Microsoft just doesn't understand screen resolution, crap on surface and external display

[macmee]

So there's high DPI displays and non high DPI displays, Microsoft doesn't understand either and the experience of using both together is a complete disaster.

I hooked up a 24" 1920x1080 monitor to my SP2. This is what Explorer and Firefox look like:

Explorer (a NATIVE app) is blurry on the external screen. Incredibly blurry! Firefox was too, I turned off DPI scaling and now the UI is huge. You would think it would be easy to fix this, but it's not. There's a Windows 8.1 setting to change DPI, and a legacy way. Both are non-accessible via metro, and you have to RESTART the machine for settings to take effect.

With these settings changed, everything looks decent on the external display, but poor on the Surface and all these settings have to later be changed back.

Doing this every time I use an external display is pathetic. I paid $1500 for this machine. OS X just works perfectly with high DPI and non high DPI displays. Microsoft just doesn't understand how to do integration with external monitors properly whatsoever.

edit: oh and not trying to bash Microsoft and go with the mentality that Apple literally just works and that Steve Jobs is literally Jesus. I've had my fair share of woes with OS X, but in regards to external display and high/low DPI support, Apple's crap just f***ing works.

 

[CrippsCorner]

I'm sorry you're having this issue, but I don't think you speak for everyone. I admit, I mainly use Modern UI on my Surface's screen, but it's also docked to an external monitor 95% of the time... and I've never had a problem. Literally changed it to 100% (I think, just looked and it now just refers to it as smaller) as it's been perfect for me for the 12 months I've now owned this thing.

Satisfied customer right here!

 

[Nuspieds]

No issues for me, either, when it comes to external displays.

My standard "docked" profile is my SP2 connected to two 2560x1600 30" Dell monitors and I have never had any resolution problems, whatsoever.

On some occasions, I roam from my desk and connect to a single Dell 1920x1080 and, again, still no display problems.

Perhaps troubleshooting by using a different brand of a display cable might shed some light on the issue.

 

[jollywombat]

Have to agree with Macmee here, microsofts implementation of DPI-scaling is pretty lacking, especially since this is not exactly a new technology, would have thought this would have been much more polished by now.

I do not have this issue on my external monitor for the surface, but I use it as the only display with scaling off when it is docked like that, not running both surface display and external

 

[jnjroach]

Let's be real clear here, WinRT Apps have no scaling issues as the API were built from the ground up to support everything from 1024x768 to 4K+....

The issue is with Win32 Code, I would say 90% of it still uses the XP (and earlier) GDI Scaling, better scaling was introduced with Vista (NT 6.x) and .NET 3.x but very few ISVs implemented the new scaling into their code. Adobe has just updated their CC to support the change and Google still defaults to GDI by default. And, yes many of MS's own MMC Consoles still use GDI (Computer Management).

Microsoft has the updated code, ISVs just haven't implemented it and MS was to break backwards compatibility the user base would throw a fit.

 

[EthanDavis]

Hi, just saw this thread. I made a different thread about Google Chrome display resolution. I wonder if our problems might be related. See here: http://www.surfaceforums.net/threads/google-chrome-display-resolution-vs-ie11.9792/



The screenshot is how IE11 displays vs. Google Chrome. IE11 is high resolution; Google Chrome is big, blurry, and low DPI. This is happening on both the 64 bit Dev and 64 bit Canary versions. Have not tried 32 bit since my Surface Pro 2 is 64-bit.

 

[CrippsCorner]

That is so strange, I wonder why some people are getting that and some aren't (me included) I wonder if it's simply because I use Chrome on an external monitor...