HiDPI - ArchWiki

# HiDPI

From ArchWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Related articles

- Font configuration

HiDPI (High Dots Per Inch) displays, also known by Apple's "Retina Display" marketing name, are screens with a high resolution in a relatively small format. They are mostly found in high-end laptops and monitors.

Not all software behaves well in high-resolution mode yet. Here are listed most common tweaks which make work on a HiDPI screen more pleasant.

## Desktop environments

### GNOME

To enable HiDPI, Settings > Devices > Displays，or use gsettings:

    $ gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings overrides "[{'Gdk/WindowScalingFactor', <2>}]"
    $ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface scaling-factor 2

Note: GNOME only allows integer scaling numbers to be set. 1 = 100%, 2 = 200%, etc.

#### Fractional Scaling

A setting of `2, 3, etc`, which is all you can do with `scaling-factor`, may not be ideal for certain HiDPI displays and smaller screens (e.g. small tablets).

- Wayland

Enable fractional Scaling experimental-feature:

    $ gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['scale-monitor-framebuffer']"

then open Settings > Devices > Displays (the new options may only appear after a restart)

- Xorg

You can achieve any non-integer scale factor by using a combination of GNOME's `scaling-factor` and xrandr. This combination keeps the TTF fonts properly scaled so that they do not become blurry if using `xrandr` alone. You specify zoom-in factor with `gsettings` and zoom-out factor with xrandr.

First scale GNOME up to the minimum size which is too big. Usually "2" is already too big, otherwise try "3" etc. Then start scaling down by setting zoom-out factor with xrandr. First get the relevant output name, the examples below use `eDP1`. Start e.g. with zoom-out 1.25 times. If the UI is still too big, increase the scale factor; if it is too small decrease the scale factor.

    $ xrandr --output eDP1 --scale 1.25x1.25

Note: To allow the mouse to reach the whole screen, you may need to use the `--panning` option as explained in #Side display.

The factual accuracy of this article or section is disputed.

Reason: The following was initially added under #X Resources. Clarify how it integrates with the info there or that above for GNOME. (Discuss in Talk:HiDPI#GNOME ignores X settings)

GNOME ignores X settings due to its xsettings Plugin in Gnome Settings Daemon, where DPI setting is hard coded. There is blog entry for recompiling Gnome Settings Daemon. In the source documentation there is another way mentioned to set X settings DPI:

You can use the dconf Editor and navigate to key

    /org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/xsettings/overrides

and complement the entry with the value

    'Xft/DPI': <153600>

From README.xsettings

Noting that variants must be specified in the usual way (wrapped in <>).

Note also that DPI in the above example is expressed in 1024ths of an inch.

#### Text Scaling

Alternatively or additionally to above solution, you can scale only text by factor not limited by whole numbers, for example:

    $ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface text-scaling-factor 1.5

### KDE Plasma

You can use Plasma's settings to fine tune font, icon, and widget scaling. This solution affects both Qt and GTK applications.

To adjust font, widget, and icon scaling together:

1. System Settings > Display and Monitor > Display Configuration > Scale Display
2. Drag the slider to the desired size
3. Restart for the settings to take effect

To adjust only font scaling:

1. System Settings > Fonts
2. Check "Force fonts DPI" and adjust the DPI level to the desired value. This setting should take effect immediately for newly started applications. You will have to logout and login for it to take effect on Plasma desktop.

To adjust only icon scaling:

1. System Settings > Icons > Advanced
2. Choose the desired icon size for each category listed. This should take effect immediately.

Display Scale not integer bug

The factual accuracy of this article or section is disputed.

Reason: This doesn't seem to be necessary any more, only do it if you encounter this issue. (Discuss in Talk:HiDPI#)

When using not integer values for Display Scale it may causes font render issue in some Qt application. A workaround for this is to:

1. Set the scale value to `1`
2. Adjust your font and icons and use the "Force fonts DPI" ( this affects all apps, also GTK but not create issue with the fonts )
3. Restart Plasma
4. If required tune the GTK apps using the variables `GDK_SCALE`/`GDK_DPI_SCALE` (as described above)

#### Tray icons with fixed size

The tray icons are not scaled with the rest of the desktop, since Plasma ignores the Qt scaling settings by default. To make Plasma respect the Qt settings, set `PLASMA_USE_QT_SCALING` to `1`.

### Xfce

Xfce uses the DPI given by the X server. There is an option to override Font DPI (Settings Manager > Appearance > Fonts > DPI > Custom DPI setting) but it's better to adjust X server DPI instead. See Xorg#Display size and DPI for how to fix it.

