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Firefox Lands Wayland Fractional Scaling Support

SushiHippie 3y ago
Isn't there already fractional scaling support for wayland? I'm using sway and always used "MOZ_WAYLAND_ENABLE=1" and firefox always ran under native wayland without blur (like on XWayland).
- trillic 3y ago
  Fonts rendered correctly but I was having issues with WebGL textures rendering a bit blurry. We'll see if this fixes it.
- predictabl3 3y ago
  My understanding is that basically all clients were scaling to the next highest integer factor, and then rescaling back to the fractional size. With this, and support in the toolkits, it should be possible to be more efficient and have more accurate rendering. But yes, I have a keyboard shortcut that can change the scale of my entire desktop up or down in .1 increments. It's one of my favorite Linux things because macOS and Windows sure as hell can't come close to working that well with arbitrary scale factors.
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    macOS definitely but Windows has actually had equally an equally good per display fractional scaling API for much longer and apps like Firefox have been supporting it for many years now. I'm a huge Wayland (swaywm) fanboy myself and I'm excited about these changes but there is still more in the Wayland pipeline I'm eagerly waiting for so Linux catches up and surpasses macOS/Windows e.g. HDR (which is something Firefox has also been slower on). I think the fractional stuff is all in "about as good as one could ask the display server to do" state for Windows and Linux at this point, the rest is apps adopting it like we see here.
  - astrange 3y ago
    Rescaling is extremely efficient and not a problem. The reason macOS doesn't support arbitrary DPIs is because it's so hard to design the UI correctly to avoid things like pixel cracks; if you make everything to look like a website, don't use bitmap images, etc it's possible though. Instead it has dynamic type, which changes text sizes but not the rest of the UI scale.
- d_tr 3y ago
  This is not about Wayland support. It is about "true" fractional scaling support via the protocol mentioned in the article, instead of apps rendering at integer scales and then the compositor scaling them down to achieve a fractional overall factor. I guess this should make fonts look better and save some resources.
  - SushiHippie 3y ago
    Thanks, good to see that Wayland gets some love, I guess I never had any problems with how Firefox looks, but I don't mind if it removes one layer of "abstraction".
    - NoahKAndrews 3y ago
      If you didn't have fractional scaling enabled for your monitor, then you wouldn't have noticed a difference.
      - SushiHippie 3y ago
        I do have it enabled, that's why I notice a difference between XWayland and Wayland, otherwise I don't think I would have ever searched for the environment variable.
    - d_tr 3y ago
      My understanding is that downscaling basically throws away the effects of font hinting and of any type of algorithm aligning glyph edges to the pixel grid to make them look sharper. So depending on the user's personal tastes, their vision, their monitor's DPI and the font rendering algorithms used, the difference might range from clearly perceptible to none.
      - vetinari 3y ago
        At hidpi scales, you don't do font hinting or align to pixel grid. The resolution is high enough, so it is not needed to distort glyph shapes.
paul_funyun 3y ago
Sad to say, Wayland just isn't ready for prime time. Like Achilles and the tortoise, it's just not achievable for X to ever be overtaken.
- mattpallissard 3y ago
  I'm not sure why people think that. I been using sway since the early days. I don't even have xwayland installed. It's been mostly a non-issue. The only real pain for me was screen sharing, and that's been a solved problem for a few years now.
- Dr4kn 3y ago
  A software that gets almost no commits, which devs all now develop Wayland and won't get any modern features is never going to be overtaken? Last year x had [156](https://www.phoronix.com/news/XServer-2022-Development-Pace#:~:text=But%20it's%20not%20just%20on,lines%20and%20179k%20lines%20removed https://www.phoronix.com/news/XServer-2022-Development-Pace#....) commits that's almost as low as in 2003. On its high in 2008 it had over 2000. X is dying. All the development is on Wayland. Even the maintainers of x think it is an unmaintainable mess, which they do not understand. They either quit or work on Wayland. How long does a software need to be on life support to be overtaken? Read [this](https://www.phoronix.com/review/x_wayland_situation https://www.phoronix.com/review/x_wayland_situation) and you might understand why x got abandoned
  - paul_funyun 3y ago
    You'd expect less commits on a mature, full-featured product. That repairmen are always working on a car is no endorsement of its functionality.
- vetinari 3y ago
  Do you realize we are discussing such things here, that X doesn't support at all?

