[HN Gopher] Dummy display for Apple Silicon Macs to achieve cust...
___________________________________________________________________
Dummy display for Apple Silicon Macs to achieve custom resolutions
Author : PikachuEXE
Score : 304 points
Date : 2021-11-01 08:30 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| babaganoosh89 wrote:
| For those asking why this is useful:
|
| Mac mini's without a monitor hooked up can only display at a
| certain aspect ratio while remote screen sharing. The typical
| solution is to use a dummy hdmi plug (~$10) plus an app like
| SwitchResX (~$20) to support custom screen resolutions.
|
| If OP's app works as described, then this is a free software
| solution to a $30 problem.
| spockz wrote:
| It is not just a monetary problem though. Sometimes you don't
| have the required physical access or permissions to install
| additional hardware.
| waydabber wrote:
| Hi, I tested the Screen Sharing scenario with BetterDummy
| running on an Intel headless Mac Mini 2018 running Big Sur.
| Works splendidly, all resolutions are available and resolution
| change works on-the fly through Screen Sharing!
| g42gregory wrote:
| Here is another reason this is useful:
|
| If you connect a Mac (mini, MacBook pro, air) to an external
| monitor, AND this monitor is not recognized as "retina" (eg.
| Apple $4599 XDR) AND you are not running at the monitor's
| highest resolution, the screen will be blurry.
|
| There are a lot of "ands" in the above sentence, but it's
| actually quite common situation. Retina monitors are expensive.
| For non-retina monitors, native highest resolution still
| renders objects too small for many people.
|
| On MacBook Pro/Air the solution is to mirror the screens. The
| MacOS thinks that it renders to the retina screen and sends
| appropriate re-scaling to the external monitor. But mirroring
| has its problems. For example, expect ratio will be the same as
| MacBook's internal screen. This may result in black bars on the
| monitor, depending on its aspect ratio.
|
| Also, in M1 MacBook Pro 2021, the aspect ratio is variable, due
| to the 72 pixels menu bar up top, going in and out. I am not
| sure what will happen when you mirror the screens there.
|
| Hopefully the above software solves this problem.
| roderickm wrote:
| Your presentation has presenter notes but your MacBook has only
| one display?
|
| Create a dummy display for the full-screen presentation, share
| that into the remote meeting/projector, and preserve the
| primary display for presenter notes, logtails, chat, etc.
| djrogers wrote:
| Sounds like it'd be easier to just run your slideshow in a
| window and share that window. PowerPoint and Keynote can both
| do that.
|
| Bonus to sharing only a window - you never accidentally show
| something you didn't want to, like that email or messages
| notification...
| bombcar wrote:
| For those who don't know, in PowerPoint go to Setup Slide
| Show on the Slide Show tab and select "Browsed by an
| individual (window)" and then share that window. Great for
| Zoom et al.
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| I use OBS to handle the screen sharing because it is
| easily to misclick the wrong window that are not for
| public view. In OBS, it is binded to specific window
| titles and it is easily to edit out the black bar on the
| top of the PowerPoint that appeared in Zoom directly
| (without OBS). I have a few scenes set up this away and
| quicker to switch than doing it through Zoom itself.
| gprasanth wrote:
| Was looking for this exact thing a month ago [1]. Now, this.
|
| I've given up the idea of connecting to mini over screensharing
| and connected a couple of displays to it, happily.
|
| [1] - https://apple.stackexchange.com/q/428243/51800
| daveidol wrote:
| This doesn't sound like the core use case though based on the
| README - it sounds like it's used for enabling HiDPI (aka not-
| blurry) scaling on less-than-4K monitors. So, using native
| resolution but not necessarily 1:1 DPI.
| chmod775 wrote:
| A hardware fix to a software annoyance. Nice.
| waydabber wrote:
| It is actually a software alternative for a hardware fix to a
| software annoyance lol. :)
| schrijver wrote:
| Related to this, looking for a way to have the HDMI output of a
| 2015 MBP be horizontally flipped (for teleprompting). SwitchResX
| is supposed to be able to do this but it hangs when I try to
| flipped resolutions. Might be an interesting feature for this
| software... Anyone have an idea how to achieve this on an Intel
| Mac?
| Terretta wrote:
| A number of ways:
|
| https://telepromptermirror.com/mirror-flip-screen/
|
| Personally I gave up on the window flippers and use LunaDisplay
| w/ iPad.
|
| Why? The window flippers flip the window -- but _not_ the mouse
| or button click targets! So you need the whole screen to flip,
| not just the window.
| schrijver wrote:
| Tried out the WindowMirror utility and the click targets are
| indeed pretty confusing... but it might still come in handy
| when presenting. With the looks of it, I could use it to flip
| a windowed OBS projector view, and drag that to the external
| monitor that is my teleprompter. Wouldn't need to click much
| in that scenario. Thanks!
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| The 11.6 (I believe) release of MacOS X finally allowed native
| support for 5120 X 1440 (my display).
|
| The thing that annoys me, is that I have a second display that I
| use, from time to time (when giving video classes, for instance),
| but it remains assigned to a different device, most times.
|
| However, I can't leave it plugged in. If I do, the OS insists
| that I have a second screen, even though it is not actually
| connected to the Mac. This means that I can lose my cursor and
| the graphics processors are rendering undisplayed pixels.
|
| I can use an app like SwitchResX[0], but I feel that I should not
| need it. The OS should detect more than just if an HDMI cable is
| plugged in. It needs to know whether or not the screen is
| actually "live," and rendering graphics.
|
| [0] https://www.madrau.com
| kristjansson wrote:
| Maybe you want a physical KVM in between the two sources and
| the monitor? I tried to get a similar setup working locally (2
| monitors, a macOS source and a Debian source, supporting all
| four input/output combinations) and couldn't find a satisfying
| software solution. There were a few people using
| ddcutil/ddccontrol/ddctool on Linux hosts to script changes on
| source changes, but (a) it was difficult/impossible to get DDC
| to work consistently with DP and HDMI outputs with first party
| Nvidia drivers (b) I couldn't find anything comparable on the
| macOS side.
|
| Hardware KVMs weren't much better, but if you're willing to
| spend the money, and have enough DP sources on both sides, they
| aren't too bad.
|
| Funny how hard/expensive it is to replicate the convenience of
| a nice analogue KVM with a bunch of VGA/DVI/PS2 I/O, a knob, an
| not much else...
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| What about IP-KVM something like PiKVM? I imagine it would be
| far more capable than those software solutions.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Actually, belay that. I just tested with Monterey, and a new
| MBP, and it works the way that I expect. I need to use the
| built-in HDMI, but it works.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Does anybody know of software-defined ways to switch this
| behavior? I have the opposite problem sometimes -- I have
| an external display shared between two devices (of varying
| OSes), and sometimes I want it to remain a logical display
| on each device no matter which input is selected on the
| display. But other times I want the display to be removed
| when the device is not the active input.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I'll bet that SwitchResX will do it (for the Mac). It's a
| pretty heavy-duty utility (look at the link in the root).
