Retina MacBook Pro with *HiDPI* Thunderbolt Display?

[smoothbit]

For the last five years I've used an 11" MacBook Air with a 27" Thunderbolt display for work.

My eyesight is very bad and so for all that time I've ran the display in 1280x720 HiDPI mode, it's been a big help in allowing me to keep working as my eyes deteriorate.

Last week I was happy to get a 13" Retina MacBook Pro to replace the Air, it's much more powerful and nicer in every way.

Unfortunately, whatever I do I can't get HiDPI mode to work on the Thunderbolt display.

I can run it in "normal" 1280x720, but the text is very pixellated and when I zoom in using Control-Scroll (which I need to do many times a day) the result is often so blocky I cannot read the characters.

I fear this is a result of the MacBook Pro having a native HiDPI screen, and so the trick that allowed me to run HiDPI resolutions on the Thunderbolt display may be impossible.

I've searched on Google and these forums for a solution but have not been able to find one.

TLDR - Can anyone help me run 1280x720 HiDPI on my Thunderbolt Display using a 2015 13" Retina MacBook Pro? Does anyone know if this is definitely impossible?

 

[JTToft]

In System Preferences -> Displays, attempt to Alt-click the "Scaled" bullet. That should give some more resolution options in the list.

 

[smoothbit]

In System Preferences -> Displays, attempt to Alt-click the "Scaled" bullet. That should give some more resolution options in the list.

That does give me more options but sadly none of them have "HiDPI" next to them, they're all blurry when I try them (other than 2560x1440 of course).

 

[JTToft]

That does give me more options but sadly none of them have "HiDPI" next to them, they're all blurry when I try them (other than 2560x1440 of course).

- Strange. Perhaps you need something like SwitchResX to do it then.