Ultrawide for M1 Mini

[ericspt]

Wife just got her M1 Mini and we hooked it up to her MSI 34" UW.

It is a cheap monitor but with Windows it worked fine because we scaled it 150 percent and it looked decent.

The Mac's scaling doesn't fit the resolution and it looks terrible scaled and terrible at full resolution.

Does the OS pic the scaling options? None of them are the same aspect ratio. On Windows you pick a percentage and they all look great.

I set it to 1720x720 and it just looks worse even though that is 200 percent scaling.

This monitor will be strictly for office work, so while color accuracy is important we do not need to pay extra for the last little bit of accuracy.

I think its just a cheap monitor, the text quality is terrible.

If you view this at 100 percent you can see the poor quality, this is scaled to 1720x720.

 

[Amethyst1]

I set it to 1720x720 and it just looks worse even though that is 200 percent scaling.

There’s the problem: That is not "proper" 200% scaling (HiDPI).

It’s simply 1720×720 (at 100% scaling), upscaled to 3440×1440 which is bound to look terrible.

If you want the "proper" (HiDPI) scaling options on an ultrawide on macOS, you need to get an (expensive) 5120×2160 ultrawide or play with BetterDummy.

 

[Fravin]

I set it to 1720x720 and it just looks worse even though that is 200 percent scaling.

MacOS and Windows does UI scale in two different ways.

MacOS UI scaling is PPI based, with HiPPI displays in mind. My advise for you is turn off font smooth (look this) and use the display at default resolution.

 

[ericspt]

Thanks I'll check both of those out.

Not buying a $1500 monitor to solve a problem of a $600 computer. For what she does if we could have gotten her new iPad 12.9 to do full size in the monitor with the dock she might have skipped the Mini entirely.

I hooked it up to my LG 34" UW and it was crystal clear, it is for sure the monitor but as you mentioned when we scaled it looked soft.

 

[Amethyst1]

I hooked it up to my LG 34" UW and it was crystal clear, [...]

What's the model number of that monitor, just out of interest?

Thanks I'll check both of those out.

If you want to replicate 150% scaling on a 3440×1440 monitor, you need to create a 21.3:9 dummy monitor in BetterDummy and select a scaled 2293×960 HiDPI resolution (or a resolution close to that).

 

[ericspt]

It was 34UC87M-B.

Few year old curved model. I also have a lower res 2560x1080 LG UW we are going to try on it. See if its easy enough for her to read without scaling.