5 ms·

Can you please explain what use hi DPI displays have in general? I bought one and it was almost nothing but disappointment except viewing photos. For me it conc

by IYasha 4y ago

Can you please explain what use hi DPI displays have in general? I bought one and it was almost nothing but disappointment except viewing photos. For me it concludes as purely wasted computational (and electrical) power.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Fonts and GUI elements look much sharper. After going HighDPI i can't go back.
- usrn 4y ago
  Honestly adwaita will look like crap no matter what the resolution is. (And before you get upset about the Gnome dev's feelings getting hurt, they've decided that this is the best theme and no one should ever use anything different.)
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    That's why I use KDE, since I saw how Gnome devs treat font rendering issues from the community[1]. And for some reason this is the most popular linux DE. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. [1] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/3787 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/3787
    - usrn 4y ago
      You're not crazy, whatever Redhat decides eventually becomes popular because that's what people get paid to work with. It's very similar to the situation with Windows. Also, I think most desktop Linux users that care probably use a small WM rather than either Gnome or KDE. Gnome also gets a lot of attention because GTK is easier to work with than QT.
      - skeletal88 4y ago
        I care but I don't understand the craziness about tiling wms, xfce etc. I like the convenience that KDE provides for me. To me the guys who casually always mention "btw yeah I'm using this tiling wm and ..." are just smugly showing off, like vegans or people who own too expensive bicycles.
        int_19h 4y ago
        I don't think tiling WMs and Xfce can be lumped together like that. Xfce is very much a traditional DE with "batteries included"; it's more lightweight than Gnome and KDE, but still way closer to them than most lightweight WMs. I'd say it's closest to MATE (which, to remind, is itself a fork of Gnome from before it went nuts).
nicoburns 4y ago
Better text rendering is the main advantage. This means that you can set text sizes smaller and have a lot more usable screen real estate.
- IYasha 4y ago
  I tried using a 4K IPS display for usual programming tasks, but the usual fonts become so painfully tiny that it's just unbearable (and I have almost perfect vision). Combining a normal old display with modern 4K also creates lots of problems. For example, I drag windows and tool boxes a lot between desktops when working with code or in 3D. The perfect resolution for my old-school self is now a WQHD 2560*1440. Not in any "hi-dpi" sense.
  - KptMarchewa 4y ago
    >4K IPS display It's not what person above suggests. It's about something like 5K display rendered in 200% resolution, so it's equivalent to 1440p. Then you can have slightly downscale fonts compared to "raw" 1440p since you'll still have more clarity due to higher pixels per inch.
  - RajT88 4y ago
    It is for this reason I prefer 2 1080p monitors connected to my work laptop. I prefer physical size for my screen real estate as opposed to jamming more onto a single display. Scaling between different display sizes as you move windows around doesn't work well on Windows so I also prefer my laptop display to have the same resolution. My wife takes a different approach: Giant, cheap 4k TV with windows spread out connected to her work machine.
speedgoose 4y ago
The text looks a lot nicer, without subpixel rendering which can also save computational power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering
- IYasha 4y ago
  I always disable this crap, fine with pixels %)) OK, I understand pixel interpolation is useful in printed media production, but on displays... Win95 still looks great to me.
  - Legogris 4y ago
    It does make a huge difference for readability of Chinese/Japanese/Korean in small sizes (e.g. comparable to reading a normal book or paper).
    - IYasha 4y ago
      Now, that makes a good point, thank you!
  - atemerev 4y ago
    Well, people have different opinions about it. I personally hate visible pixels with passion. I was an early adopter of HiDPI displays (starting with IBM T221 back in 2007), and I don't understand how anybody could settle for less after they see this gorgeous high resolution.
    - Silica6149 4y ago
      It's probably the fact that most people haven't experienced it. Regular consumers think macbooks have magically "better" displays than most windows laptops but can't name the exact reason. But just getting a high DPI laptop/monitor gets the same effect.
- mikae1 4y ago
  Anecdotally, I've used HiDPI alongside 1x res monitors since 2015 now, and I can honestly say I don't care much about which one I'm using for reading and writing. What does matter though is gray uniformity and the size of the color gamut. Especially for the work I do (video and photography).
hansword 4y ago
I had an old iPad (before retina) and used it for general tasks, sometimes. My newer hiDPI iPad has become my primary device for everything but actual work. I would never have read a book on the old iPad, I read several in hiDPI. It really changes the way you read if the fonts are (perceptually) as crisp as print.
- hansword 4y ago
  Having said that, I still use a 1080p display for work and watching video So my tiny iPad has like twice as many pixels as my big screen.
pivo 4y ago
As others have said, smooth, crisp font rendering. I’ve been using high DPI displays for almost 10 years now and would never consider going back. Using a 1440 monitor, say, feels to me like using a machine with a floppy disk: an anachronism. My wife though swears she cannot tell the difference and doesn’t care which she uses. This boggles my mind and is actually a bit frustrating to me, but that’s my problem. So, I’m interested in if you can tell the difference but don’t care or if it’s something else. I’ve always used a Mac though, maybe that’s the difference? Never seen Linux/Windows in 4K.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- goosedragons 4y ago
  I don't care that much but I do notice. Most PC laptops these days are 1080p and at their sizes this is generally 160+ PPI which is about the same as a 27" 4K display so it looks fine to me. Apple also has made their text rendering look worse on non-retina screens a few versions back which exacerbates the problem compared to Windows and Linux.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  1440p can be quite crisp if you're using pixel-perfect, antialiased rendering and looking at the whole screen. Even for text. Anything higher is either overkill or (most often) compensating for defects in the rendering pipeline. (In fact, there's a viable argument that even 1080p ought to suffice, and 768p be "good enough for most uses".)
- windowsrookie 4y ago
  I switch back and forth between modern High DPI displays and older ~1440p displays. I don't really care myself. High resolution has never mattered to me. I'm the same way with video tho, I can still watch 480p YouTube video and it doesn't bother me at all. Whereas some people I know can't stand watching 1 second of video below 1080p.
ISO-morphism 4y ago
For a programmer, screen real estate (dependent on scaling). I look at 4k 100% scaling as having condensed two 1080p monitors without bezels.
- sk0g 4y ago
  4k is actually exactly 4 1080p screens' worth of pixels, unless you mean non-100% scaling.
zelos 4y ago
Switching from 1900x1200 to a 4k monitor was night and day for me. So much less eye strain by the end of the day.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  In the setup you like now, how far away is your monitor from your eyes? How many pages of text do you keep open typically? seen at once
minimaul 4y ago
For me, it's all about text. I spend my whole day staring at text in some form - email, code, etc. A good high DPI display creates a much better text shape for the same physical size text on screen (and doesn't have as much of an issue with trying to snap vertical text to actual pixels, etc). It makes reading a lot easier for me - and vastly decreases how tired I feel after a day of it.

