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Surface Pro 3 - Torn!
- Thread starter Ryan0751
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How so? I use that all the time, when I'm off the docking station (and not using an external monitor), I select a higher scaling factor.
Here's a different view
Because it's exactly the same as the interface in 8.1 which doesn't work properly.
What doesn't work? I use it all the time. I don't really like how you need to log out and back in to apply the scaling change but it works as advertised for me.
There you go. Having to log out in order to not have over/undersized elements and fuzzy text does not constitute 'working properly' on a device specifically designed to bridge the gap between portable note taker and desktop computer.
Its working as designed - you don't like how its working (neither do I) but I disagree with your assessment that it isn't working properly. If that's a show stopper for you, so be it. I can live with the it, as I consider it only a minor annoyance.
I concur. The Windows scaling is just plain horrible. Microsoft should just copy the way that Apple implemented it.
I installed Windows 10 Tech Preview on my Surface Pro 3. It looks quite nice for the most part, but it's still impossible to scale things properly.
And old Windows programs, even some of windows own utilities, look AWFUL. They are all fuzzy (not just pixelated) - fuzzy.
Hopefully they fix this before Windows 10 is out, otherwise people with HiDPI displays are not going to be too pleased.
It's par for the course for Windows, and it's exactly the type detail that Apple would never have allowed out.
You call it working as designed; I call it broken. Microsoft addressed these new features heavily with the release of 8.1 so it's obvious that even they are aware of the fact that it's an issue for their users. No serious review of Windows glosses over this issue. It's a big deal.
Well since its an issue for you, then a SP3 is not a good choice for you. I disagree on it being a big deal, but then I'm happy with my SP3.
To each his own as they say
Well since its an issue for you, then a SP3 is not a good choice for you. I disagree on it being a big deal, but then I'm happy with my SP3.
To each his own as they say
I am happy with my Surface as well but that doesn't mean I'm going to shy away from criticizing it when it should be better. (Not to mention this isn't really a Surface issue but a Windows issue). That has been the standard in the Windows world for far too long- being content with 'good enough.' The new Microsoft appears to be finally ready to move away from that model. They need to hear loudly when things aren't as good as they should be.
All I'm saying for me its not a big deal. I don't think its a shying away from criticizing MS. I've been pretty upfront with Apple and MS's short comings.
My point with the scaling is, for me its not a big deal. My point is if, its such a major issue for you, perhaps another solution is a better fit.
You can complain all you want, but I doubt very much Ms is going to be reading MacRumors. I'd reach out to them (though I don't know if they have a feedback page like apple).
My point with the scaling is, for me its not a big deal. My point is if, its such a major issue for you, perhaps another solution is a better fit.
You can complain all you want, but I doubt very much Ms is going to be reading MacRumors. I'd reach out to them (though I don't know if they have a feedback page like apple).
It's not that I expect they are reading MacRumors, it's keeping issues out in the open so that people are aware of them, and that, most definitely, has been shown to get action from companies. This is not an obscure bug, this is a fundamental issue with the world's most common operating system.
The scaling issues are an embarrassment to MS IMO, not only multi monitor but also some programs on the desktop. It's not only tablets, but a lot of monitors just have vastly improved resolutions and windows doesn't scale well in some cases. The base windows UI scales well, it's just some programs. Certainly this can be said to be the fault of the software developers, but you can see that Apple would never allow a developer to do something poor like this. This is definitely one of the issues MS needs to put its full attention on.
What you have between Apple and MS are two extremes on how to handle backwards compatibility. Apple will nix something entirely in a single version if they consider it depreciated. If your app used it, then too bad. Start using the new APIs, or get kicked off the OS. MS is the opposite, where they still have old APIs practically dating back to Windows 95 thrown in there because some people just don't want to take the time to learn something new, god bless 'em.
It's why you have some people still writing applications using GDI instead of Direct2D, and why we still have issues with scaling on modern Windows, even though the OS itself is almost entirely resolution independent.
Well to add to the confusion you can't run OSx programs on iOS. This is where MS has encountered all of its difficulties. But a I mentioned the scaling issue is one which is also present on Today's high resolution monitors, something that has nothing to do with tablets.
It sounds like we agree that MS has to lay down the law to developers, which I assume it already is. The difficulty comes in legacy programs, how do you fix scaling issues in a program written before scaling became an issue?
For as much as I dislike OSx I can say that I've never seen a program not scale correctly on it.
To me the problem isn't so much that old legacy programs don't scale properly - I can work around that and it is to be expected. The issues are that Microsoft's OWN software doesn't even scale well - the brand new stuff like Office!
