Game resolution wont resolve

[DeadlyFeet-1489]

The problem: StarCraft II’s display is wrong—units/text too big, can’t see enough of the battlefield, resolution lower than it should be. Started suddenly when the game had previously been fine.

Key diagnostic findings (what we learned as we went):

• The issue happens on the laptop’s own screen with the external monitor unplugged — so it’s not an ultrawide/monitor problem, even though it first appeared on the big screen.

• Menus/preview screens render correctly, but the resolution drops the moment actual gameplay starts — pointing at the graphics driver rendering the 3D game, not at settings.

• It survived a full game reinstall and a full settings reset — ruling out game files and config.

Hardware/setup context:

• Dell laptop with hybrid graphics (Intel integrated + NVIDIA discrete).

• External monitor is a curved ultrawide, native 3840×1600 (21:9); laptop also has its built-in screen.

• Windows desktop displays correctly at native resolution, 100% scale.

What we tried, in order:

1. Set in-game Resolution and confirmed Display Mode (Fullscreen) — native resolution wouldn’t appear in the dropdown.

2. Checked Windows display settings — set scale to 100%, confirmed desktop native resolution (3840×1600).

3. Checked the monitor’s own menu — confirmed it’s correctly set to 21:9 wide.

4. Tried Windowed (Fullscreen) mode to inherit the desktop resolution.

5. Edited Variables.txt to force 3840×1600 — it reverted/didn’t take.

6. Renamed/regenerated Variables.txt to rebuild the config fresh.

7. Full reinstall of StarCraft II — no change.

8. Verified SC2 was set to use the NVIDIA (High performance) GPU.

9. Opened NVIDIA Control Panel — found only 3D Settings, no display/resolution section (because Intel drives the display output).

10. Found the NVIDIA app optimizer had forced the game to 1920×1080 — a prime suspect for the sudden change; reverted it and set the preview to 3840×1600 / Fullscreen, then applied via OPTIMIZE.

11. Reset the entire Documents\StarCraft II settings folder (rename method) — game still drops resolution when gameplay starts.

12. Checked driver updates and did/began a clean NVIDIA driver reinstall (“Perform a clean installation”), plus the recommendation to update the Intel display driver via Dell Support — (this is where you are now / the current step).