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| I remember when Windows had to be subjected to lots of different
| downloaded freeware applications to "unlock" full customization
| of the OS.
|
| macOS is in these days at the moment. What does that say about
| its product arc?
| terramex wrote:
| Is there a way to keep using internal screen? When I turn
| mirroring on, internal display starts mirroring virtual screen
| too. Readme says "Your internal screen will be available as an
| extended space on a MacBook" but I do not know how to do it.
| waydabber wrote:
| Of course, you can configure everything as usual under System
| Preferences/Displays.
|
| If you have a 2+ display setup for example, you can create a
| Dummy, mirror it to one display but leave the other display
| unaffected. Or you can create 2 dummies, mirror each one to a
| separate display.
|
| Every display can serve as a Main or Extended display, as well
| as a Mirror for some other display. Therefore a mirrored set
| can be Main or Extended as well. A typical use case is to use
| your MacBook display as an Extended display alongside your
| external display which is a Mirror of a Dummy that is set as
| Main display (providing all the fine grained HiDPI resolution
| options).
|
| Hope this helps!
| terramex wrote:
| Is this a macOS 12 feature? I am stuck on 11 for now and I do
| not see any Main/Extended setting.
| waydabber wrote:
| The app is compiled for Big Sur but I did not test it and
| received conflicting reports whether it works or not.
| Please try it and let me know! Thanks!
| terramex wrote:
| I tried again got it working this time. I turns out that
| in versions below 12 the way to set up mirroring of only
| 2 out of 3 displays is: "Press and hold the Option key
| and drag one display icon onto another display icon to
| mirror those two displays.". 10 years of using Mac every
| day and never knew it was possible.
|
| It is pretty buggy though, "Arrangement" tabs stops
| working and I cannot change relative screen positions
| anymore, so to get it kinda working I had to set my real
| and dummy displays to the same lower resolution before
| dragging one onto the other and then I could set my
| desired resolution on dummy screen and it got mirrored
| onto physical screen.
| ekianjo wrote:
| This kind of dongle is also useful for certain workstations that
| refuse to boot without a screen if you want to turn them into
| servers.
| waydabber wrote:
| BetterDummy will not help with that, the app fully runs in user
| space as a normal app and can start after login.
| yots wrote:
| Can anyone link to or explain the problem? I'm in the market for
| a new display and didn't quite get the README explanation.
| LeonM wrote:
| I think it's explained quite well in the introduction text:
|
| > M1 macs tend to have issues with custom resolutions.
| Notoriously they don't allow sub-4K resolution displays to have
| HiDPI ("Retina") resolutions even though (for example) a 24"
| QHD 1440p display would greatly benefit from having an
| 1920x1080 HiDPI "Retina" mode.
|
| So, if you connect a non-4k display, the Mac will render in a
| way that won't look as sharp as the display could.
|
| If you are in the marked for a new display, just but a 4K model
| (unless you have good reasons not to) and you won't need this
| hack.
| Grustaf wrote:
| But this is a fake display, it doesn't actually show
| anything. I think the explanation only makes sense for people
| that already know what the issue is.
| joosters wrote:
| _So, if you connect a non-4k display, the Mac will render in
| a way that won 't look as sharp as the display could._
|
| That's not true. A display will happily utilise it's full
| hardware resolution. The problem, as I understand it, is you
| can't change the DPI of the monitor. You can configure a
| 2560x1440 display to use a lower resolution (e.g. 1920x1080
| or 1600x900), but then the monitor itself will upscale this
| into a blurry full screen.
|
| Tricking MacOS to change the DPI would let you configure the
| display to use all 2560x1440 pixels, but drawing everything
| bigger, at full resolution.
| LeonM wrote:
| You are correct, but I was trying to explain it a bit in
| layman's terms, since the OP did not appear to understand
| the intro text in the README.md.
| sbr464 wrote:
| Can anyone confirm if the new M1 Max (or Monterey) can output
| HiDPI at higher resolutions than the 1st gen M1 13" MacBook pro?
| Using a 6k Pro Display XDR on the M1 with 3k scaling is brutal.
| The interface is way too big.
|
| An iMac pro with an eGPU was able to accomplish this perfectly.
|
| --edit
|
| The Display Dummy app resolves this problem perfectly. In the
| Display Dummy menu, select 16:9 ratio, then go to displays in
| system preferences and choose 3840x2160. Curious if it will be
| able to work with dual Pro Display XDRs on M1.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I'm away from my 13" M1 MacBook right now but there was a 3rd
| party app I used that lets me choose any resolution and scaling
| on the built in or external displays. I like having a lot of
| workspace and thankfully have good eyes so my usual setup is
| 2560x1600 no scaling for the built in and 3840x2160 no scaling
| for the external portable USB C monitor I carry around with it.
|
| There may well be a way to do it from the CLI as well but the
| app just sits as a tray icon in the menu bar which is great
| from a "I don't know what I just plugged in but I want to to
| just be <x>" perspective.
| sbr464 wrote:
| Ideally 3840x2160 in HiDPI on the Pro Display XDR. I get this
| with an eGPU puck on an iMac pro with SwitchResX.
|
| Unfortunately the original M1 limited SwitchResX from using
| HiDPI at higher resolutions. It is limited to 3008x1692 at
| HiDPI (half of 6k).
|
| The higher resolutions are available but they aren't HiDPI
| and text looks noticeably worse.
|
| It's a known issue with several display tools like:
| https://github.com/xzhih/one-key-hidpi/issues/164
| dkonofalski wrote:
| Can't you just go to System Preferences and click Alt +
| Scaled? That usually gives you all the resolutions that your
| monitor supports without having to use the "Larger/Smaller"
| visual options.
| sbr464 wrote:
| the issue was the m1 limited the choices to maximum of
| 3008x1692.
|
| I just tested the Dummy Display app and it resolved this
| perfectly. The app definitely works, even better than the
| m1 limitation of SwitchResX.
| zamadatix wrote:
| It gives more, but not all, resolution and scaling options.
| [deleted]
| lxgr wrote:
| Dummy plugs are an ingenious solution, but the fact that we still
| depend on them is baffling. Does Apple seriously not recognize
| the need for these uses cases?
| waydabber wrote:
| You can simply create two dummies and mirror each one to
| separate displays. Or you can use the 4K display as is (since
| it will natively have 1920x1080 HiDPI on M1) and create a dummy
| to use with the QHD display to get 1920x1080 HiDPI.
| lxgr wrote:
| I guess, but my point is: There is no reason macOS shouldn't
| allow doing all of this on the software level.
|
| Especially with the wholly Apple-made M series of chips, they
| control the entire video stack down to the transistor level.
|
| Dummy plugs should be syscalls, not physical things.
| waydabber wrote:
| Yep, sorry, I guess I was clicking the wrong link while
| trying to respond to something else.
|
| I agree with you, it is funny that we need dummies and
| workarounds (being hardware or software).