Businesses will find a way to make old software live on one way or another - but having worked in a place that has plenty of our own legacy software now for over a decade I can tell you that Microsoft's focus on backwards compatibility is an outdated model. Cut people off with a hard line and they will work with it. They'll either keep a few old machines alive to run the software on, migrate it to a VM, or, finally take the initiative to update software that has been ignored because MS has impeded progress for so long in the name of backwards compatibility. Life will go on, and we'll have better software for it.
Businesses will find a way to make old software live on one way or another - but having worked in a place that has plenty of our own legacy software now for over a decade I can tell you that Microsoft's focus on backwards compatibility is an outdated model. Cut people off with a hard line and they will work with it. They'll either keep a few old machines alive to run the software on, migrate it to a VM, or, finally take the initiative to update software that has been ignored because MS has impeded progress for so long in the name of backwards compatibility. Life will go on, and we'll have better software for it.
Scaling has only been a recent thing on OSX, and they fixed it easily enough by saying "hey, we're doubling the resolution of all our monitors on X and Y, so make everything 4x bigger". Pretty simple, and it worked well. But unfortunately, that's not a luxury MS has. They don't control the hardware their software goes on like Apple does.
By necessity, they have to take a more flexible approach. But no matter what they come up with, it'll only work as well as the amount of people using it. If every developer out there doesn't use New Feature X, then the problem will always persist in some shape, form, or fashion. Since developers tend to be a weirdly conservative bunch, we'll likely be seeing scaling issues on Windows machines for a few years yet.
I don't have any experience using OSX with high dpi monitors, so I may be off here, but my understanding was that OSX supersamples content in order to make this workable - by rendering the content at a very high resolution, and then pulling the smaller, say 1920x1080 content from that, which takes more processing power, but provides a clearer image than the method Microsoft uses.
In any case, the 4:1 thing is exactly what Microsoft should have done with the SP3. If they had made the screen 2880x1920 most of these problems would not exist. People could choose 1440x960 resolution which would render everything at 150% just like the 'recommended' scaling setting does now, but EVERYTHING would be super sharp, and you could run any external monitor connected at its native 100% scaling factor and there would be no weirdness. This is what Apple did with the rMBP in 2012!!
It goes into detail here. There would still be some issues, but I think they'd be a lot easier to live with than what we have now. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6023/the-nextgen-macbook-pro-with-retina-display-review/6
You're no including their push to continue to support DirectX 9 games, right? Because I have a lot of those and I don't exactly like virtualizing my games.
That isn't quite the same, since DX9 is a superset of features still directly supported under DX11. By the time DX has grown to the point it can no longer run them, computers will probably be fast enough that you could just emulate them without any performance issues.
If it can continue to be supported without impeding progress I have no problem with compatibility. But otherwise, no, I have little use to hold back today's software to support a format from 2002.
Okay, good. I just get paranoid when people say 'get rid of backwards compatibility' when I look at my large library of steam games.
Third party apps support for HiDpi (or the lack of) was one of the major factors in me selling my Surface Pro 2. Some applications are near unusable or just very broken with anything set above 125% and sadly that makes GUI elements so incredibly small - coupled with edge shift on the Surface Pen - made them near unusable that way too.
Windows 10 preview so far hasn't really addressed this issue - or made a solution that can fix third party apps = indeed continuum has breaks more at the moment than fixes.
Mac GUI scaling is so much superior to windows and they really do need to fix this.
The way Apple has worked with scaling at once makes sense, and is really goofy depending on what you do with it.
At its most simple, Apple has used the default size of the icons and elements on a desktop at certain resolution to use as a basis for how big they should be on a retina display. Like 64x64 icons are so big on a 1440x900 screen, so if they want to maintain that size, they're simply double everything. a bunch of 128x128 icons will be the same size on a 2880x1800 screen, just sharper. That's the basics of Retina.
Now where it gets weird are in situations where you want all your icons and elements a little smaller. Instead of scaling them down on an individual basis, it scales up everything, then squeezes it back down. Or supersamples, like you said above. It takes a higher resolution desktop, then fits it into a lower resolution display. The downside to this is that it's really kinda sloppy. The GPU is effectively working at that higher resolution, which, like you said, lowers performance by a goodly amount depending on the circumstances. That's a pretty big negative. Though it does have one decent upside...everything looks good.
MS is taking a different approach by wanting to make everything vector and polygon based. They're entirely resolution independent. They can be whatever size you want them to be at whatever resolution, and still look good. The only problem with that is that it's halfassed implemented. From Vista on, the desktop can be scaled to whatever size you want, but good luck doing that with anything else. How well your apps scales depends entirely on what API the program is using, and only a relative few use Direct2D. Most everything else is using GDI+.
I think MS has the better idea, but there's no arguing that Apple currently has the better implementation.