external display questions

[nixiemaiden]

I have had my SP3 for a few months now and I love it. I just got the docking station and a couple of Dell monitors configured which sort of work great. My issue is with scaling. I found a ton of articles and complaints about how you can't set multiple scalings across displays and have tried some things but nothing is working for me.

I need to be able to dock my SP3 at my desk and gain the 2 monitors. I also need to be able to undock it to take it to meetings without screwing anything up. By default when I plugged in the monitors, everything looked blown up on the external monitors because the scaling was set to 150%. I set the scaling down to 100% and then the SP3 screen becomes basically unusable with everything being really tiny. I found a "hack" to add custom resolutions so I added the custom resolution and set the scaling to 100% and everything looked great when it was docked. Then as soon as I undocked, it changed the SP3 back to the default resolution but kept the scaling at 100% so everything was tiny again. The articles made it seem like the scaling would also change when I undocked but it isn't.

Is there any solution to this so I can dock and undock without having to log out and back in every time? Or is my only option to just deal with tiny text when I undock or blown up text when I am docked? Or just deal with a lower screen resolution even when I am undocked?

I would appreciate any suggestions or work arounds.

 

[leeshor]

Welcome to the forum

You may find some assistance in this Tips/Tricks thread. http://www.surfaceforums.net/threads/surface-pro-3-tips-tricks.9325/ But I'm certain someone else will come to the rescue.

 

[bluegrass]

I am thinking the issue you are talking about has been beaten around here a lot in the past & there isn't a solution. You simply change the resolution after you undock. We're all hopeful this situation will be resolved by both newer applications and a new OS in the future, but now we live with this little frustration. And welcome to the forum. Hopefully you will gain some knowledge and answers to some of your problems in the future.

 

[zhenya]

You are on the right track. Windows will respect your resolution settings as different when docked and undocked. Set the custom resolution you prefer when undocked, then dock the machine and set the custom resolution you prefer in that setup. Make sure the scaling is set to fixed 100%. The behavior will now be consistent and it will automatically switch to the right resolution for you.

 

[nixiemaiden]

Unfortunately my preference seems to be I prefer 1080 by 720 with 100% scaling while docked and 2160 by 1440 with 150% scaling when undocked. Would be nice if you could change the scaling without having to log out and back in.

 

[zhenya]

Yes, if you want to change scaling, you'll have to log out. No way around that.

How about fixing the scaling at 100% and using 1440x960 when you are undocked? That will make things the same effective size as full resolution with 150% scaling at the sacrifice of a bit of sharpness.

 

[nixiemaiden]

Thanks for the tip. This looks much better than the 1080 by 720 I read about before. This will streamline my process at work and if needed, I can manually change the resolution / scaling at home where logging in and out won't cause an issue.

 

[agt499]

Yes, if you want to change scaling, you'll have to log out. No way around that.

How about fixing the scaling at 100% and using 1440x960 when you are undocked? That will make things the same effective size as full resolution with 150% scaling at the sacrifice of a bit of sharpness.

I'm with Zhenya here : 1440x960 is a good match for me with 24" 1920x1080 external displays.
Undocking resets me to native 2160x1440 on the SP3, but at least one logout/in cycle is always required to get everything feeling right.
(I often need two in order for the fat window borders to shrink using a custom script - lean window borders are the absolute best feature I've seen in the Win10 preview!)

 

[nixiemaiden]

Ok so another weird thing that isn't much of an issue I suppose but just me being nit-picky. So I changed the resolution to 1440by960 both when docked and undocked. I docked and undocked several times and everything looked great. I shut down and then this morning turned it back on and the desktop background is only taking up the 1440 by 960 on my 1920 by 1080 monitors. Also it displayed the same image on all 3 screens. I changed the resolution and changed it back and now the backgrounds look great and it is showing different images on each screen. It just seems like strange behavior to me is all.