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

PSA: 4k Display Resolutions

I posted this before in another thread..sorry if you already read this (double posting?), but I find these articles interesting :

www.kristinerosephotography.com

Monitors — Kristine Rose Photography

www.kristinerosephotography.com www.kristinerosephotography.com
bjango.com

Mac external displays for designers and developers

If you’re considering an external display for your Mac, there’s a few important decisions to make. Apple doesn’t sell external displays any more, so you can’t just default to their wisdom. That’s an issue, because not all displays are well suited for Macs.
bjango.com bjango.com

(and link from article above)


Now...photo editing and printing are most important to me (I can do internet/reading/surfing/watching small video clips/anything, on any device)
 
Last edited:
I was using a Iiyama Prolite xub2792uhsu (4k 27") until recently. That was cheap, matte and fairly decent for the money. But the ~150% scaling, ugh. It worked pretty well compared to windows but I'm not really sure how the market supports that combination of resolution and size.

My ultimate finding was that the Studio Display is spot on. And it only hurts for about as long as a broken leg does :)
 
  • Haha
Reactions: mr_jomo
Reading this forum, it seems people prefer the looks like 2560x1440 scaled resolution for a 27" display. Apple likes the 2560x1440 too and that's why the 27" 5K is exactly double that resolution.

I tried 2560x1440 on my 27" 4K and it is too small for my eyes, for me the perfect scaled resolution is 1920x1080 (2:1 scaling). That is good, I am not tempted to spend the ca$h on a 27" 5K 😜.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mr_jomo, vddobrev and sylwiusz
theluggage said:
1. You’re not “wasting” your 4k monitor by running in “1920x1080” mode.
Click to expand...

Agreed, unlike Apple which wastes our monitors’ excellent resolution capabilities with too much monochromatic flat design and continued adherence to the Yosemite-borne “Fisher Price My First OSX”-look to Mac OS.
:)
 
  • Like
Reactions: riker1384 and idktbh
I actually found it very comfortable with a 28-inch 3840*2160 pixels display ‘running like 1920*1080 pixels’. A lot of people say running like 2560*1440 pixels provides more real estate, but everything becomes so small. Apple should provide alternative methods of scaling UI rather than simply changing the whole resolution on macOS, or its external displays are very unfriendly to people who want the native resolution but larger UI elements.
 
arw said:
It's not that easy (as mentioned in the OP):
"looks like 1440p" actually renders the whole UI in 5K and then scales the output down to 4K.
A screenshot of "looks like 1440p" on a 4K screen is actually 5120x2880 pixels (5K).
Dependent on the scaling algorithm macOS uses (for 5K to 4K), the actual sharpness may differ from the screnshots (I used bicubic smooth):View attachment 2010174
Edit: The image attempts to visualize the relative sharpness/size of each setting/monitor and how it would look like on a screen in real life. The “4K looks like 1440p“ screenshot is scaled down from 5K to 4K (like Apple does it to display the actual content on a 4K screen) to reflect the correct size. Although the most accurate would be to actually photograph the screen, it should be representative enough like this.
Click to expand...

People often said in scaled resolutions the GPU is asked to work a bit harder. However, seldom seeing people quantify the performance penalty.

Do you notice extra power consumption at idle (in GPU, system..) when 5K is down-sampled to 4K e.g. by comparing "4K 1440p" against "4K 1080p"?
 
Last edited:
Tozovac said:
Agreed, unlike Apple which wastes our monitors’ excellent resolution capabilities with too much monochromatic flat design and continued adherence to the Yosemite-borne “Fisher Price My First OSX”-look to Mac OS.
:)
Click to expand...
I actually like how Monterey(macOS 12) looks. I found Catalina(macOS 10.15) to be awful in terms of design.

The icons have a 3D look now in macOS big sur and later. Before macOS 11.0 they were too flat.
 
theluggage said:
The downsides are:
(a) It places an extra load on the GPU, which is why a “using scaled modes may affect performance, This may be an issue on a machine with a weak GPU or limited VRAM - such as Intel integrated graphics - but a recent Intel machine with a discreet GPU, a M1 Pro or Max - and probably an M1 (unless you’re running out of RAM for other reasons) - should eat it for breakfast.
Click to expand...