by IYasha 4y ago

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

Fonts and GUI elements look much sharper. After going HighDPI i can't go back.

usrn 4y ago
Honestly adwaita will look like crap no matter what the resolution is. (And before you get upset about the Gnome dev's feelings getting hurt, they've decided that this is the best theme and no one should ever use anything different.)
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  That's why I use KDE, since I saw how Gnome devs treat font rendering issues from the community[1]. And for some reason this is the most popular linux DE. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. [1] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/3787 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/3787
  - usrn 4y ago
    You're not crazy, whatever Redhat decides eventually becomes popular because that's what people get paid to work with. It's very similar to the situation with Windows. Also, I think most desktop Linux users that care probably use a small WM rather than either Gnome or KDE. Gnome also gets a lot of attention because GTK is easier to work with than QT.
    - skeletal88 4y ago
      I care but I don't understand the craziness about tiling wms, xfce etc. I like the convenience that KDE provides for me. To me the guys who casually always mention "btw yeah I'm using this tiling wm and ..." are just smugly showing off, like vegans or people who own too expensive bicycles.
      - int_19h 4y ago
        I don't think tiling WMs and Xfce can be lumped together like that. Xfce is very much a traditional DE with "batteries included"; it's more lightweight than Gnome and KDE, but still way closer to them than most lightweight WMs. I'd say it's closest to MATE (which, to remind, is itself a fork of Gnome from before it went nuts).

nicoburns 4y ago

Better text rendering is the main advantage. This means that you can set text sizes smaller and have a lot more usable screen real estate.

