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Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

tonsky.me

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Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#611

Post by thruhiker »

nvarsj wrote: post #602
ogre_codes wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Also, I don't have any trouble with plugging my highDPI MacBook into a crappy 1080p display at work. Low DPI monitors are pretty much unusable since MacOS dropped subpixel rendering - with fonts being a blurry mess. You can only really use MacOS with high DPI monitors now for all day working. It’s a huge problem for everyone I know who wants to plug their MacBook into a normal DPI display. Not that the subpixel/hin…

This is an interesting position. I have always thought that font and font rendering were always an especially pernicious issue with Linux and a relative joy on MacOS?

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#612

Post by Polylactic_acid »

bluescrn wrote: post #589
gnicholas wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I compare it to having a large, wide desk when you’re working on something. Who wouldn’t want that? I have used between 1-3 monitors over the last decade, and there sure are advantages to having 3 for certain tasks. However, I noticed that having multiple monitors resulted in me having a dedicated screen for email (usually the smallest, my laptop screen). This decreased my productivity. Perhaps not everyone has thi…

IMHO, two monitors is an amazing upgrade. One screen for code, another for reference material or for the app being debugged. Better than one huge screen in many cases, as it’s two 16:10 spaces that you can maximize things to. But with a 3rd monitor, you’re well into diminishing returns, it may even end up being a distraction if it becomes a Slack/Mail/web screen.

I think most of the need for more monitors can be solved with a tiling window manager.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#613

Post by seanmcdirmid »

slantyyz wrote: post #565
z3t4 wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You dont need a good display until you have used one. Its like glasses, you think you got perfect vision and then you get glasses its night and day in comparison. You dont know a good display until you have seen one. The thing with high res monitors is that you should upscale or everything will look tiny.

I think it's a complicated topic. IMO, there are two key criteria for monitors. Real estate and pixel density, and in some cases, you can't get both affordably. I have had 15" laptops with 4K displays for some time now. I love the pixel density. But I can't do certain types of tasks on them because I end up getting real estate anxiety. I feel so constricted on a laptop screen, even when I add a second monitor. My des…

A long time ago, resolutions got better, but when we got more pixels...we didn't make the characters smaller, we just made them more crisp. What changed? Why is the transition from 110 PPI to 220 PPI being handled differently than the one from 50 PPI to 110 PPI?

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#614

Post by neutronicus »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #418
auggierose wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are on macOS, all is good. Never had a problem with any of my 4 monitors (3x4K, 1x5K). I set the scaling to a size I like, and the text is super crisp. I don't see how any programmer can NOT like that.

Text honestly looks like shit an any non 4k external monitor for macOS it's kind of crazy how bad it is compared to windows.

Huh.

At work I have a mac mini and a Windows box, and I use three crapola Asus monitors between them, and my impression has been that macOS does a better job rendering text on said crapola monitors (the Windows box does a better job at compiling C++ in a timely fashion, though, so I mostly work on that one).

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#615

Post by jmull »

I'm glad I made it to the part that recommended turning off font smoothing on MacOS with retina display.

I tried it (I guess I've had it on all this time) and, indeed it looks better. (This is on a recent 27" iMac with Catalina.)

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#616

Post by kgwgk »

dpbriggs wrote: post #595
ogre_codes wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That was a direct reply to the “No matter what operating system you're on” quote. The fact that there are some operating systems that have issues doesn’t make it true that all do.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#617

Post by a1369209993 »

partyboat1586 wrote: post #474
a1369209993 wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> e.g the triple line equals and need a higher res display to look good. Do you mean '≡' (U+2261 identical to)? Because no, it very much doesn't; in fact I'm not sure I've ever seen a font where it looked bad short of vertical misalignment with surrounding text.

It looked bad in the article.

Okay, tracked down this[0], which is probably what you were talking about(?), and what the actual fuck is wrong with that rendering engine? You render a Apx horizontal line, Bpx of space, a second Apx line, Bpx of space, and the third Apx line, where A=B=1. Maybe you use 2px of space. Maybe, if you're rendering obnoxiously huge, you use a 2px line and however many pixels of space. You don't fucking use real-valued vector coordinates and then blindly snap them to integers, or smear bits of gray anti-aliasing around the screen like some kind of monkey with a hand full of it's own feces.

If OSX is actually doing stupid shit like that, it's no wonder sane-resolution moniters look like crap. Stupid-absurdres monitors will look just as bad, because the problem is the operating system driving them, not the monitor.

0: https://tonsky.me/blog/monitors/hinting_failures.png

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#618

Post by boomboomsubban »

the_af wrote: post #502
boomboomsubban wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they were doubting that somebody does develop in those random setups, they were disagreeing with the people that say it doesn't matter and you can code anywhere. In your quote, a royal you.

But they are not random setups. They are extremely common setups in my part of the world. People -- who are pretty good at what they do -- can and do develop using these tiny screens. In this regard, "it doesn't matter". Or taking less literally, they wouldn't complain if they got a better monitor, but it's not the primary concern for them. So taking a cue from TFA's title: "no, it's not time to upgrade your monitor"…

Random as in any one of a variety of somewhat common setups, I didn't feel like typing a resolution. It backfired on me here.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#619

Post by gsich »

kazinator wrote: post #51
boromi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess I never thought about that. Is the difference noticable. I always thought High refresh rate was for gaming.

High refresh rate has to do with reaction times in competitive multi-player gaming. You absolutely don't need 120 Hz in any single player video game produced between 1978 and 2020. Games at 15 FPS (even less) used to be perfectly playable and fun. At 30 FPS things are smooth well past giving a damn.

15 fps was never perfectly playable.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#620

Post by lifty »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #283
chrismorgan wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used a 4K display, for at least a few days? If you have, I still disagree with you, but if not, I’m going to completely ignore your opinion, because I find the difference in how pleasant it is to use a good screen just so vast. Sure, you can do things on a lousy monitor, but it’s terrible and you’ll hate it. :) (My first laptop was a second-hand HP 6710b at 1680×1050 for 15″, and that set me to never accepti…

I used a 4K display at work for about 18 months. I still won't trade my 1680x1050 monitors for anything else until they die. I don't mind the pixels, as long as the font rendering system is good. Of course I understand the need for a Retina display if you're working on macOS...

Not sure I follow. Are you saying that font rendering on macOS is bad?
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