For LG OLED users: Mac mini M4 does not support HiDPI 4k over HDMI 2.1

[MacCheetah3]

This:

Maybe I've been confused about HiDPI, but as I understood it, 4k resolution would have a HiDPI display of 1080. Your screen only has 3840x2160 pixels to begin with, why would it upsample to 8k to downsample back to the native resolution? The benefit of HiDPI is the smoothing effect of those extra 4 pixels for every displayed pixel, right?

That isn't how HiDPI works. A 4k monitor can not display anything sharper than 3840x2160; so rendering a higher resolution and scaling it down is pointless; the only that *might* do is fake sub pixel anti-aliasing, which why not just bring that feature back instead.

What you really want is a 8k display that renders the UI at 3840x2160 which will be sharper because now it has 2x2 pixels for every 1 pixel to render the same element rather than 1 pixel.

The OP and some others are confused and/or misusing terms. And because the 2024 Mac mini (i.e., M4) doesn’t support (native) 8k for a single display/monitor — I’m not aware of any Mac that has — then, of course, macOS isn’t going to offer HiDPI 4k/8k. The current best is HiDPI 3k/6k. Also, HiDPI and high PPI (e.g., “Retina”) are not the same.

P.S. I prefer the display resolution standard (e.g., XGA, FHD, QHD, UHD) versus the “K” designations. For one reason, it’s (IMO) at least a little less confusing than the other adopted version, which is a mismatch. That is, we went from defining by vertical resolution (e.g., 480p, 720p, 1080p) to categorizing by rounded to the thousand horizontal resolution (e.g, 4k is 3840 pixels).

 

[avkills]

This:


The OP and some others are confused and/or misusing terms. And because the 2024 Mac mini (i.e., M4) doesn’t support (native) 8k for a single display/monitor — I’m not aware of any Mac that has — then, of course, macOS isn’t going to offer HiDPI 4k/8k. The current best is HiDPI 3k/6k. Also, HiDPI and high PPI (e.g., “Retina”) are not the same.

P.S. I prefer the display resolution standard (e.g., XGA, FHD, QHD, UHD) versus the “K” designations. For one reason, it’s (IMO) at least a little less confusing than the other adopted version, which is a mismatch. That is, we went from defining by vertical resolution (e.g., 480p, 720p, 1080p) to categorizing by rounded to the thousand horizontal resolution (e.g, 4k is 3840 pixels).

Technically 4k is 4096x2160; Ultra HD is 3840x2160. Which is kind of funny since pretty much no one makes a monitor that is true 4k. You can find projectors that are though.

Personally I find Apple's entire display chain lame compared to Windows. The only thing Apple has better is calibration. Promotion is stupid. Just let me set it to a higher refresh and be done with it; provided the monitor supports it.

 

[hajime]

So in terms of connecting to high resolution displays and have nice looking text scaling, is there any advantage in getting a Mini M4 Pro rather than a Mini M4? I plan to buy a 5K, 5K2K or 6K monitor in the near future.

 

[macbug]

So in terms of connecting to high resolution displays and have nice looking text scaling, is there any advantage in getting a Mini M4 Pro rather than a Mini M4? I plan to buy a 5K, 5K2K or 6K monitor in the near future.

If you're looking to get 6k displays, the mini M4 Pro will let you use 3 at once where the m4 version you can only use 2 6k monitors and one 5k. They spell out the nitty gritty on this page ( https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-mini/connect-a-display-apd8e4fbbb97 ), but as far as having beautiful looking text and scaling - Just plug it in & set your resolution. Forget this whole thread exists.