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0 pointsmroche5y ago0 comments

It's a tad ironic (to me) because unless you max out the scaling of the display, none of the MacBook displays have an effective resolution >= 1920x1080. Apple has been defaulting to a fractional scaling the past few years rather than true Retina which is 200% scaling, but even then it falls short[0].

However, 200% scaling is crisp and I can appreciate it. I just don't like losing all that real estate. And the fractional options on MacBooks aren't bad, but I can see text fuzzing out when it's not on the real Retina resolution. So when I'm running without an external display I do bite the bullet and deal with the lower resolution because otherwise I can feel my eyes straining.

[0]

    Model | Physical  | Max       | Default   | Retina
    16"   | 3072x1920 | 2048x1280 | 1792x1120 | 1536x960
    15"   | 2880x1800 | 1920x1200 | 1680x1050 | 1440x900
    13"   | 2560x1600 | 1680x1050 | 1440x900  | 1280x800

0 comments

solarkraft5y ago

I use a '15 MBP with Windows for work and usually use it at 125-150%.

Almost nothing looks blurry. I can't imagine it being worse on macOS.

At home I use a 4k 15" XPS with Linux on 1,7x scaling and nothing looks bad either.

I assume app support is there for the former case and it's not for the latter, so I can pretty well recommend 4k screens at that size.

chrismorgan5y ago

I’ve heard that macOS fractional scaling seriously is rendering at one size, and then upscaling or downscaling it to the target size. I’m not certain this is true because I haven’t confirmed it myself and it seems such an obviously stupid idea (and though it’s certainly easier, no one else does it that way because it’s such a terrible idea), but I’ve heard people saying this at least three times (twice on the internet, once in real life), about text not being crisp at fractional scaling. I dunno.

vetinari5y ago

It is always rendering at integer scale and always downscaling to target size (upscaling would result in blurriness; upscaled apps are only those that support only @1X scale).

Just take a screenshot of your desktop and check it's resolution, then compare to physical display resolution. Apple uses output scaler of the final, composited image.

It's not stupid; it is a solution that you can implement without support at application side and is relatively simple. Going Android way means, that all apps have to support random scales, which means they have to ship with assets for that.

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