| [deleted]
| bluesign wrote:
| "Does not utilize graphics hardware in vain so it is somewhat
| faster."
|
| Can anyone shed a light on this feature? Doesn't HiDPI require
| graphics hardware ?
| waydabber wrote:
| There is some difference, but it is marginal indeed at least in
| terms of speed. Via the traitional route with a real dummy, the
| display hardware needs to produce two sets of displayport
| output streams (one of which is converted to HDMI via a
| DisplayPort-HDMI controller chip MCDP2900 to drive the Dummy) +
| sync up the two displays in terms of vertical sync (this does
| not always work well, this is why real HDMI dummy users
| experience mouse jittery sometimes) and also has to scale the
| full-res framebuffer to two independent display (but scaling is
| done super efficiently on M1). With BetterDummy all this is not
| needed obviously.
|
| For ppl who until now had to resort to mirroring the internal
| displays (as M1 MacBooks - before the new MBPs - support only
| the internal display + a single external display) the benefit
| is more obvious, they now can use clamshell mode and don't have
| to drive the full MacBook display hardware (with brightness
| turned down to zero) all the time.
| bluesign wrote:
| Thanks for the detailed answer. Btw any chance this can work
| on virtualized environment without real GPU. Last time I gave
| this a shot (virtual screen), couldn't manage to get it work
| with hidpi.
| waydabber wrote:
| This is an interesting question, honestly I have no idea.
| It might be that these APIs are relying on the presence of
| a GPU for acceleration (as the private framework APIs used
| are made by apple for Sidecar and AirPlay primarily). If
| you test this, please let me know about the results at the
| project GitHub page
| (https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDummy). Thank you!
| HMH wrote:
| Interesting, for those wondering how this could be useful apart
| from what's already mentioned in the Readme: Projects like my
| Weylus [1] or the similar Deskreen [2] would greatly benefit from
| this as both can mirror your screen to a tablet and like that one
| could use a dummy display and said tablet to create an additional
| screen.
|
| On a related note, does anyone know of similar software to create
| dummy displays on Linux? All I could find so far is some trickery
| which only works with Intel hardware on X11 [3].
|
| [1]: https://github.com/H-M-H/Weylus
|
| [2]: https://github.com/pavlobu/deskreen
|
| [3]: https://github.com/H-M-H/Weylus#intel-gpu-on-xorg-with-
| intel...
| [deleted]
| tyingq wrote:
| >does anyone know of similar software to create dummy displays
| on Linux?
|
| Xvfb (https://linux.die.net/man/1/xvfb)
|
| wayvnc: https://github.com/any1/wayvnc
|
| Weston has a headless backend also.
| raihansaputra wrote:
| Yes thought about this when reading the README. Sidecar has
| been better than 3rd party apps in this regard (maybe the same
| technique) but having no DPI control sucks. Thanks for the
| links, will try to see how it works.
| waydabber wrote:
| Hmm. Didn't think of that use, but tried it and works nicely.
| However BetterDummy does not have 4:3 (iPad) aspect ratio
| support as of 1.0.7, I'll add so SideCar would fill the iPad
| screen properly.
| waydabber wrote:
| I stand corrected, 4:3 (16:12) is already available in the
| app just wasn't thinking right lol. So Sidecar scaling is
| supported as of now.
| aa_memon wrote:
| This is exactly what I've been looking for. Wanted to use my 2012
| imac as a second monitor for my MacBook and in the absence of
| target display mode decided to use NoMachine but couldn't get
| resolution + separate display without a physical dummy hdmi plug.
| Thank you
| mvanaltvorst wrote:
| Wonder if this can be used to bypass ImmersedVR's display
| limitations
| greggh wrote:
| That is the reason I was reading through the comments. Guess
| it's time to just go try it out.
| waydabber wrote:
| Hey, I have a Quest 2, I'll try this one out myself as well.
| :) Thanks for the idea!
| waydabber wrote:
| Immersed apparently uses the same technique as BetterDummy to
| create virtual displays. I don't know if without a
| subscription BetterDummy created additional virtual displays
| show up in Immersed (as I have Elite), but for sure,
| BetterDummy created displays show up in Immersed.
| greggh wrote:
| Thats awesome. Thanks for trying it out.
| xylophoner wrote:
| i've used SwitchResX for years to create/use custom resolutions.
| though i don't have an M1 mac (on order now). maybe that's
| another way of achieving this?
| waydabber wrote:
| SwitchResX I think is different. It is superior in a way that
| it creates additional display modes which macOS then can use as
| a native resolutions on Intel. On M1 the problem is that it can
| only create scaled resolutions and even at that cannot create
| HiDPI resolutions if the display reports itself as sub-4K. This
| is due to an inherent limitation in the M1 driver implemented
| by Apple, not the fault of the SwitchResX developer. I was a
| SwitchResX user for many years on Intel macs and was dumbstruck
| when after replacing my Intel macs with M1 I found out that I
| cannot use my displays as I used to.
|
| BetterDummy simply navigates around the whole problem by
| creating Virtual Displays that are mirrored to the main
| display. This is in one regard inferior, since this is
| inherently a workaround but on the other hand can work on-the-
| fly and all possible resolutions are instantly available and
| accessible via System Preferences/Displays.
| xylophoner wrote:
| thx!
| neither_color wrote:
| This is how I got hiDPI to work with a 1440P monitor
| https://github.com/bbhardin/A-Guide-to-MacOS-Scaled-Resoluti...
| [deleted]
| itwillnotbeasy wrote:
| This is my main problem with MacOs - text on non 4k displays is
| so blurry, Windows and Linux are doing much better job with
| rendering fonts. And Apple doesn't seem to care about it at all -
| they even removed subpixel aliasing in the recent system update
| (i guess it was High Sierra). So weird, given most of the high
| refresh rate monitors on the market is 1440p, so if you have a
| gaming pc you need to buy separate 4k monitor for your macbook,
| because no one seems to care about fixing this, WTF?
| donkeyd wrote:
| I have absolutely no use for this. But I love that people make
| stuff like this. There's so much creativity and skill involved in
| this type of thing, that often seems to get completely
| overlooked.
|
| So, to people who build stuff like this and release it... Thank
| you for your service!
| fnord77 wrote:
| I find it unfortunate that m1 macs have this problem. This
| person's creativity could have been put to use on something
| other than fixing a flaw in a computer.
| waydabber wrote:
| Yeah, I made this app as I switched a family member's mac
| from an Intel mini to M1 and was mystified by the fact that
| no matter what tricks I was trying, it was not working with
| the Lenovo 24" QHD display as before (getting a 4K display
| was not an option due to cost and size constraints - no good
| 24" 4K display is available for a reasonable price and there
| ppl who don't want huge displays on their desks). I purchased
| a HDMI dummy but had constant issues with it, so I had to
| explore other avenues.
