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schaibaa

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 17, 2012
15
0
Hello everyone,

I got my wife a new rMBP and thunderbolt display for Christmas. The retina display looks great, and she's enjoying everything - however most things on the TBD are simply too small.

We've tried non-native resolutions but the quality is lower than we'd like. I understand that technically there's no problem to solve here, but are there any suggestions? This seems like a perfect way for the technology built in to the rMBP (pixel manipulation) to help out here.

Thanks
 

tredstone

macrumors regular
Aug 25, 2010
166
0
Set the TBD to run at 1280x720 HiDPI mode... A pseudo-retina display at a size your wife might find more reasonable.
 

MCAsan

macrumors 601
Jul 9, 2012
4,587
442
Atlanta
Leave the resolution alone and on any screen where she wants to zoom in (effectively enlarge the fonts) hit Command, Option, and the + keys. To zoom back out...use the combo with - key instead of the + key.
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,071
15,493
California
Hello everyone,

I got my wife a new rMBP and thunderbolt display for Christmas. The retina display looks great, and she's enjoying everything - however most things on the TBD are simply too small.

We've tried non-native resolutions but the quality is lower than we'd like. I understand that technically there's no problem to solve here, but are there any suggestions? This seems like a perfect way for the technology built in to the rMBP (pixel manipulation) to help out here.

Thanks

There is no pixel manipulation equivalent in the TBD to fix this. Is it primarily text that is too small for her? You might be able to address that on an app by app basis.

For example, I use the Safari extension Quickstyle to display a larger font on some sites. You can set it up to make all sites show a larger font if you like.
 

potatis

macrumors 6502a
Dec 9, 2006
839
291
Or sell the TBD and find a used 24" ACD instead.
It's 95ppi instead of 110ppi on the TBD.
 

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
28,241
12,388
Like your wife, I also find today's "high resolution" displays difficult to view at their native resolutions. The younger posters to this forum simply cannot comprehend why we older folks complain about such things -- but someday most of them will understand.

My suggestion for you and your wife:
Consider buying one of the "medium-resolution" large displays. By "med-rez", I mean a display that measures 27" diagonally, but still has the -resolution- of a 24" display (1920 x 1080):
http://www.dell.com/ed/business/p/dell-s2740l/pd

The example above is an IPS display with a pixel size of .311 -- the individual pixels are considerably larger than those on the Thunderbolt display.

Yes, this means a lower resolution and the youngsters reading this reply will complain that "it looks grainy" to them. But it will look clear and readable to your wife at the native resolution.

The price on the Dell monitor above is very reasonable, as well.

My only complaint with it is that it's a "glossy" style display (edge-to-edge glass). I prefer "matte" displays, as there is less glare. But isn't the Thunderbolt display "glossy", as well?
 

KylePowers

macrumors 68000
Mar 5, 2011
1,688
197
Move the monitor closer to her.

Alternatively, move her chair closer to the monitor.

That may sound facetious... but seriously, have you tried that?

Cheers
 

RMo

macrumors 65816
Aug 7, 2007
1,252
280
Iowa, USA
Like others have said, your best bet is to get a different monitor whose native resolution matches the pixel density you (or she, I guess) find comfortable to read.

But I don't think I understand the other part of your post (pixel manipulation?). Apple's "retina" displays are effectively twice the resolution in both dimensions. Normally, this would make everything appear half the size while enabling you to fit twice as much on the display.* But instead, when using a Retina display, OS X (and iOS) effectively double the size of text (making it look sharper since you shouldn't be able to see individual pixels any longer) and using hi/double-resolution images if the app as provided them (in which case it should also look better) or just automatically scaling the normal-resolution ones up to twice the size (in which case it will look effectively the same as it would on an ordinary display).

So if your display, such as the TB display, is not Retina, there's really nothing that can be done. If Apple made a Retina TB display, you could probably get away with changing it to a "non-native" resolution between the normal and fullest density Retina setting, but I haven't tried this personally so I'm not sure how it would turn out. I suspect it would at least be better than running an ordinary monitor and non-native resolution since with greater pixel density you're less likely to see blurring and whatnot if the pixels don't line up exactly after scaling. But of course it doesn't matter with the external display since you can't do this with the current hardware.


*Actually, I'm not sure that's mathematically correct since the total number of pixels is the horizontal times vertical resolution and doubling both does not double the total number but actually does more depending on the aspect ratio, but it still makes sense intuitively to think of it the simpler way.
 

tredstone

macrumors regular
Aug 25, 2010
166
0
Yes. It's not natively enabled in OSX but there's a few apps in the app store that can 'unlock' the option in settings. The Air Display program (free) that's used to broadcast a second screen to ipads can also enable it. 1280x720 obviously isn't the same usable space as native panel res on a 27", but it's not far off from the resolution of a 13" mb pro and the HiDPI makes it extremely crisp.
 

octatonic

macrumors 6502
Mar 23, 2010
260
52
London
You need to upgrade.

