4 ms·

Now that windows 8 and mountain lion both for the first time credibly handle HiDpi I agree, it's about time we switched. But laptop makers are hardly to be roun

by trotsky 14y ago

Now that windows 8 and mountain lion both for the first time credibly handle HiDpi I agree, it's about time we switched. But laptop makers are hardly to be roundly chastised for not going super density until now (though higher than 1386x was always workable) since the windows experience of hidpi was pretty broken. Fonts would get clipped inside too small bounding boxes, things wouldn't line up, chroming would be too small and so on. Now all we need is linux to credibly support it as well, or at least a linux built for mouse use. There are still many, many usability issues in gnome with a high ppi screen. Also, lets not forget how far mobile gpus have come in the last few years, it would have been impossible to push that many pixels with anything but the most minimal of 3d use cases. It's a much more complex problem than linus would suggest by simply having oems switch panels. Witness how relatively complicated apple's solution is, which came after years of supposedly "somewhat" supporting hidpi. Use the hidpi macbook pro at 1920x on the ivy bridge gpu and it's still noticeably laggy at some 3d operations.

josteink 14y ago
Now that windows 8 and mountain lion both for the first time credibly handle HiDpi I agree, it's about time we switched. I made that decision back in 2004 when my laptop had 1680x1050 resolution. Since then I've only gone higher and I've yet to have problems. Windows seems to have handled this pretty well long, long ago so I have no idea what people are complaining about.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  Windows XP at 2560x1600 is ok on my 30" monitor, but it would be next to unusable on a 15" display. The Icons didn't scale to the resolution, so they would have been tiny. Lots of screen real estate though.
  - Flow 14y ago
    2560x1440 on my 27" iMac is ok, but I have to use CMD-+ on almost all web pages. Only in Safari is Magic Touchpad zooming smooth and iOS like, but I'd like to use Chrome. With 175% zoom I get some weird(and reported) errors in Chrome: http://imgur.com/TCDMj http://imgur.com/TCDMj The HiDPI solution in ML is not really a solution for resolutions that are somewhere in-between normal DPI and HiDPI.
    - ghshephard 14y ago
      Are you running Windows XP under BootCamp? I could see Windows XP being okay at 27" @2560x1440.
      - Flow 14y ago
        No, Mountain Lion. I am a bit disappointed since NeXT had Display Postscript back in the 80s and today we use bitmap icons far too much.
        podperson 14y ago
        NeXT had bitmap icons (TIFFs) displayed using display postscript. The problem with vector graphics in icons is that you'll still need multiple versions for different resolutions or the icons will look terrible at most resolutions, and then it's horribly inefficient to render them on-the-fly all the time so you'll end up caching them in memory and rescaling them... and -- oh look -- bitmaps.
        calinet6 14y ago
        Well, eventually it's going to come out as a bitmap—they'll still end up as pixels on the screen. Vector icons just give you the flexibility to do it really really well. Cache them, prerender them, I don't care what works best, just match the icon DPI to the screen DPI and we're good.
        mikeash 14y ago
        His point is that it's not good enough to simply match the DPIs and render. Small icons need actual visual differences, not just scaling, in order to really look good. Some icons completely change their character at small sizes, because what looks good when small is not the same as what looks good when large, regardless of DPI. So going pure-vector doesn't completely solve the problem, although it certainly can make it easier.
        14y ago
- trotsky 14y ago
  You turn the ui scaling up to 150% in windows 7 or previous and don't experience visual and alignment issues? Or do you mean that you don't find the elements too small when used at default size? There is no argument that the latter works fine, obviously 1680x isn't even particularly higher density than 1386x. For most people, though, once you get to say 11" 1920x or 15" 2880x you really need the scaling and my experience is that it used to be pretty half baked. Look at this skype screenshot at 125% for example: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5843/asus-zenbook-prime-ux21a-review/4 http://www.anandtech.com/show/5843/asus-zenbook-prime-ux21a-...
  - bduerst 14y ago
    I've used DPI scaling in Windows 7 for years now, since I used Win7 as the OS on my HTPC. My television is the only large enough surface where with the higher resolution i've needed larger text. That screenshot you link to is of Skype, and I would not use Skype as a standard example for anything. Even if MS owns it now, it is a poorly designed program by today's standards. The only UI problems I ever had with scaling was with iTunes, and that was at >150%. I write it off as Apple not optimizing the UI for Windows.
    - tomflack 14y ago
      > That screenshot you link to is of Skype, and I would not use Skype as a standard example for anything. Even if MS owns it now, it is a poorly designed program by today's standards. How does this in any way negate it's worth as an example of a problem? It's effectively saying "That problem, it's an invalid problem because I said so."
      - bduerst 14y ago
        Because the cause of the problem is Skype's (and iTunes) poor development, not Windows. I didn't state the problem is invalid, I merely provided anecdotal evidence from my years of experience in using DPI scaling in Windows to demonstrate that it's a non-issue.