|
| My creativity is normally put to use on something other, like
| MonitorControl, but working on BetterDummy is fun as well. :)
|
| https://github.com/MonitorControl/MonitorControl
| ec109685 wrote:
| Probably doesn't qualify as reasonably priced, but this 24"
| monitor has suited me well. I shrink everything by one
| notch and everything is very crisp and "retina".
|
| LG UltraFine 4K Display
|
| https://store.apple.com/xc/product/HMUA2VC/A
| donkeyd wrote:
| Now that is software I have a use case for! I used some
| abandoned menu bar app for this. Nothing worked, except the
| manual slider, which was enough for me.
|
| I guess I'll have to try this with my display!
| Grustaf wrote:
| What does it actually do? What is the point of a fake display
| that doesn't exist?
| sundvor wrote:
| I'm guessing to reap benefits of
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersampling
| rzzzt wrote:
| On Windows, I use AMD's VSR (Virtual Super Resolution) to
| set 5k screen resolution on a physical 4k display, letting
| me set the UI scale factor to 200% and have reasonable font
| sizes with clean icons (125% and 150% looks fuzzy). Under
| Linux, it is an xrandr spell that achieves the same thing.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| How does this work? Don't you have to scale the virtual
| 5k resolution down to 4k? Wouldn't that also generate
| fuzziness?
|
| If a stroke is 1px wide at 100%, 2px at 200% / 5k, how
| does that stay sharp when you scale it down to 80%?
|
| Or is the idea that whatever algorithm AMD uses is better
| than the one Windows uses?
| xuki wrote:
| Say you have a 28" 4K display but you want to run
| 2560x1440 resolution to get you desired UI size. You can
| either run 2560x1440 scaled up to 4K, or 5120x2880 scaled
| down to 4K. The latter will look better.
| kuschku wrote:
| Or you run at 4K and let applications scale - which sadly
| not all support properly.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| This is what I usually do. I run 4k at "100%", but then I
| increase font size as needed. I usually don't care about
| the icons, widgets, etc since I rarely interact with
| them, so to me, it's actually a good thing they're small.
| This way everything is plenty sharp, and I also get more
| screen real estate.
|
| The reason I use a 4k screen is to have sharp text, so I
| try to avoid scaling.
| kuschku wrote:
| That's why - despite being a free software advocate - I
| currently run Windows for all critical software, as on
| Windows I can scale content without re-scaling windows.
| (Qt and Android support it as well, but Gnome and macOS
| don't).
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I'm not using Gnome, but scaling the text works fine for
| GTK apps on I3.
| [deleted]
| davweb wrote:
| It's useful on a headless Mac used a server.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Is this a joke or a serious answer? Why would a headless
| mac need one more display that it doesn't use?
| sgerenser wrote:
| When you remote into the Mac with VNC (which is the
| protocol Apples native Screen Sharing solution uses) you
| are limited to the display resolutions that the hardware
| thinks is available. This tricks the hardware into
| allowing additional resolutions that you otherwise
| wouldn't be able to get over a VNC session.
| jaywalk wrote:
| This is just a completely foreign concept for Windows
| users. My main work PC is a laptop with a 4k built-in
| display, and 2x 1920x1080 external monitors. I can RDP in
| from my home machine, which has a single 5120x1440
| monitor, with zero issues.
| SigmundA wrote:
| Only if you use RDP which is basically a remote graphic
| card where as VNC type systems capture the frame buffer
| of actual graphics card on the remote. Steamlink, Team
| Viewer, etc all have similar issues on Windows as well.
|
| Tried doing Steam link to a Windows computer without
| monitor attached and would only work in like 1024x768,
| needed a monitor attached to get 1920x1080 almost bought
| a dummy for the Windows machine similar to this but had
| and extra monitor so I didn't bother.
|
| Also VNC like system will turn on a monitor and you can
| see what people are doing remotely, RDP doesn't do that.
| RDP is a really nice system that gets really good
| performance over low bandwidth links due to remoting
| higher level graphics API, at least it used to, wish
| Apple had a built in equivalent that worked similarly.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Oh yeah, I know that RDP is superior. But Apple's own
| first-party remote desktop solution is basically VNC, and
| suffers from similar limitations. They could be more like
| Microsoft, but they seemingly don't care.
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| NoMachine is a great alternative for RDP. My remote
| desktop only had Win Home which have the RDP features
| disabled, so NoMachine is an answer to that. There is a
| command line to enable the RDP in WinHome but it require
| several step and external library to make it functioning.
| Now I have a new Intel NUC with WinPro, so I ditched
| NoMachine for MS RDP. NoMachine works flawlessly on macOS
| and Windows (and it have Linux support). I would say
| NoMachine is trailing behind MS RDP while Apple VNC is
| closer to the totem pole.
| icelancer wrote:
| MacOS still uses the garbage VNC protocol instead of what
| Windows did, which was treat remote display as a first-
| class product; indeed RDP is one of Windows greatest
| features that is unheralded/underappreciated.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Haha this is even crazier than the original fake-
| mirroring usage!
| donkeyd wrote:
| The github page describes the exact scenario that this is
| supposed to solve. I don't think I can explain it any better
| than that page already did.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Is this the "explanation"?
|
| > To fix this problem, BetterDummy creates a virtual dummy
| display which you can then utilize as a mirror main.
|
| What is a "mirror main"?
| shawnz wrote:
| By using display mirroring (i.e. having all your displays
| show the same output) you can effectively use scaling
| settings determined applicable for the primary display
| that the OS wouldn't normally allow you to apply to the
| secondary displays. This is a workaround solution for
| that OS limitation in which a fake primary display is
| created to give you more settings for the real display
| (by making the real display the secondary).
| Grustaf wrote:
| Thanks, that's actually an explanation. Seems crazy that
| there's no simpler solution!
| growt wrote:
| Does this allow to create virtual resolutions wider than 6016 px?
| I have a Samsung 32:9 monitor and this seems to be a hard limit
| on a Mac so far. Would be great if I could go higher with this.
| dessant wrote:
| Cloud providers that offer Mac mini servers use a HDMI dummy plug
| to emulate the presence of a display, but macOS will usually not
| treat it as a HiDPI display. This project is great for creating
| 4k screenshots on such servers.
| touisteur wrote:
| EDID dongles have made my remote life work (with HP RGS of all
| things...) far more nice than any alternative. Goes up to 4K
| (but low Hz... which is OK for the kind of dev work I do).
| KayL wrote:
| What app do you used for remote work? I've tried teamviewer /
| anydesk, but the text always blurry.
|
| (I have 4k screen and need to scale up the text size to
| 2560*1440. Then I found these app only take the 2560 screen
| to remote)
| InvaderFizz wrote:
| I find ConnectwiseScreenconnect works well, but there is a
| pretty noticeable delay.
|
| The best remote experience I have had with macOS is using
| the built in VNC, but not with a standard client. Using the
| Remotix client provides a great experience. It's $50.
|
| I have also heard that NoMachine for macOS works really
| well, but I have not tried it.
| KayL wrote:
| Just realize how simple is it with the built in VNC. But
| it just show a DOT for mouse cursor :s And I tried
| "chrome remote desktop", also good quailty text. But both
| causing cpu hogging.
