Retina Scaling Options

[TheStu]

Does anyone know of a way to get OS X to see ALL displays as being 'retina' such that they can take advantage of the nice scaling options? Like, if I had a 4K display on a Mac, and wanted to be able to slide between 1080p and 4K like the rMBP15 can shift between "1440*900" > "1920*1200".

I'm looking for the OS to do the thing where it's doubling the image and scaling down rather than doing the classic, fuzzy, not-quite-the-right-res thing.

 

[Childs]

The mode is called HiDPI.

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist DisplayResolutionEnabled -bool true

Run that command, then log out and back in. Then go into System Prefs, Displays, then hold Option while you click Scaled. I just tried it out on my 1440p display and now I have a bunch of HiDPI modes, which start at 720p an go down from there.

Looks pretty good at these resolutions, much better than the normal scaling. I dont know what it would do on 4K display, but I would expect it to follow a similar pattern.

 

[TheStu]

The mode is called HiDPI.

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist DisplayResolutionEnabled -bool true

Run that command, then log out and back in. Then go into System Prefs, Displays, then hold Option while you click Scaled. I just tried it out on my 1440p display and now I have a bunch of HiDPI modes, which start at 720p an go down from there.

Looks pretty good at these resolutions, much better than the normal scaling. I dont know what it would do on 4K display, but I would expect it to follow a similar pattern.

I'll try that out, thanks

 

[TheStu]

What I was specifically talking about was the slider in the settings that true Retina systems have. They don't have a list of resolutions, but rather usually 5 resolutions, 2 on either side (though the rMB may not have that many) of the 'default' res.

Does anyone know of a way of tricking a Mac into thinking that it should do that?

 

[Childs]

Out of curiosity, whats the difference? The buttons just say Normal, Larger Text, More Space, and to the left it says 'looks like <res>'. Option clicking Scaled without doing the defaults command will still show real resolutions.

 

[TheStu]

Out of curiosity, whats the difference? The buttons just say Normal, Larger Text, More Space, and to the left it says 'looks like <res>'. Option clicking Scaled without doing the defaults command will still show real resolutions.

I suppose it's more that I want what it's doing in the background, which is blowing it up and shrinking it, which yields better looking results than just shrinking it.