IDK. I am no expert but I bought a 2K LG monitor for my M1 MacBook Air and the fonts were very blurry. I returned it and bought a LG 4K monitor and scaled it to 1920 x 1080p and it is so much sharper and videos look so much better.
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4K monitor at 1440p scaling performance
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Just wanna add onto this thread as I’m in the process of returning an LG 27” 4k 144hz monitor after getting horrible GUI lag with my music apps when using it scaled at 1440p when using it hooked up to my MBP 16” M1 Pro laptop
The display looked amazing and for the most part it was fine, when just navigating the OS. I went for the high refresh rate as I wanted something close to the really fluid 120hz pro motion display on the laptop itself but when I’m inside various music production apps, you can really feel the sluggishness when interacting with the UI, especially at 144hz. I’m gonna wait until apple release a promotion display of their own to avoid these scaling performance degradation issues. Back to 1440p for me.
The display looked amazing and for the most part it was fine, when just navigating the OS. I went for the high refresh rate as I wanted something close to the really fluid 120hz pro motion display on the laptop itself but when I’m inside various music production apps, you can really feel the sluggishness when interacting with the UI, especially at 144hz. I’m gonna wait until apple release a promotion display of their own to avoid these scaling performance degradation issues. Back to 1440p for me.
144/60=2.4x - this how much more scaling work GPU has to do in case of 144 Hz 4k monitor. So while on 60 Hz this settled as being OK (M1 GPU probably has some hardware accelerated scaling built-in already) higher refresh 4k monitors have to wait. Even the fastest 16" MBPro has 3456x2234 120 Hz screen, still requiring less scaling work than 4k@144 Hz. But honestly 4k@144 Hz is an overkill even for top gaming PCs. My friend has just built such a machine around i9 11900 and RTX 3090, yet it's still not capable of playing high fps @4k. Basically he plays 1440p most of the time in all games that benefit from 144 Hz of his LG 4k display. He had to admit that now he'd just buy top 1440p monitor saving some bucks.
Repeating what I said in another thread. I tested that monitor at all different refresh rates to rule out any performance issues that could arise from having a high refresh rate display, 60hz all the way up to 144hz. The same UI lag occured even when I put it all the way down to 60hz. When zooming in and out my projects in various different audio apps (Ableton, Bitwig & FL studio) the UI was insanely choppy when using 1440p scaled, you could see & feel the dropped frames.
So that's surprising to me then. Do you have any chance to connect "ordinary" 60 Hz 4k display to check if it is repeatable on this also?
Yeah I grabbed an older 60hz LG 4k monitor that I have spare and experienced the same on that also.
Looks like these two apps for some reason make heavy use of GPU (I think strange for DAW applications). I wonder if for instance Cubase or Logic Pro (this one is Mac exclusive) would create the same problem? I use Exposure X6 which uses GPU for image manipulation quite heavily and while there's some delay on 4k as compared to native 1440p monitor I'd say it is passable, especially that I have MBP 2019 with i7 and Intel IG and M1 are considered much better in this regard.
It's definately down to the software adapting metal or not. Here is a comparison of bitwig that uses the CPU to render its UI compared to Ableton Live which uses the metal API and the GPU to render its UI, its like night and day.
Bitwig vs Ableton UI (4K MacOS)
Watch "Bitwig vs Ableton UI (4K MacOS)" on Streamable.
Planning to buy an MBP here and I need help, if I upgrade the M1 MBP 14" to 10c CPU and 16c GPU with 32gb RAM will this solve my scaling issues on my 32" 4k PD3220u display?
I'm a graphic designer and I mostly use these apps (all at the same time):
Photoshop, Illustrator, Adobe XD, Indesign, Slack, Messenger, Apple music, Excel, Word, Safari with lots of tabs (20-50) for design research/inspirations
As for my monitor, I really don't want to let it go, it's really helpful when I design. I used an M2 Macbook Air before and experienced scaling issues when paired with my 4k monitor. I just sold the M2 air and planning to buy an MBP 14" but I don't know how many GPU cores I need so I don't experience performance issues...
I'm a graphic designer and I mostly use these apps (all at the same time):
Photoshop, Illustrator, Adobe XD, Indesign, Slack, Messenger, Apple music, Excel, Word, Safari with lots of tabs (20-50) for design research/inspirations
As for my monitor, I really don't want to let it go, it's really helpful when I design. I used an M2 Macbook Air before and experienced scaling issues when paired with my 4k monitor. I just sold the M2 air and planning to buy an MBP 14" but I don't know how many GPU cores I need so I don't experience performance issues...
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It won't, I've got the same model and experienced issues. The only way to avoid these issues as far as I'm aware is to go for a 5K monitor.
It depends on an app. Seems like apps using properly metal framework are working just fine in scaled resolutions on 4k screen, performance is good even on multiple 4k screens.
This was really helpful! Thank you! Since I’m also upgrading my cpu and gpu to 10/16 maybe this won’t cause major performance issues? Plus, I only use 1 ext display.