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| I used NoMachine in the past. It works really well, it
| feel like Windows RDP brother without the MS name. It
| handles better (less slideshowy and did good with video
| playing in the remote devices) than VNCs I used in the
| past.
| touisteur wrote:
| HP RGS is quite ok I'm surprised to say... Since we're a HP
| shop it's all free.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I settle on Parsec, if you can't tweak the quality to your
| liking in the gui you can pass custom encoder settings as
| well.
| michael1999 wrote:
| Nice to see this wrapped up as an app. If all you need is a cli,
| then https://github.com/jakehilborn/displayplacer works great
| too.
| waydabber wrote:
| I don't think displayplacer is intended to create a virtual
| display, it seems to be a CLI to manipulate display modes and
| mirroring for existing display so these seem to be two
| different things entirely. I might be wrong of course.
| yoyopa wrote:
| does this work on intel mac? i want to set my MBP screen to a
| resolution that fills my PC screen for VNC
| martinclayton wrote:
| Works for me on an intel mac mini, needs MacOS 11 (Big Sur) or
| higher.
| waydabber wrote:
| Amazing, thanks for the report! Did not have a chance to test
| it on Intel but I did compile the app to be Intel and Big
| Sur+ compatible and the APIs used by the app should be
| available on these platforms as well.
| martinclayton wrote:
| Thank you! I now have it working just fine to access my two
| headless minis. Small vote of thanks via open collective
| sent too.
| waydabber wrote:
| Wow, thanks! :)
| waydabber wrote:
| I can confirm this, I had now the chance to test it as well.
| My findings:
|
| - Works just fine on an Intel Mac (tested one with Intel UHD
| 630). - Works well with Big Sur (tested on an Intel Mac). -
| Does seem to provide headless macs with a HiDPI virtual
| display with customizable resolution (tested via Screen
| Sharing, resolution switch on the fly worked, all resolutions
| are available without any real display connected - should
| work with VNC as well, but I did not test that).
| httpsterio wrote:
| Does anyone know if it's possible to run a Mac app in a "greater"
| resolution than what the display supports? We have quite a few
| 2017 macbook airs running at 1440x900 and it doesn't have enough
| width to display an enterprise app we need to use.
|
| Basically would need some sort of VM or sandbox that could run
| the apps in 1920 width and scale down to fit 1440px.
| matthew-wegner wrote:
| This can do exactly that.
|
| You would create a dummy display at 1920x1080 (or higher), then
| have your real display become a mirror of the dummy display.
| macOS will scale down to display on 1440x900.
| nottorp wrote:
| Ok silly question because I've never ran into this use case but
| it got me worried about using real monitors.
|
| I'm using 1920x1200 monitors. If I upgrade to a M1 Pro/Max Mac
| Mini (if those will ever be available) will I have any trouble
| using them at their native resolution?
|
| From what I understand, this trick is helpful for headless
| machines.
| waydabber wrote:
| No, you won't have trouble using your Mac at native resolutions
| with an 1920x1200 display, you don't need BetterDummy for that!
| :)
| danw1979 wrote:
| The display output of the M1, according to the very clever devs
| working on Asahi Linux, is a bit funky under the hood.
|
| I've found display compatibility has not been straightforward,
| having owned an M1 mini for the last year...which is
| unfortunate for a computer without a built-in screen.
|
| Don't count on it supporting multiple external monitors. Expect
| compatibility issues, etc.
|
| Last week it kind of burned a flickering rectangle onto my Dell
| ultrasharp 4k, which I thought was toast, but it gradually
| cleared up.
|
| Like I said - weird.
| nottorp wrote:
| > Don't count on it supporting multiple external monitors.
| Expect compatibility issues, etc.
|
| Well, no way I'm buying a M1 due to the lack of RAM.
| Hopefully Apple will make a decent desktop for me next year
| and fix some silicon bugs while they're at it.
|
| Incidentally, my current x86 mac mini is wonky with the hdmi
| output as well. The monitor randomly goes black for a few
| seconds once in a while.
| xenic wrote:
| The black screen problem is usually a bad HDMI cable.
| nottorp wrote:
| All my HDMI cables are bad? :)
|
| The only kind I'm missing is the gold plated kind.
| flatiron wrote:
| ram is on the chip with the cpu now. so i don't see that
| changing in the near future with the laptop/mac mini
| versions of the M1 at least
| nottorp wrote:
| The M1 Super Duper Max Pro supports 64 G ram if you
| haven't noticed. All they have to do is put it in a Mac
| Mini... I don't need a new laptop right now.
| waydabber wrote:
| According to my tests the app seems to provide headless macs
| with a HiDPI virtual display with customizable resolution
| (tested via Screen Sharing, resolution switch on the fly
| worked, all resolutions are available without any real display
| connected - should work with VNC as well, but I did not test
| that).
|
| I tested this as part of testing the app on Intel and Big Sur
| (BetterDummy worked fine on this Intel config with an
| integrated Intel UHD630 so headless Mac Mini 2018 users should
| be fine).
| KayL wrote:
| I wonder if any macOS app able to do scaling and adding black
| border around the screen like what "nvidia scale resolution" does
| in Windows.
|
| My monitor have light leakages issues. In Windows, I scale it
| down and use black tap covered all 4 edges. It looks like a
| normal screen. :)
|
| When I use it as macOS external, I have to guess the top menu
| position :p
| leokennis wrote:
| You maybe wouldn't expect it, but in this regard Windows is far
| superior to macOS. It will output whatever resolution your
| monitor has, and then you can just set a "scaling factor" which
| will make the interface exactly the size you like while still
| being pixel perfect.
|
| Given how simple most UI is, especially these days (circles
| filled with gradients, roundrects) and given how many different
| screen sizes and resolutions are used even within Apple's first
| party displays, it's almost insane macOS isn't resolution
| independent.
| grishka wrote:
| Android is like that too. Some devices have non-integer pixel
| densities (multipliers or device pixel ratios or scaling
| factors or whatever term you prefer), especially 1.5x aka
| "hdpi" that was popular around 2011. You can provide separate
| resources for each pixel density if you still use bitmap
| graphics for some reason. Oh and there's also "ldpi", which is
| something like 0.75x, though there were very few devices with
| it.
|
| With how advanced macOS graphics stack is, I don't understand
| why does Apple not do this, instead insisting on using integer
| multipliers. Some iPhone models, too, render the UI at 3x and
| then downscale it to fit the screen. Even more curious is the
| fact that they have returned it as a float for as long as
| retina displays were a thing:
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nsscreen/13...
