Windows and High Resolution

Can someone help me understand how Windows deals with high-resolution displays these days? I've been in the Mac world for a while, but am outfitting a lab with Windows PCs, and realize that I'm completely out of date with how display resolution works under Windows.

It wasn't that long ago that Windows did a poor job with high resolution displays, displaying text and UI components at microscopic size, and relying on an OS setting to scale everything by 25% / 50% / etc. This didn't compare well to MacOS's native support for high resolution via Retina scaling.

I'm now seeing 13" Windows laptops with 4k displays(!), and wonder if things have gotten better in the meantime. Is there better support for the desktop on a high-resolution display under Windows 10 for example?

Sorry for asking what must seem like a completely newbie question. I've been having trouble finding simple and clear information on this.

 

Windows itself scales nicely on high resolution displays. I have version 8.1 and the only area of the OS that obviously lacks high DPI support is device manager and other admin tools. Not a huge issue as I rarely use them and it's probably fixed with 10 (I'm both assuming and hoping).

The high DPI situation in terms of 3rd party programs has definitely got much better than it was a couple years ago and it continues to improve all the time. The only major area where software is noticeably trailing behind the curve is ironically the gaming community with none of the big four digital games clients offering true high DPI support - and two of them lacking any kind of scaling support whatsoever (though GOG Galaxy is still beta so I guess I should cut it some slack).

 

The thing with Windows is that the OS itself now uses the API that allows for good scaling of high DPI displays for the most part. There's always the odd, seldom used part of the OS that still doesn't scale perfectly, but you don't see those often.

The issue is mostly with third party programs, some will use the right UI APIs that will allow for good scaling, but others don't and scaling will break some stuff. Expect legacy software to give you all kinds of trouble. Scaling got better with Windows 8.1 and there are a few things you can now scale independently rather than DPI % of Windows 7.

Remember that for macs it took some time for everything to scale well and that there's a huge library of legacy software under Windows that is not likely to get a high DPI update. Newer versions of third party programs are scaling correctly or you can expect them to, but that old circa 1992 piece of software that someone needs for some reason is another story.

 

Thanks a million, Cakefish and Tijo.

Although I don't completely understand, it sounds like high-resolution displays are supported by the OS, and that applications are catching up. Of course this will only improve over time, as it did on the mac.

So does this mean that Windows is now using something similar to the Mac scaling, where 4 physical pixels map to 1 virtual pixel? Or is the scaling of desktop apps based on the scale amount set in the "change size of all items" scaling setting in the Control Panel of Windows 8.1?

 

The thing with retina scaling is that you need to have displays where you can always scale 4:1 and keep a sane resolution. This works well for macs since you're certain of the hardware specs, not so well for Windows where you'll find hardware with every resolution someone could possibly think of.

Current Windows scaling works on the same principle as it previously did, but it's been improved with a tad more granularity.

I have a 10" 2560x1440 Windows tablet and I have the option to either make everything smaller/larger or play with the text size. It's not 100% perfect, but it works for the legacy stuff.

All the "apps" scale perfectly though and most programs I use now also scale well, internet browser, Office, etc.

ArsTechnica has a good breakdown of how Windows 8.1 handles things: http://arstechnica.com/information-...d-high-ppi-displays-better-but-still-lacking/