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Is Vista able to scale the entire interface for different resolutions?

W

Wolfpup

Member
I remember this being a feature on Vista, but don't know if it made it. It would be VERY useful for systems with (for me) unusably high resolution screens (ie the Dell m1710 I'm considering).

Actually this is a feature we've needed for YEARS, but I don't know if it made it.

Also, anyone know if newer versions of OS X can do this? I know 10.2 can't.
 
Vista doesn't have resolution independence from my experience. The next release of OS X (10.5) is due to include it last I heard.
 
Thanks for the info! Over on the Dell forums they're claiming that feature got cut from Vista, but might make it for SP1? Sounds possible I guess.

I've been surprised Apple hasn't done this earlier, since they're already kind of doing everything through a 3D engine anyway.
 
I asked about this a couple of weeks ago because my Vista Business RTM didn't seem to do this. I was told that this feature doesn't exist. You can scale icons to whatever size you want on the desktop (hold down the CTRL key and use the scroll wheel on your mouse), and you can change the font DPI (just like in XP), but that's it as far as I can tell. I gave up and just changed the resolution.

I wanted to have a real resolution of 1600x1200 (native), and use a virtual resolution of 1280x960 thinking that would give me a comfortably sized UI with the sharpness of the native resolution. Apparently, that isn't feasible with current hardware. Truthfully, I don't see much visual degradation with the lower resolution.
 
Vista has the ability to change it's DPI settings to match the resolution of the device your using.

Sometimes the terms get mixed up.. DPI (dots per inch) or PPI (pixels per inch) essentially are the same thing in this context.

Previous versions of Windows were locked in at 96 DPI. This worked fine on traditional displays, but it looks foolish and ugly on the big resolutions displays we have now.

Using the DPI settings you can accurately set the system up so that one inch in on your computer screen accurately matches one inch in real life.. This is currently not possible with XP.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms699473.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/kamvedbrat/archiv...2/02/dpi-scaling-in-windows-vista.aspx

To find your monitor's true DPI you take the horizontal size of your display (the part were the pixels actually light up and such) and use that to divide the resolution. So if your screen is 13 inches accross with a horizontal resolution of 1900 that will give you a DPI of about 146, give or take. Then you do the same for the vertical.

If your a 'Gimp' user they have a calibration feature built into the application to help you measure the DPI accurately.

Linux and OS X have supported this for years, but this is just how these things go. Most legacy applications coming from XP will get all mucked up since the UI was designed and all the elements spaced to work fine at 96DPI.


The major feature to be dropped from Vista would be support for scalable vector graphics from the Avalon API. This would allow applications using it to scale from very small to very big with no loss of visual quality, but that isn't Win32 anymore. I beleive some of the scalable vector graphics has made it's way through for icons and such. I don't know the details.
 
If I'm reading it right, after reading through those, it looks like Vista really DOES let you scale the interface-including a way to do it for old apps that don't handle it right.

Thanks for the info and links!
 
Your right. I thought that OS X changed the DPI stuff, but I guess I was thinking of photoshop or something like that.

here is what my desktop looks like at the different DPIs...
50
100
200

The lower the DPI the larger it thinks your screen is given the same resolution.


Notice how the browser stays pretty much set at 96DPI irregardless. It's kinda the 'internet standard'.
 
the problem with 19 inch lcds that use a 17 inch resolution - 1280 by 1024 - is the DPI is even lower, about 86, so everything looks pixelated. Things like ClearType or rgb pixel smoothing are just a half-assed temporary measure, what is really required is very high resolution LCD displays with a 200+ DPI. Then everything would be razor sharp and 'features' like cleartype would be irrelevant.
 
I'm a little confused. With Resolution Independence will text on a 20.1" at 1600x1200 be as readable as on a 17" at 1280x1024?
 
Originally posted by: InlineFive
I'm a little confused. With Resolution Independence will text on a 20.1" at 1600x1200 be as readable as on a 17" at 1280x1024?
Click to expand...


Well I found this DPI calculator.
http://members.ping.de/~sven/dpi.html

A 19inch monitor at that resolution would have a DPI of about 100. A 17 inch monitor with the resolution you stated would have a dpi of a little bit over 96.

So they would be pretty close.

the problem with 19 inch lcds that use a 17 inch resolution - 1280 by 1024 - is the DPI is even lower, about 86, so everything looks pixelated. Things like ClearType or rgb pixel smoothing are just a half-assed temporary measure, what is really required is very high resolution LCD displays with a 200+ DPI. Then everything would be razor sharp and 'features' like cleartype would be irrelevant.
Click to expand...

Sure higher resolutions are going to look nicer...
But your talking about something like 3200x2400 resolution.
 
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