I wish after testing on 2 M1 machines the scaled resolutions loose about 50-60% of the fos in Blender.

Speed it about the same if you run the 4k at looks like 1080p but I find that looks too big, I prefer 1440p on a 27” or even one resolution higher on a 32”.
Unfortunately 4k native is too small even on a 32”.
 
Last edited:
Conclusion: For all Mac users, changing the resolution only effects the size of stuff instead of image quality or text sharpness. So don’t be afraid to change the resolution on macs for larger text or more space.
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    727.4 KB · Views: 218
  • Like
  • Angry
Reactions: drrich2 and idktbh
Alex Cai said:
Conclusion: For all Mac users, changing the resolution only effects the size of stuff instead of image quality or text sharpness. So don’t be afraid to change the resolution on macs for larger text or more space.
Click to expand...
You would still get the subsampled resolution if you select for larger texts, unless the largest is already the native.
 
  • Like
Reactions: eltoslightfoot
l0stl0rd said:
I wish after testing on 2 M1 machines the scaled resolutions loose about 50-60% of the fos in Blender.

Speed it about the same if you run the 4k at looks like 1080p but I find that looks too big, I prefer 1440p on a 27” or even one resolution higher on a 32”.
Unfortunately 4k native is too small even on a 32”.
Click to expand...

50-60% performance loss in scaled resolutions in Blender? Was it internal display paired with external display(s)?

I’m shocked ?
 
exoticSpice said:
I actually like how Monterey(macOS 12) looks. I found Catalina(macOS 10.15) to be awful in terms of design.

The icons have a 3D look now in macOS big sur and later. Before macOS 11.0 they were too flat.
Click to expand...

I’m less concerned about icons and more bothered with things like how the content, side controls, and upper controls of a given app are not distinct and blend into each other to where it takes a little more thinking and feels less efficient and less intuitive to navigate than before. Just the other day, when swiping between Spaces, I could not easily tell the difference between a Finder window, the music app window, Mail, and the Photos app which all looked like a flat, monochromatic, similar app. Pretty ridiculous.

On topic: I do wish running 3840x2160 at 100% on my 4K monitor with my 2021 M1 MBA had text as crisp as on my work PC with the same monitor.
 
kvic said:
50-60% performance loss in scaled resolutions in Blender? Was it internal display paired with external display(s)?

I’m shocked ?
Click to expand...
yes internal with external display but clamshell mode did not make a difference.
Also compared to windows 10 scaling it is huge there it is 10% if even.
Or to up it in fps in windows 10 it was about 1 fps loss, in mac OS it was like 10-11 fps loss.
 
  • Like
Reactions: kvic
l0stl0rd said:
I wish after testing on 2 M1 machines the scaled resolutions loose about 50-60% of the fos in Blender.

Speed it about the same if you run the 4k at looks like 1080p but I find that looks too big, I prefer 1440p on a 27” or even one resolution higher on a 32”.
Unfortunately 4k native is too small even on a 32”.
Click to expand...
I wonder why people don’t see their display with a larger distance so things won’t look too big, and getting used to smaller elements isn’t good for eyes.
 
Bustycat said:
I wonder why people don’t see their display with a larger distance so things won’t look too big, and getting used to smaller elements isn’t good for eyes.
Click to expand...
I am not sitting that close to the screen would say fairly normal distance, about an arm length from my screen(slightly more even).
 
Danfango said:
My ultimate finding was that the Studio Display is spot on. And it only hurts for about as long as a broken leg does
Click to expand...
Wait 'till a microLED/true HDR version comes out in 6-12 months, then you'll break the other leg :)
If you can justify the cost, there's no problem (or why not get teh Pro XDR while you're at it) - but I'd re-iterate that you can get 2-3 half decent 4k screens for the price, and enjoy extreme "real estate".

DrCC said:
Reading this forum, it seems people prefer the looks like 2560x1440 scaled resolution for a 27" display. Apple likes the 2560x1440 too and that's why the 27" 5K is exactly double that resolution.

