Developer text editors won't benefit from 120Hz monitors. Their scrolling is not smooth pixel-by-pixel, but line-by-line. Also most developers will navigate code with search, and won't need scrolling anyways. I would rather put my cash on a display that renders still images better, and is comfortable on the eyes.
Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
591–600 of 1001 posts
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#592Those colorful upscaled images of ClearType text are not that helpful. I wrote a tool several years ago to illustrate the effect of subpixel font rendering: https://github.com/pvorb/subpixel-illustrator
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#593Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hello! Person who actively dislikes 4k here. In my experience: 1. No matter what operating system you're on, you'll eventually run into an application that doesn't render in high dpi mode. Depending on the OS that can mean it renders tiny, or that the whole things is super ugly and pixelated (WAY worse than on a native 1080p display) 2. If the 4k screen is on your laptop, good luck ever having a decent experience plu…
> 1. No matter what operating system you're on, you'll eventually run into an application that doesn't render in high dpi mode You lost me right here on line 1. If there are apps on MacOS that can't handle high dpi mode, I haven't run into them as a developer (or doing photo editing, video editing, plus whatever other hobbies I do). Also, I don't have any trouble with plugging my highDPI MacBook into a crappy 1080p d…
I have been using a 4k monitor and 2 1080p monitors on linux for a while now. The current state of things is that hidpi works correctly on everything I have run including proprietary apps. I'm also surprised when my wine programs scale properly as well.
What does not work perfect is mixing hidpi and lowdpi screens. On wayland with wayland compatible apps it works fine but on X11 or with xwayland apps like electron it will not scale properly when you move the window to the other screen, it will scale to one screen and be wrong when moved over. Overall I don't find this to be too much of an issue and when chrome gets proper wayland support the problem will be 99% solved.
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#594Was most productive working on a 800x600 15" CRT.
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#595Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hello! Person who actively dislikes 4k here. In my experience: 1. No matter what operating system you're on, you'll eventually run into an application that doesn't render in high dpi mode. Depending on the OS that can mean it renders tiny, or that the whole things is super ugly and pixelated (WAY worse than on a native 1080p display) 2. If the 4k screen is on your laptop, good luck ever having a decent experience plu…
> 1. No matter what operating system you're on, you'll eventually run into an application that doesn't render in high dpi mode You lost me right here on line 1. If there are apps on MacOS that can't handle high dpi mode, I haven't run into them as a developer (or doing photo editing, video editing, plus whatever other hobbies I do). Also, I don't have any trouble with plugging my highDPI MacBook into a crappy 1080p d…
There are platforms aside from MacOS, and developers need to use them. It's great that you can, but that's not everyone.
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#596The technical details are all right (or seem right to me, anyway), but this is too opinionated for my liking. No, you do not need a 4K monitor for software development. Some people might like them, some won't. [edit/clarification: someone rightfully pointed out that nobody will actively dislike a 4K monitor. I was unclear here: I meant "some people won't need them" more than "dislike them"] This sounds like when Jeff…
> ... too opinionated for my liking. Put yourself in the mindset of a typography geek. Then, by default, you will care about almost all of these things. I'm not saying you should care about all of these things all or most of the time, but that's the correct mindset to put you in sync with the author's conclusions (mostly -- I don't really think 120Hz is that big a deal).
120 Hz is a huge deal. It makes every mouse move better, and that alone is worth it. It reduces the pain of using poorly designed software that adds extra frames of latency to everything. It makes it easier to track and read moving/scrolling content, and it reduces judder when playing low frame rate content (e.g. 24 Hz Hollywood movies).
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#597Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW, switching between resolutions in my favorite desktop environment, Xfce, is two steps: # This affects every GTK app. xfconf-query -c xsettings -p /Xft/DPI -s 144 The second step is going to about:config in Firefox, and setting layout.css.devPixelsPerPx to a higher value than 1.0. I really need to write an extension to do that in one click. What is really tricky, though, it's having two monitors with different DP…
Even Win10 struggles when you move windows between different DPI domains. Apps will slide in HUGE or tiny until you get past the midway point. And when the system goes to sleep everything can go to hell. You can come back to small message windows being blown up to huge sizes or windows crushed down to a tiny square. You can forget about laying out your icons perfectly on your desktop too, they'll get rearranged all t…
>Apps will slide in HUGE or tiny until you get past the midway point.
