[Question] Better support for DPI scaling possible?

[Virginityrocks]

I notice a lot of blurring or pixelation with high dpi scaling. I say this, because I have a resolution of 2140x1440 on a 12" screen and using this device without a dpi scaling of at least 175% is... impractical. I'm wondering if Rainmeter could ever change to use better scaling and better appearance.

[Lyf]

Same here. I have 1080p display. Rainmeter widgets are terribly pixelated in all 4 situations below:

1. 125% DPI scaling
2. 125% DPI scaling with "Disable DPI scaling on high DPI settings" checked for this program.
3. 150% DPI scaling
4. 150% DPI scaling with "Disable DPI scaling on high DPI settings" checked for this program.

[fonpaolo]

It's not really a matter of support in Rainmeter.
You're trying to double the size of an image, almost, (in reality double size is four times bigger).
Try to do it using a photo-retouching program, even the best and take a look at the image you obtain.
The images used in Rainmeter are png, images, not vector.

If you resize an image the final result is almost the same, but when you enlarge it, the pixels are always the same, you can't double them, they're only bigger, because one pixel will take the place of four.

[Lyf]

It's not really a matter of support in Rainmeter.
You're trying to double the size of an image, almost, (in reality double size is four times bigger).
Try to do it using a photo-retouching program, even the best and take a look at the image you obtain.
The images used in Rainmeter are png, images, not vector.

If you resize an image the final result is almost the same, but when you enlarge it, the pixels are always the same, you can't double them, they're only bigger, because one pixel will take the place of four.

I hope my problem is with the image. As for the graphics, they're at most blurry, which I don't really care. The fonts are pixelated and it is soo bad.

[jsmorley]

This is a difficult problem to approach, as in the world of Rainmeter, it's all "images" in a sense. The text, and graphs, and images, and everything else are "drawn", in effect as a single image, onto the skin "canvas" and that is displayed in the skin window. So I'm not sure how I see, in the context of the Rainmeter architecture, how we can ever react to different DPI scaling in the OS. Rainmeter is all about pixels.

[Lyf]

This is a difficult problem to approach, as in the world of Rainmeter, it's all "images" in a sense. The text, and graphs, and images, and everything else are "drawn", in effect as a single image, onto the skin "canvas" and that is displayed in the skin window. So I'm not sure how I see, in the context of the Rainmeter architecture, how we can ever react to different DPI scaling in the OS. Rainmeter is all about pixels.

The interesting thing is, with "Disable DPI scaling on high DPI settings" checked the problem is not fixed. By right that setting should bypass my system DPI scaling... Maybe in my case it might not even be the DPI but some other issues? I'm on Windows 10. If there is someone else with the same issue on W10, maybe we can open a new thread. As for now, the DPI still seems the most dubious.

Thanks for reply Just saw that you're the dev. This is some prompt support I seldom receive for a product of large user base.

[fonpaolo]

I don't know what skins you're using, there's someone who's so "mad" (in a very good sense) to create skins with all the graphics, bars, text and background completely scalable with only some turning of mouse wheel.
Maybe you can use some of those, this is an example: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Dashboard-1-8-443633792.

Most of the skins have a size for (almost) all the screens, some may have different skins for different resolutions.

The only way to not to have a blurred effect is to rewrite the skin, change all the images drawing them from scratch, then change size and position of every text, line, bar, image, icon and so on to recreate the same skin with a bigger size.

I'm aware that this is not the kind of "solution" you have hoped.

[Lyf]

I don't know what skins you're using, there's someone who's so "mad" (in a very good sense) to create skins with all the graphics, bars, text and background completely scalable with only some turning of mouse wheel.
Maybe you can use some of those, this is an example: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Dashboard-1-8-443633792.

Most of the skins have a size for (almost) all the screens, some may have different skins for different resolutions.

The only way to not to have a blurred effect is to rewrite the skin, change all the images drawing them from scratch, then change size and position of every text, line, bar, image, icon and so on to recreate the same skin with a bigger size.

I'm aware that this is not the kind of "solution" you have hoped.

Thank you. I will give his skin a try!

I just discovered Rainmeter. The Welcome skin bundled with installer was slightly blurry. Because the text is rather small, I didn't notice the actual pixelation and thought the "blurry" look was from the translucent glass effect the widget has. Doesn't look bad if you ask me.

Then I downloaded my first skin: http://lyfest.deviantart.com/art/Minimalistic-pixel-skin-551110614 . A super basic skin I thought would be good for me to learn Rainmeter.

The font in this skin was in fact a pixel typeface. Pixelated is what it's supposed look, so everything looked nice until I attempted to change the font to Segoe UI. Then, I found out the "all fonts are pixelated" problem. I experimented with font size to see if some nice numbers will cause a less severe problem. Nope. Tried other fonts, same prob.

To check if the problem is skin specific, I went back to the default Welcome skin and increased its font size. The pixelation became obvious.

Sorry that as a newb I just tried with 2 skins to come to a conclusion. But when the Welcome skin fails...

[fonpaolo]

You're welcome Lyf.

I suggest you, when you want to download a skin, to verify at what screen resolution the skin is supposed to be optimized and the date of creation.
If the skin is old, the probability that it's optimized for screen dimensions of 1024x768 or 1280x1024 is very high.
If the skin is recent, should be at least for screens of 1920x1080.

[lysy1993lbn]

The font in this skin was in fact a pixel typeface. Pixelated is what it's supposed look, so everything looked nice until I attempted to change the font to Segoe UI. Then, I found out the "all fonts are pixelated" problem.

That's maybe because font smoothing was probably "disabled" for this skin..

Chech if there's AntiAlias=0 line in meter containing text. If there is, just remove that line then. By default font shoothing is enabled.

You can try my minimalistic skin suite which doesn't contain any images. http://fav.me/d4mzshi