To enlarge icons in system tray, right-click on it (aim for empty space / top pixels / bottom pixels, so that you will not activate icons themselves) > Properties, set “Maximum icon size” to 32, 48 or 64.

Xfwm comes with two hidpi themes: Default-hdpi and Default-xhdpi. You can set them under Settings Manager > Window Manager > Style > Theme.

You can set the default icon sizes of gtk2 menus, buttons and so on under Settings Manager > Settings Editor > xsettings > Gtk > IconSizes, with a line like this: `gtk-large-toolbar=96,96:gtk-small-toolbar=64,64:gtk-menu=64,64:gtk-dialog=96,96:gtk-button=64,64:gtk-dnd=64,64`. "gtk-dnd" is for the icons during drag'n'drop, the others are quite self-explanatory. You can use any value your icon theme supports.

### Cinnamon

Has good support out of the box.

### Enlightenment

For E18, go to the E Setting panel. In Look > Scaling, you can control the UI scaling ratios. A ratio of 1.2 seems to work well for the native resolution of the MBPr 15" screen.

## X Server

Some programs use the DPI given by the X server. Examples are i3 (source) and Chromium (source).

To verify that the X Server has properly detected the physical dimensions of your monitor, use the xdpyinfo utility from the xorg-xdpyinfo package:

    $ xdpyinfo | grep -B 2 resolution

    screen #0:
      dimensions:    3200x1800 pixels (423x238 millimeters)
      resolution:    192x192 dots per inch

This example uses inaccurate dimensions (423mm x 328mm, even though the Dell XPS 9530 has 346mm x 194mm) to have a clean multiple of 96 dpi, in this case 192 dpi. This tends to work better than using the correct DPI — Pango renders fonts crisper in i3 for example.

If the DPI displayed by xdpyinfo is not correct, see Xorg#Display size and DPI for how to fix it.

## X Resources

If you are not using a desktop environment such as KDE, Xfce, or other that manipulates the X settings for you, you can set the desired DPI setting manually via the `Xft.dpi` variable in Xresources:

    ~/.Xresources

    Xft.dpi: 180
    Xft.autohint: 0
    Xft.lcdfilter:  lcddefault
    Xft.hintstyle:  hintfull
    Xft.hinting: 1
    Xft.antialias: 1
    Xft.rgba: rgb

Make sure the settings are loaded properly when X starts, for instance in your `~/.xinitrc` with `xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources` (see Xresources for more information).

This will make the font render properly in most toolkits and applications, it will however not affect things such as icon size! Setting `Xft.dpi` at the same time as toolkit scale (e.g. `GDK_SCALE`) may cause interface elements to be much larger than intended in some programs like firefox.

## GUI toolkits

### Qt 5

Since Qt 5.6, Qt 5 applications can be instructed to honor screen DPI by setting the `QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR` environment variable:

    export QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR=1

If automatic detection of DPI does not produce the desired effect, scaling can be set manually per-screen (`QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS`) or globally (`QT_SCALE_FACTOR`). For more details see the Qt blog post or Qt developer documentation.

Note:

- If you manually set the screen factor, it is important to set `QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR=0` otherwise some applications which explicitly force high DPI enabling get scaled twice.
- `QT_SCALE_FACTOR` scales fonts, but `QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS` does not scale fonts.
- If you also set the font DPI manually in xrdb to support other toolkits, `QT_SCALE_FACTORS` will give you huge fonts.
- If you have multiple screens of differing DPI ie: #Side display you may need to do `QT_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTORS="2;2"`

An alternative is e.g.:

    QT_FONT_DPI=96 vym

### GDK 3 (GTK 3)

Note: As stated in the #X Resources section, if you have xft.dpi set to a larger dpi, it will make other scales larger than usual, including GDK.

Setting the GDK scale will scale the UI, however it will not scale icons. If you are using a minimal window manager where you are setting the dpi via Xft.dpi, GDK should scale perfectly fine with it. In other cases, do the following:

To scale UI elements by a factor of two:

    export GDK_SCALE=2

To undo scaling of text:

    export GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.5

### GTK 2

Scaling of UI elements is not supported by the toolkit itself, however it's possible to generate a theme with elements pre-scaled for HiDPI display using oomox-gitAUR.

