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Retina MacBook Pro Resolution Larger then Advertised (3840x2400)

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oiuh151

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 18, 2011
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Just thought I'd put some of these complaints to rest about the workspace. This new MacBook Pro is capable of up to 3840x2400 resolution

If you look at Anandtech's photo gallery of the New MacBook Pro resolution options you can see that their 1920x1200 workspace photo is actually 3840x2400.

http://www.anandtech.com/Gallery/Album/2078
http://images.anandtech.com/galleries/2078/Screen Shot 2012-06-11 at 4.36.07 PM.png

Which means that there will no degraded quality if you choose one of these larger workspaces to choose from like you'd see on a typical monitor. I really suggest you view these screens in person to see how there's no degradation in quality based on what scaling you choose like on typical monitors.

Further proof of this is evident in the app SwitchResX as pointed out by a user on this forum.
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/15046674/
 
oiuh151 said:
Just thought I'd put some of these complaints to rest about the workspace. This new MacBook Pro is capable of up to 3840x2400 resolution
Click to expand...

Given the high resolution of 2880x1800 it fakes the 3840x2400 pretty well, but I'd still prefer a 3360x2100 display, or, even better, an operating system with proper resolution independence...
 
I think its already been proven that the display is 2880x1800. Its basicing a x4 scaling hack to inrease the amount of workspace. They only wanted to double horiz/vertical (quadruple) already standard resolutions for desktop real-estate sizes and wanted to allow up to 1920x1200 in physical size. This meant 3840x2400 mode which is then downscaled to 2880x1800. Adds more strain on video memory/video card and sub-pixel font rendering will likely not be as effective. Honestly this is not a very good method IMHO.

The LCD in the macbook pro is not capable of 3840x2400.
 
houkouonchi said:
I think its already been proven that the display is 2880x1800. Its basicing a x4 scaling hack to inrease the amount of workspace. They only wanted to double horiz/vertical (quadruple) already standard resolutions for desktop real-estate sizes and wanted to allow up to 1920x1200 in physical size. This meant 3840x2400 mode which is then downscaled to 2880x1800. Adds more strain on video memory/video card and sub-pixel font rendering will likely not be as effective. Honestly this is not a very good method IMHO.

The LCD in the macbook pro is not capable of 3840x2400.
Click to expand...

If it was downscaled back down to 2880x1800 then the direct image from the desktop should not be that large, nor should SwitchResX show the resolution as an option.
 
oiuh151 said:
If it was downscaled back down to 2880x1800 then the direct image from the desktop should not be that large, nor should SwitchResX show the resolution as an option.
Click to expand...

Except the GPU is downscaling AFTER the framebuffer, where you're taking your screenshot.

GPUs have actually supported this for a while, but it's not usually exposed because there's usually no good reason to run higher than native and downscale it. (The one exception I can think of is a 1024x768 mode on netbooks with 1024x600 screens, for running software that absolutely needs 1024x768, although that looks downright awful.)
 
I did this myself with switchresx. I think I agree that this screen res is scaled, but also I think the actual nit is so high that its a semi true resolution. I saw someone post in another thread that the 2880x1800 res wasn't 100% true due to the actual pixel density and the explanation made sense...I just can't find the thing. Its possibly a mix between the two.

Everything looks sharp but...aside from the giggle factor...this res is retardedly unusable. I had to put my face right up on the screen to read anything.
 
Jeez, you people must have an eye of a hawk.

First of all, retina doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me to start with, but even if it was, I couldn't use it because of how tiny everything that isn't supported would look.
 
It looks like Apple has come with the most convoluted method of using a high DPI display but the result is incredible.

Retina mode looked better than anything I've ever seen, then I tried 1920 wide mode and expected it to look scaled, it did not. I even put some HD test images up and they looked like they were being displayed on a native HD monitor.

The hardware/software needs to catch up to cure the lag but after seeing that display I'd have a hard time accepting anything else.
 
Suno said:
Jeez, you people must have an eye of a hawk.

First of all, retina doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me to start with, but even if it was, I couldn't use it because of how tiny everything that isn't supported would look.
Click to expand...

I agree that's extreme 'honey I shrunk the desktop'!
 
GamingGuy800 said:
Than why is there an option for 3840x2400 in SwitchResX for Mac when running on 15.1 inch MacBook Pro Retina laptops?
Click to expand...
You're quoting a post made in June 2012 by someone who hasn't logged in in over 2 years - but to answer your question, because of how retina scaling works, the OS will 'draw' a frame out at 2x the vertical and horizontal resolution (4x the overall resolution) so that for every 'theoretical' pixel (point) it's showing (in this case 1920x1200) is rendered as 4 pixels and thus has 4 times the detail it otherwise would have. For everything bar 2880x1800 (the physical resolution of the laptop's in built display) - which is effectively showing 1/4 of that amount of information (1440x900) at 4x detail - the resulting @2x 1920x1080 image will be interpolated to the display's physical resolution, so one pixel won't be showing exactly one pixel's worth of the image.

This website shows how the process is used on iPhones - it works in the same way on a mac. Look in particular at the iPhone 6,6s,7,8 plus as those have the extra interpolation step as they aren't integer scaled (though those are revered @3x, or 3x the horizontal and vertical resolution (9x overall resolution).
https://www.paintcodeapp.com/news/ultimate-guide-to-iphone-resolutions
 
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