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Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

tonsky.me

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Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#981

Post by londons_explore »

sgerenser wrote: post #715
spideymans wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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! Are…

MacOS does support subpixel rendering, has at least since the early to mid 2000s. One or two versions back though they turned it off by default since it isn't necessary on HiDPI "Retina" displays and they only ship HiDPI displays now. You can still turn it on although it requires the command line.

Subpixel rendering dramatically slows down rendering text. When you have a high res screen, and want everything to be 120fps, even text rendering starts to be a bottleneck.

That combined with the fairly massive software complexity of subpixel rendering is probably why mac dropped it.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#982

Post by monadic2 »

namdnay wrote: post #784
monadic2 wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not visible for you in the displays settings? You DO need all the monitors to have the same DPI or you’d have a window rendered half in one dpi and half in another when dragging across a display boundary.

No, when it’s an external screen I don’t get any scaling options, only the choice of resolution. I have a 24” QHD, so either it’s ridiculously small 2500xSomething or it’s blurry HD :(

Odd, my main setup is an external 4k monitor and I only use it with the “large text” text scaling and I have no complaints, the text is clear and large and easy to read. Perhaps you’re also using your laptop screen as well?

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#983

Post by cheesedoodle »

bitexploder wrote: post #470
jciochon wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

43" seems rather large--how far away do you sit? If it were as close as a more "normal" sized monitor (~2-3 feet), wouldn't you be craning your neck all day trying to see different parts of the screen?

Nah. I have a 49" curved 1440p monitor. Things you look at less often go to the sides. You can fit 4 reasonable sized windows side by side. Code editor holds over 100 columns at a comfortable font size for me 40 year old eyes. It's the best monitor setup I have ever had. You can spend less and get the exact same real estate with two 27" 1440p monitors. Either way, it is a fine amount of real estate and not at all cum…

I am getting the same Dell 4919DW monitor, transitioning from two 25" Dell monitors. I think the built in KVM will be great addition as I have two workstations. Ordered the new Dell 7750 to pair with a WD19DC docking station. I hope the Intel 630 UHD built in graphics will do, as stated in the knowledge base. The 4919DW only have 60hz refresh rate but I am not concerned about that. A great alternative would be the curved Samsung 49" C49RG9 at 120hz.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#984

Post by SteveLTN »

I'm not sure about the macOS scaling, and I couldn't find any info on the Internet about my question.

When using non-integer scaling, does mac OS actually render fonts at 2x, then scales it all down?

So you have a 3840x2160 monitor, set mac OS to "look like 2560x1440", it would render at 5120x2880, then scale it down to 3840x2160?

To me, a more logical solution would be using the vector font of the target physical pixel value (3840x2160) and skip all scaling etc.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#985

Post by m463 »

the_af wrote: post #76

The 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…

> The best developers I've known wrote code with tiny laptops with poor 1366x768 displays. They didn't think it was an impediment.

Everytime I read something like this I cringe. Ergonomics is terrible with laptops. There are no osha approved laptops.

Those developers should sit in a good chair, with a properly positioned keyboard monitor and body, and head off the problems their body will encounter. (or is encountered but ignored)

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#986

Post by fenesiistvan »

gauchojs wrote: post #374

Conclusion after reading tens of comments here: no way to know if I'm young enough for 27" 4k (which is finally affordable in my country) or if I should go with 2560x1440 at 24", which feels outdated in 2020... And that isn't a great step over my working 22" 10-year old 22" FHD Dell. How long until we have affordable 'Macbook like' crispness as 22" or 27"? (Also Linux still sucks with fractional scaling.)

I am on a beach, read 500 comments, totally confused about what monitor to buy :)

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#987

Post by bmn__ »

the_af wrote: post #76

The 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…

> The technical details are all right (or seem right to me, anyway)

No, not universally. If I follow the advice and disable font smoothing, it looks worse than any font display I've ever used, including 8 bit home computers. https://i.imgur.com/Y0xkhTb.png

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#988

Post by renjimen »

ogre_codes wrote: post #648
renjimen wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 think the point the parent is making is that human vision has limited resolution. If you can't see the difference between 4k and 1080p on a 24" monitor, then you probably need reading glasses. On a 27" monitor it's even worse. It's not so much that you can "see" the pixels, sub pixel rendering and anti-aliasing go a long way to making the actual blocky pixels go away, the difference is crisp letters versus blurry…

Yes, I can see the difference, but I (personally) don't notice that difference while reading. I do notice a big difference when using older monitors with lower DPI compared with 1080p on a normal-sized desk monitor, however.

Re: Time to Upgrade Your Monitor

#989

Post by gabssnake »

Was used to HDPI screens at home and previous gig. Now at work with Linux and some cheap Dell 24"s: just zoom like 200%, until text is huge. If you only fit 80 cols like god meant to, type will be clear, you can have your monitor further away, improve your posture and eye strain. Code might even get better.

Guess coders care little about typography, like everyone else, mostly out laziness and lack of appreciation.

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