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This. 4k matters much less for games and movies than for programming; it's hard to tell the difference when looking at moving images but the higher resolution c

This. 4k matters much less for games and movies than for programming; it's hard to tell the difference when looking at moving images but the higher resolution changes everything when reading text. A high DPI screen puts much less strain on your eyes!

polskibus 8y ago
When you're doing web dev, it's important that devs test on devices similar to users'. FullHD seems most popular, how do you address that?
- sinstein 8y ago
  You can always downscale resolution to test for Full HD with a 4K panel but you cannot do the other way round.
  - dzek69 8y ago
    You can fake it by setting low zoom level. Far from perfect, you won't have pixel perfect results, but you'll get general overview how layout gonna work.
  - carlmr 8y ago
    If it's UHD (3840x2160) it's going to be exact. If it's actual 4K (4096 × 2160) then it won't be sharp at Full HD resolution (1920x1080) because the pixels don't align. But many monitors have Marketing 4K which is UHD.
    - 0-_-0 8y ago
      4K most commonly refers to 3840x2160. Which is of course not exactly 4000 pixels, but neither is 4096 :)
      - carlmr 8y ago
        The original 4K standard is 4096
- matthewmacleod 8y ago
  Use the tools explicitly available for that purpose. Chrome, Firefox and Safari all have built-in responsive design modes with common resolutions available. Or you can just resize the browser window :)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- coldtea 8y ago
  You don't have to test on your working setup. After all if you did mobile webpages, you wouldn't program on a smartphone! If you did test there, you'd just tested one configuration (even if it's the most popular). There are services that allow you to test your web work in dozens of different configurations. There are also Chrome tools etc to help you test different aspect rations and sizes. And you can always change the display to a non-native resolution.
  - polskibus 8y ago
    4k users often use font scaling which makes things harder to compare to a standard full HD setup (different people use different font scaling options etc). When developers setup makes dogfooding more accurate (in terms of similarity to end hsers'), then more UI bugs are found sooner. Another thing is contrast and hue - many users use low quality screens (think office users) and they perceive the UI differently than a person on a high end monitor. Many subtleties are not visible at all.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- nailer 8y ago
  > When you're doing web dev, it's important that devs test on devices similar to users'. FullHD seems most popular, how do you address that? More users are now on mobile, with high res displays.
- flyingpenguin 8y ago
  A good tiling window manager should let you easily make your windows 1/4th the size of your monitor in some corner.
enriquto 8y ago
> higher resolution changes everything when reading text. A high DPI screen puts much less strain on your eyes! This may not be for everybody. I actually prefer low-resolution displays, and use beautiful bitmapped fonts (without need for "antialiasing"). It looks much cleaner to me.
- ahje 8y ago
  Ditto. I stuck to 1650 x 900 for as long as I could, but alas, It's hard to get those monitors nowadays. I've since switched to full HD-screens, zooming everything to 150%-200%. It's readable in most cases, but considerably less pretty than bitmapped fonts on a lower-res screen.
nvarsj 8y ago
Is this really high DPI though? I think it has to do with font sharpness. What I've noticed is that Windows and Mac OS X both have poor font smoothing at normal DPIs - blurry fonts are the norm. When I swap to a modern Linux desktop however, the fonts look very good at regular DPI. The difference is apparent. You can also prove the sharpness effect to yourself by using bitmap fonts - they will look great on regular DPI monitors on any OS.
- lultimouomo 8y ago
  I work on a weekly base on Linux, Windows and MacOS; mostly Linux. HiDPI does make a huge difference for me, and I'd say even more so on Linux, where without HiDPI I suffer Firefox font rendering a lot (Chromium is a bit better). Sure some smoothing algorithm might work better for you and ease the problem; same with bitmap fonts. But try printing some text at 96dpi and at 300dpi and compare it side by side. 96dpi is not enough for comfort, and for years we've been pretending it is since there was no viable alternative. There is now. Hurray!
  - ahartmetz 8y ago
    I'm all for higher DPI screens, but you need to take into account that typical reading distance for screens is larger than for text on paper. It is not really DPI that counts but dots per angular distance as seen from the eye.
  - guiambros 8y ago
    > I work on a weekly base on Linux, Windows and MacOS; mostly Linux. HiDPI does make a huge difference for me... How good is Linux support for HiDPI these days? I've been delaying making the upgrade for a few years, waiting for better native support. Also, any idea if you can mix HiDPI screens with regular ones?
    - lultimouomo 8y ago
      Recent Gnome works very well with all-HiDPI; I had to leave XFCE when I switched to HiDPI because it hadn't good support. Recent is key here; I have been using Gnome in HiDPI mode for a couple of years but I had to do some tweaks to have it working well; now it seems to work more or less out of the box. Same holds for Qt based applications. Mixed DPI screens kind of works, but there are hitches; I definitely suggest going all in.

