Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

plazmic

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 14, 2012
10
0
There's probably a cleaner method of accomplishing this, but I've been unable to find such readily available.

First of all, a camera shot showing the absurdly pixel-dense display in all its Retina glory inside OS X:

MOD EDIT: BROKEN LINK

I used a trial of the software package SwitchResX.

Within the SwitchResX Control panel, choose 'Display Sets'.

Create a new set with your choice of name and keybinding with '2880x1800' in 'Millions of colors'.

Save, Apply (reboot if asked), and hit your global keybind to activate the new resolution.

Some things of note: The Quartz window server appears to freak out at this resolution on a cold boot at the login screen... you can still see what's on screen, but there is graphical corruption until you login.

Hopefully someone will disclose a cleaner solution sooner than later. In the meantime, this workaround does the job.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

VacantPsalm

macrumors member
Sep 21, 2010
85
0
Haha, wow. I knew this would happen, but it's still hilarious to see for some reason.

"Oh, you have dual monitors on your home computer? Well guess what..."
*flips out a pair of 3.25 reading glasses*

I'm not sure if it's because clicking full size for your image just blows things up a bunch or not, but things actually look quite readable on that. I mean, I know in theory the text is fine, just small but... yea.
 

GrayParrot

macrumors newbie
Jun 14, 2012
11
0
This is great. Thanks so much for testing Switch Res X for those of us waiting for the Retina MBP.
Could you do some of us a huge favor: try to lower the base resolution to 1400x900 so that the gpu only has to process this lower res? I know by default System Preferences will show a "pixel doubled" version of 2800x1800. But my concern is for 3d modeling applications, in which viewport rotation is already taxing on normal resolutions. It's similar to games, but, unlike games, you cannot easily change your resolution in the application.
I would love to lower the demand on the gpu for a few apps, then switch back for "retina ready" apps.
Thanks again for your valuable contribution!
 

plazmic

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 14, 2012
10
0
This is great. Thanks so much for testing Switch Res X for those of us waiting for the Retina MBP.
Could you do some of us a huge favor: try to lower the base resolution to 1400x900 so that the gpu only has to process this lower res? I know by default System Preferences will show a "pixel doubled" version of 2800x1800. But my concern is for 3d modeling applications, in which viewport rotation is already taxing on normal resolutions. It's similar to games, but, unlike games, you cannot easily change your resolution in the application.
I would love to lower the demand on the gpu for a few apps, then switch back for "retina ready" apps.
Thanks again for your valuable contribution!

SwiftResX does allow enabling non-scaled lower resolutions, however the video kexts appear to be redirecting that monitor mode back up to the HiDPI version of 1440x900. Eventually, that will be a possibility, its just not a trivial click and go at this time.
 

houkouonchi

macrumors regular
Oct 31, 2005
134
0
I will definitely be doing this for Mac OS X but also will be using linux X windows with a 75 DPI setting. The only reason I am getting the macbook is not for pretty fonts but for screen real estate. I am a resolution whore.

Should be very readable IMHO considering I already use a 22 inch 3840x2400 resolution monitor (204 PPI) so the macbook is only slightly smaller.

Here is my desktop size at work:

Code:
root@sigoto: 10:23 PM :~# xdpyinfo  | grep -A3 screen
default screen number:    0
number of screens:    1

screen #0:
  print screen:    no
  dimensions:    8960x2400 pixels (3034x813 millimeters)
  resolution:    75x75 dots per inch
  depths (7):    24, 1, 4, 8, 15, 16, 32


its 3840x2400 + 2560x1440 + 2560x1600
 

npgatech

macrumors newbie
Jun 13, 2012
25
7
I will definitely be doing this for Mac OS X but also will be using linux X windows with a 75 DPI setting. The only reason I am getting the macbook is not for pretty fonts but for screen real estate. I am a resolution whore.

Should be very readable IMHO considering I already use a 22 inch 3840x2400 resolution monitor (204 PPI) so the macbook is only slightly smaller.

