5 ms·

I was going to say something about it being 10 years now since Apple made high DPI screens mainstream. Windows still doesn't have it working 100% yet.

grepfru_it 4y ago
Hmm maybe I'm missing something but I have not had any scaling problems in Windows. Maybe an argument could be made that adjusting DPI is as easy as MacOS as of Win 11 (maybe Win 10 too but I didn't use Windows too much then), but I've never had a problem increasing scaling on any of my 4k screens
- Firmwarrior 4y ago
  Windows has a lot of trouble when you have two monitors with different scaling amounts You drag an app between them and it goes apeshit, very annoying Otherwise it seems to work for me
- vetinari 4y ago
  It is easy to find windows app, that is either blurry (basically almost all installers), or is confused by hidpi (take any qt app and you have 1:1 chance it will get it wrong, like this: https://imgur.com/a/Ad0ZkmX https://imgur.com/a/Ad0ZkmX).
chrismorgan 4y ago
On the specific topic here, fractional scaling, macOS gets it disastrously wrong, only supporting downscaling, which means that it’s impossible to get pixel-perfect output on fractional scales, which are the norm on most of their devices. I seriously can’t comprehend how they ended up going that way, given that they were the ones in a position to force developers to get things right, far more than Windows, but no, they just didn’t even try. On the contrary, Windows has worked with fractional scaling from the start of its high-DPI story, and although it did take a while to get it right in all circumstances (I think the last pieces came in 2017, with DPI_AWARENESS_CONTEXT_PER_MONITOR_AWARE_V2 and also incidentally GDI scaling to automatically improve most older, DPI-unaware apps), it’s been robust since on all but a few badly-made apps that claim DPI-awareness but actually lack it (and you can forcibly change how they behave if necessary).
- Conan_Kudo 4y ago
  macOS got it "wrong" because their own displays were all integer scaled. They don't care about the rest.
  - chrismorgan 4y ago
    I don’t have any Apple hardware, but my recollection from seeing those who do a few years back (including when they first introduced the Retina displays) is that all of these laptops were defaulting to non-integer scales, and at least a little uncomfortable at 2×.
  - izacus 4y ago
    Except that they haven't been setting their displays to integer scale for a few generations now.
  - ccouzens 4y ago
    Indeed. On an external screen that would be most comfortable at about 125% MacOS will only offer you 100%.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - vetinari 4y ago
    They used to be, but not anymore. However, they switched, because even if not pixel perfect, it is good enough. At sizes used by their laptop, most users are not going to notice that it is not pixel perfect. The system they use gets them something: 1) apps do not have bother with fractional scaling, so they do not get to bother about rounding errors and 2) they get to use output encoder for scaling, which is essentially for free, instead of GPU, which will take its toll on power consumption and GPU load.
  - Ericson2314 4y ago
    This has nothing to do with device resolutions. This is about does one want UI elements to be scaled anywhere between 1x and 2x.
- 4y ago

grepfru_it 4y ago

Hmm maybe I'm missing something but I have not had any scaling problems in Windows. Maybe an argument could be made that adjusting DPI is as easy as MacOS as of Win 11 (maybe Win 10 too but I didn't use Windows too much then), but I've never had a problem increasing scaling on any of my 4k screens

Firmwarrior 4y ago
Windows has a lot of trouble when you have two monitors with different scaling amounts You drag an app between them and it goes apeshit, very annoying Otherwise it seems to work for me
vetinari 4y ago
It is easy to find windows app, that is either blurry (basically almost all installers), or is confused by hidpi (take any qt app and you have 1:1 chance it will get it wrong, like this: https://imgur.com/a/Ad0ZkmX https://imgur.com/a/Ad0ZkmX).

chrismorgan 4y ago

On the specific topic here, fractional scaling, macOS gets it disastrously wrong, only supporting downscaling, which means that it’s impossible to get pixel-perfect output on fractional scales, which are the norm on most of their devices. I seriously can’t comprehend how they ended up going that way, given that they were the ones in a position to force developers to get things right, far more than Windows, but no, they just didn’t even try. On the contrary, Windows has worked with fractional scaling from the start of its high-DPI story, and although it did take a while to get it right in all circumstances (I think the last pieces came in 2017, with DPI_AWARENESS_CONTEXT_PER_MONITOR_AWARE_V2 and also incidentally GDI scaling to automatically improve most older, DPI-unaware apps), it’s been robust since on all but a few badly-made apps that claim DPI-awareness but actually lack it (and you can forcibly change how they behave if necessary).

Conan_Kudo 4y ago
macOS got it "wrong" because their own displays were all integer scaled. They don't care about the rest.
- chrismorgan 4y ago
  I don’t have any Apple hardware, but my recollection from seeing those who do a few years back (including when they first introduced the Retina displays) is that all of these laptops were defaulting to non-integer scales, and at least a little uncomfortable at 2×.
- izacus 4y ago
  Except that they haven't been setting their displays to integer scale for a few generations now.
- ccouzens 4y ago
  Indeed. On an external screen that would be most comfortable at about 125% MacOS will only offer you 100%.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- vetinari 4y ago
  They used to be, but not anymore. However, they switched, because even if not pixel perfect, it is good enough. At sizes used by their laptop, most users are not going to notice that it is not pixel perfect. The system they use gets them something: 1) apps do not have bother with fractional scaling, so they do not get to bother about rounding errors and 2) they get to use output encoder for scaling, which is essentially for free, instead of GPU, which will take its toll on power consumption and GPU load.
- Ericson2314 4y ago
  This has nothing to do with device resolutions. This is about does one want UI elements to be scaled anywhere between 1x and 2x.
4y ago