### Elementary (EFL)

To scale UI elements by a factor of 1.5:

     export ELM_SCALE=1.5

For more details see https://phab.enlightenment.org/w/elementary/

## Boot managers

### GRUB

#### Lower the framebuffer resolution

Set a lower resolution for the framebuffer as explained in GRUB/Tips and tricks#Setting the framebuffer resolution.

#### Change GRUB font size

Find a ttf font that you like in `/usr/share/fonts/`.

Convert the font to a format that GRUB can utilize:

    # grub-mkfont -s 30 -o /boot/grubfont.pf2 /usr/share/fonts/FontFamily/FontName.ttf

Note: Change the `-s 30` parameter to modify the font size

Edit `/etc/default/grub` to set the new font as shown in GRUB/Tips and tricks#Background image and bitmap fonts:

    GRUB_FONT="/boot/grubfont.pf2"

Update GRUB configuration by running `grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg`

### systemd-boot

Adding the following line and running `bootctl update` increases font-size in the systemd-boot menu:

    /boot/loader/loader.conf

    console-mode 1

## Applications

The factual accuracy of this article or section is disputed.

Reason: `--force-device-scale-factor` only works on Chromium based (including Electron) applications. (Discuss in Talk:HiDPI#)

As a general rule, applications can be launched with a custom scaling value, e.g. `$ atom --force-device-scale-factor=2`. A more permanent solution is to add this scaling factor as a flag to the relevant .conf or .desktop file (normally located at `/usr/share/applications/`). In the latter instance, the flag should be added to the line beginning with "Exec=", e.g. `Exec=/usr/bin/atom --force-device-scale-factor=2 %F`. The next section provides more details on implementing this for specific applications.

### Atom

Add `--force-device-scale-factor=2` as a flag to the atom.desktop file:

    /usr/share/applications/atom.desktop

    Exec=/usr/bin/atom --force-device-scale-factor=2 %F

### Browsers

#### Firefox

Firefox should use the #GDK 3 (GTK 3) settings. However, the suggested `GDK_SCALE` suggestion does not consistently scale the entirety of Firefox, and does not work for fractional values (e.g., a factor of 158DPI/96DPI = 1.65 for a 1080p 14" laptop). You may want to use `GDK_DPI_SCALE` instead. Another option, which will avoid Firefox-specific settings in many setups is to use the settings in #X Resources as Firefox should respect the `Xft.dpi` value defined there.

To override those, open Firefox advanced preferences page (`about:config`) and set parameter `layout.css.devPixelsPerPx` to `2` (or find the one that suits you better; `2` is a good choice for Retina screens), but it also does not consistently scale the entirety of Firefox. If Firefox is not scaling fonts, you may want to create `userChrome.css` and add appropriate styles to it. More information about `userChrome.css` at mozillaZine.

    ~/.mozilla/firefox/<profile>/chrome/userChrome.css

    @namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul");

    /* #tabbrowser-tabs, #navigator-toolbox, menuitem, menu, ... */
    * {
        font-size: 15px !important;
    }

    /* exception for badge on adblocker */
    .toolbarbutton-badge {
        font-size: 8px !important;
    }

Warning: The following extension is not compatible with Firefox Quantum (version 57 and above).

If you use a HiDPI monitor such as Retina display together with another monitor, you can use AutoHiDPI add-on in order to automatically adjust `layout.css.devPixelsPerPx` setting for the active screen. Also, since Firefox version 49, it auto-scales based on your screen resolution, making it easier to deal with 2 or more screens.

If you use Wayland, you can also use the Wayland-enabled packages of Firefox from the AUR: firefox-waylandAUR (compiles from source) or fedora-firefox-wayland-binAUR (binary from Fedora). You might experience some minor visual glitches with these packages.

#### Chromium / Google Chrome

Chromium should use the #GDK 3 (GTK 3) settings.

To override those, use the `--force-device-scale-factor` flag with a scaling value. This will scale all content and ui, including tab and font size. For example `chromium --force-device-scale-factor=2`.

Using this option, a scaling factor of 1 would be normal scaling. Floating point values can be used. To make the change permanent, for Chromium, you can add it to `~/.config/chromium-flags.conf`:

    ~/.config/chromium-flags.conf

    --force-device-scale-factor=2

To make this work for Chrome, add the same option to `~/.config/chrome-flags.conf` instead.

If you use a HiDPI monitor such as Retina display together with another monitor, you can use the reszoom extension in order to automatically adjust the zoom level for the active screen.

#### Opera

Opera should use the #GDK 3 (GTK 3) settings.