        14y ago
UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
Care to share why you think Windows 8 handles DPI differently than Windows 7? At least in terms of native applications I've seen literally no differences; maybe Metro handles it better but Metro on the desktop is, well, Metro on the desktop. PS - I know it is now called "Modern UI" but that name sucks.
- trotsky 14y ago
  i do mean metro, mostly. aside from engine improvements microsoft has been really beating the drum with 3rd party developers to support high ppi screens out of the gate. booting the retina mbp on windows 8 works surprisingly from the start, i have it installed with bootcamp. A lot more detail about the mbp and 8: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tonyschr/archive/2012/08/29/windows-8-on-macbook-pro-with-retina-display.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tonyschr/archive/2012/08/29/windows-...
  - zokier 14y ago
    MS has been trying to get 3rd party developers make resolution independent apps for very long time now. Last time it was WPF that was supposed to solve all problems, now it's Metro. eg here is one blog post from 2006, which in turn refers to guide written in 2001 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/greg_schechter/archive/2006/08/07/690704.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/greg_schechter/archive/2006/08/07/69... iirc there was some similar blog-post series about high dpi stuff when windows 7 was released, but I couldn't find it now with google.
    - trotsky 14y ago
      It seems more baked in this time, with metro automatically engaging two different scaling targets (full hd and 2560x) as well as the baseline ~100dpi. So people will be in hidpi modes without engaging them, and a good number of them since 10" full hd is looking like a high volume form factor. All of the ui elements are vector, fonts obviously are, and there is built in support for switching out bitmaps for the 3 stated targets - even in css from the internet. Visual Studio 2012 has these dpis built in to its ui builder previewer along with the typical form factor previews. I guess time will tell but it certainly feels like the most credible attempt to date to me.
mtgx 14y ago
Well you're not supposed to use something as weak as Intel's integrated graphics.
- vetinari 14y ago
  Well, Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge integrated graphics is OK for most users (i.e. not for gamers and engineers, but for most people they are more than they need).
- hmottestad 14y ago
  The new macbook pro retina 13" uses only the intel 4000.
  - pdaddyo 14y ago
    I picked one up last weekend and it's surprisingly quick, at least whilst playing with things like WebGL and three.js.
- calinet6 14y ago
  The HD4000 runs surprisingly well at HiDPI res, actually. Haven't experienced any lag myself, and when needed the integrated nvidia GPU kicks in automatically without a hitch.
mtgx 14y ago
The hiDPI thing should only be meant as a transition. What we ultimately want, is for pages to look the same on the web, and the UI to look the same on the apps, but just have higher PPI. The hiDPI thing just enlarges them because Windows 8 and Mac OS are not resolution independent. What I want is for everything to work on 2560x1600 by default, with the same sizes we have today - not enlarged, and not smaller either.
- eropple 14y ago
  My retina MBP displays everything at "the same sizes we have today" right now, on a 2880x1800 panel.
anonymouz 14y ago
> There are still many, many usability issues in gnome with a high ppi screen. Would you care to mention some? My impression has always been that Gnome handles different DPI settings relatively well, but I'm no expert.
- sp332 14y ago
  I thought Gnome 3 has no DPI slider at all?
  - anonymouz 14y ago
    It uses the DPI setting from X, and you can then adjust the font size to your preference with the gsettings option 'org.gnome.desktop.interface text-scaling-factor'. I believe the idea is to set the DPI's in X to the physical DPI of your monitor, and then use this setting to adjust the scaling of elements to your personal preference. That this setting is not exposed in the default config dialogs is a drawback, and an unfortunate result of Gnome's current philosophy. I think you can access it via gnome-tweak-tool though.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
What usability problems do you see with DPI in Gnome? I can freely adjust the font-scaling across Gnome and... well for the past 2 weeks straight I can't remember having any issues.
jlarocco 14y ago
> Now all we need is linux to credibly support it as well, or at least a linux built for mouse use. There are still many, many usability issues in gnome with a high ppi screen. I've never had a problem using high DPI screens on Linux. There's a setting in xorg.conf, but I haven't had to touch it in years because the correct settings are usually auto-detected. I don't use Gnome, though, so maybe it's causing problems?
JVIDEL 14y ago
It seems like a chicken and the egg problem but it really isn't: there's far more support for HD res than there is HD hardware out there. Go to any etailer and check 1080p on laptop options: from 300 models you get 50 at best. There's very little choice too, AFAIK the Zenbook is the only 1080p ultrabook out there and I could only find 2 AMD laptops with HD screens. Like I said before I don't know what's crazier: that a 10" tablet has a 2560x1600 screen for $399 or that a 15" laptop for $800 might not have a 1080p screen. The irony is that its been years since I saw a sub-1080 monitor for sale, but XGA/720p laptops are still the norm. Let's at least make 1080p the standard.

