4k Display Scale Issue

Question

Level 1

14 points

4k Display Scale Issue

I have a new LG Ultra HD monitor. On the 3840 x 2160 resolution the text/images are clear. However the top menu, dock, and icons are really tiny, all windows open very small, and I have to adjust/zoom each time I open a program or webpage to be able to read it. If I switch to 1920 x 1080, then menu/dock/icons/windows/text are at a reasonable size, but not crisp, and text is unacceptably fuzzy/pixelated.

I have tested both the HDMI connections, and the DisplayPort HDMI 2.0 connection. Neither make a difference. Using the HDMI connector, I can only access 30hz. Using the DisplayPort I have the option of 60hz, but again, no difference in the scale. LG says it's not a monitor problem but OS or hardware issue.

I want to have an appropriately scaled 4k monitor with crisp text, instead of tiny windows/icons/menus/text. I have adjusted the dock, icon, and text size manually, but I feel like this should be doable without me having to adjust everything, and I can't do anything about the top menu - it's barely readable. With my specs below, does anyone see a solution I'm missing?

OS Sierra 10.12.5

Model Name: Mac Pro

Model Identifier: MacPro5,1

Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon

Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz

Number of Processors: 2

Total Number of Cores: 8

L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB

L3 Cache (per Processor): 12 MB

Memory: 52 GB

Processor Interconnect Speed: 5.86 GT/s

Boot ROM Version: MP51.007F.B03

SMC Version (system): 1.39f11

SMC Version (processor tray): 1.39f11

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080:

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080

Type: GPU

Bus: PCIe

Slot: Slot-1

PCIe Lane Width: x16

VRAM (Total): 8192 MB

Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)

Device ID: 0x1b80

Revision ID: 0x00a1

ROM Revision: MacVidCards

Metal: Supported

Displays:

DELL SP2309W:

Resolution: 1920 x 1080 @ 60 Hz

Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Rotation: Supported

Automatically Adjust Brightness: No

LG Ultra HD:

Resolution: 3840 x 2160 @ 30 Hz

Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

Main Display: Yes

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Rotation: Supported

Automatically Adjust Brightness: No

Connection Type: DisplayPort HDMI 2.0

1920x1080 Display

Switched to 3840 x 2160 Display

macOS Sierra (10.12.5)

Posted on Aug 13, 2017 11:32 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 14, 2017 8:16 AM in response to kittastrophy

what some users do is reserve their most capable display as a Preview-only display, and keep all the other windows and menus on another, more mundane display.

The Mac has a number of ways to use displays, including Extended Desktop, where all displays are combined into one oversized Desktop. Once you arrange them properly, you can drag any item, including a preview window for image or Video editing across the 'boundary' between displays, ands leave it open on the high resolution display.

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Answer 2

Aug 18, 2017 10:30 AM in response to kittastrophy

Apple's Mac OS X only treats certain displays as 'retina' displays as standard, this of course includes the built-in iMac and MacBook Pro (retina) displays but also I believe includes the Dell 4K displays. I strongly suspect it does not include your LG display.

It is possible to manually enable 'HiDPI' mode, and it is also possible to create a custom display override file which can then cause OS X to treat the display as a 'retina' style display.

This might get you started but you might need to do additional googling.

How to Enable HiDPI Mode in Mac OS X - TekRevue

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Answer 3

Aug 13, 2017 12:07 PM in response to kittastrophy

If you select any of resolutions shown as "scaled" in the Displays preferences, this is my understanding of what happens:

Photographs and anything completely graphical will be shown at a high resolution. All Text will be "resized" to be shown at some (possibly non-integer) multiple of its original size, to make it much more readable. The graphics processor is called on to do the resizing, but it is not especially hard work. Some slight blurriness may occur in text, and one-pixel lines may be problematic.

All this came from work on the Retina Displays:

Using a Retina display - Apple Support

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Answer 4

kittastrophy Author

Level 1

14 points

Aug 13, 2017 5:57 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I have tested both Scaled and Default for Display in the Display Preferences. The scaled results in tiny text/icons/windows/menu/dock. The Default for Display enlarges all the above, but results in the fuzzy/pixelated text. The Scaled option in preferences does not have the options to enlarge text within the preferences window, like it does in the Retina Display window examples in the page you included.

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