Re-fenestration frustration

So yeah, I had to re-install Windows again.

EURGH

Why?

I recently got a new 4K monitor, which in and of itself is REALLY NICE.

However...

Scaling issues

Linux and Wayland (and X11) really don't cope well with scaling issues when transitioning between a desktop environment and a game environment.

Case in point, the two main games I'm playing right now: WoW and Guild Wars 2.

By way of demonstration:

As you can see, the UI experience in Windows 11 is far more comfortably sized, with a normal size UI vs what I get in Linux, where even when my desktop in KDE Plasma is sitting at the same 150% scaling that my Windows 11 desktop uses, the implementation of scaling in the game and how it looks is way off.

In these screenshots (ignore the lighting differences, that's just the in-game day/night cycle), I have my mini-map set to its largest expanded size, and the UI is set at "Larger", which is the biggest it will go as there is no "Largest" setting.

Even with this set, in Linux the UI elements are very small, uncomfortably so for me.

My current WoW UI is also fairly large-ish:

For both games, this is mainly due to comfort reasons, more so as I get older. I don't want to be trying to squint mid-game at tiny text and trying to determine if that's a 3 or an 8 second duration left on my Turtle when I'm soaking mechanics 😆

I want to be able to quickly glance at my bars and know the status of my abilities.

The problem I have in Wow in Linux is slightly different however.

The scaling issue presents itself in Wow as needing to run at silly resolutions that become available (4086 * 3540 or something silly like that), otherwise the cursor control is significantly off of where the actual cursor is located.

By which I mean I could hover my mouse over the health pot icon in the bottom left of my action bars there, but the actual place clicked would be more in the area of the bonus roll window. Playing with that happening is impossible.

Hope?

Apparently Wine has implemented fractional scaling in a release that is coming out in the next few days, so I'm hopeful that either this issue will disappear, or I will gain new methods of fixing it for Linux, because I REALLY don't want to be using Windows again, even if it is really just for these 2 games.

The remaining Steam games I've tried largely seem to be OK, but I've not tried many in all honesty, given how much MMO gaming I've been doing the past several weeks.

And considering how much I really really am enjoying Guild Wars 2 at the moment:

That just in the past fortnight, alongside a dozen hours raid-logging in Wow. That's a lot for me, with the free time I tend to have these days.

Guild Wars 2 Progress

I've gotten to the max level of 80, and have completed the main Personal Story questline to take down the Elder Dragon Zhaitan.

So now I've started looking at the various expansions and choosing where to start.

So far I've jumped forward to Secrets of the Obscure, specifically to unlock the Skyscale flying mount and its mastery lines, but after I get that maxed out I'll probably head back in time to the first expansion's content in Heart of Thorns, and start working forwards from there in terms of the overarching storyline.

And honestly? I've been eating it up. The Zhaitan storyline in the Core games was excellently done, and it felt truly epic and a real drawn out final battle. The tone is relatively serious, with some silly elements thrown in now and again, but it struck a good balance IMO.

From what I've played of Secrets of the Obscure so far, the story there seems to be even better, but I'm running into characters there that are apparently old friends of my character that I've personally never seen before. That's what I get for time travelling I guess!

Well, you know what they say about strangers being friends you just haven't met yet, but I don't think that quite applies here 😉

I've only logged those 60hrs in the game so far, and it feels like I'm literally just scratching the surface of what is on offer. Even if I never do raids, or PvP, or World vs World, or run dungeons etc etc, the PvE main storylines that I have to run through from Heart of Thorns right through to Visions of Eternity, including all the Living World storyline drops, will be more than enough to keep me engaged for hundreds of hours alone.

Add in joining a guild and partaking in some of the above mentioned group content?

Yep, lots to look forward to 😁