This is a non issue to me. I don't use apps half way across 2 screens. Its just a minor bit of weirdness while dragging them.
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#598Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hello! Person who actively dislikes 4k here. In my experience: 1. No matter what operating system you're on, you'll eventually run into an application that doesn't render in high dpi mode. Depending on the OS that can mean it renders tiny, or that the whole things is super ugly and pixelated (WAY worse than on a native 1080p display) 2. If the 4k screen is on your laptop, good luck ever having a decent experience plu…
> 1. No matter what operating system you're on, you'll eventually run into an application that doesn't render in high dpi mode You lost me right here on line 1. If there are apps on MacOS that can't handle high dpi mode, I haven't run into them as a developer (or doing photo editing, video editing, plus whatever other hobbies I do). Also, I don't have any trouble with plugging my highDPI MacBook into a crappy 1080p d…
> You lost me right here on line 1.
I'm on Windows and can confirm 1. is an issue. Windows lets users scale UIs to be readable at high DPI on small screens. Doesn't work on all UIs (e.g. QGIS). So maybe not all OS's, but two important ones.
> You could say the same for any arbitrary DPI; 96dpi isn't "Required", we got by fine with 72dpi. It's all about ergonomics as far as I'm concerned.
I think the point the parent is making is that human vision has limited resolution. I.e. for a given screen size & distance from the screen, you cannot notice any difference in DPI past a point. The parent is suggesting that 1080p & 27" with a typical viewing distance is already higher resolution than the eye can resolve. Looking at my 1080p 27" screen from a metre away with 20/20 vision I am inclined to agree!
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#599> A good monitor is essential for that. Not nice to have. A MUST. And in “good” I mean, as good as you can get. The whole discussion starts from a what I would say is an incorrect assertion, and then goes on to describe lots of ways that letters can be made better. If, in fact, you don't need better, then a lot of the points go away. 1. There is a point of diminishing returns, past which you are spending a lot more m…
While technically the article is correct, it feels very narrow-sighted to me by placing resolution/refresh rate above everything else. Some more things to consider:
- Price. If you are not a programmer in a first world country working for a magic money startup/big 4 then you wont spend $1000+ on a single monitor. Mine was a better 27" 1920 one for $300 and I'm happy with it. I'm sure there are better ones, but I cant allow myself spending much more on one.
- No PWM. This is crucial. PWMing monitors kill your eye in hours, then you wont be able to work for the rest of the day. Some ppl I know take the eye-protection game so far that they by e-ink screens for development (sadly you cant buy large ones.).
- Adjustable, optionally can be rotated 90 degrees. If you got 2 monitors one rotated at 90 degrees is a blessing for reading code.
- small bezels. Quite important if you got 2 or more, large bezels make my setup clumsy.
- Bright. Its quite annoying if I cant read something because the sun shines in my room. Especially important for laptops.
None of these are mentioned, just that small letters should look nice and scrolling should be smooth.
Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
#600The technical details are all right (or seem right to me, anyway), but this is too opinionated for my liking. No, you do not need a 4K monitor for software development. Some people might like them, some won't. [edit/clarification: someone rightfully pointed out that nobody will actively dislike a 4K monitor. I was unclear here: I meant "some people won't need them" more than "dislike them"] This sounds like when Jeff…
Having used CRT monitors, 1920x1080 displays, 4K displays and 5K displays, as well as various Retina Macbooks over many years, mostly for coding, here's my opinion: The only good solution today is the iMac 5K. Yes, 5K makes all the difference — it lets me comfortably fit three columns of code instead of two in my full-screen Emacs, and that's a huge improvement. 4K monitors are usable, but annoying, the scaling is ju…
Ya, the iMac 20" 5K is deal. I got an LG 28" 4K just to interface with a MBP..it was a painful compromise but stand alone 5K monitors are just too expensive right now.
When we are talking pixel count, we have to talk about size of the display also. a 28" 4k is acceptable, a 40"+ 4K is best used as a TV.
The best display I use right now is a 11" iPad Pro with a refresh rate at 120 Hz. You really can feel it, especially for stylus work.