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Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

tonsky.me

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Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#851

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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…

> If there are apps on MacOS that can't handle high dpi mode, I haven't run into them

Audacity has extremely low framerates and chugging when interacting with the waveform on retina screens. Even running in low DPI mode doesn't fix it. Only runs nice on non-retina displays.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#852
post #666

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32” 4K is perfection, right in the sweet spot of size.

Agreed. My work monitor is a 32 or 34" ultrawide. It works well but I would really like more vertical real estate. I'm definitely shopping for 32-34" 4k displays right now.

Vertical is the reason I haven't upgraded from dual 1920x1200 (but of the time single anyway). Although I'm looking at 1440p mainly for 120hz+. (1440p at 30+")

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#853
post #846

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> 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…

> 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. Haven't seen any scaling issues on Windows in years. Last time was Inkscape but they fixed that.

I see these issues all the time, with enterprise desktop apps. The scaling is only really a problem because it is enabled by default when you plug in certain displays. If the user made a conscious choice (which they would easily remember if they had trouble), it would be fine.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#854
post #181

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Yeah, I wouldn't say having a mechanical keyboard makes your code any higher quality - that'd be pretty silly. I think in general the thought is, if you care enough about your craft that you seek out refined tools, that care will be reflected in higher-quality development. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but I'm inclined to believe there's a correlation. I mean, it would be weird to visit a professional car…

Thanks for the reply. I think there is little to no correlation, but like the opposite opinion, I've no proof other than the anecdotal: the best hackers I've known didn't care about these things. Other bizarre opinions I've read from Atwood and his followers: that you should be an excellent typist (this is also related to owning a mechanical keyboard). No. Just no. Typing speed is not the bottleneck when writing soft…

> Typing speed is not the bottleneck when writing software. The bottleneck is my brain.

I agree except with a caveat: the mechanical action of typing, formatting, refactoring, fixing typos and missing semicolons, and moving code around actually distracts the brain from the higher level task at hand. And when the brain is already the bottleneck, I don't want to make it worse by wasting brain cycles on mechanical drudgery.

As one might expect, I feel far more productive when I'm using languages and tools that require me to type less and refactor & re-edit code less. I think the language would matter less if I could just wish code onto the screen. Until then, learning to touch type (with as few errors as possible! not necessarily as fast as possible) and use editor features to make it more effortless is the next best thing.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#855
I have been using 42" 4k monitor. It is suitable for some task that require 4 or more windows at same time. For example, development of Field Programmable Gate Array(FPGA) use more than 4 windows (FPGA CAD, Waveform, HDL editor, explorer, etc...). It is comfortable that use these windows without switching of windows.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#856
I recently abandoned three 24” hd monitors for a single 43” 4k and I couldn’t go back.

All the desk space, loads more screen space. I don’t need high dpi as a programmer.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#857
post #602

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…

> Low DPI monitors are pretty much unusable since MacOS dropped subpixel rendering

Nonsense, fonts look fine on non-Retina monitors; they were fine on my old 24" 1920x1200 monitor and are fine on my new 27" 2560x1440 one. Can I see a difference if I drag window from the external monitor to the built-in Retina display? Yes, but text is not blurry at all on the external monitor.

If it matters, "Use font smoothing when available" is checked in System Preferences (which only appears to have an effect on the Retina display, not the monitor).

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#858

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> 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…

Coronavirus has robbed me of one of my favorite productivity hacks, which is coding on old Thinkpad with 4:3 ratio display, at a coffeeshop or library with Internet turned off. No distractions, no multitasking, just pure focus on a problem. I miss it.

My home internet went out yesterday (I WFH full-time).

“No big deal”, I thought. I’ll just go to Sta... Dammit COVID!

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#859
post #816

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I was able to use a 5120x1440 resolution on my MacBook Pro using SwitchResX. No idea why Mac OS doesn’t let you select that resolution.

What kind of MacBook do you have exactly ? Year, size, graphics hardware and OS. Reports I read stated that while you can select it with SwitchResX it was scaled. I never tried installing it myself because I’m not a fan of modifying the system on a Mac, especially one I don’t own. From my poking around I think the horizontal resolution is the problem. The system scans possible resolutions to see what works. Apple jus…

Text looks similar to Windows and Linux (both of which definitely run at native resolution).

macOS Mojave 10.14.6

MacBook Pro 15” 2019

Radeon Pro 555X

Intel UHD 630

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