Wife 2.0 will be less problematic and you will get another 18 months out of her, according to Moore's Law.
 

MeFromHere

macrumors 6502
Oct 11, 2012
468
16
Hello everyone,

I got my wife a new rMBP and thunderbolt display for Christmas. The retina display looks great, and she's enjoying everything - however most things on the TBD are simply too small.

We've tried non-native resolutions but the quality is lower than we'd like. I understand that technically there's no problem to solve here, but are there any suggestions? This seems like a perfect way for the technology built in to the rMBP (pixel manipulation) to help out here.

Thanks

I don't personally know how/if this works, but I bookmarked the thread in case I need to try it when my new iMac arrives:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1512189/

This supposedly enables additional screen options.
 

schaibaa

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 17, 2012
15
0
Like others have said, your best bet is to get a different monitor whose native resolution matches the pixel density you (or she, I guess) find comfortable to read.

But I don't think I understand the other part of your post (pixel manipulation?). Apple's "retina" displays are effectively twice the resolution in both dimensions. Normally, this would make everything appear half the size while enabling you to fit twice as much on the display.* But instead, when using a Retina display, OS X (and iOS) effectively double the size of text (making it look sharper since you shouldn't be able to see individual pixels any longer) and using hi/double-resolution images if the app as provided them (in which case it should also look better) or just automatically scaling the normal-resolution ones up to twice the size (in which case it will look effectively the same as it would on an ordinary display).

So if your display, such as the TB display, is not Retina, there's really nothing that can be done. If Apple made a Retina TB display, you could probably get away with changing it to a "non-native" resolution between the normal and fullest density Retina setting, but I haven't tried this personally so I'm not sure how it would turn out. I suspect it would at least be better than running an ordinary monitor and non-native resolution since with greater pixel density you're less likely to see blurring and whatnot if the pixels don't line up exactly after scaling. But of course it doesn't matter with the external display since you can't do this with the current hardware.


*Actually, I'm not sure that's mathematically correct since the total number of pixels is the horizontal times vertical resolution and doubling both does not double the total number but actually does more depending on the aspect ratio, but it still makes sense intuitively to think of it the simpler way.



Yeah the idea would be running the monitor at native resolution but have the GPU do the scaling.
 

pbmagnet4

macrumors regular
Jan 25, 2009
101
0
I don't personally know how/if this works, but I bookmarked the thread in case I need to try it when my new iMac arrives:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1512189/

This supposedly enables additional screen options.

This worked flawlessly on my TB display. I still enjoy the way I had it more but this is a great alternative to those who are vision impaired and still want a stunning resolution.
 

calderone

Cancelled
Aug 28, 2009
3,743
352
This worked flawlessly on my TB display. I still enjoy the way I had it more but this is a great alternative to those who are vision impaired and still want a stunning resolution.

This does not work with a Retina MBP.
 

yensteel

macrumors regular
Aug 17, 2009
103
2
Like your wife, I also find today's "high resolution" displays difficult to view at their native resolutions. The younger posters to this forum simply cannot comprehend why we older folks complain about such things -- but someday most of them will understand.

My suggestion for you and your wife:
Consider buying one of the "medium-resolution" large displays. By "med-rez", I mean a display that measures 27" diagonally, but still has the -resolution- of a 24" display (1920 x 1080):
http://www.dell.com/ed/business/p/dell-s2740l/pd

The example above is an IPS display with a pixel size of .311 -- the individual pixels are considerably larger than those on the Thunderbolt display.

Yes, this means a lower resolution and the youngsters reading this reply will complain that "it looks grainy" to them. But it will look clear and readable to your wife at the native resolution.

The price on the Dell monitor above is very reasonable, as well.

My only complaint with it is that it's a "glossy" style display (edge-to-edge glass). I prefer "matte" displays, as there is less glare. But isn't the Thunderbolt display "glossy", as well?

Fishrrman, that's a very good suggestion! There's certainly a demand for lower resolution but quality displays, and it's good that it's being fulfilled with this.

Schaibaa, try out the hdpi mode and let us know if it works :). The older 24 inch apple display may be also a good choice, since the pixel density is lower than the 27 inch version.

Like Rmo said, retina displays does make alternative resolutions feel more crisp, since the pixel blockiness is less noticeable. For the retina display of the MacBook pros, it looked fine when it's in a non-native resolution. However, it may be a long while until apple would even consider adding that upgrade for the external display.
 
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