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  • KDE Makes More Progress On HiDPI Support

    Phoronix: KDE Makes More Progress On HiDPI Support

    KDE developer David Edmundson has made some more progress with improving the high DPI display experience with KDE applications...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    I know it's not the best idea in the world, but wouldn't it be okay for Kwin to artificially scale up application windows that don't support HiDPI yet, just so people don't have to squint at their screens in the meantime? I mean, this wouldn't be a long-term solution, but it may at least make high resolution displays livable. I'm sure that has all of its own problems with scaling menus and whatnot, but I'm not sure we have much choice aside from asking people not to use Qt4 apps, which isn't really an intelligent way of handling it.

    Still, progress is progress, so a disclaimer that not applications will work with HiDPI displays would be better than just eschewing the feature, in my mind. Of course, KDE is trying to get away from that mindset, so I guess advanced users can just resort to editing some configuration file. :P At least we know it's coming. Unlike the GTK 2 -> 3 transition, it looks like there aren't really any compelling reasons to stick with Qt 4. Most applications take will take relatively little work to port, something like a weekend. Qt's pretty good about not making these things a PITA, now.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by scionicspectre View Post
      I know it's not the best idea in the world, but wouldn't it be okay for Kwin to artificially scale up application windows that don't support HiDPI yet, just so people don't have to squint at their screens in the meantime? I mean, this wouldn't be a long-term solution, but it may at least make high resolution displays livable. I'm sure that has all of its own problems with scaling menus and whatnot, but I'm not sure we have much choice aside from asking people not to use Qt4 apps, which isn't really an intelligent way of handling it.

      Still, progress is progress, so a disclaimer that not applications will work with HiDPI displays would be better than just eschewing the feature, in my mind. Of course, KDE is trying to get away from that mindset, so I guess advanced users can just resort to editing some configuration file. :P At least we know it's coming. Unlike the GTK 2 -> 3 transition, it looks like there aren't really any compelling reasons to stick with Qt 4. Most applications take will take relatively little work to port, something like a weekend. Qt's pretty good about not making these things a PITA, now.
      that's quite a hack. Could indeed work though for app made in java like eclipse, but I wouldn't put so much effort in a hack like that, because such hack will likely add a ton of bugs and a lot of maintenance to support it and will eventually be removed

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      • #4
        Originally posted by scionicspectre View Post
        I know it's not the best idea in the world, but wouldn't it be okay for Kwin to artificially scale up application windows that don't support HiDPI yet, just so people don't have to squint at their screens in the meantime?
        On Wayland that would be indeed possible and easily implementable, but on X11 it's getting nearly impossible as KWin doesn't do input events, but that's still done by X Server.

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        • #5
          Its stuff like this why I really don't understand the desire for HiDPI. The ONLY people who really benefit from it are gamers (and that's if they spent at least $275 on a GPU) and graphic designers. Otherwise, it makes many interfaces look either blurry, pixelated, or tiny. It makes precise mouse movements very difficult, it eats up a lot of system resources, its a nightmare for programmers (as this article has shown), and the displays for it are pretty expensive. I just don't see how all of that is appealing for some slightly smoother or cleaner looking text and images (if their res is high enough). I have a 1080p 32" display at home. Some people would cringe at that pixel density, but with anti aliasing, a moving image, and sitting back a few feet, the experience is fine. By having a vertical task bar and vertical tab bar, websites render nicely at 100% scale, and my desktop experience is comfortable.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
            Its stuff like this why I really don't understand the desire for HiDPI. The ONLY people who really benefit from it are gamers (and that's if they spent at least $275 on a GPU) and graphic designers. Otherwise, it makes many interfaces look either blurry, pixelated, or tiny. It makes precise mouse movements very difficult, it eats up a lot of system resources, its a nightmare for programmers (as this article has shown), and the displays for it are pretty expensive. I just don't see how all of that is appealing for some slightly smoother or cleaner looking text and images (if their res is high enough). I have a 1080p 32" display at home. Some people would cringe at that pixel density, but with anti aliasing, a moving image, and sitting back a few feet, the experience is fine. By having a vertical task bar and vertical tab bar, websites render nicely at 100% scale, and my desktop experience is comfortable.
            i think you are mixing KDE apps and general apps
            games and other non-kde apps don't care about this

            for example with the simplest way to get pixels on the screen, mit-shm (aka Xshm), you can get a pixel-perfect interface
            only thing is that with scaling that interface, you would have to align stuff like text to avoid aliasing
            since QT is a... toolkit that makes an interface for you you don't have enough control to do it yourself, so that support has to be in the toolkits

            opengl does not care about all this
            but still when doing text in opengl you could move it a bit so it would align with the pixels on the screen

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            • #7
              Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
              Its stuff like this why I really don't understand the desire for HiDPI. The ONLY people who really benefit from it are gamers (and that's if they spent at least $275 on a GPU) and graphic designers. Otherwise, it makes many interfaces look either blurry, pixelated, or tiny. It makes precise mouse movements very difficult, it eats up a lot of system resources, its a nightmare for programmers (as this article has shown), and the displays for it are pretty expensive. I just don't see how all of that is appealing for some slightly smoother or cleaner looking text and images (if their res is high enough). I have a 1080p 32" display at home. Some people would cringe at that pixel density, but with anti aliasing, a moving image, and sitting back a few feet, the experience is fine. By having a vertical task bar and vertical tab bar, websites render nicely at 100% scale, and my desktop experience is comfortable.
              Whenever there's a new technology released there's always an adjustment period. In another year or so this probably won't even be a problem anymore.

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              • #8
                Michael, I think it would be better if you use the after screenshot while noting that the screenshot was made from a laptop with a native resolution of 3800x1800.

                Last edited by CTown; 06 March 2015, 11:54 PM.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by scionicspectre View Post
                  Unlike the GTK 2 -> 3 transition, it looks like there aren't really any compelling reasons to stick with Qt 4. Most applications take will take relatively little work to port, something like a weekend. Qt's pretty good about not making these things a PITA, now.
                  Qt is surprisingly future proof. A while ago I adopted and ported a Qt2 application to Qt4 on AUR and then another user came along and got it to Qt5. That way we got rid of Qt2 as a dependency for all packages. If there was more time, we were also planning to purge the AUR from Qt3 ... We just never got around to it.

                  An important note is that I have no C++ experience ...

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                  • #10
                    Its stuff like this why I really don't understand the desire for HiDPI.
                    Most people I know, have asked, and have shown find 95 - 105 DPI insufficient for pixel perfect clarity at a 1/3 - 1/2 meter viewing distance like most computer monitors.

                    As such, there is (and has been) room for improvement for over a decade. The problem was that Windows until 8 had no functional DPI scaling at all, so manufacturers did not improve the situation because the software monopoly was insufficient at handling higher DPI.

                    That has been partially solved, at least Windows core can now scale on DPI albeit most applications developed for Windows still cannot, and it has opened the DPI floodgates. Most high end notebooks are now shipping 1800p or 2160p displays, at least as options, and you should expect in 5 years for those resolutions to be standard.

                    The same applies to desktop, 4k monitors today can be had for around $400, in 5 years they will be $200 and everyone will get them.

                    That isn't a developer or designer only thing. All computer displays will be moving to higher pixel density because it improves image quality and detail for the vast majority of users. Being able to seamlessly adapt to the evolving landscape of displays is essential to all software going forward.

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