3 ms·

Given the somewhat inconsistent HiDPI-support in a lot of the sorts of tools you need to be able to use in coding, choosing to use a 4K monitor is brave.

eknkc 2y ago
Is this a linux thing? Can’t think of any real issue on mac.
- morsch 2y ago
  Haven't had any issues on Linux either. I guess ymmv.
  - eknkc 2y ago
    Last time I tried an hdpi display on linux it was not good. But that was a couple years ago so I assumed things would probably be much better now. Was curious if it is still bad.
    - marginalia_nu 2y ago
      It's slowly getting better, and depending on what you're doing you may or may not run into issues, but it's still leagues behind e.g. Windows 10.
qwerty456127 2y ago
You don't have to use HiDPI with 4K. I use a 4K display at 100% scale so everything just fits beautifully on it as if it was 4 monitors without borders.
- marginalia_nu 2y ago
  This is a 28" monitor though.
faeriechangling 2y ago
What do you still use without HiDPI support? It's been a long time since most of the market moved from <110ppi monitors. There's enormous quantities of 1080p 14" laptops, those are almost as HiDPI as this.
- marginalia_nu 2y ago
  Linux still has pretty sketchy HiDPI support. It's marginally better on Wayland than X, but then you can kiss NVidia (and CUDA) good-bye. You can get it relatively consistent, but will still end up with a few older applications rendering at native resolutions (sometimes partially, where the text is fine but icons are too small). Most distributions also don't offer any universal way of configuring DPI scaling. I think Ubuntu does, but last time I checked they were almost alone in that. Like contemporary Linux has HiDPI support in the same sense Kdenlive is a video editor. It's technically true but leaves a lot to be desired.
NelsonMinar 2y ago
What tools are you thinking of? My impression in Windows is any code written to UI standards of the last 10 years or so works on HiDPI. (Ironically this does not include the Nullsoft installer a lot of tools distribute with. But while the installer scales badly the tool once installed is fine.)
xanathar 2y ago
Plus a waste of computing resources and energy that is better spent elsewhere rather than pointless eye candy.
- rys 2y ago
  For me, if you spend your life reading and writing prose or code, text rendering quality is surely paramount. I’m curious what you think the energy should be spent on instead.
  - xanathar 2y ago
    Compiling? Staying cool and not turning on the fan? Avoiding unnecessary waste? Really anything rather than a thing that has only drawbacks. As far as readability goes... can't see a difference with monospace text, maybe even worse as fonts tend to be thinner and need adjustments. Maybe a little better with proportional text on websites and documents.
  - mrob 2y ago
    Text legibility is paramount, not rendering quality. Monochrome bitmap fonts are extremely legible once you're used to them, and they don't need 4K displays. Vector fonts with high-quality hinting and antialiasing disabled are almost as good.
    - bitwize 2y ago
      It costs almost nothing to your GPU to render fonts in high quality with subpixel antialiasing. Especially when you can cache the rendered glyphs in a texture for reuse.
      - mrob 2y ago
        It costs you sharpness.

eknkc 2y ago

Is this a linux thing? Can’t think of any real issue on mac.

morsch 2y ago
Haven't had any issues on Linux either. I guess ymmv.
- eknkc 2y ago
  Last time I tried an hdpi display on linux it was not good. But that was a couple years ago so I assumed things would probably be much better now. Was curious if it is still bad.
  - marginalia_nu 2y ago
    It's slowly getting better, and depending on what you're doing you may or may not run into issues, but it's still leagues behind e.g. Windows 10.

qwerty456127 2y ago

You don't have to use HiDPI with 4K. I use a 4K display at 100% scale so everything just fits beautifully on it as if it was 4 monitors without borders.

marginalia_nu 2y ago
This is a 28" monitor though.

faeriechangling 2y ago

What do you still use without HiDPI support? It's been a long time since most of the market moved from <110ppi monitors. There's enormous quantities of 1080p 14" laptops, those are almost as HiDPI as this.

marginalia_nu 2y ago
Linux still has pretty sketchy HiDPI support. It's marginally better on Wayland than X, but then you can kiss NVidia (and CUDA) good-bye. You can get it relatively consistent, but will still end up with a few older applications rendering at native resolutions (sometimes partially, where the text is fine but icons are too small). Most distributions also don't offer any universal way of configuring DPI scaling. I think Ubuntu does, but last time I checked they were almost alone in that. Like contemporary Linux has HiDPI support in the same sense Kdenlive is a video editor. It's technically true but leaves a lot to be desired.

NelsonMinar 2y ago

What tools are you thinking of? My impression in Windows is any code written to UI standards of the last 10 years or so works on HiDPI. (Ironically this does not include the Nullsoft installer a lot of tools distribute with. But while the installer scales badly the tool once installed is fine.)

xanathar 2y ago

Plus a waste of computing resources and energy that is better spent elsewhere rather than pointless eye candy.

rys 2y ago
For me, if you spend your life reading and writing prose or code, text rendering quality is surely paramount. I’m curious what you think the energy should be spent on instead.
- xanathar 2y ago
  Compiling? Staying cool and not turning on the fan? Avoiding unnecessary waste? Really anything rather than a thing that has only drawbacks. As far as readability goes... can't see a difference with monospace text, maybe even worse as fonts tend to be thinner and need adjustments. Maybe a little better with proportional text on websites and documents.
- mrob 2y ago
  Text legibility is paramount, not rendering quality. Monochrome bitmap fonts are extremely legible once you're used to them, and they don't need 4K displays. Vector fonts with high-quality hinting and antialiasing disabled are almost as good.
  - bitwize 2y ago
    It costs almost nothing to your GPU to render fonts in high quality with subpixel antialiasing. Especially when you can cache the rendered glyphs in a texture for reuse.
    - mrob 2y ago
      It costs you sharpness.