Mac Mini with 4K display

[mrochester]

Hi all

I've hooked up a Mac Mini to a 4K display and left the resolution at the full 4K. This makes content very small and text look very spidery. I've been playing with the scaled settings and the only option that looks decent is to drop the resolution to 1980x1080, but this makes things absolutely huge on a 32" monitor.

Is there any way of getting a happy medium where text is sharp and objects clear, but not absolutely huge too?

Many thanks.

M.

 

[sublunar]

What model year of Mac Mini is it and what connector were you using (Mini Displayport or HDMI?)

 

[mrochester]

What model year of Mac Mini is it and what connector were you using (Mini Displayport or HDMI?)

It's the bottom end 2014 Mac Mini and I've connected via HDMI.

 

[enoC]

It's the bottom end 2014 Mac Mini and I've connected via HDMI.

Have you updated to Sierra? Because there is an issue with resolutions (and scaling, i think) on some monitor when using MacOS Sierra. I can't make my LG ultrawide monitor go 2560x1080 when using my MacBook Pro mid 2014 with MacOS Sierra.

 

[mrochester]

Have you updated to Sierra? Because there is an issue with resolutions (and scaling, i think) on some monitor when using MacOS Sierra. I can't make my LG ultrawide monitor go 2560x1080 when using my MacBook Pro mid 2014 with MacOS Sierra.

Yeah it's updated to Sierra.

 

[enoC]

Yeah it's updated to Sierra.

Ok. I think you've got two options: 1. downgrade to El Capitan and wait for the issue to be fixed.
2. Stay on Sierra and use available resolutions and hope an update is coming soon...

On a second thought, maybe you have 3. option: Use SwitchResX. I haven't used it, so I can't tell you how well it works.

 

[mrochester]

Ok. I think you've got two options: 1. downgrade to El Capitan and wait for the issue to be fixed.
2. Stay on Sierra and use available resolutions and hope an update is coming soon...

Thank you for your help.

 

[enoC]

Thank you for your help.

You're welcome You could take a look at the 3. option.

 

[sublunar]

Yeah it's updated to Sierra.

Did you also try a different HDMI cable? The 2014 Mini supports 3840x2160 at 30Hz only, I assume the monitor supports that too.

Edit: Looking at the thread in full it might be that the Monitor isn't displaying in doubled retina mode and is displaying at 100% instead which would make everything look tiny. As enos said there might be an update to fix this with Sierra soon.

Second edit: Seems it was this thread that mentions the loss of HiDPI screen modes from Sierra.

 

[Synchro3]

If you want 3840 x 2160 at 60 Hz with a Mac Mini an eGPU is necessary.