To override those, use the `--alt-high-dpi-setting=X` command line option, where X is the desired DPI. For example, with `--alt-high-dpi-setting=144` Opera will assume that DPI is 144. Newer versions of opera will auto detect the DPI using the font DPI setting (in KDE: the force font DPI setting.)

### Gimp 2.8

Use a high DPI theme, or adjust `gtkrc` of an existing theme. (Change all occurrences of the size `button` to `dialog`, for example `GimpToolPalette::tool-icon-size`.)

There is also the gimp-hidpi.

### Inkscape

To scale the icons to a "usable" size go to Preferences > Interface and set the icon size to Large or Larger[1][2].

### IntelliJ IDEA

IntelliJ IDEA 15 and above should include HiDPI support.[3] If it does not work, the most convenient way to fix the problem in this case seems to be changing the Override Default Fonts setting:

  File > Settings > Behaviour & Appearance > Appearance

The addition of `-Dhidpi=true` to the vmoptions file in either `$HOME/.IdeaC14/` or `/usr/share/intelligj-idea-ultimate-edition/bin/` of release 14 should not be required anymore.

### Java applications

Java applications using the AWT/Swing framework can be scaled by defining the sun.java2d.uiScale variable when invoking java. For example,

    java -Dsun.java2d.uiScale=2 -jar some_application.jar

Since Java 9 the GDK_SCALE environment variable is used to scale Swing applications accordingly.

### MATLAB

Recent versions (R2017b) of MATLAB allow to set the scale factor[4]:

    >> s = settings;s.matlab.desktop.DisplayScaleFactor
    >> s.matlab.desktop.DisplayScaleFactor.PersonalValue = 2

The settings take effect after MATLAB is restarted.

### Mono applications

According to [5], Mono applications should be scalable like GTK 3 applications.

### NetBeans

NetBeans allows the font size of its interface to be controlled using the `--fontsize` parameter during startup. To make this change permanent edit the `/usr/share/netbeans/etc/netbeans.conf` file and append the `--fontsize` parameter to the `netbeans_default_options` property.[6]

The editor fontsize can be controlled from Tools > Option > Fonts & Colors.

The output window fontsize can be controlled from Tools > Options > Miscelaneous > Output

### Skype

Skype for Linux (skypeforlinux-stable-binAUR package) uses #GDK 3 (GTK 3).

### Slack

Slack (slack-desktopAUR), like all Electron apps, can be configured to use a custom scaling value by adding a `--force-device-scale-factor` flag to the .desktop file. This is normally located at `/usr/share/applications/`. The flag should be added to the line beginning with "Exec=". For example:

    /usr/share/applications/slack.desktop

    Exec=env LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libcurl.so.3 /usr/bin/slack --force-device-scale-factor=1.5 %U

### Spotify

You can change scale factor by simple `Ctrl++` for zoom in, `Ctrl+-` for zoom out and `Ctrl+0` for default scale. Scaling setting will be saved in `~/.config/spotify/Users/YOUR-SPOTIFY-USER-NAME/prefs`:

    ~/.config/spotify/Users/YOUR-SPOTIFY-USER-NAME/prefs

    app.browser.zoom-level=100

Also Spotify can be launched with a custom scaling factor which will be multiplied with setting specified in `~/.config/spotify/Users/YOUR-SPOTIFY-USER-NAME/prefs`, for example

    $ spotify --force-device-scale-factor=1.5

### Steam

#### Official HiDPI support

- Starting on 25 of January 2018 in the beta program there is actual support for HiDPI and it should be automatically detected.
- Steam > Settings > Interface, check "Enlarge text and icons based on monitor size" (restart required)
- If it not automatically detected use `GDK_SCALE=2` to set the desired scale factor.

#### Unofficial

The HiDPI-Steam-Skin can be installed to increase the font size of the interface. While not perfect, it does improve usability.

Note: The README for the HiDPI skin lists several possible locations for where to place the skin. The correct folder out of these can be identified by the presence of a file named `skins_readme.txt`.

MetroSkin Unofficial Patch also helps with HiDPI on Steam with Linux.

### Sublime Text 3

Sublime Text 3 has full support for display scaling. Go to Preferences > Settings > User Settings and add `"ui_scale": 2.0` to your settings.

### Thunderbird

See #Firefox. To access `about:config`, go to Edit > Preferences > Advanced >Config editor.

### VirtualBox

Note: This only applies to KDE with scaling enabled.

VirtualBox also applies the system-wide scaling to the virtual monitor, which reduces the maximum resolution inside VMs by your scaling factor (see [7]).