|
| edit: one important difference I forgot to mention. On Android,
| all draw calls on the Canvas, and all view dimensions and other
| things like text sizes, always take physical pixels. It's your
| job to multiply and round everything correctly. On macOS and
| iOS, all graphics APIs take "points", which are those logical
| pixels you get _after_ the scaling is applied, "density-
| independent pixels" as Android calls them. I guess Apple
| thought it would make it easier to adapt existing apps to
| retina displays. Android has always supported UI scaling, so
| there was no problem designing the API the way it is.
| ridiculous_fish wrote:
| I worked on the Cocoa frameworks back when the hope was
| arbitrary scaling. The short answer to your question is
| "rounding." At 1.5x, a box of length 3 occupies 4.5 physical
| pixels. Either one side of the box will be blurry, or the box
| must get resized to align with physical pixels, which can
| cause mis-centering of text or icons, or unexpected clipping
| or truncation.
|
| There was also a lot of custom layout code in existing apps,
| both first and third party, which just didn't work at
| arbitrary scale factors because it was never tested.
|
| Yet another complication is that apps are expected to handle
| scale changes, e.g. if the user drags a window from one
| display to another. Android doesn't have to deal with this.
|
| After years of trying to make it work, Apple basically gave
| up and did the scaling in WindowServer.
| diskzero wrote:
| Ah yes, the Hi-DPI days. I left Apple before all of that
| was sorted out. I assume all of the code dealing with
| scaling was just removed from the frameworks?
| jpablo wrote:
| Then half your apps will look blurry because they don't support
| scaling, this includes quite a few built in utilities.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| If you just use chrome and visual studio, you won't run into
| half of those apps. But ya, any old app that renders directly
| to a bitmap would have problems if you sneed to use them.
|
| I used to write a lot of WPF apps and the resolution
| independence was a real thing. I guess I just got lucky in
| that car never used any legacy apps.
| leokennis wrote:
| This was true in 2016 but not anymore today. I cannot find a
| single blurry app on my laptop now.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| I always hate this response. "I don't have this problem, so
| no one else does either." This all depends on what tools
| you use on a daily basis. I have some data tools that have
| scaling problems and they're unique depending on whether
| you use Windows Server or Windows 10/11. It's one of the
| cons of Windows having such great backwards compatibility.
| Some tools just _aren 't_ updated in basic ways despite
| receiving plenty of updates.
| leokennis wrote:
| Sure, I'm not saying the problem is completely solved.
| But for most people using the nth percentile most used
| tools, the problem is solved. There will always be
| holdouts or legacy programs that are not HiDPI aware. But
| if you ask 100 people to list their 10 most used tools,
| I'd wager a bet that 95% of the unique entries on that
| list are not blurry when used scaled.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| Depends which 100 people, which was the point of the
| comment you replied to.
| nitrogen wrote:
| "[M]ost used tools" are not the things that really annoy
| people. It's the "least used critical tools" -- the
| things that you _absolutely_ need to do, but only once
| every few months. They often involve loading three layers
| of progressively older control panels.
|
| This is a failure brought by the overreliance on data and
| telemetry to show what is "most used," without regard for
| what is most important.
| jamesgeck0 wrote:
| Qt apps still have scaling issues. They can either be
| blurry, or they can have mismatched text and button sizes.
| VLC is terrible at 125% scaling.
| whatever1 wrote:
| When was the last time you used windows?
|
| Windows 10 has solved all of these, you need to find and use
| some old 3rd party apps to have this issue
| breakfastduck wrote:
| It really has not
| robterrell wrote:
| Tell that to my Windows 10 install, because it's displaying
| a hodge-dodge of non-uniformly scaled bullshit.
|
| Solved would mean I'm not hacking a scaling factor into the
| perforce config file to get its window to match the rest of
| the UI. Solved would mean that Windows handled it for
| everything drawing windows.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| There's still some issues if you have multiple monitors
| with different display scalings, but they have just about
| solved that too.
| philjohn wrote:
| Pretty much any app using bog standard winforms seems to
| suffer.
| indemnity wrote:
| I'm on Windows 11 and still regularly see this.
| pdpi wrote:
| I'm on Windows 10 right now, running a 1440p display, and a
| 4k display at a logical resolution of 1440p. Lots of stuff
| misbehaves on the scaled 4k display.
|
| For a couple of examples: The nVidia Control Panel ignores
| the scaling on the 4k display and renders tiny text as if
| the display was set to 4k. GPU-Z looks like a blurry mess.
| Groxx wrote:
| I've been running Win 10 with 150% scaling for a year or
| so, with fairly light use because I spend easily >10x more
| time in OSX (where scaling works correctly nigh-
| universally).
|
| Win10 scaling is..... very hit or miss. Various programs
| are of course all over the place, but some system utilities
| don't even render correctly. _Window size and control
| placement_ is mostly correct everywhere, but text? Images?
| Tooltips? Ooooh boy are those a mess. Maybe like 20% of
| apps I 've ever touched don't render something correctly.
| That's A LOT of problems.
|
| And that's before I start talking about running two screens
| at different densities. Then it's borderline hilarious how
| broken things are.
| oneplane wrote:
| The worst thing is that scaling isn't applied correctly
| at all. You can have a taskbar icon with correct scaling
| that has a tooltip that isn't scaled at all and a
| context-menu that is scaled correctly but the scaling was
| also applied to the position so now it floats 50 pixels
| in the wrong direction.
|
| It's an inconsistent mess. Great for people who think
| inconsistent messes are beneficial for them, not great
| for other people.
| mlyle wrote:
| I've been using Windows and hidpi for the past few years &
| routinely encounter scaling bullshit.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| The last time I used Windows was last night. Unlike Mac
| where I hold back on updates until they force my hand, I
| update my Win 10 as soon as it hits the public channel. I
| can assure you, the problem is far from solved. Whereas on
| MacOS, not a single app misbehaves.
|
| Most apps are 3rd party apps!
| gareim wrote:
| The Netflix Windows app and my 4K monitor at 125% do not
| work together. The UI elements are tiny and the padding is
| wrong.
| shawnz wrote:
| Is that worse than simply not being able to scale the other
| half of the apps that do work without kludges like this?
| Aloha wrote:
| As someone who has to do UI/UX work on Windows, I prefer the
| way macOS handles it, the issue is, if I use a non-HiDPI aware
| app on Windows, I have no idea what my UI elements will look
| like - on MacOS, they may show up blury, but I know exactly
| what they'll look like - another issue is, Windows does UI
| scaling on non-HiDPI screens by default.
| leokennis wrote:
| I think it embodies the philosophical difference between
| Microsoft and Apple. And I'm not making a judgement here.
|
| Windows: give users choice, including the choice to end up
| with blurry apps with ill aligned UI.
|
| Mac: we cannot let you stray outside these boundaries,
| otherwise your UI experience will deviate too much from the
| experience we determine to be the best.
|
| For me, scaling on non-HiDPI screens is a feature. I like big
| text and big buttons and Windows gives me that. I'll gladly
| except perfect big UI 99% of the time, if the cost is ugly UI
| 1% of the time.
