If you have a 4k or similarly high resolution screen, you are probably familiar with this situation: A game looks amazing in this resolution, but the UI and fonts are tiny. Newer games usually have the option to scale the UI, so that it can be used comfortably, however, many older games do not. Empire: Total War is no exception. Often the only option is to play in a lower resolution, which results in a blurry or pixelated image. However, for ETW (and other old games, though it depends on the game if it will work or not) there is a way to keep the high resolution for the actual game, while the UI is displayed in a different, lower resolution, with the tool dgvoodoo2.

This Guide will show you how to get from this


to this (or similar, depending on your resolution and UI scale):

I can only speak for myself and my game/system, but I found a few (very) minor drawbacks with this method:

• Only the UI is upscaled, the game itself (campaign/battle maps) will be displayed in your screen's native resolution, though dgvoodoo2 will apply some form of anti-aliasing that will make the image just a little bit less sharp than without dgvoodoo2. It is still sharper and a lot more detailed than it would be if it was just upscaled from the lower resolution, though. That also means that there is probably no need for additional anti-aliasing. Not really an issue in my opinion, except if you really want the sharpest image possible.
  
• Obviously, the UI is simply upscaled, so it will look somewhat blurry/pixelated. This cannot be avoided, as it effectively runs at a lower resolution than the rest of the game.
  
• Hardware Shadows can no longer be enabled in the Setting, probably because of how dgvoodoo2 runs the game through a "virtual 3D card".
  
• A few UI elements may be displayed incorrectly, but I didn't notice anything that would impair it's function.

With that out of the way, let's cut to the chase.

Alright, here is how I did it:

First you need to download dgvoodoo2 here: http://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/dgVoodoo2/

As of today, the current version is 2.75, but I expect it to still be working with future versions.

Caution! Some Antivirus programs are known to dislike dgvoodoo2 and some of its components, so make sure yours doesn't interfere. If it detects anything, it's a false positive. However, I do not take any responsibility for any issues or problems it may cause on your system, although this is highly unlikely. It's a well-known tool for making older games compatible with newer systems, and I've been using it for years.

After downloading the archive, extract it to wherever you like (Make sure to create a separate folder for it, though, because it's loose files and folders inside the archive). Then, go to MS\x86 and copy the D3D9.dll file there into your Empire: Total War installation directory. To get there immediately, right-click on the game in your Steam library (in the list on the left) and select Manage -> Browse local Files. This should open an explorer window with the main installation folder where the game's .exe is located.

Now, paste the fle you copied into this folder. Again, make sure the game's .exe is located there.

The other DLLs are not needed for Empire, but if you are using this guide on a different game, you might need a different one depending on the API it uses. NEVER copy any of these files directly into your Windows folder, this will cause serious problems!

Next, go back to the dgvoodoo2 folder and start dgVoodooCpl.exe. This will open a window with an orange banner at the top and a number of options below it. Directly under the banner, on the right, click on the "Add" button. An Explorer window will open. Navigate to your Empire: Total War folder (or copy the path from the explorer window from earlier) and click "Select Folder". Make sure, the correct folder is added. If it was the correct one, a dgVoodoo.conf file should appear in the E:TW installation folder.

Almost done. Now, all that's left to do is configuring dgvoodoo2 correctly. If you want to change anything later, always make sure the correct folder is selected at the top.

You should be seeing the "General" tab. Leave everything there, as it is, it should look like this:



Switch to the "DirectX" tab.

The two most important settings here are VRAM and Resolution.

For VRAM, it depends on your graphics card how much you can use, but it's lower than your actual VRAM. In any case, set it to the highest possible value.
For resolution, set your screen's native resolution, which is 3840x2160 for me. This way, the game will be forced to run in this resolution, no matter what resolution is set in the game's settings.
You'll probably also want to disable the dgvoodoo Watermark, though you might want to leave it on the first time you start the game to check if it is working (it should display a logo in the corner of the screen).
In the end, it should look like this:


If everything is set up correctly and dgvoodoo2 works, you can set a lower resolution in the game settings, and the UI will be scaled accordingly, while the game itself retains the high resolution set in dgvoodoo2.

Update April 2025: On my system this still works, but water and other objects appeared black when I tried it out. Disabling Anti-Aliasing in the game settings fixed it. Another issue with stripes appearing on water during battle could be fixed by forcing Anisotropic Filtering through dgvoodoo2. What I couldn't fix, unfortunately, was a duplicated mouse coursor in the upper left part of the screen.

Update June 8, 2025: Clarification to set a lower resolution ingame to scale the UI.

Enjoy!

This can also work in other games, though it really depends on the game, you just have to try it out. Orcs Must Die! is one I know for sure. In this game, I got weird stripey artifacts when I set the resolution to half the desktop resolution, but I could fix that by forcing anisotropic filtering in the DirectX tab of dgvoodoo2. So that's certainly worth a try.

By the way, if you want a game to have "retro style" textures, you can also try to force point sampled filtering. However, this will not work very well for newer games with high resolution textures, because then you'll likely get a flickering mess.