Isn't there already fractional scaling support for wayland? I'm using sway and always used "MOZ_WAYLAND_ENABLE=1" and firefox always ran under native wayland without blur (like on XWayland).

trillic 3y ago
Fonts rendered correctly but I was having issues with WebGL textures rendering a bit blurry. We'll see if this fixes it.
predictabl3 3y ago
My understanding is that basically all clients were scaling to the next highest integer factor, and then rescaling back to the fractional size. With this, and support in the toolkits, it should be possible to be more efficient and have more accurate rendering. But yes, I have a keyboard shortcut that can change the scale of my entire desktop up or down in .1 increments. It's one of my favorite Linux things because macOS and Windows sure as hell can't come close to working that well with arbitrary scale factors.
- zamadatix 3y ago
  macOS definitely but Windows has actually had equally an equally good per display fractional scaling API for much longer and apps like Firefox have been supporting it for many years now. I'm a huge Wayland (swaywm) fanboy myself and I'm excited about these changes but there is still more in the Wayland pipeline I'm eagerly waiting for so Linux catches up and surpasses macOS/Windows e.g. HDR (which is something Firefox has also been slower on). I think the fractional stuff is all in "about as good as one could ask the display server to do" state for Windows and Linux at this point, the rest is apps adopting it like we see here.
- astrange 3y ago
  Rescaling is extremely efficient and not a problem. The reason macOS doesn't support arbitrary DPIs is because it's so hard to design the UI correctly to avoid things like pixel cracks; if you make everything to look like a website, don't use bitmap images, etc it's possible though. Instead it has dynamic type, which changes text sizes but not the rest of the UI scale.
d_tr 3y ago
This is not about Wayland support. It is about "true" fractional scaling support via the protocol mentioned in the article, instead of apps rendering at integer scales and then the compositor scaling them down to achieve a fractional overall factor. I guess this should make fonts look better and save some resources.
- SushiHippie 3y ago
  Thanks, good to see that Wayland gets some love, I guess I never had any problems with how Firefox looks, but I don't mind if it removes one layer of "abstraction".
  - NoahKAndrews 3y ago
    If you didn't have fractional scaling enabled for your monitor, then you wouldn't have noticed a difference.
    - SushiHippie 3y ago
      I do have it enabled, that's why I notice a difference between XWayland and Wayland, otherwise I don't think I would have ever searched for the environment variable.
  - d_tr 3y ago
    My understanding is that downscaling basically throws away the effects of font hinting and of any type of algorithm aligning glyph edges to the pixel grid to make them look sharper. So depending on the user's personal tastes, their vision, their monitor's DPI and the font rendering algorithms used, the difference might range from clearly perceptible to none.
    - vetinari 3y ago
      At hidpi scales, you don't do font hinting or align to pixel grid. The resolution is high enough, so it is not needed to distort glyph shapes.

paul_funyun 3y ago

Sad to say, Wayland just isn't ready for prime time. Like Achilles and the tortoise, it's just not achievable for X to ever be overtaken.

mattpallissard 3y ago
I'm not sure why people think that. I been using sway since the early days. I don't even have xwayland installed. It's been mostly a non-issue. The only real pain for me was screen sharing, and that's been a solved problem for a few years now.
Dr4kn 3y ago
A software that gets almost no commits, which devs all now develop Wayland and won't get any modern features is never going to be overtaken? Last year x had [156](https://www.phoronix.com/news/XServer-2022-Development-Pace#:~:text=But%20it's%20not%20just%20on,lines%20and%20179k%20lines%20removed https://www.phoronix.com/news/XServer-2022-Development-Pace#....) commits that's almost as low as in 2003. On its high in 2008 it had over 2000. X is dying. All the development is on Wayland. Even the maintainers of x think it is an unmaintainable mess, which they do not understand. They either quit or work on Wayland. How long does a software need to be on life support to be overtaken? Read [this](https://www.phoronix.com/review/x_wayland_situation https://www.phoronix.com/review/x_wayland_situation) and you might understand why x got abandoned
- paul_funyun 3y ago
  You'd expect less commits on a mature, full-featured product. That repairmen are always working on a car is no endorsement of its functionality.
vetinari 3y ago
Do you realize we are discussing such things here, that X doesn't support at all?