| fortran77 wrote:
| That was my first thought. All this crap Mac users have to go
| through if they want to go off the "happy path" even slightly
| with an aftermarket monitor.
|
| I worked for Apple more than two decades ago, but now I'm a
| happy Windows 11 user.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I have an aftermarket monitor, runs at 4K, has a scaling
| factor applied so that I can make everything bigger. I don't
| feel like I had to go through any crap, either, it's the
| simplest of UIs.
| hollerith wrote:
| I agree that it is simple (i.e., the Displays pane of
| System Preferences) but the result IMHO is unpleasantly
| blurry.
|
| These days, fonts, SVG images, CSS, etc, are stored as
| mathematical descriptions of curves that can be rendered at
| any scaling factor. Any use of a scaling algorithm, like
| MacOS does when the scaling factor is not an integer
| multiple of the display's true resolution, is an
| unnecessary source of blurriness. A HiDPI display make the
| blurriness less noticeable, but do not solve the basic
| problem, which is that the scaling algorithm reduces the
| "effective resolution" of the display.
|
| (I have never used a HiDPI display with a desktop OS, but
| another participant here on HN has and reported that he
| notices MacOS's blurriness relative to Windows even on a
| HiDPI display.)
| seanalltogether wrote:
| I agree, resolution independence should be a higher priority
| for macos. They've been able to dance around the subject by
| just doubling everything and calling it retina, but true
| accessibility would allow everyone to set the scale that works
| best for them.
| greggman3 wrote:
| It's not as simple as fixing the display setting code. For
| example WebKit is not happy with non-integer DPRs. It will
| leave gaps here and there. When those gaps happen is probably
| rare enough that it's not a show stopper but I suspect lots
| of other MacOS software has similar issues.
|
| Another tangentially related issue, how do you display a
| pixel perfect image on a non-integer DPR. For example lets
| say you want to show 8bit mario in HTML at exactly 16 or some
| multiple of 16 pixels so that there's not odd integer
| scaling. it's quite a pain, requires JS, and requires
| flexible page layout since you won't be able to use "CSS
| pixels" to decide the size to display it. Possibly that's an
| argument for never having non-integer DPRs.
| seanalltogether wrote:
| You're right it's not simple, it would require a refresh of
| uikit and a transition period for developers to learn how
| to opt in or opt out. There are existing ui frameworks like
| what android provides that show how to define ui elements,
| strokes, padding, margins, and text to use either scaled
| pixels or fixed pixels.
|
| Leave everything as fixed pixels for backwards
| compatibility and add scaled pixels in for new development.
| I can guarantee that if Apple ported the main apps like
| Finder, Mail, Safari, Calendar, Music to support resolution
| independence that other developers would jump on board
| quickly to keep up to date.
| joosters wrote:
| Resolution control on my mac mini + 3rd party 4k monitor
| works just great, you can choose to have native resolution,
| 'retina' (i.e. 2x scaling), or a few steps in-between the
| two, there's plenty of flexibility.
|
| Plus, the way it works means that (as I understand it),
| programs don't really need to do anything to support all
| these variations. Behind the scenes, the OS renders
| everything at a very high resolution, then uses the graphics
| hardware to smoothly scale everything down to your chosen
| size.
|
| My eyes aren't good enough to use the native resolution, and
| using the 'retina' setting wastes too much screen real estate
| (I mean, that's why you buy a big monitor for, right?), so
| having somewhere between the two is essential. I was
| concerned that choosing a non-simple scaling (neither doubled
| or native) would make things blurry or slow, but it just
| works, and works well. Even dragging windows between a high-
| DPI and normal DPI display is seamless.
|
| As an aside, after years of using a low-res monitor, with
| tiny fonts to squeeze as many terminals and emacs windows
| onto my screen, high-DPI is a godsend. For a long time after
| getting the 4k monitor, I'd just play around with the mac's
| screen zoom accessibility function (uses the mouse wheel to
| smoothly zoom into an area of the screen) - it was astounding
| to me just how much you can zoom before individual characters
| become blocky. They used to be drawn as 8x8 pixels and now,
| to my aging eyes, each letter looks as smooth and detailed as
| printed text!
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That's how it works for me. I have a 4K monitor, my MacBook Pro
| connects to it at native resolution, and I select the scaling
| factor I want.
|
| This is a good thing, since as much as I like 4K resolution, my
| middle aged eyes prefer to have things scaled up a bit.
| ciex wrote:
| The issue is with lossy scaling. I also have a 4k monitor but
| you can clearly see a difference in clarity if you select
| anything other than 3840x2160 (1x, everything is tiny) or
| 1920x1080 (2x, everything is huge).
| SigmundA wrote:
| How does Windows solve that? Anything other than 2x
| multiples is lossy I thought.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Windows has had support for variable DPI since win95.
| They've had to hide or rework it over the years because
| it hasn't always held up to problematic dev practices
| like fixed pixel dimensioning but the fundamental
| graphics subsystem has supported it.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Windows UIs can draw natively at non-integer scales. This
| put them a good decade behind macOS for software support
| because 3rd party products all needed tons of work to
| support it, and would all get drawn at 1x with pixelated
| upscaling in the meantime.
|
| But now that it's more widely supported, it's really the
| more efficient and more precise solution.
|
| I had a Surface Pro 3 with a default 150% scale and the
| experience in 2014 was great as long as you lived in
| OneNote.
| jen20 wrote:
| Some* Windows UIs can draw natively at non-integer
| scales.
|
| Many first party programs even still look _awful_ at
| best, and are non-functional at worst as a result.
| leokennis wrote:
| That's indeed nice...but it only works for 4K or higher
| resolution screens (on lower res, scaling isn't offered).
|
| For example with the Windows solution, I have a laptop with a
| 1920x1080 screen which I set to 125% and then a 3440x1440
| monitor which I set to 150%.
|
| When I connect my MacBook to that monitor, I have to resort
| to hacks like the one linked here, or live with tiny text and
| heaps of wasted space.
| daxfohl wrote:
| Now if Windows could just make my laptop not use half the
| battery overnight with the lid closed.
|
| (This is frustrating me to the point that I am on the verge of
| getting a macbook for the first time now even though my laptop
| is otherwise great and only a year old, so it's good (for my
| pocketbook anyway) to know the other side has its own issues).
| com2kid wrote:
| > Now if Windows could just make my laptop not use half the
| battery overnight with the lid closed.
|
| Eh I have a Macbook and various apps will cause the laptop to
| not go to sleep. Web browsers are the largest offenders in my
| experience. I've often enough came into my office to a laptop
| that was running at 100% CPU all night.
| burnte wrote:
| Check your manufacturer's website for updates and you rpower
| scheme settings. I have a early-2021 Dell XPS 13 (the 9310)
| and I can close it, forget it in my bag for two weeks, open
| it and it has 94% battery left because it auto-hibernated.
| daxfohl wrote:
| It's been a while but I _think_ I had that working too,
| _except_ wifi would be totally dorked up after waking. I 'd
| have to manually disconnect and reconnect each time (xps
| 9700). That was more annoying than being dead 1/3 of the
| time, so I left it like this. Are you experiencing similar?
|
| That said, yeah I'll check if there are updates I'm
| missing.