polskibus 8y ago

When you're doing web dev, it's important that devs test on devices similar to users'. FullHD seems most popular, how do you address that?

sinstein 8y ago
You can always downscale resolution to test for Full HD with a 4K panel but you cannot do the other way round.
- dzek69 8y ago
  You can fake it by setting low zoom level. Far from perfect, you won't have pixel perfect results, but you'll get general overview how layout gonna work.
- carlmr 8y ago
  If it's UHD (3840x2160) it's going to be exact. If it's actual 4K (4096 × 2160) then it won't be sharp at Full HD resolution (1920x1080) because the pixels don't align. But many monitors have Marketing 4K which is UHD.
  - 0-_-0 8y ago
    4K most commonly refers to 3840x2160. Which is of course not exactly 4000 pixels, but neither is 4096 :)
    - carlmr 8y ago
      The original 4K standard is 4096
matthewmacleod 8y ago
Use the tools explicitly available for that purpose. Chrome, Firefox and Safari all have built-in responsive design modes with common resolutions available. Or you can just resize the browser window :)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
coldtea 8y ago
You don't have to test on your working setup. After all if you did mobile webpages, you wouldn't program on a smartphone! If you did test there, you'd just tested one configuration (even if it's the most popular). There are services that allow you to test your web work in dozens of different configurations. There are also Chrome tools etc to help you test different aspect rations and sizes. And you can always change the display to a non-native resolution.
- polskibus 8y ago
  4k users often use font scaling which makes things harder to compare to a standard full HD setup (different people use different font scaling options etc). When developers setup makes dogfooding more accurate (in terms of similarity to end hsers'), then more UI bugs are found sooner. Another thing is contrast and hue - many users use low quality screens (think office users) and they perceive the UI differently than a person on a high end monitor. Many subtleties are not visible at all.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
nailer 8y ago
> When you're doing web dev, it's important that devs test on devices similar to users'. FullHD seems most popular, how do you address that? More users are now on mobile, with high res displays.
flyingpenguin 8y ago
A good tiling window manager should let you easily make your windows 1/4th the size of your monitor in some corner.

enriquto 8y ago

> higher resolution changes everything when reading text. A high DPI screen puts much less strain on your eyes! This may not be for everybody. I actually prefer low-resolution displays, and use beautiful bitmapped fonts (without need for "antialiasing"). It looks much cleaner to me.

ahje 8y ago
Ditto. I stuck to 1650 x 900 for as long as I could, but alas, It's hard to get those monitors nowadays. I've since switched to full HD-screens, zooming everything to 150%-200%. It's readable in most cases, but considerably less pretty than bitmapped fonts on a lower-res screen.

nvarsj 8y ago

Is this really high DPI though? I think it has to do with font sharpness. What I've noticed is that Windows and Mac OS X both have poor font smoothing at normal DPIs - blurry fonts are the norm. When I swap to a modern Linux desktop however, the fonts look very good at regular DPI. The difference is apparent. You can also prove the sharpness effect to yourself by using bitmap fonts - they will look great on regular DPI monitors on any OS.

lultimouomo 8y ago
I work on a weekly base on Linux, Windows and MacOS; mostly Linux. HiDPI does make a huge difference for me, and I'd say even more so on Linux, where without HiDPI I suffer Firefox font rendering a lot (Chromium is a bit better). Sure some smoothing algorithm might work better for you and ease the problem; same with bitmap fonts. But try printing some text at 96dpi and at 300dpi and compare it side by side. 96dpi is not enough for comfort, and for years we've been pretending it is since there was no viable alternative. There is now. Hurray!
- ahartmetz 8y ago
  I'm all for higher DPI screens, but you need to take into account that typical reading distance for screens is larger than for text on paper. It is not really DPI that counts but dots per angular distance as seen from the eye.
- guiambros 8y ago
  > I work on a weekly base on Linux, Windows and MacOS; mostly Linux. HiDPI does make a huge difference for me... How good is Linux support for HiDPI these days? I've been delaying making the upgrade for a few years, waiting for better native support. Also, any idea if you can mix HiDPI screens with regular ones?
  - lultimouomo 8y ago
    Recent Gnome works very well with all-HiDPI; I had to leave XFCE when I switched to HiDPI because it hadn't good support. Recent is key here; I have been using Gnome in HiDPI mode for a couple of years but I had to do some tweaks to have it working well; now it seems to work more or less out of the box. Same holds for Qt based applications. Mixed DPI screens kind of works, but there are hitches; I definitely suggest going all in.