Esports rule Bottom content
Drawing from industry experience
Understanding Arc Minutes
Esports Spectator Display Sizing
- The text size used by the game developers (not in your control)
- The contrast between text and background (not in your control)
- Ceiling height (not in your control)
- The distance to the farthest possible spectator (usually in your control)
- Display resolution (assuming you do not own the display already – in your control)
- Display driver scaling options used on your PC (if available – in your control)
- Available in-game scaling – sometimes called “window size” (if available – in your control)
- Display mounting height (usually in your control)
Bigger Displays are Better Right?
“Well, how big does text really need to be?” might be your next question. How would anyone know that? Luckily, decades ago, a group of university and corporate researchers collaborated to discover how big textual information needed to be when presented to groups for it to be easily ingested, processed, and recalled. While you do not expect to be tested on the current contents of a player’s health stats or inventory, you can use these results for any application where readable text is the goal. What researchers discovered is that humans need the height of text to take up a minimum of about 10 arcminutes (or ⅙ of a degree) of our vision to be readable.
Applying the standard
Display Resolution | Display Scaling | Game Setting | Full Screen | Small Menu ~H% | Maximum Viewing Distance to Display Height Ratio* |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1080p | 100% | 1920×1080 | 100% | 1.33 | 3.1 |
1080p | 125% | 1280×720 | 83% | 1.04 | 2.4 |
1080p | 150% | 1280×720 | 100% | 1.33 | 3.1 |
1080p | 175% | 1024×576 | 93% | 1.33 | 3.1 |
2160p | 100% | 2560×1440 | 67% | 0.99 | 2.3 |
2160p | 125% | 2560×1440 | 83% | 1.18 | 2.7 |
2160p | 150% | 2560×1440 | 100% | 1.38 | 3.2 |
2160p | 175% | 1920×1080 | 87% | 1.18 | 2.7 |
2160p | 200% | 1920×1080 | 100% | 1.38 | 3.2 |
*max ratios presented are approximate and are based upon 15 arcminutes of text height of the ‘small’ menu text in LoL specifically. Other games and other text within the game (if smaller) may not follow this recommendation. A strong contrast between text and its background can have a significant effect on results.
The math behind the rule
Display Height, Width, and Diagonal
You can bend the rules!
Is your existing spectator display big enough?
School Esports Classroom Example
Other practical advice for esports spectator displays
More on Esports
- Download Esports in Education for free
- Introduction to Esports in Education
- History of video games & esports
- The study of video games
- What are the top esports tournaments?
- College Level Esports Programs
- Apply for the StreamGeeks Esports Scholarship
- How to start an esports club at your school
- How to live stream esports tournaments
- Getting the most educational value out of video games