I want to order the mbp now but I’ll wait for more replies and do some more research
I'm bumping this thread to get some advice so I don't make the same mistake again. I have an MBP M2 and use it mainly for the Google suite for office work, and some videos on YouTube. No movies, no video games, no heavy video/photo editing programs (I rarely use Photoshop to fix a photo).
I use a DELL docking station with DisplayLink and a Dell QHD monitor that has 110 ppi, which should be ideal for retina, but the pixels are too small, so every time I write an email or read for example MR forum, I have to zoom in.
I was thinking of a Dell S2721QSA, 4k at 60hz, using scaling to 2560 x 1440. I tried this on a benQ and it's perfect for my work.
I'll use 2 monitor with this scaled resolution, do you think it will affect the performance for my usage?
I use a DELL docking station with DisplayLink and a Dell QHD monitor that has 110 ppi, which should be ideal for retina, but the pixels are too small, so every time I write an email or read for example MR forum, I have to zoom in.
I was thinking of a Dell S2721QSA, 4k at 60hz, using scaling to 2560 x 1440. I tried this on a benQ and it's perfect for my work.
I'll use 2 monitor with this scaled resolution, do you think it will affect the performance for my usage?
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I don’t understand. The problem with 110 ppi is that the pixels are far too large for Retina.
I don’t know how your DisplayLink hardware works, but the normal way to use this would be set the M2 MBP monitor to Retina and the external Dell monitor non-scaled. However, if you find the text on the M2 MBP monitor too small, you can set it to a higher scaling ratio to increase the text size. For the Dell at 110 ppi, pretty much the only option that won’t look completely horrible is non-scaled.
However, why are you using DisplayLink in the first place? Or do you mean DisplayPort? Because DisplayPort is completely different. If it really is DisplayLink, why not just use DisplayPort?
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jutsh wrote:
"I was thinking of a Dell S2721QSA, 4k at 60hz, using scaling to 2560 x 1440. I tried this on a benQ and it's perfect for my work."
You might like a Dell "Ultrasharp" even more.
I have a U2723QE, but it's been replaced by an updated model now.
I would also suggest using "BetterDisplay" with just about any display. Very useful, runs in either "free" or "paid/pro" modes, free mode is enough for many...
"I was thinking of a Dell S2721QSA, 4k at 60hz, using scaling to 2560 x 1440. I tried this on a benQ and it's perfect for my work."
You might like a Dell "Ultrasharp" even more.
I have a U2723QE, but it's been replaced by an updated model now.
I would also suggest using "BetterDisplay" with just about any display. Very useful, runs in either "free" or "paid/pro" modes, free mode is enough for many...
I don’t really agree with that. BetterDisplay is most useful in specific situations. In other situations it unnecessarily complexifies things for some people. Even worse, in rare cases it can completely inactivate a monitor if you inadvertently mess with the wrong settings.
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The DisplayLink software is used to easily connect and manage external monitors, keyboards, mice, hard drives, and other devices to a computer through a single connection, such as a universal USB docking station. It works very well with Dell docking stations, and they are also certified for that.
My concern is whether two 4K monitors with 1440p scaling can noticeably slow down performance. I have tried a single 4K monitor with that scaling, and there were no slowdowns during normal activities.
I find it fairly easy to use, and if you take your time to learn how the app works, its not dangerous at all. I think like most people who use it, its a superior general use app that greatly extends the capability of your monitor that is locked out using the system settings.
But that's just it: It's also easy to screw up if you don't use it properly. The point I was making is that it is superfluous for a lot of people and for those people it is a waste of time and even a potential hazard if they don't want to waste even more time learning to use it properly.
If you want to install it then great, but I take issue with the suggestion that everyone should install it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I guess it depends on DisplayLink itself so I can't help you there, but for regular monitor usage that many pixels isn't a big deal. I currently use an M4 Mac mini with a single 6K monitor which is more pixels than two 4K monitors, and it's super speedy, just as fast as using a single non-Retina QHD monitor.
Also, I still don't understand why you are saying 110 ppi makes the text too small. Is that a glitch with your DisplayLink configuration? In normal usage, text on a 110 ppi QHD monitor will be the same size as on an Apple Studio Display which is 218 ppi, but 2X scaled, equivalent to 109 ppi.
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You can make that argument for nearly any setting within an operating system or computer. Its one thing to help guide unsuspecting people/consumers from making changes, its quite another to be discussing utilities and settings on an apple fan site where most of the users are technically proficient to manage their display settings. The members here are generally a lot smarter, lot more capable and so avoiding a tool just because it could cause headaches is not warranted imo.
There is an old thread here by one of the respected monitor people who managed to completely inactivate his monitor just by futzing around with BetterDisplay settings.
Like I said, if you want to install it, that's fine, but it's strange to recommend it to everyone, when it's simply not necessary for most people. And no most people here are not computer experts. I'd say most are average users, but with a bigger than usual minority of tinkerers and experts.