This can be worked around by calculating the inverse of your scaling factor and manually setting this new scaling factor for the VirtualBox execution, e.g.

    $ QT_SCALE_FACTOR=0.5 VirtualBox --startvm vm-name

### Wine applications

Run

    $ winecfg

and change the "dpi" setting found in the "Graphics" tab. This only affects the font size.

### Zathura document viewer

No modifications required for document viewing.

UI text scaling is specified via configuration file (note that "font" is a girara option):

    set font "monospace normal 20"

### Zoom

Zoom can be started with a proper scaling by overriding the `QT_SCALE_FACTOR` environment variable.

    $ QT_SCALE_FACTOR=2 zoom

### Unsupported applications

run_scaled-gitAUR can be used to scale applications (which uses xpra internally).

Another approach is to run the application full screen and without decoration in its own VNC desktop. Then scale the viewer. With Vncdesk (vncdesk-gitAUR from the AUR) you can set up a desktop per application, then start server and client with a simple command such as `vncdesk 2`.

x11vnc has an experimental option `-appshare`, which opens one viewer per application window. Perhaps something could be hacked up with that.

## Multiple displays

The HiDPI setting applies to the whole desktop, so non-HiDPI external displays show everything too large. However, note that setting different scaling factors for different monitors is already supported in Wayland.

### Side display

One workaround is to use xrandr's scale option. To have a non-HiDPI monitor (on DP1) right of an internal HiDPI display (eDP1), one could run:

    $ xrandr --output eDP-1 --auto --output DP-1 --auto --scale 2x2 --right-of eDP-1

When extending above the internal display, you may see part of the internal display on the external monitor. In that case, specify the position manually.

You may adjust the "sharpness" parameter on your monitor settings to adjust the blur level introduced with scaling.

Note: Above solution with `--scale 2x2` does not work on some Nvidia cards. No solution is currently available. [8] A potential workaround exists with configuring `ForceFullCompositionPipeline=On` on the `CurrentMetaMode` via `nvidia-settings`. For more info see [9].
Note: If you are using the `modesetting` driver you will get mouse flickering. This can be solved by scaling your non-scaled screen by 0.9999x0.9999.

### Multiple external monitors

There might be some problems in scaling more than one external monitors which have lower dpi than the built-in HiDPI display. In that case, you may want to try downscaling the HiDPI display instead, with e.g.

    $ xrandr --output eDP1 --scale 0.5x0.5 --output DP2 --right-of eDP1 --output HDMI1 --right-of DP2

In addition, when you downscale the HiDPI display, the font on the HiDPI display will be slightly blurry, but it's a different kind of bluriness compared with the one introduced by upscaling the external displays. You may compare and see which kind of bluriness is less problematic for you.

### Mirroring

If all you want is to mirror ("unify") displays, this is easy as well:

With AxB your native HiDPI resolution (for ex 3200x1800) and CxD your external screen resolution (e.g. 1920x1200)

    $ xrandr --output HDMI --scale [A/C]x[B/D]

In this example which is QHD (3200/1920 = 1.66 and 1800/1200 = 1.5)

    $ xrandr --output HDMI --scale 1.66x1.5

For UHD to 1080p (3840/1920=2 2160/1080=2)

    $ xrandr --output HDMI --scale 2x2

You may adjust the "sharpness" parameter on your monitor settings to adjust the blur level introduced with scaling.

### Tools

There are several tools which automate the commands described above.

- This script extend a non-HiDPI external display above a HiDPI internal display.
- xrandr-extend.
- xlayoutdisplayAUR is a CLI front end for xrandr which detects and sets correct DPI: README

## Linux console

The default Linux console font will be very small on HiDPI displays, the largest font present in the kbd package is `latarcyrheb-sun32` and other packages like terminus-font contain further alternatives, such as `ter-132n`(normal) and `ter-132b`(bold). See Linux console#Fonts for configuration details. Also see Linux console#Persistent configuration in particular for applying the font setting during the early userspace boot sequence.

After changing the font, it is often garbled and unreadable when changing to other virtual consoles (`tty2-6`). To fix this you can force specific mode for KMS, such as `video=2560x1600@60` (substitute in the native resolution of your HiDPI display), and reboot.

## See also

- Ultra HD 4K Linux Graphics Card Testing (Nov 2013)
- Understanding pixel density
- Mixed DPI and the X Window System

Category:

- Graphics

Hidden category:

- Pages or sections flagged with Template:Accuracy