You finally upgraded. That massive 21:9 or 32:9 monitor is sitting on your desk, glowing with the promise of immersion, but then you boot up the game. Honestly, seeing PC Building Simulator 2 ultrawide support fail to fill the screen properly feels like a slap in the face. It's ironic. You’re playing a game about high-end PC hardware, yet the software struggles with the very hardware enthusiasts love most.
The game looks incredible when it works. Seeing those individual capacitors on a motherboard or the way RGB strips reflect off a tempered glass side panel in 3440x1440p is a vibe. But getting it there? That’s sometimes a project in itself.
Spiral House and Epic Games Publishing delivered a sequel that improved on almost everything from the original, but the "set it and forget it" nature of aspect ratios wasn't one of them. If you’ve noticed the UI stretching or your FOV feeling like you’re looking through a cardboard tube, you aren't alone. It’s a common gripe in the community.
The Reality of Ultrawide Support in PCBS2
Native support exists, technically. When you jump into the settings menu of PC Building Simulator 2, you can select ultrawide resolutions. The game doesn't just crash or refuse to acknowledge the monitor. That’s the good news.
The bad news is how it handles the Field of View (FOV).
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In many titles, a wider screen means you see more of the room. In this game, sometimes the engine decides to just "zoom in" to fill the horizontal space. This is the "Vert-" issue (Vertical Minus). Instead of expanding the peripheral vision, it crops the top and bottom. You end up feeling like your nose is pressed against the motherboard. It makes working on a complex water-cooling loop feel claustrophobic.
I’ve spent hours tinkering with the career mode on a 34-inch Alienware. The shop looks fantastic. The way the light pours in through the windows in the higher-tier workshops is a testament to the upgraded engine. But the UI? It’s hit or miss. Some buttons might feel a bit too far into the corners, forcing your neck to do more work than a real-life technician’s would.
Why Resolution Scaling Matters More Than You Think
Resolution is only half the battle. If you’re running a 5120x1440 super-ultrawide, the GPU demand spikes significantly compared to standard 1440p. We're talking about pushing nearly 90% of the pixels found in a 4K display.
Even though this is a simulator, it’s built on Unity. It’s surprisingly heavy on the hardware when you’ve got a workshop full of PCs all running their own individual lighting scripts. If you notice stuttering while panning the camera across your workbench, you might need to look at your anti-aliasing settings.
I’ve found that MSAA can be a total killer on ultrawide setups in this game. Switching to a more modern upscaling method—if your card supports it—tends to smooth out those frame time spikes.
How to Fix the FOV and Aspect Ratio Issues
If the game feels "zoomed," you have to go beyond the in-game menu.
The community has been vocal on the Epic Games Store forums and Reddit about the lack of a robust FOV slider that accommodates 21:9 properly. One of the most reliable fixes involves hunting down the configuration files.
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Usually, you'll find what you need in the %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\PCBS2 directory. You are looking for a Settings.cfg or a similar .json file.
- Close the game entirely.
- Back up your settings file. Seriously. Don't skip this.
- Open the file in Notepad++.
- Search for "FieldOfView" or "FOV."
- Manually increase the value.
Standard is often set around 60 to 75. For an ultrawide, you likely want to bump that up to 90 or even 100 to compensate for the cropping. It’s a game of trial and error. Save the file, launch the game, check the workbench, and repeat.
Does the UI Stretch?
Thankfully, the UI in PC Building Simulator 2 is mostly "anchored" rather than "stretched." This means your tablet and the inventory menus stay at a readable scale. They don't turn into wide, distorted messes like they did in some older games from the early 2010s.
However, the "HUD" elements—like the money counter or the task list—can end up way out in the periphery. If you have a curved monitor, this is less of an issue. If you’re on a flat 34-inch or larger, you might find yourself physically turning your head just to see how much a replacement RTX 4090 just cost you.
The Performance Cost of Going Wide
Don't let the "Simulator" tag fool you.
