4 ms·

What can you recommend?

jsheard 2y ago
4K 27-32" monitors at 144hz or better are a commodity at this point, just get whatever is currently cheapest and has RTINGS seal of approval. LGs are generally a safe choice. If you are a Mac user then you have to compromise though, 4K at those sizes isn't dense enough to meet Apples ~220dpi Retina standard, and the monitors that do meet that standard are all limited to 60hz (and hideously expensive). You either have to deal with Apples janky fractional DPI scaling, or put up with 60hz for now.
- microtonal 2y ago
  Fully agree with the last part. If you are a Mac user, just get an Apple Studio Display. It's Retina, the integration with macOS is top-notch, and the speakers are pretty good. Initially the camera was not great (as pointed out by early reviews), but subsequent firmware updates have made it much better. Oh and it actually gets regular firmware updates and fixes -- it runs on Apple Silicon and uses a stripped-down iOS.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - jsheard 2y ago
    It is a nice monitor... but I would certainly hope so for what it costs. $1600+ for a non-HDR LCD monitor is pretty eye-watering when OLED monitors are arriving at <$1200 now. If you need Retina then you don't have much of a choice though, I know.
- angoragoats 2y ago
  I am probably a bigger Apple critic than most, but I genuinely don’t understand the commonly stated sentiment that Apple is bad at fractional scaling. I’ve been running 27” 4K monitors at “looks like 1440p” scaling on my MBPs for years, and I literally cannot tell the difference in quality between the built in display and my monitors. Is there some particular app or use case where it’s more noticeable?
  - drh 2y ago
    It’s likely the built-in display is also fractionally scaling. IIRC it has been that way by default for several generations of MBP now.
    - angoragoats 2y ago
      Duh, I hadn’t ever considered that possibility. Thanks! I’ll set it to 2x if so, and see if I can notice a difference.
  - jsheard 2y ago
    Apple only supports pixel-perfect rendering at 1x or 2x scales, if you choose anything inbetween then they render at a non-native resolution then resample the result to fit the displays actual resolution. That has two effects, the scaling means the results aren't as sharp as they could be, and the oversampled rendering means there's a performance overhead (in your case the GPU is actually rendering 5K internally, which is then scaled down to 4K). The latter was more of an issue with Intel Macs, the Apple Silicon GPUs are generally beefy and efficient enough to take it in stride. If you don't notice it then that's fine, but some people do, particularly if they are used to Windows' pixel-perfect fractional scaling.
    - angoragoats 2y ago
      Yeah, I understand how it works, I just don’t notice any real-world difference. I never saw any evidence that Intel Macs were slower at it either; I think that part is just an oft-repeated myth. However, another reply said the built-in display is likely fractionally scaled as well; I hadn’t considered that at all, so I’ll have to set it to 2x if so, and see if I notice a difference.
    - jasomill 2y ago
      Even on an Intel Mac with a discrete GPU, fractional scaling is rarely a problem. I typically run my trashcan Mac Pro (low-end D300 GPUs) at 4K/1440p, and only a few problems come to mind: • Microsoft Remote Desktop (with "Optimize for Retina displays" enabled and RDP host settings optimized for quality) is usable and looks good, but things that rapidly change large sections of the display, like dragging windows around, have noticeable lag. Though this lag is generally only reduced, not eliminated, at native resolutions, so changing modes in this case is rarely worthwhile, and the Windows applications I use most (Visual Studio, JetBrains Rider, and Windows Terminal) run well enough that I choose to work via 1440p-like Remote Desktop 99% of the time even when a local connection is only a KVM switch away. • Playing back 60 FPS videos in mpv with high quality presets and scaling algorithms drops frames. Default settings and lower frame rate videos both work fine, and in light of Retina superscaling, the quality difference is negligible, so I change mpv settings rather than scaling settings in this case. • While not a performance problem, displays from OSes designed with pixel-perfect rendering in mind (e.g., classic Mac OS, NeXTSTEP) look bad at higher-than-VGA resolutions. The only scenario where I typically switch to another scaling mode is when emulating these.