by trotsky 14y ago

josteink 14y ago

Now that windows 8 and mountain lion both for the first time credibly handle HiDpi I agree, it's about time we switched. I made that decision back in 2004 when my laptop had 1680x1050 resolution. Since then I've only gone higher and I've yet to have problems. Windows seems to have handled this pretty well long, long ago so I have no idea what people are complaining about.

ghshephard 14y ago
Windows XP at 2560x1600 is ok on my 30" monitor, but it would be next to unusable on a 15" display. The Icons didn't scale to the resolution, so they would have been tiny. Lots of screen real estate though.
- Flow 14y ago
  2560x1440 on my 27" iMac is ok, but I have to use CMD-+ on almost all web pages. Only in Safari is Magic Touchpad zooming smooth and iOS like, but I'd like to use Chrome. With 175% zoom I get some weird(and reported) errors in Chrome: http://imgur.com/TCDMj http://imgur.com/TCDMj The HiDPI solution in ML is not really a solution for resolutions that are somewhere in-between normal DPI and HiDPI.
  - ghshephard 14y ago
    Are you running Windows XP under BootCamp? I could see Windows XP being okay at 27" @2560x1440.
    - Flow 14y ago
      No, Mountain Lion. I am a bit disappointed since NeXT had Display Postscript back in the 80s and today we use bitmap icons far too much.
      - podperson 14y ago
        NeXT had bitmap icons (TIFFs) displayed using display postscript. The problem with vector graphics in icons is that you'll still need multiple versions for different resolutions or the icons will look terrible at most resolutions, and then it's horribly inefficient to render them on-the-fly all the time so you'll end up caching them in memory and rescaling them... and -- oh look -- bitmaps.
        calinet6 14y ago
        Well, eventually it's going to come out as a bitmap—they'll still end up as pixels on the screen. Vector icons just give you the flexibility to do it really really well. Cache them, prerender them, I don't care what works best, just match the icon DPI to the screen DPI and we're good.
        mikeash 14y ago
        His point is that it's not good enough to simply match the DPIs and render. Small icons need actual visual differences, not just scaling, in order to really look good. Some icons completely change their character at small sizes, because what looks good when small is not the same as what looks good when large, regardless of DPI. So going pure-vector doesn't completely solve the problem, although it certainly can make it easier.
        14y ago
trotsky 14y ago
You turn the ui scaling up to 150% in windows 7 or previous and don't experience visual and alignment issues? Or do you mean that you don't find the elements too small when used at default size? There is no argument that the latter works fine, obviously 1680x isn't even particularly higher density than 1386x. For most people, though, once you get to say 11" 1920x or 15" 2880x you really need the scaling and my experience is that it used to be pretty half baked. Look at this skype screenshot at 125% for example: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5843/asus-zenbook-prime-ux21a-review/4 http://www.anandtech.com/show/5843/asus-zenbook-prime-ux21a-...
- bduerst 14y ago
  I've used DPI scaling in Windows 7 for years now, since I used Win7 as the OS on my HTPC. My television is the only large enough surface where with the higher resolution i've needed larger text. That screenshot you link to is of Skype, and I would not use Skype as a standard example for anything. Even if MS owns it now, it is a poorly designed program by today's standards. The only UI problems I ever had with scaling was with iTunes, and that was at >150%. I write it off as Apple not optimizing the UI for Windows.
  - tomflack 14y ago
    > That screenshot you link to is of Skype, and I would not use Skype as a standard example for anything. Even if MS owns it now, it is a poorly designed program by today's standards. How does this in any way negate it's worth as an example of a problem? It's effectively saying "That problem, it's an invalid problem because I said so."
    - bduerst 14y ago
      Because the cause of the problem is Skype's (and iTunes) poor development, not Windows. I didn't state the problem is invalid, I merely provided anecdotal evidence from my years of experience in using DPI scaling in Windows to demonstrate that it's a non-issue.
      - 14y ago

UnoriginalGuy 14y ago

Care to share why you think Windows 8 handles DPI differently than Windows 7? At least in terms of native applications I've seen literally no differences; maybe Metro handles it better but Metro on the desktop is, well, Metro on the desktop. PS - I know it is now called "Modern UI" but that name sucks.

