What programs are problematic with QHD/QHD+ scaling?

I'm very interesting in getting a Windows laptop with a QHD or QHD+ screen. Unfortunately I haven't really been able to use one other than to glance at the ones at the Microsoft Store. While Windows 8 itself seems to look good as far as scaling goes, there isn't really much of a chance to test out the programs.

Which programs have you found have scaling issues? I saw a recent review of a Toshiba Satellite P with 4K screen and there were some complaints about programs and fonts looking crappy under the scaling.

 

Windows itself does a decent job of scaling it's own stuff, it's the apps that sometimes don't scale at all so you're looking at microscopic text on screen or the fonts don't scale properly inside the app. With a 4k screen scaling to 200% makes it basically look like you're using a 1080p screen, just more crisp.

 

The list of stuff that doesn't scale right is orders of magnitude higher than the list of the ones that do. If you keep an assumption that any given app won't properly scale, you're going to be right most of the time. Even Chrome has 'supported' HiDPI only in the last two versions or so.

 

I agree. I will add that, given the minor to non-existing advantages that the high-DPI screens have over standard FHD, at least on smallish laptop screens up to 15" (and I note there are no high-DPI 17" screens available), there is really no point in getting such screens, in my opinion. For me, the net benefit is clearly negative, and I am much, much better off with a standard resolution screen.

Now, if you're talking about desktop monitors, that's a different matter, and if the monitor is large enough so that you don't really need the extra scaling (meaning 30" or more), then the high resolution is awesome.

 

Thanks for the information, guys. After using a retina screen on a Mac, I've been spoiled by hi-DPI screens, so to go to a 100% scaling FHD screen with Windows would seem like a downgrade to me. But I do suspect that the most commonly used applications are fine and since I'm not planning on using much more than programs like Photoshop, Chrome, Microsoft Office, and iTunes, I doubt I'd encounter too many problems with it. As for the OS-scaling, Windows 8 does seem to do well with it, and I'm guessing Windows 10 will be even better.

 

Chrome might end up being so-so I remember looking into it late 2014 and it was still far from ideal. Office 2013 does scaling rather well. iTunes is a piece of software I would have low expectations for. See: iTunes for Windows: Text may appear incorrect if font DPI is not set to 96 DPI - Apple Support. Long story short, never expect Apple to make iTunes on Windows a decent experience, it never was and most likely will never be one. As for photoshop, I have no idea.

 

I reiterate my previous position:

^^^This times a million. OSX handle system fonts way differently than Windows. Windows tries to render fonts to whole pixels, which sometimes makes it overly sharp.

OSX scales fonts naturally. Whether they fit into whole pixels or not. Most of the time it makes the font smoother, sometimes it looks blurry.

All programs must use a system font. No program has an "embedded font". Believe me, I've checked.

 

Yeah I probably shouldn't expect that

Yeah, I know that the scaling in OS X is just better. I mean, I have absolutely no complaints about the scaling in OS X with any programs. Of course it'd be nice if I could say the same about Windows, but I doubt that will be the case.

 

Well, MS got most of their stuff together as far as scaling goes. Third parties is another story. Also, don't forget that when the first retina came out, similar problems were present in the mac ecosystem and this generation of hardware is the first one with truly high DPI. It'll get fixed for most commonly used programs eventually.

 

You're suspecting wrong. Almost all current versions of Adobe software, specifically including Photoshop, are outright unusable on high-DPI laptops. I think the same is true for iTunes, unsurprisingly...

 

Oh really?

I use Photoshop CS6 and LiveCycle ES2 on my 1920x1200 screen. I don't know if that qualifies as a high DPI display, but I can use it just fine. Wondering what you mean by "outright unusable".

 

No it does not qualify as Hi-DPI. That's just the 16:10 version of 1080p, on a 17.3" screen no less.

 

Or the flip side, being they are normal sized with scaling but blurry or blocky.

I have also seen poor scaling resulting in elements becoming supersized in addition to blocky/blurry, e.g. the on-screen icons in Civ 5 when played on the iMac 5K display.

 

It doesn't. You might want to read the OP.

