new game I play I have been having a really tough time being able to read the text and in-game maps. The worst offenders within the past month or so have been Darksiders 2, Far Cry 3, and now Mass Effect 2 whose manual bypass minigames are almost impossible to complete without a serious amount of trial-and-error. I find the difficulty I am having with Mass Effect 2 particularly frustrating because I did 3 playthroughs of the original ME a few months ago and had absolutely no trouble reading the screen. I mostly play on my PS3 on a 30-inch TV without an HDMI cable (my TV is old and doesn't support it). Does anyone else have this problem? Can anyone recommend any steps to help alleviate this problem other than getting my eyes reexamined?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I really don't know what to tell you, but I have the same exact problem. Is it just me (and you) or is the text in games getting really, really small? And not just the ONE game. Off the top of my head: Arkham City, Call of Duty, Dead Island, Brothers in Arms, Mafia II... the text is incredibly small in them! What's the deal?

 

[Miss G.]

I use a 42" HDTV with the HDMI cable in my new apartment because I couldn't see with my 19" I got when I had a roommate in the shared student one. I also position my futon less than 6 ft away from it so I'm not damaging my eyes any further. I would still recommend getting your eyes re-examined though. You might be like me and find that you're not near-sighted but actually have stigmata and have to get whole new prescription glasses. And depending on where you are, HDTVs are getting really affordable to buy nowadays so you could just get one of those or rent one for a little while and see if it helps.

 

[shrekfan246]

I really don't know what to tell you, but I have the same exact problem. Is it just me (and you) or is the text in games getting really, really small? And not just the ONE game. Off the top of my head: Arkham City, Call of Duty, Dead Island, Brothers in Arms, Mafia II... the text is incredibly small in them! What's the deal?

It's a problem with console games, really. Especially on standard definition televisions, though HDTVs only alleviate the issue slightly in the particularly bad games like Mass Effect 2.

The resolution scaling for a lot of game UIs is just absolute balls, and I think the blame for that can only really be put on the developers. SDTVs are still widely used, but not nearly as common as they used to be, so they're getting less and less proper support, and for HD or PC monitors it's an issue with the fact that there's three different systems to code for and any potential number of resolutions the game might be running at. You'd figure a scalable UI wouldn't be the most difficult thing ever to create, but it's also probably often a low priority.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I'd say getting your eyes re-examined is a good idea regardless. How far back did you get your last prescription? I need a slightly stronger one every couple of years, and the change is always so gradual that I barely notice everything going blurry, if I do at all. Then I put on my new glasses and remember that it's not only in videogames that you can see the individual leaves on the trees XD

 

[Miyenne]

I find text in games is ridiculously small too, even though with my contacts I have better than 20/20. And even scaling the UI (if that's even available) doesn't always work.

If I'm playing on the PC hooked up to the tv with hdmi, even though it's a 42" and the chair's 4 feet away, we pull the tv stand closer so it's only 2-3 feet away. It makes it a bit better, but still not great.

Or I play on my laptop, which isn't nearly as powerful but having it in my lap makes things more legible.

I think it's just the way games are now, they're trying to make to UI as least invasive as possible, and yet they've gone too far in many regards.

 

[BeeGeenie]

Yeah, this is not your fault. Video game developers forget sometimes that not everyone owns a Ginormous HD TV that takes up half the wall, so that's their bad for making the text unreadable on a conventional monitor.

I feel your pain.

 

[Hero of Lime]

I've had a whole bunch of games played on a SD television with nearly impossible text to read. I am nearsighted myself, but whenever a game has very small, hard to read text, it was usually because I was playing on a SD TV. Dead Space 1 and 2 were the biggest offenders from what I can remember.

 

[Tegual]

I am legally blind and have this problem with console games (which is a big reason for me being primarily a PC gamer). I wish that if they are going to put text in a game make it so we can resize it if we need to. Being on a pc i can generally get by pretty well but there are some games that have horrible text size.

 

[SinisterGehe]

1080p with HDMI, high Hz and a monitor with no glare screen and easy controls to change sharpness/contrast/color/brightness. There really isn't anything else you can do. Some Indie games got color blind and easy sight modes.

I think you can get the most help and tips from able gamer sites. There are people wo spend their days actively dealing with obstacles to help people.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Anyone here play the original Dead Rising.....on a non-HDTV? God that was painful, just why.

I think hard-of-hearing gamers also suffer, I cry everytime a game is released without subtitles.