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4K display and Mac Pro resolution question...

violst

violst

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 14, 2012
339
161
I Have a question about 4K resolution and UI type size, I was wondering if someone can help me figure it out?

Can I set the monitor resolution to 4k, and have all the UI elements and text scaled to be bigger? Can I have both big text and full 4k resolution for photo viewing?

I am currently using the nMP with osX 10.9.5

Thanks in advance for any help!
 
I'm using my 4K display at HiDPI 3200x1800 mode. Effectively the letters are a bit bigger this way and the picture is very sharp since it renders 6400x3600 and then scales it down to 3840x2160.
 
Yes, I think HiDPI is the best you can get.

If you can't see this option. Open system preferences -> display, and then hold down "option" on your keyboard -> click scale
 
violst said:
Can I set the monitor resolution to 4k, and have all the UI elements and text scaled to be bigger? Can I have both big text and full 4k resolution for photo viewing?
Click to expand...

This is pretty much the way it works with the Mac's HiDPI feature. When you set the resolution in the Display System Preferences, all you're really changing is the scale of the user interface. For well-written applications, the images should always be drawn using the full resolution of the monitor. At this point, I'm pretty sure both Photoshop and Preview will do the right thing on 4K and 5K monitors.
 
Thanks for the feedback. The only problem is if I use the scaled mode it not only changes the UI but also the full display resolution. I have the 31" LG 31MU97Z and it does full 4K @ 4096x2160 but the type is very small. If I use the scaled option in the display preferences It just changes the overall resolution. I just want to change he UI type size. I know it can be done on Windows OS but can I just increase the UI font size overall on a mac?

Am I missing something?

Thanks again.
 
@violst: It is not possible to scale the UI type independently from the overall resolution like in Windows. You will have to live with the tiny UI type using full UHD resolution or select a scaled resolution. OS X itself does not offer that many scaling steps, using the app SwitchresX gives you some more options. (but still no independent scaling)
 
bokkow said:
I'm using my 4K display at HiDPI 3200x1800 mode. Effectively the letters are a bit bigger this way and the picture is very sharp since it renders 6400x3600 and then scales it down to 3840x2160.
Click to expand...
3200x1800 with scaling should be equivalent to what 1600x900 looks like.
 
filmak said:
Have you tried, while in finder, to press cmd+J and check the settings there, if this is of help?
Click to expand...
Oh, yes, of course. You can change the UI type here, but this only changes the appearance of the textsize of a directory, be it documents or a program directory. It leaves you with the tiny tiny UI font in all the other elements the menubar etc. (including the apps)

You can have huge icons and fonts on the desktop for instance and a 4 mm menubar on top :)

There is no "display all elements and the fonts at 150%" like in Windows. But: There are quite a lot of other problems with apps that are not "HIDPI aware" in Windows. In the worst case you end up with an app that is not able to display a message while in upscaled mode. You don't know what you have to do next, because there is nothing to click or select from. And you even don't know something should be there and waits for your action. So I am quite happy with the OS X solution.
 
Last edited:
axantas said:
Oh, yes, of course. You can change the UI type here, but this only changes the appearance of the textsize of a directory, be it documents or a program directory. It leaves you with the tiny tiny UI font in all the other elements the menubar etc. (including the apps)

You can have huge icons and fonts on the desktop for instance and a 4 mm menubar on top :)

There is no "display all elements and the fonts at 150%" like in Windows. But: There are quite a lot of other problems with apps that are not "HIDPI aware" in Windows. In the worst case you end up with an app that is not able to display a message while in upscaled mode. You don't know what you have to do next, because there is nothing to click or select from. And you even don't know something should be there and waits for your action. So I am quite happy with the OS X solution.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately we can't do anything better :).
 
violst said:
Thanks for the feedback. The only problem is if I use the scaled mode it not only changes the UI but also the full display resolution. I have the 31" LG 31MU97Z and it does full 4K @ 4096x2160 but the type is very small. If I use the scaled option in the display preferences It just changes the overall resolution. I just want to change he UI type size. I know it can be done on Windows OS but can I just increase the UI font size overall on a mac?

Am I missing something?

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

Using the scaling options in the Displays preference pane do report a scaled resolution, any well-written application
will still use every available pixel for displaying text, images, and video. For example, Final Cut on a 5k iMac will *always* display every pixel of a 4k video file, regardless of what the scaled resolution (and therefore UI size) is. I understand that Photoshop and Lightroom also do this.

This is why text in "updated" apps looks great on Retina Macs with any scaling, but text in older apps looks pixelated.
 
axantas said:
@violst: It is not possible to scale the UI type independently from the overall resolution like in Windows. You will have to live with the tiny UI type using full UHD resolution or select a scaled resolution. OS X itself does not offer that many scaling steps, using the app SwitchresX gives you some more options. (but still no independent scaling)
Click to expand...

Yes, unfortunately thats what I have slowly figured out. I have been trying some work arounds like changing the font sizes in Mail and Safari. also changing the default view size to a bigger font. I also use a second monitor for pallets and that helps readability a lot.

It would be nice to keep the screen restate of a 4K display and just be able to resize the UI elements to suit the higher resolution.

Maybe in OSX 10.30 apple will finally play catch up?
 
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