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[bug] DPI awareness, blurry text, incorrect resolution


ProTofik

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Hello.

Aida64 seems to have a problem with running on high-dpi screens. The text and icons are blurry and it reports wrong screen resolution. Screenshots attached.

 

Aida version: 4.70.3200

OS: Windows 8.1 fully updated

Screen: 13.3" 1920x1080

OS DPI Setting: 'larger' (200% I believe)

 

Hope it will get fixed in future releases.

 

Edit: File uploader compressed and resized screenshots. External links here:

http://i.imgur.com/U4W9M3x.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/99vZpHq.jpg

post-28480-0-74794900-1414342654_thumb.jpg

post-28480-0-52295700-1414342655_thumb.jpg

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That is a limitation of Windows, and we cannot fix it from our end. User interface layout of classic Windows applications is still based on pixel measurements, so when you use DPI scaling, all pixels of the UI are scaled automatically by Windows. When the DPI is set to 200%, text and images are not that blurry, but in your case it's not set to 200%, but more like 150%. The seemingly incorrect desktop resolution is also due to the DPI scaling: this is a trick Windows uses to make the application believe it is running on a less high resolution display than the actual hardware supports. We've tried to come up with a workaround for that, but haven't been able to scale up the reported resolution to make it an accurate value :(

Regards,

Fiery

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That is a limitation of Windows, and we cannot fix it from our end.

No, it isn't and only you can fix it on your end.

 

How come other software manufactures have no problem with creating DPI aware Windows programs that are scalling up correctly? This isn't windows limitation. On Microsoft website you can find a guide explaining step by step how to create DPI aware programs.

 

Microsoft Office 2013, WinRAR, Firefox, Adobe Lightroom, foobar2000, Dropbox, and many more got no problem with scalling.

 

High DPI screens are getting more and more popular and 4k will replace 1080p once the price will drop. Will you then still keep to ~90dpi standard?

 

Edit:

Have a look here and please explain me why Microsoft Word is not facing 'Windows Limitations'

http://i.imgur.com/EFbXI2O.png

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That is a Windows limitation, you can look it up. Many websites bashed Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 for example, when they were rolled out, that they still don't solve the DPI scaling issues. E.g. http://techreport.com/blog/25797/high-ppi-support-in-windows-8-1-still-not-so-great Yes, it is possible to develop a DPI aware application user interface, but it requires a complete rewriting of the user interface code, and reproducing all graphical content like icons and placeholder pictures as well, in multiple DPI levels. The user interface part of AIDA64 is over 200.000 lines of code, not in the league of such utilities like WinRAR or DropBox. Don't get me wrong, they are great utilities, but they don't have a complex UI like AIDA64. And yes, Microsoft fixed Office 2013, but it's the least you can expect from the company that develops Windows and fails to come up with a real solution to the DPI issues ;) And I'm pretty sure not even Microsoft has a full software portfolio that would support proper DPI scaling.

As for 4K, as I've mentioned above, when you use 200% DPI (or 400%), things are much less blurry. We've got a Win8.1 tablet with a 2560x1440 native resolution, and we use 200% DPI scaling on it. AIDA64 looks fine there, but of course it's not as sharp as without DPI scaling. And with 4K displays you can simply use 200% DPI scaling setting to avoid blurriness -- which affects most Windows applications. You've listed a few exceptions, but the majority of Windows applications are still not fully DPI aware.

We would be more than happy to come up with a quick fix for the DPI issue, just like we do with other bugs or anomalies about AIDA64. But with DPI scaling, there's no quick fix. Yes, you could add a simple entry to the manifest file to enable DPI awareness, but then the whole UI would fall apart. You could of course rewrite 200.000 lines of code, but it would take a hell of a lot of time. And quite frankly, we're still hoping to see Windows 10 or worse case Windows 10 SP1/Update1 to come up with a real solution to the DPI issue. A new windowing system that is based on relative placement and percentage-based UI element dimensions would be terrific. Of course that would also raise the need to rewrite all the UI code, but at least it would mean a proper solution, a proper fix to the problem, not just beating around the bush. I would personally feel like a fool if we had to rewrite the UI code to make it DPI aware now, and then having to rewrite it again when Microsoft comes up with the proper DPI solution...

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  • 1 year later...

We've just rolled out the first AIDA64 beta with proper handling of DPI scaling. In other words, it is fully DPI aware now:

https://www.aida64.com/downloads/latesta64xebeta

A few icons are left to be updated, and we also have to fix a few issues in the Monitor Diagnostics module. Let me know how it works on your system ;)

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