Running PC Building Simulator 2 ultrawide at max settings requires some beefy specs. When you have multiple PCs on benches, all with transparent side panels and real-time reflections, the draw calls add up.
- VRAM Usage: Ultrawide resolutions eat VRAM. If you're on an older 8GB card, you might see textures popping in or lower-resolution assets on the component boxes.
- CPU Bottlenecks: Interestingly, because the game has to simulate the "OS" of the computers you're building, it can get heavy on the CPU threads.
- Thermal Reality: Your real-life PC will start to sweat. It's a bit meta. You're fixing a PC that's overheating in-game while your actual GPU is screaming because it’s trying to render 7 million pixels.
I recommend turning down "Global Illumination" just one notch. In my testing, the visual difference is negligible during gameplay, but the frame rate stability on ultrawide monitors improves by about 15%.
Multi-Monitor vs. Ultrawide
Some people ask if they should just use two monitors instead. Honestly? No.
The game doesn't span across two displays well because the crosshair (your interaction point) would be split right down the bezel. Ultrawide is the definitive way to play this game if you want that "pro workshop" feel. It allows you to have the shop's tablet open on the side of your screen while still keeping the PC you're building dead center.
Common Bugs to Watch Out For
There are a few quirks.
Sometimes, when you enter the "it mode" or the decoration mode to change your shop's layout, the camera can clip through walls on ultrawide setups. This happens because the wider frustum (the camera's viewable area) extends past the boundaries the developers intended.
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If you get stuck, the quickest fix is to reset the camera by interacting with a workbench.
Also, watch out for the "tablet overlap." On certain resolutions, the virtual tablet you carry can overlap with the in-game UI menus if you have them both open. It’s a minor annoyance, but it shows that the game was primarily tested for 16:9.
Actionable Steps for the Best Experience
To get your setup dialed in, follow this sequence.
First, ensure your Windows display settings and GPU control panel (NVIDIA or AMD) are actually set to the native resolution of your monitor before launching the game. It sounds basic, but you’d be surprised.
Second, within the game, set your window mode to "Fullscreen Borderless." In my experience, this handles the ultrawide transition better than "Exclusive Fullscreen," which can sometimes minimize the game if you click on a second monitor or if the resolution handshake fails.
Third, if the FOV still feels wrong and you don't want to mess with config files, try the "Flawless Widescreen" utility. While it doesn't have an official plugin for PCBS2 yet, many users have found success using generic Unity engine tweaks through similar third-party tools.
Lastly, keep an eye on the official Discord. The devs at Spiral House have been relatively active with patches. While ultrawide isn't always at the top of the patch notes, they have made silent tweaks to camera clipping and UI anchoring in the last few updates.
Stop settling for a cramped view. Go into those files, nudge that FOV up to 95, and give your virtual workshop the space it deserves. The difference between a "zoomed-in" mess and a sprawling, cinematic workbench is literally just a few lines of code and a reboot.
Get back to the bench. Those customer PCs won't fix themselves, and that custom loop you've been planning is going to look ten times better when you can actually see the whole chassis at once.
Critical Settings Summary Table (Prose Version)
Instead of a standard table, keep these specs in mind for a 1440p ultrawide target. You want a minimum of an RTX 3070 or RX 6800 for a smooth 60 FPS. If you are pushing 32:9 (5120x1440), you really should be looking at an RTX 4080 or better to keep the lighting effects from dragging your frame rate into the 40s. Set Texture Quality to "Ultra" but keep Shadows at "Medium" to save on draw calls. Turn off Motion Blur; on a screen that wide, it just causes motion sickness.
Technical Next Steps
- Locate
%AppData%\..\LocalLow\Spiral House\PC Building Simulator 2. - Check the
player.logif the game crashes specifically when switching to ultrawide resolutions; it usually points to a DirectX handshake error. - Verify game files via the Epic Games Launcher if the UI becomes invisible after a resolution change.
- Adjust the "Camera Sensitivity" in-game. On ultrawide, the default sensitivity often feels too fast because of the increased horizontal distance the mouse has to travel across the projection.
End of Guide.