Issues with fullscreen

[Ryal]

I play the game in fullscreen mode, and I've noticed that most resolutions do not provide a true fullscreen presentation. Many of them display black bars on the top & bottom in a similar fashion to widescreen movies. Other resolutions cause the black bars to appear in varying thicknesses and sometimes on the right & left, which makes the game feel clustered and constricted. I have noticed that certain resolutions result in a true corner-to-corner fullscreen display, but they are in the minority. As a result of all that, I do feel a bit frustrated having to balance my desired level of aesthetic detail against text legibility and gameplay fluidity.

In my most recent session, I was tinkering around with the display settings and resolutions to try and squeak an extra frame or two per second into my experience. On a whim, I decided to try 'window' mode to see if it resulted in a better experience. I did not enjoy seeing my computer desktop encompassing the Canadian wilderness contained within a grey box, so I changed the resolution to 1280 x 600, and returned to fullscreen mode.

As soon as a I clicked confirm, I noticed two things.

Firstly, I was delighted to see that the game was being displayed in corner-to-corner fullscreen mode. Normally, 1280 x 600 does not provide me with a true fullscreen experience. I was able to successfully replicate this with all resolutions from 512 x 384 up to 1920 x 1200 by first confirming 'window' mode, changing the resolution, and then confirming 'fullscreen' mode.

But secondly, every time I switched from windowed mode to fullscreen mode, the 'back' button refused to accept my click. I discovered by accident that moving the mouse far to the left of, or sometimes above, the button's location resulted in the game registering the mouse as hovering over the button and accepting the click. This held true for all menus and icons that require a mouse cursor to work- including equipment, fires, and harvesting. First person gameplay was unaffected by this.

So, in brief:

1. Starting and playing the game in fullscreen mode is not truly fullscreen, depending on the resolution.

2. Switching from 'window' mode to 'fullscreen' grants corner-to-corner fullscreen visuals to a resolution that did not previously provide it.

3. A direct result of item 2 is the hindered functionality of all clickable icons and menu buttons that depend on a mouse cursor.

[Guest mcopeman]

I'll look into this button alignment issue. As for issues with fullscreen, what is your monitor resolution?

Melody~

[Ryal]

My monitor resolution is set to 1920 x 1080.

It never occurred to me to try altering that. Could changing my own monitor resolution result in a better visual experience?

[Guest mcopeman]

I'm having trouble reproducing what you are seeing. Is 1920 x 1080 your monitors default setting? What are your computer specs?

Melody~

[Ryal]

I run The Long Dark on a Windows 7 with 4 GB of RAM and a 2.7GHz processor. It is a 64-bit Operating System.

As for the display settings, 1920 x 1080 is my monitor's native default resolution, and I use 32-bit color depth. I never change those settings. When I play The Long Dark, only six of the resolutions give me corner-to-corner fullscreen:

1280 x 720

1360 x 768

1366 x 768

1600 x 900

1920 x 1080

1920 x 1200

All of the other resolution choices show me those two vertical or horizontal black bars bordering the visuals unless I switch into 'window' mode first, change the resolution to whatever I wish to see in fullscreen, and finally return to fullscreen mode. And that, of course, results in the inaccurate button sensitivity.

Apologies for the over-sharing. I just want to include as much information as possible. Thank you for your attention to this problem!

[Guest mcopeman]

I looked into this and switching from windowed to fullscreen shouldn't hinder the icons/playability. I'll make a ticket and pass it to the team. As for the grey bars, they are a result of setting the screen resolution to a ratio that isn't matched with your monitor (in this case 16:9). I'll see what I can do about it though.

Melody~