I tried 2560x1440 on my 27" 4K and it is too small for my eyes, for me the perfect scaled resolution is 1920x1080 (2:1 scaling).
Click to expand...
Bustycat said:
I actually found it very comfortable with a 28-inch 3840*2160 pixels display ‘running like 1920*1080 pixels’. A lot of people say running like 2560*1440 pixels provides more real estate, but everything becomes so small.
Click to expand...
I'd tend to agree with that myself - but it is very subjective and depends on your eyesight, your viewing habits, what software you use and how you use it...

OTOH, if my eyeballs were a decade or two younger, I'd be able to work in "looks like 2160p" when the job demanded - it's small and fiddly, but perfectly clear.

Even with "real estate" it depends on software: at "looks like 1920x1080" if you run in full screen, hide the dock and hide the menu bar the MacOS UI mostly gets out of the way, it comes down to how chunky the application's own UI is. Some apps offer their own choice of UI size, use nice compact palettes etc. and/or let you move the palettes to the second screen which you can now afford.

The 2560*1440 "look" kinda got set as the "gold standard" for Mac with the old, beloved by many, 30" Cinema Display (actually 2560x1600) in 2004 followed by the 27" iMac and 27" 2560x1440 Cinema Display in 2009/10 (which actually made the default UI slightly smaller) - but in my experience it is quite a small UI compared to other systems.

Another side to this problem is not 4k per se but the annoying abundance of 16:9 screens - the perfect aspect ratio for watching full-screen TV shows, pessimal for anything else. That's why I've gone for a pair of 3:2 Mateviews - same horizontal size and resolution as a 27" 4k, but a couple of inches height of extra real-estate tacked on the bottom.

Bustycat said:
Apple should provide alternative methods of scaling UI rather than simply changing the whole resolution on macOS, or its external displays are very unfriendly to people who want the native resolution but larger UI elements.
Click to expand...
Well, you do have the choice of 1x or 2x without changing the actual resolution. But, yes, being able to set it to 1.5x, 1.3x, 1.7x etc. as you can in Windows would be nice.

Problem is, it's a bit simplistic to say that this is "just scaling the UI" - what it is doing (in Windows) is changing the PPI scale factor that is used to translate the internal coordinates used by the OS and applications into "device coordinates" i.e. actual screen pixels (or something completely different if you're rendering to a printer).

First problem is that it could break a lot of existing software, because it would also affect the way dialogues are designed, how pixels are plotted on the screen etc. and any situations where OS UI elements are combined with application-generated graphics. Windows has had the "variable PPI" feature since at least Windows 3, and changing it has always sort of worked, but sometimes ended up with jumbled or even unusable dialogues. Last time I used Windows seriously (not counting VMs) it worked pretty well on 150% but there was the occasional glitch that rendered an app near-unusable.

Second problem is that it doesn't fix everything - things like (most) fonts and vector graphics can be scaled smoothly - but with things like bitmap "assets", if the application doesn't ship with a version of a bitmap that matches your preferred PPI then - one way or another - it's going to get "resampled". When applications render their own graphics it's completely up to the application writer to decide what the maximum precision is. You can interrogate the OS and match the screen resolution - or you can work internally to a "good enough" resolution then downsample to match the screen.

Only having two PPI settings to support (and with the OS enforcing a 2x scale on any obsolete apps) does keep things simple and less error prone (and I've always been impressed with the way my iMac could cope with dragging apps between a 5k screen, a 4k screen and an old 1920x1280 display and still give reasonable results...

l0stl0rd said:
I wish after testing on 2 M1 machines the scaled resolutions loose about 50-60% of the fos in Blender.

Speed it about the same if you run the 4k at looks like 1080p but I find that looks too big, I prefer 1440p on a 27” or even one resolution higher on a 32”.
Unfortunately 4k native is too small even on a 32”.
Click to expand...
In the case of Blender - doesn't it have its own fully scalable UI? It's years since I dabbled with it but ISTR it did all of its own UI rendering quite independently of the OS (the "like nothing else on earth" UI was part of its ...charm).
 