4K 27-32" monitors at 144hz or better are a commodity at this point, just get whatever is currently cheapest and has RTINGS seal of approval. LGs are generally a safe choice. If you are a Mac user then you have to compromise though, 4K at those sizes isn't dense enough to meet Apples ~220dpi Retina standard, and the monitors that do meet that standard are all limited to 60hz (and hideously expensive). You either have to deal with Apples janky fractional DPI scaling, or put up with 60hz for now.

microtonal 2y ago
Fully agree with the last part. If you are a Mac user, just get an Apple Studio Display. It's Retina, the integration with macOS is top-notch, and the speakers are pretty good. Initially the camera was not great (as pointed out by early reviews), but subsequent firmware updates have made it much better. Oh and it actually gets regular firmware updates and fixes -- it runs on Apple Silicon and uses a stripped-down iOS.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- jsheard 2y ago
  It is a nice monitor... but I would certainly hope so for what it costs. $1600+ for a non-HDR LCD monitor is pretty eye-watering when OLED monitors are arriving at <$1200 now. If you need Retina then you don't have much of a choice though, I know.
angoragoats 2y ago
I am probably a bigger Apple critic than most, but I genuinely don’t understand the commonly stated sentiment that Apple is bad at fractional scaling. I’ve been running 27” 4K monitors at “looks like 1440p” scaling on my MBPs for years, and I literally cannot tell the difference in quality between the built in display and my monitors. Is there some particular app or use case where it’s more noticeable?
- drh 2y ago
  It’s likely the built-in display is also fractionally scaling. IIRC it has been that way by default for several generations of MBP now.
  - angoragoats 2y ago
    Duh, I hadn’t ever considered that possibility. Thanks! I’ll set it to 2x if so, and see if I can notice a difference.
- jsheard 2y ago
  Apple only supports pixel-perfect rendering at 1x or 2x scales, if you choose anything inbetween then they render at a non-native resolution then resample the result to fit the displays actual resolution. That has two effects, the scaling means the results aren't as sharp as they could be, and the oversampled rendering means there's a performance overhead (in your case the GPU is actually rendering 5K internally, which is then scaled down to 4K). The latter was more of an issue with Intel Macs, the Apple Silicon GPUs are generally beefy and efficient enough to take it in stride. If you don't notice it then that's fine, but some people do, particularly if they are used to Windows' pixel-perfect fractional scaling.
  - angoragoats 2y ago
    Yeah, I understand how it works, I just don’t notice any real-world difference. I never saw any evidence that Intel Macs were slower at it either; I think that part is just an oft-repeated myth. However, another reply said the built-in display is likely fractionally scaled as well; I hadn’t considered that at all, so I’ll have to set it to 2x if so, and see if I notice a difference.
  - jasomill 2y ago
    Even on an Intel Mac with a discrete GPU, fractional scaling is rarely a problem. I typically run my trashcan Mac Pro (low-end D300 GPUs) at 4K/1440p, and only a few problems come to mind: • Microsoft Remote Desktop (with "Optimize for Retina displays" enabled and RDP host settings optimized for quality) is usable and looks good, but things that rapidly change large sections of the display, like dragging windows around, have noticeable lag. Though this lag is generally only reduced, not eliminated, at native resolutions, so changing modes in this case is rarely worthwhile, and the Windows applications I use most (Visual Studio, JetBrains Rider, and Windows Terminal) run well enough that I choose to work via 1440p-like Remote Desktop 99% of the time even when a local connection is only a KVM switch away. • Playing back 60 FPS videos in mpv with high quality presets and scaling algorithms drops frames. Default settings and lower frame rate videos both work fine, and in light of Retina superscaling, the quality difference is negligible, so I change mpv settings rather than scaling settings in this case. • While not a performance problem, displays from OSes designed with pixel-perfect rendering in mind (e.g., classic Mac OS, NeXTSTEP) look bad at higher-than-VGA resolutions. The only scenario where I typically switch to another scaling mode is when emulating these.