 

1920x1200 could be HiDPI... if your screen is 9 inches diagonal. It has no solid cutoff point, but is determined by a particular DPI on a particular size screen where the human eye no longer discerns pixels. This ends up being roughly translated as "at a given size where X*Y resolution exists, make it 2X*2Y. Thus you get resolutions like 2880x1800 (15.4" 2x 1440x900) and 5120x2880 (27", 2x 2560x1440).

Adobe's support for HiDPI is experimental and looks like a simple 'zoom everything' solution.
HiDPI and retina display support FAQ

 

Its like a shiny new paint job on an old car. You're dazzled by the shine and forget to check under the hood.

You're on the right track by asking the question here. But you need to investigate long and hard to determine if this is the best display for your uses.

Apple has to do something to distinguish themselves to sell more laptops. Especially since they no longer sell the 17" notebook. Throwing pixels at a screen is as easy as pie. However, getting them to play well with all the variety of applications in another problem altogether. Apple addressed the former, and said you're on your own with the latter.

 

No need to be mean about it. I wasn't sure if an HD display qualified as a high DPI one.

There are two options available to the OP:

1. Increase the font size in Preferences-> Interface. That will at least make the font size readable, but not sure if that's enough for a QHD.

2. The newest versions of Adobe Creative Cloud contain a setting specific for scaling the programs to high DPI.



That would at least take care of Photoshop and Lightroom.

 

Are you in fact using the newest versions of Adobe CC? At least until the end of 2014 that stuff was partially broken and depending on your exact release would or would not work for some parts of the UI. That's why these settings are labeled "experimental". Bottom line is, at this point in time Adobe still does not fully support these kinds of displays. You are most certainly on your own with older (pre-CC) versions of Photoshop et al.

 

^Some parts of the UI are better than none; for example, I notice a couple buttons are still "pixelated" on Photoshop for Mac. But I can live with that. I guess it depends on how much it supports. No way to really tell until I try it, I guess.

I've never had a problem with any application on the retina screen. Not for a while, at least. When the laptop first came out, there were issues with Photoshop, but Adobe has since rectified it. At least for everything that I do on Photoshop. That's why I have questions about Windows; if I have no issue with Photoshop and Lightroom on my Mac (which I don't), I'd like for the same to go on a Windows machine with an ultra high resolution. But looks like that might not be the case.

As for iTunes Windows version, there are other programs I can use to play music, so that's not a big concern. But the Adobe products sort of are.

 

I don't know about Photoshop but I use a lot of programming and Engineering software like Dev, Ruby, Web storm, CAD or Inventor and NONE scale well on HiDPI displays. They may be readable but they're blurry.

 

No, at home, I use CS6. I just installed CC on my cousin's laptop over Christmas. She does have a QHD monitor she uses, and the 200% scaling option is on. There have been a few crashes, but I get the feeling its cause she had too many programs open at the same time. She had Photoshop elements before and like CS6, there was no internal program support for scaling the app up for high DPI.

I think the fact there's a setting in there now, albeit experimental, is better than Adobe ignoring it completely.

 

I don't have an UHD display but I can tell you that Adobe products do an excellent job on my 1440p display.

itunes works fine on Windows.

 

The thing with UHD is that the pixeld ensity really becomes a problem, something that definitely isn't one on a desktop 1440p monitor.

As for itunes, it's not getting it to work on Windows, it's getting it to scale properly with Windows set to 200% DPI and the like.

 

The past year has seen every manufacturer come out with a high res display. We're seeing high-res on more and more mainstream laptops too etc etc. It would surprise me if the software side of things didn't step up their game with scaling over the next year or two.

 

Maybe. Maybe not.

Unfortunately, as of *right now* unless one is running a Mac or has an absolutely phenomenal eyesight allowing them to use a 15.6" 3K screen at native resolution, there's very little point in going QHD/QHD+ on a laptop...in my opinion, that is.

 

QHD is only a stopgap, like its 720 brethren before it. It just a holding pattern until UHD becomes mainstream. Maybe by that time they'll have worked out the scaling bugs, and improved the quality all around. I'll wait.