trotsky 14y ago
i do mean metro, mostly. aside from engine improvements microsoft has been really beating the drum with 3rd party developers to support high ppi screens out of the gate. booting the retina mbp on windows 8 works surprisingly from the start, i have it installed with bootcamp. A lot more detail about the mbp and 8: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tonyschr/archive/2012/08/29/windows-8-on-macbook-pro-with-retina-display.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tonyschr/archive/2012/08/29/windows-...
- zokier 14y ago
  MS has been trying to get 3rd party developers make resolution independent apps for very long time now. Last time it was WPF that was supposed to solve all problems, now it's Metro. eg here is one blog post from 2006, which in turn refers to guide written in 2001 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/greg_schechter/archive/2006/08/07/690704.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/greg_schechter/archive/2006/08/07/69... iirc there was some similar blog-post series about high dpi stuff when windows 7 was released, but I couldn't find it now with google.
  - trotsky 14y ago
    It seems more baked in this time, with metro automatically engaging two different scaling targets (full hd and 2560x) as well as the baseline ~100dpi. So people will be in hidpi modes without engaging them, and a good number of them since 10" full hd is looking like a high volume form factor. All of the ui elements are vector, fonts obviously are, and there is built in support for switching out bitmaps for the 3 stated targets - even in css from the internet. Visual Studio 2012 has these dpis built in to its ui builder previewer along with the typical form factor previews. I guess time will tell but it certainly feels like the most credible attempt to date to me.

mtgx 14y ago

Well you're not supposed to use something as weak as Intel's integrated graphics.

vetinari 14y ago
Well, Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge integrated graphics is OK for most users (i.e. not for gamers and engineers, but for most people they are more than they need).
hmottestad 14y ago
The new macbook pro retina 13" uses only the intel 4000.
- pdaddyo 14y ago
  I picked one up last weekend and it's surprisingly quick, at least whilst playing with things like WebGL and three.js.
calinet6 14y ago
The HD4000 runs surprisingly well at HiDPI res, actually. Haven't experienced any lag myself, and when needed the integrated nvidia GPU kicks in automatically without a hitch.

mtgx 14y ago

The hiDPI thing should only be meant as a transition. What we ultimately want, is for pages to look the same on the web, and the UI to look the same on the apps, but just have higher PPI. The hiDPI thing just enlarges them because Windows 8 and Mac OS are not resolution independent. What I want is for everything to work on 2560x1600 by default, with the same sizes we have today - not enlarged, and not smaller either.

eropple 14y ago
My retina MBP displays everything at "the same sizes we have today" right now, on a 2880x1800 panel.

anonymouz 14y ago

> There are still many, many usability issues in gnome with a high ppi screen. Would you care to mention some? My impression has always been that Gnome handles different DPI settings relatively well, but I'm no expert.

sp332 14y ago
I thought Gnome 3 has no DPI slider at all?
- anonymouz 14y ago
  It uses the DPI setting from X, and you can then adjust the font size to your preference with the gsettings option 'org.gnome.desktop.interface text-scaling-factor'. I believe the idea is to set the DPI's in X to the physical DPI of your monitor, and then use this setting to adjust the scaling of elements to your personal preference. That this setting is not exposed in the default config dialogs is a drawback, and an unfortunate result of Gnome's current philosophy. I think you can access it via gnome-tweak-tool though.

drivebyacct2 14y ago

What usability problems do you see with DPI in Gnome? I can freely adjust the font-scaling across Gnome and... well for the past 2 weeks straight I can't remember having any issues.

jlarocco 14y ago

> Now all we need is linux to credibly support it as well, or at least a linux built for mouse use. There are still many, many usability issues in gnome with a high ppi screen. I've never had a problem using high DPI screens on Linux. There's a setting in xorg.conf, but I haven't had to touch it in years because the correct settings are usually auto-detected. I don't use Gnome, though, so maybe it's causing problems?

JVIDEL 14y ago

It seems like a chicken and the egg problem but it really isn't: there's far more support for HD res than there is HD hardware out there. Go to any etailer and check 1080p on laptop options: from 300 models you get 50 at best. There's very little choice too, AFAIK the Zenbook is the only 1080p ultrabook out there and I could only find 2 AMD laptops with HD screens. Like I said before I don't know what's crazier: that a 10" tablet has a 2560x1600 screen for $399 or that a 15" laptop for $800 might not have a 1080p screen. The irony is that its been years since I saw a sub-1080 monitor for sale, but XGA/720p laptops are still the norm. Let's at least make 1080p the standard.