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| Try looking into Power Profile and Power Management setting,
| likely you are on the high performance profile or the profile
| was set incorrectly. Also look into the device manager and
| change the power setting for each devices, some device can
| turn on the computer and keep it awake through out the night.
| Even apps (I managed to find out why my computer keep awaking
| up in the middle of the night because of the particular app
| that have no reason to use the waketimer function).
| handrous wrote:
| I don't get how idle power use is still so bad on competing
| products. I understand Android, at least, has improved
| somewhat, but it spent _years_ being laughably bad compared
| to iOS, even on tablet hardware with no cell radio to worry
| about. Dead after three days in a drawer, while the iPad that
| 'd been in there for three weeks still had plenty of charge
| left. WTF.
| _pmf_ wrote:
| Windows still requires a dummy dongle for a virtual (software)
| video output "monitor", I think. (Something like this:
| https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005001604432934.html)
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| Hold alt while clicking "scaled" in the display settings.
| You'll get the full list of resolutions.
| kristjansson wrote:
| Interestingly, looks like that's presented as a checkbox in
| Monterey, rather than an option-click (never Apple's most
| discoverable UX).
| reaperducer wrote:
| I don't use an external monitor, so I'm not familiar with the
| issue here, but are you saying this person created a solution
| for a problem that doesn't exist? Is this one of those RTFM
| moments?
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| I would not ever say that, I do not have an M1 (which is
| specifically mentioned in the readme). I am responding to
| the parent because indeed there is a way to set a
| resolution as desired rather than just the "pick from these
| 4 scaled images".
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| I used dual-monitor set up for my MBA-M1. My external
| monitor is 1080p native and connected through Anker USB-C
| dock. When I connected the monitor to it, macOS on my
| external monitor looks blurry as hell. It is like it is
| imposed a strange resolution on my 1080p monitor that ended
| up looks worse. I tried to change the resolution through
| the Display setting and it didn't generally help. So the
| "secret menu" in Display didn't help at all, macOS is doing
| something to my external monitor that it was crisp and
| clear in Windows and Linux whereas macOS are not.
| hollerith wrote:
| >in this regard Windows is far superior to macOS
|
| I agree, and wish to add that the new graphics stack on Linux
| is also far superior to MacOS in the same way. By "new graphics
| stack" I mean Wayland without XWayland.
|
| In fact, of the 3 desktop operating systems, I distinctly
| prefer the details of how my screen looks on Linux: on Windows,
| small (plus or minus 25%) changes in scaling factor tend to
| cause large changes in the details of the rendering of text
| (e.g., the average width of lines and curves can seem to halve
| or double or the text can _seem_ to change font) which I find a
| little distracting.
|
| MacOS is by far the worst of the three. Not only does it look
| horribly blurry to me (on a normal old monitor -- I do not own
| any HiDPI monitors) when a non-integer scaling factor is
| applied (via the Displays pane of System Preferences), but even
| at the native resolution of the display, it is blurrier than I
| like because of a decision by Apple long ago to optimize for
| how closely text on the screen matches how the same text looks
| like when printed out. (At least one of the terms hinting and
| anti-aliasing are relevant here, but I don't know the details.)
|
| Windows is _further along_ than Linux in the rollout of a truly
| resolution-independent graphics stack: on Linux, I have to pass
| certain flags to Chrome to get it to circumvent XWayland and
| not be blurry -- and then there are a few bugs -- but bugs I
| can definitely live with. Also, on Linux, I have to use a
| special branch of Emacs (named feature /pgtk) to get Emacs to
| be non-blurry when a non-integer scaling factor is set in Gnome
| Settings, feature/pgtk has a bad bug (freezing at random times)
| which I learned to work around (by starting a second
| "sacrificial" Emacs instance, which luckily would always be the
| first to freeze, and once frozen would somehow prevent the
| first instance from freezing).
|
| I was a MacOS user for 10 years, and would still be a MacOS
| user today if I hadn't spent time on Windows 10 and had my eyes
| opened to the painfulness of the two aforementioned sources of
| blurriness (namely, Apple's decision to optimize for fidelity
| to hardcopy and MacOS's use of a scaling algorithm when the
| scaling factor is not an exact integer). I always knew during
| those 10 years that MacOS was too blurry for me at non-integer
| scaling factors, but I thought it was OK because the 2
| individual apps I spent the most time in (Emacs and my browser)
| have app-specific scaling factors that don't introduce
| blurriness, and it wasn't until I spent time on a different OS
| that I understood how sub-optimal MacOS was for my pattern of
| use and my particular visual cortex.
|
| If you are on a Mac, a good way to experience what I am talking
| about is to install Google Chrome, then operate the "Zoom"
| control in the menu of the 3 vertical dots. Note how every
| element in the viewport instantly changes size. PNG and JPG
| images (e.g., the white "Y" in the left top corner of this
| page, but _not_ the white rectangle surrounding it) might
| become blurry (or stop being blurry) because unlike essentially
| everything else on a modern web page, PNGs and JPGs are not
| stored as resolution-independent mathematical descriptions of
| curves. Well, Windows has a control in its Settings app that
| has the same effect on every visual element on the OS
| (including the mouse cursor). And on my Linux box, Gnome
| Settings has a control that does the same thing. (Safari and
| Firefox might have the same "zoomability" as Chrome does; I
| haven't used Firefox on a Mac in years; back when I did, its
| zoom control zoomed only the text, but not the images; I no
| longer have access to a Mac, so cannot experiment with Safari.)
| 90minuteAPI wrote:
| > I do not own any HiDPI monitors
|
| This is a major factor. macOS has aggressively optimized for
| these in recent years, often at the expense of classic 1x
| display experience. I use 5K 27" and 4K 24" monitors at 2x
| scaling (this is the default), and the result is excellent.
| hollerith wrote:
| Maybe so, but the blurriness caused by decisions around
| antialiasing and hinting was present already in Snow
| Leopard, which predates the first retina Mac.
| karmakaze wrote:
| I love this, it's so crazy that the resolutions I can display on
| my screen can include/exclude resolutions that it will display
| only when an external display is connected.
|
| SwitchResX is cool but also a bit complex. 'Display Menu' is
| simpler but also somewhat limited.
| alin23 wrote:
| Thanks for doing and sharing this!
|
| It has been really helpful to finally have virtual displays that
| respond to CGDisplay methods when developing Lunar
| (https://lunar.fyi)
|
| It also helped in unearthing some bugs apparently. [0]
|
| [0]
| https://github.com/MonitorControl/MonitorControl/issues/752#...
| waydabber wrote:
| Yeah thanks @alin23 for creating extra work for me lol :), I'll
| be working on fixing that in MonitorControl
| (https://monitorcontrol.app).
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-11-01 23:01 UTC)