How did none of the Apple devs notice this? 4k 32" inch is the industry standard for HiDPI monitors.

▲ brigade 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

OP dances around the key context that this isn’t hidpi, but rather a 3rd party hack that uses hidpi rendering to supersample their “native” 4k resolution by 2x, since the end result looks more pleasing to them than the native 4k render.

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whatever1 2 days ago | parent [-]

Apple does that for MacBook Airs as well since their monitor resolution is not ideal for integer scaling.

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brigade 2 days ago | parent [-]

Apple never supersamples by 2x. Default MacBook Air scaling was around 1.1x iirc.

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raihansaputra 2 days ago | parent [-]

It’s actually around 1.5x for the default resolution out of the box and 1.3x for “more space” setting on m1/m2 MacBook Air. 1.1x supersampling on Macs makes it worse because down sampling to pixel alignment becomes a hot mess.

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brigade 2 days ago | parent [-]

Fine, you made me look it up. M1 Air defaults to 2880x1800 on a 2560x1600 display, which is a 1.125x scaling. Nowhere near the 1.5x you claim.

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whatever1 2 days ago | parent [-]

2560 x 1664 is the resolution of the latest M5 Air. The default UI is 1470 × 956. "More space" is 1710 × 1112.

When you set it to "more space" it becomes noticeably slower, but not blurry.

	▲	sgerenser a day ago \| parent [-]
		Those numbers of 1470x956 are “points” or “looks like” values, not the size of the frame buffer. The frame buffer for “looks like 1470x956” is exactly 2x that, or 2940x1912. On a 2560x1664 display, that’s a 1.148x scale factor. Again, nowhere near 2x, even on the “more space” setting.

▲ MBCook 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Apple doesn’t make an 4k external monitor.

They’re likely all on Studio Displays.

	▲	cosmic_cheese 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		And prior to Apple’s re-entry into the display market, everybody internally was likely on 2x HiDPI LG UltraFine displays or integrated displays on iMacs and MacBooks. Fractional scaling (and lately, even 1x scaling “normal”) displays really are not much of a consideration for them, even if they’re popular. 2x+ integer scaling HiDPI is the main target.

▲ ErneX 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don’t think 4K at 32 inch can be considered high dpi. Not even at 27 inch.

5K at 27 inch or 6K at 32 inch would though, specially on a Mac.

	▲	layer8 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Anything where 100% scaling isn’t usable is considered HiDPI.

▲ jiveturkey 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not in the Apple world, and this article is centered on Apple.

https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/

  - 24" you need 4k
  - 27" you need 5K.
  - 32" you need 6k.

Windows subpixel aliasing (Clear Type) manages a lot better with lower pixel density. Since Windows still has a commanding market share in enterprise, you might be right about the industry standard for HiDPI but for Apple-specific usage, not really.

	▲	smcleod 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Totally agree with those resolution suggestions. Personally I have a 32" 4k, I wanted a 5k or 6k back then (just too expensive) - but now I wish I had just got a 27" which is better suited to 4k - regardless it was a LOT better on the M2 Max with HiDPI working.
	▲	NBJack 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		This still baffles me. Never mind Windows; I can get sub-pixel font rendering with the ability to fine-tune it on virtually any major Linux distro since around 2010. Meanwhile, Apple had this but dropped it in 2018, allegedly under the assumption of "hiDPI everywhere" Retina or Retina-like displays. Which would be great...except "everywhere" turned out to be "very specific monitors support specific resolutions".

▲ robertoandred 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Don’t think I’d call 4K at 32” high dpi.

	▲	whatever1 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I agree with you. It's my IT who disagrees. But to be fair, until last year there were no retina monitors in the market except the Apple ones. In 2025, the tides turned, there are now way more options both for 5k and 6k retina displays.

▲ Gigachad 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Tbh I'm not even sure what the issue is here. I have a personal M1 macbook and a work M4 and a 4k display. I don't see any issues or differences between them on my display. The M4 seems to be outputting a 4k image just fine.

The article could just be AI slop since it just contains hyper in depth debugging without articulating what the problem is.

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whatever1 2 days ago | parent [-]

In layman terms, for some UI scaling options, text is rendered blurry by M4/M5 Macs.

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Gigachad 2 days ago | parent [-]

Right, I just went though all of the scale options on my M4 with 4k monitor and none of them rendered blurry. Might be a very situational bug. Doesn't seem as widespread as the title makes out to be.

	▲	wlonkly 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		The author is trying to run 2160p@2x and downsample to 4k, not 1080p@2x. It took me another comment here to understand this as well!