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Solved SP3 multi-mon dpi scaling tweak

It is a true shame that Windows 10 TP hasn't (as yet) rolled out any device independent screen scaling, would be worth the pain of running the TP! Please Microsoft, this needs to be fixed.

Thanks to all here who have taken the time to document this work around, will come in handy.
 
jnjroach said:
Chris we get it... you don't like Windows 8.1 and its UI. If you would use the MUI environment you will have a better experience. Or you can hope that Cupertino will give you an iPad Air 12 Pro and use Office for iPad and then you be able to do about 40% of what the SP3 can do but with your preferred UI.
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Have to agree with Jeff on this one. We all have to pick our own poison, and for me the lack of an active digitizer for iOS trumps all else. I'm not exactly a spring chicken, but I run two 27" 2560x1440 monitors, set Windows screen scaling to one notches below "Large", and away I go - whether Word, Excel, Outlook - my SPro3 stays locked to OneNote for continual note taking. It even works well at the setting chosen by Windows (two notches below Large), but bumping it back up one notch helps the old eyes.
 
The trick to handle DPI is this simple:
Windows was designed for 96 dpi in the beginning. It is the standard dpi assumption, and its still the standard for 100% scaling today. If you have higher dpi, you can do the math yourself.
In this case, the SP3 has 216 dpi, that translate to about 200% of 96 dpi (to be precise, its 225%), which is the scaling setting that I use. If you use anything lower than that, don't complaint if everythings small.
 
ChrisPanzer said:
Also, what is exactly is the difference, from a 'normal' user standpoint, of, say, 1440x960 @ 150% scaling, or 2440x1440 @ 200% scaling?? What is the point of having the resolution so high, if users are just going to over-compensate by blowing everything up, anyway??
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Why don't you own an iPad 2 then? The iPad Air is basically an iPad 2 with 'overcompensating' 200% scaling, called 'Retina'.
Sorry, your purchase doesn't align with your logic.
 
its okay.. ive settled into my surface and i m quite happy. still dealing with occasional sleep issues but other than that its great. i dont even use my ipad anymore lol
 
dstrauss said:
Have to agree with Jeff on this one. We all have to pick our own poison, and for me the lack of an active digitizer for iOS trumps all else. I'm not exactly a spring chicken, but I run two 27" 2560x1440 monitors, set Windows screen scaling to one notches below "Large", and away I go - whether Word, Excel, Outlook - my SPro3 stays locked to OneNote for continual note taking. It even works well at the setting chosen by Windows (two notches below Large), but bumping it back up one notch helps the old eyes.
Click to expand...
As you aware your external monitor has a DPI of 108.8 (Max Horizontal Resolution / Screen Diagonal) * 1.148 ----For a 16:9 Monitor
Your SP3 can match that @ 1080x720 , or if you want to compensate for the difference in Aspect Ratios, @1080x605
Your can custom set these resolutions to more precisely maximize the ability of you monitor. Your present settings are close to this.
 
I would definitely not call this a solution. It's an average workaround for a huge problem. The screen is very noticeably blurrier at lower resolutions (at any distance). It's ridiculous that Microsoft hasn't released a solution to this problem. High resolution laptops/ultrabooks are more common than ever and a ton of people use multiple monitors. This is by far the worst problem I have with my Surface, and they haven't even fixed it on the latest Windows 10 technical preview. I hope they'll solve it soon. This is very frustrating.
 
This tweak was very helpful for our tech demo with the portrait dock prototype:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/danchar/archive/2015/04/30/surface-pro-3-in-1-vesa-mounted-dock.aspx

surfacepro3-in-1-triple-monitor-jpg.6011
 
Thanks for the fix Surfdoc! I struggled for hours to find a palatable solution and this is as good as it seems to get. I found an earlier post's suggestion of 1440x960 to work the best. Does anyone know if an upgrade to Windows 10 helps remedy this issue? I've been finding mixed messages so far.
 
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