  • Like
Reactions: picpicmac, Wheel_D and royas
theluggage said:
Wait 'till a microLED/true HDR version comes out in 6-12 months, then you'll break the other leg :)
If you can justify the cost, there's no problem (or why not get teh Pro XDR while you're at it) - but I'd re-iterate that you can get 2-3 half decent 4k screens for the price, and enjoy extreme "real estate".



I'd tend to agree with that myself - but it is very subjective and depends on your eyesight, your viewing habits, what software you use and how you use it...

OTOH, if my eyeballs were a decade or two younger, I'd be able to work in "looks like 2160p" when the job demanded - it's small and fiddly, but perfectly clear.

Even with "real estate" it depends on software: at "looks like 1920x1080" if you run in full screen, hide the dock and hide the menu bar the MacOS UI mostly gets out of the way, it comes down to how chunky the application's own UI is. Some apps offer their own choice of UI size, use nice compact palettes etc. and/or let you move the palettes to the second screen which you can now afford.

The 2560*1440 "look" kinda got set as the "gold standard" for Mac with the old, beloved by many, 30" Cinema Display (actually 2560x1600) in 2004 followed by the 27" iMac and 27" 2560x1440 Cinema Display in 2009/10 (which actually made the default UI slightly smaller) - but in my experience it is quite a small UI compared to other systems.

Another side to this problem is not 4k per se but the annoying abundance of 16:9 screens - the perfect aspect ratio for watching full-screen TV shows, pessimal for anything else. That's why I've gone for a pair of 3:2 Mateviews - same horizontal size and resolution as a 27" 4k, but a couple of inches height of extra real-estate tacked on the bottom.


Well, you do have the choice of 1x or 2x without changing the actual resolution. But, yes, being able to set it to 1.5x, 1.3x, 1.7x etc. as you can in Windows would be nice.

Problem is, it's a bit simplistic to say that this is "just scaling the UI" - what it is doing (in Windows) is changing the PPI scale factor that is used to translate the internal coordinates used by the OS and applications into "device coordinates" i.e. actual screen pixels (or something completely different if you're rendering to a printer).

First problem is that it could break a lot of existing software, because it would also affect the way dialogues are designed, how pixels are plotted on the screen etc. and any situations where OS UI elements are combined with application-generated graphics. Windows has had the "variable PPI" feature since at least Windows 3, and changing it has always sort of worked, but sometimes ended up with jumbled or even unusable dialogues. Last time I used Windows seriously (not counting VMs) it worked pretty well on 150% but there was the occasional glitch that rendered an app near-unusable.

Second problem is that it doesn't fix everything - things like (most) fonts and vector graphics can be scaled smoothly - but with things like bitmap "assets", if the application doesn't ship with a version of a bitmap that matches your preferred PPI then - one way or another - it's going to get "resampled". When applications render their own graphics it's completely up to the application writer to decide what the maximum precision is. You can interrogate the OS and match the screen resolution - or you can work internally to a "good enough" resolution then downsample to match the screen.

Only having two PPI settings to support (and with the OS enforcing a 2x scale on any obsolete apps) does keep things simple and less error prone (and I've always been impressed with the way my iMac could cope with dragging apps between a 5k screen, a 4k screen and an old 1920x1280 display and still give reasonable results...


In the case of Blender - doesn't it have its own fully scalable UI? It's years since I dabbled with it but ISTR it did all of its own UI rendering quite independently of the OS (the "like nothing else on earth" UI was part of its ...charm).
Click to expand...
Yes it does same way zBrush does.

Does not really solve the issue as I find Mac Os text either to small (4k native) or to big (looks like 1080p) and everything between those 2 setting gets a high performance hit.

I wish Mac Os could scale the UI text as blender does. I am not a fan of the way they do scale at the moment.

I actually nearly went for the Studio display as it looks to have the perfect screen resolution ratio and decided not to because.
1. Nano Glass seeems not great clean ability wise.
2. Even if I only take the height adjustable stand, I can get 2 of those Eizos.
3. Calibrating it not sure how well that would work and dont think it has “hardware calibration”.
4. Studio display is not a true 10 bit panel but 8bit + frc.

I might have tested it if it would be the same price with the height adjustable stand. I find it a bit stupid to pay about 400 bucks for basic ergonomics.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Dutch60
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back