My lower res, lower DPI display from my old Dell laptop looks much more sharp and crisp than the fancy pants Framework 13 high res display.
Yeah totally the customer's fault for wanting a nice display in friggin 2024, certainly not the software's which still has no proper support for it.
Let me guess... You're running an X.Org based WM/DE?
X11 Doesn't support fractional scaling properly . So some DEs will simulate it by scaling the apps the same way you scale a rasterized image like a PNG or JPEG, and as a result everything looks blurry. You'll generally also have the same issue with XWayland apps on a Wayland display.
The best way to combat this? Try to use Wayland native apps as much as possible.
2nd best? Use non fractional values for scaling (x1 or x2 instead of x1.25)
You can also adjust the x dpi with .xresources, but switching to wayland is the better solution
Let me guess... You're running an X.Org based WM/DE?
Na, using Wayland with Gnome 45. 1.25x scale actually looks less blurry than 2x. (Putting aside that 2x is ridiculously large.)
The best way to combat this?
Is to buy a laptop with a regular DPI display and avoid this class of bugs altogether. This way I can keep using Discord and 1Password.
Also kde is way better about this than gnome. Especially kde 6.
Discord is blurry because it's an electron app, and electron isn't native Wayland. You can make it work with --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland
KDE and Qt have much better fractional scaling right now. GTK won't implement it until a much farther release
Interesting, if it's a native Wayland app, I'd guess the issue is just gnome problems then - from what I hear gnome is one of the poorest DEs for Wayland use, mainly because they refuse to support things the same way that everyone else agrees to, if at all. And they take a fair amount longer to deliberate and agree how to implement anything they do decide to support.
I'd think of looking at KDE, which is very functional at this point, or a wlroots based Compositor/WM, - hyprland seems like one of the more well supported window managers out of the ones using wlroots.
How dare you use modern technology in current year?
How dare you use standard display tech on any commercial laptop bought within the last 5+ years. You should be like me, vastly superior in every human way, with my old tech. I am very smart.
Mac OS has has this nailed down basically perfectly for over 10 years now, even windows has been great in the last 5+ years. Not having scaling done right in the age of 4k displays being cheap is a sin.
Just like the teacher at school who kept turning all computers' screen resolutions to 640x480 because the text was too small.
Fun fact: Instead of implementing scaling settings for RDP, Microsoft just uses lower resolution on its Android RDP client and then upscales that to fit the whole screen.
Which is why the official client is so blurry compared to e.g. aFreeRDP by default.
This is my boss, except he uses 1024*768...
Use KDE, especially Plasma 6. Hasn't been an issue for me FW13 12Gen Intel since the last few Plasma 5 releases. I tried GNOME for a while but it can go pound sand.
I’d love to switch back to Linux but this is why I moved back to macOS for good several years ago. Once I got a taste of reading code at 4k/retina (faux-4k) – not to mention the better font support – there was no going back, for me at least.
If it’s considered user error for someone to want a high DPI display in 2024, then I can only surmise that people who share that sentiment have convinced themselves that more eye strain is a worthwhile tradeoff for FOSS. Commendable but a tough sell.
I run Linux with 4k on my Ubuntu box and it's no problem, except for Java apps. I don't think it's Ububtu specific. In the Settings of Gnome you have the choice to scale everything, if needed. I prefer to scale individual things, so I get more space.
HiDPI is pretty good though, I'm running Fedora Workstation (GNOME) on a 4K 14" Thinkpad X1 Yoga with 2.5x scaling. Everything looks crisp except for a few applications like Audacity and Minecraft.
A lot of apps still have issues and it just takes one personally important one to make the whole thing not worth it.
My laptop is at 150%, my external display is at native resolution, like god intended.
your fault for using a DE/distro which can't even handle fractional scaling
This is what gets me every damn time I see some post saying Linux desktop isn't a mess. Absurd shit like this.
You see. If you have this exact hardware with this exact software it's going to work flawlessly. Pinky promise.
Of course Linux desktops are slightly less reliable than the both less flexible and also commercially tested stacks of Apple and Microsoft.
But that doesn't mean that OP is right. They might be one of the luddites that religiously use some ancient tech stack based on X11 or so.
Either the framework display sucks or there's something wrong with their setup. I'm staring at a high-res display at 200% scaling and it looks great
Nothing to do with the hardware. It's the lack of fractional scaling support and not knowing the workarounds
Sounds like a config problem to me
I'm rawdogging my QHD on 14" at native resolution. 10pt font. Sue me
100% scaling on 14" 1440p looks fine to me. More screen real estate the better.
2K + KDE + Wayland works like a charm
Until I disabled my nVidia GPU and switched to Wayland the only problem I had with my HiDPI screen was with mixing in a low DPI display. That was easily solved by just running the HiDPI display at half the resolution. Now with Wayland even that problem is gone.
Do you even have blurry fonts with Wayland applications? There must be something wrong with your configuration.
hidpi is poggers but current AMD GPU drivers for newer hardware is NOT poggers
Been using KDE + HiDPI + X11 for close to 5 years now, not a blurry font to be found.
No issues here with Gnome via Arch on a Framework 13. At 150% scaled if recall correctly.
No issues with 4k on Fedora stock
i don't get it, my screen and 4k ultrawide display both look lovely (framework 13 + ubuntu), check your settings
You should just add FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="cff:no-stem-darkening=0 autofitter:no-stem-darkening=0" as an environment variable, and use wayland
What does that do?
The environment variable enables stem darkening(a font rendering technique), and wayland is noticeably better at scaling
I was excited for the Framework 17 but the GPU in the addon module they're offering at launch is rather pathetic, especially for the price. Maybe one day there'll be other options but it's really not compelling as a performance laptop.
So, does Linux just not support those displays?
No, electron, xwayland, GNOME cause problems.
KDE with fractional scaling on Wayland works well.
Not sure about GNOME today, but they hid it away in the past and forcing 120%/150% made everything blurry
Hint: :q!
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