IYasha 4y ago
I tried using a 4K IPS display for usual programming tasks, but the usual fonts become so painfully tiny that it's just unbearable (and I have almost perfect vision). Combining a normal old display with modern 4K also creates lots of problems. For example, I drag windows and tool boxes a lot between desktops when working with code or in 3D. The perfect resolution for my old-school self is now a WQHD 2560*1440. Not in any "hi-dpi" sense.
- KptMarchewa 4y ago
  >4K IPS display It's not what person above suggests. It's about something like 5K display rendered in 200% resolution, so it's equivalent to 1440p. Then you can have slightly downscale fonts compared to "raw" 1440p since you'll still have more clarity due to higher pixels per inch.
- RajT88 4y ago
  It is for this reason I prefer 2 1080p monitors connected to my work laptop. I prefer physical size for my screen real estate as opposed to jamming more onto a single display. Scaling between different display sizes as you move windows around doesn't work well on Windows so I also prefer my laptop display to have the same resolution. My wife takes a different approach: Giant, cheap 4k TV with windows spread out connected to her work machine.

speedgoose 4y ago

The text looks a lot nicer, without subpixel rendering which can also save computational power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering

IYasha 4y ago
I always disable this crap, fine with pixels %)) OK, I understand pixel interpolation is useful in printed media production, but on displays... Win95 still looks great to me.
- Legogris 4y ago
  It does make a huge difference for readability of Chinese/Japanese/Korean in small sizes (e.g. comparable to reading a normal book or paper).
  - IYasha 4y ago
    Now, that makes a good point, thank you!
- atemerev 4y ago
  Well, people have different opinions about it. I personally hate visible pixels with passion. I was an early adopter of HiDPI displays (starting with IBM T221 back in 2007), and I don't understand how anybody could settle for less after they see this gorgeous high resolution.
  - Silica6149 4y ago
    It's probably the fact that most people haven't experienced it. Regular consumers think macbooks have magically "better" displays than most windows laptops but can't name the exact reason. But just getting a high DPI laptop/monitor gets the same effect.
mikae1 4y ago
Anecdotally, I've used HiDPI alongside 1x res monitors since 2015 now, and I can honestly say I don't care much about which one I'm using for reading and writing. What does matter though is gray uniformity and the size of the color gamut. Especially for the work I do (video and photography).

hansword 4y ago

I had an old iPad (before retina) and used it for general tasks, sometimes. My newer hiDPI iPad has become my primary device for everything but actual work. I would never have read a book on the old iPad, I read several in hiDPI. It really changes the way you read if the fonts are (perceptually) as crisp as print.

hansword 4y ago
Having said that, I still use a 1080p display for work and watching video So my tiny iPad has like twice as many pixels as my big screen.

pivo 4y ago

As others have said, smooth, crisp font rendering. I’ve been using high DPI displays for almost 10 years now and would never consider going back. Using a 1440 monitor, say, feels to me like using a machine with a floppy disk: an anachronism. My wife though swears she cannot tell the difference and doesn’t care which she uses. This boggles my mind and is actually a bit frustrating to me, but that’s my problem. So, I’m interested in if you can tell the difference but don’t care or if it’s something else. I’ve always used a Mac though, maybe that’s the difference? Never seen Linux/Windows in 4K.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
goosedragons 4y ago
I don't care that much but I do notice. Most PC laptops these days are 1080p and at their sizes this is generally 160+ PPI which is about the same as a 27" 4K display so it looks fine to me. Apple also has made their text rendering look worse on non-retina screens a few versions back which exacerbates the problem compared to Windows and Linux.
zozbot234 4y ago
1440p can be quite crisp if you're using pixel-perfect, antialiased rendering and looking at the whole screen. Even for text. Anything higher is either overkill or (most often) compensating for defects in the rendering pipeline. (In fact, there's a viable argument that even 1080p ought to suffice, and 768p be "good enough for most uses".)
windowsrookie 4y ago
I switch back and forth between modern High DPI displays and older ~1440p displays. I don't really care myself. High resolution has never mattered to me. I'm the same way with video tho, I can still watch 480p YouTube video and it doesn't bother me at all. Whereas some people I know can't stand watching 1 second of video below 1080p.

ISO-morphism 4y ago

For a programmer, screen real estate (dependent on scaling). I look at 4k 100% scaling as having condensed two 1080p monitors without bezels.

sk0g 4y ago
4k is actually exactly 4 1080p screens' worth of pixels, unless you mean non-100% scaling.

zelos 4y ago

Switching from 1900x1200 to a 4k monitor was night and day for me. So much less eye strain by the end of the day.

mistrial9 4y ago
In the setup you like now, how far away is your monitor from your eyes? How many pages of text do you keep open typically? seen at once

minimaul 4y ago

For me, it's all about text. I spend my whole day staring at text in some form - email, code, etc. A good high DPI display creates a much better text shape for the same physical size text on screen (and doesn't have as much of an issue with trying to snap vertical text to actual pixels, etc). It makes reading a lot easier for me - and vastly decreases how tired I feel after a day of it.