Here is my desktop size at work:

Code:
root@sigoto: 10:23 PM :~# xdpyinfo  | grep -A3 screen
default screen number:    0
number of screens:    1

screen #0:
  print screen:    no
  dimensions:    8960x2400 pixels (3034x813 millimeters)
  resolution:    75x75 dots per inch
  depths (7):    24, 1, 4, 8, 15, 16, 32


its 3840x2400 + 2560x1440 + 2560x1600

Mother of tapdancing Jesus. Are you a stock broker or work in a control room?
 

GrayParrot

macrumors newbie
Jun 14, 2012
11
0
[/COLOR]
SwiftResX does allow enabling non-scaled lower resolutions, however the video kexts appear to be redirecting that monitor mode back up to the HiDPI version of 1440x900. Eventually, that will be a possibility, its just not a trivial click and go at this time.

Oh, that's too bad. Thanks a million for the info and your super useful reply!
 

Eriksrocks

macrumors member
Jun 12, 2012
79
2
Oh it gets worse. If I recall, the 2880x1800 is actually a scaled res also. The native res for these screens is higher. ScreenResX lets you go to 3840x2400 on the Retina MacBook...

http://reimuchan.com/motherofgod1.jpg

Nope, native res of the actual display is 2880x1800. You can go to 3840x2400 because that's the resolution OS X renders at when you choose the "More space" option in the display settings (2x 1920x1200). It's probably the hard-coded max that OS X will render at at this point in time. The display just scales it back down to 2880x1800 though, so although you may have more real estate at that point you are at less than 1 pixel-to-pixel and as such it's going to look pretty ugly.
 

AirmanPika

macrumors 6502
Jun 19, 2007
307
2
Vandenberg AFB, CA
Nope, native res of the actual display is 2880x1800. You can go to 3840x2400 because that's the resolution OS X renders at when you choose the "More space" option in the display settings (2x 1920x1200). It's probably the hard-coded max that OS X will render at at this point in time. The display just scales it back down to 2880x1800 though, so although you may have more real estate at that point you are at less than 1 pixel-to-pixel and as such it's going to look pretty ugly.

Makes sense but to be honest at that res...you can't really tell :)
 

houkouonchi

macrumors regular
Oct 31, 2005
134
0
Mother of tapdancing Jesus. Are you a stock broker or work in a control room?

I work at a datacenter for a web-hosting company. Here is a picture taken just a few minutes ago. You can see the left monitor (my highest resolution 3840x2400 22 inch monitor) just has tons of terminals on it. It allows me to have lots of stuff running where I can see output all at once. I work for one of the largest shared hosting companies so its nice to be able to see everything at once especially when there are short burst outgoing DDoS servers that are hard to catch cause they run for very short time (you can have a ping running on tons of servers and see when one stops).



Why would you ever want to do this? :eek:

Everything would be next to unreadable.

This totally depends on the person. Honestly I have no problem reading 75 DPI X (which is lower DPI than most other OS's) Basically the text on my terminal monitor is about the height of the width of a dime.

I think as long as someone has near 20/20 vision (or corrected) it is fine. I have glasses with a nearly 6 diopter (very heavily corrected) and have no issues.
 

bhtooefr

macrumors regular
Feb 25, 2011
139
0
Newark, OH, USA
For that matter, this is the entire reason I want the MBPR.

Not the 3840x2400 mode, that's just insanity (although I'm completely unsurprised that it's possible). I could use it, but it'd be pushing even my limits. And, yes, I own a T221, too. I'll be driving THAT at 3840x2400...

There is a cleaner way to do it, though - educationk12 over on the IBM_T2X_LCD group found a MBPR in an Apple store that was "glitched"... so that it had the normal monitor control panel. No modes below 1024x768 were shown, so you couldn't select 1024x640 (HiDPI), but 1024x768 native, all of the HiDPI modes EXCEPT 1024x640, and all of the underlying native modes were available. Apparently the Apple store staff have tried to fix it, too, and have been unable to. So, the old control panel is lurking somewhere.
 

darwinian

macrumors 6502a
Jan 4, 2008
600
1
In R4, more or less
... and they say the rmbp was bad for tinkerers ... :)

I can't wait to play around with getting a GNU/Linux system up and running on this thing.


(Yes, hardware tinkerers, I know. I know. Most laptops weren't meant for real hardware tinkerers.)
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.