HiDPI fractional scaling

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dimonomid

HiDPI fractional scaling

Post by dimonomid »

Hi all,

So on the laptop T470 which has 14" screen with the resolution 1920x1080, scaling 1 is too small and 2 is too large. Is there a way to set the scale to be something in between?

The only workaround I'm aware of is to scale fonts, but the rest of the UI elements (like, icons in task bar, system tray, Alt+Tab, etc) remain either too small or too large. Is there a way to make the UI size properly if the desired scale is like 1.7 ?

Thanks
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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roblm
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Re: HiDPI fractional scaling

Post by roblm »

The resolution can be scaled down using an xrandr command, but it won’t be as clear as the native resolution. Open the Terminal, use this command and post the output: xrandr
dimonomid

Re: HiDPI fractional scaling

Post by dimonomid »

Thanks, but yeah using xrandr scaling is hardly an option, my eyes hurt.

Are there any plans to implement proper fractional scaling?
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Pjotr
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Re: HiDPI fractional scaling

Post by Pjotr »

Please generate an overview of your system like this:
- Launch a terminal window (this is how to launch a terminal window);
- make the terminal window full screen, to avoid chopped lines;
- Copy/paste this command into the terminal:

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz
(if you type: the letter F is a capital letter)

Press Enter.

Copy/paste the output in your next message.
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gm10

Re: HiDPI fractional scaling

Post by gm10 »

dimonomid wrote: Mon Aug 13, 2018 12:12 pm Are there any plans to implement proper fractional scaling?
Probably not. All the statements I've seen from Mint devs where that they won't care until support isn't added upstream. The GTK3 toolkit itself does not support fractional scaling, nor will the upcoming GTK4 version.

The GNOME desktop itself has an experimental feature for fractional scaling but to be fair it's more of a hack in conjunction with the compositor.
Last edited by gm10 on Mon Aug 13, 2018 12:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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trytip
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Re: HiDPI fractional scaling

Post by trytip »

try resolution 1440x900 or something lower than your max. i have vision problems also and don't quite see the benefit of full native resolution. why squint and mess up your vision even worse, make the screen larger with a lower resolution
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dimonomid

Re: HiDPI fractional scaling

Post by dimonomid »

try resolution 1440x900 or something lower than your max. i have vision problems also and don't quite see the benefit of full native resolution. why squint and mess up your vision even worse, make the screen larger with a lower resolution
Yeah that's what I was doing during past few years (my resolution is 1360x768 to maintain the same ratio), and with every new release I keep hoping that probably dpi screens are supported well now. But no. Ugh.
gm10

Re: HiDPI fractional scaling

Post by gm10 »

dimonomid wrote: Wed Aug 22, 2018 3:09 pm Yeah that's what I was doing during past few years
Rather than ruin your eyes consider using a different Desktop Environment instead. Qt-based desktops usually offer good fractional scaling support.
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trytip
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Re: HiDPI fractional scaling

Post by trytip »

there's no logical sense to have 1920x resolution on 14" screen especially if there is vision difficulties. i moved from cinnamon to xfce ( installed it from repos but it's not a full desktop and considerable extras needed implemented)
what i do now is zoom in when i'm in browsers with CTRL_+ CTRL_- reset with CTRL_0 and in xfce/mate desktop (not available in cinnamon) i use custom DPI 97 i can go higher but then i also set fonts to corespond

as you can see in the snap the menu is much more clear and easy to read than the cinnamon menu which doesn't obey the font size or scaling. you need to get off cinnamon before you ruin your vision. i still have issues in mint19 (tried cinnamon/xfce) chrome fonts are too close together and can't pinpoint the issue. but since i zoom in on most pages i read, that helps out 100%

Image
click the snap and zoom in to see how clear things are (my resolution is 1440x900 with nvidia graphics and compton window manager
Image
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