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nah, hidpi on Windows is fine if you know what you're doing as an application developer. it's those who haven't bothered to make the changes recommended or req

nah, hidpi on Windows is fine if you know what you're doing as an application developer. it's those who haven't bothered to make the changes recommended or required that make windows hidpi support look worse than it is in single-monitor setups. multiple monitors on Windows with varying dpi scales is not great though, and probably can't be until some backwards compatibility promises are broken or expired.

nickpp 5y ago
In the latest Windows 11 there are a bunch of native OS dialog which are not high-dpi aware and look pixelated on my 4K monitor. If even Microsoft can’t be bothered, what do you expect from app developers?!
- int_19h 5y ago
  Dialogs themselves are HiDPI-aware; but if the app that opens them doesn't advertise itself as HiDPI-aware, it doesn't help.
solarmist 5y ago
>nah, hidpi on Windows is fine… Exactly, it’s fine. Apple has never settled for “fine” either it’s great or it gets cuts at some point. >if you know what you’re doing as an application developer. Apple also tends to avoid wading into footgun waters to keep quality (for 3rd party devs) as high as possible across the board.
xenadu02 5y ago
> nah, hidpi on Windows is fine if you know what you're doing as an application developer. Many (most?) don't or can't be bothered so the end result in practice is that it doesn't work. Microsoft has been chasing the HiDPI fairy for decades and the situation hasn't really gotten better. They still ship software (both in and outside the OS) that isn't HiDPI aware. Retina prioritizes making it easy for developers to adopt: Double the size of artwork, points are 2 pixels, Done. Are there quibbles? Sure. But millions of people are looking at HiDPI screens where every single thing in the OS and all third party apps they use fully support 2x. No one lives in the magical world where arbitrary scaling factors are supported. Doing that as a developer is just too damn complicated when @1x + @2x (and maybe @3x) makes 98% of people happy and is vastly less work.
- astrange 5y ago
  > Microsoft has been chasing the HiDPI fairy for decades and the situation hasn't really gotten better. Well, I want to say it has gotten better. Their Metro design is what a UI has to look like to work with arbitrary scales and still solve those problems I mentioned. The downsides are it uses simple geometric shapes and has tons of whitespace everywhere so text can reflow in longer languages. This is probably another big reason behind “flat design” in modern websites, the old skuomorphic (sp) stuff would be hard to do with vectors. (As for vectors in UI, they have other performance issues which are important if you like live resizing windows.)
- int_19h 5y ago
  The vast majority of apps on modern Windows (10+) just works. I've been running all kinds of weird scaling factors like 175% for the past several years with no issues.

nickpp 5y ago

In the latest Windows 11 there are a bunch of native OS dialog which are not high-dpi aware and look pixelated on my 4K monitor. If even Microsoft can’t be bothered, what do you expect from app developers?!

int_19h 5y ago
Dialogs themselves are HiDPI-aware; but if the app that opens them doesn't advertise itself as HiDPI-aware, it doesn't help.

solarmist 5y ago

>nah, hidpi on Windows is fine… Exactly, it’s fine. Apple has never settled for “fine” either it’s great or it gets cuts at some point. >if you know what you’re doing as an application developer. Apple also tends to avoid wading into footgun waters to keep quality (for 3rd party devs) as high as possible across the board.

xenadu02 5y ago

> nah, hidpi on Windows is fine if you know what you're doing as an application developer. Many (most?) don't or can't be bothered so the end result in practice is that it doesn't work. Microsoft has been chasing the HiDPI fairy for decades and the situation hasn't really gotten better. They still ship software (both in and outside the OS) that isn't HiDPI aware. Retina prioritizes making it easy for developers to adopt: Double the size of artwork, points are 2 pixels, Done. Are there quibbles? Sure. But millions of people are looking at HiDPI screens where every single thing in the OS and all third party apps they use fully support 2x. No one lives in the magical world where arbitrary scaling factors are supported. Doing that as a developer is just too damn complicated when @1x + @2x (and maybe @3x) makes 98% of people happy and is vastly less work.

astrange 5y ago
> Microsoft has been chasing the HiDPI fairy for decades and the situation hasn't really gotten better. Well, I want to say it has gotten better. Their Metro design is what a UI has to look like to work with arbitrary scales and still solve those problems I mentioned. The downsides are it uses simple geometric shapes and has tons of whitespace everywhere so text can reflow in longer languages. This is probably another big reason behind “flat design” in modern websites, the old skuomorphic (sp) stuff would be hard to do with vectors. (As for vectors in UI, they have other performance issues which are important if you like live resizing windows.)
int_19h 5y ago
The vast majority of apps on modern Windows (10+) just works. I've been running all kinds of weird scaling factors like 175% for the past several years with no issues.