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Comment by rspoerri | Hacker News Reader

I dont know what OSX this guy is using, but osx has the longest history of any OS i know that is able able to scale the actual ui on monitors with a fixed resolution.

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Yeah it’s not clear to me if the author realizes you can change the scale in the system settings and that’s just not what he’s in need of exactly. Might be more fitting in his case to use the Mac OS accessibility settings for zooming in/out, or even just getting an eye exam and some glasses.

Author of the article here. I tried all macOS offered but it wasn't good on 32'' at 4k sadly

You're complaining about things like the clock not being visible - that sounds a lot like you just didn't try the scaling.

I did, the clock was too small or my eyes aren't really good

32" 3840x2160 monitor with 1.5x scaling enabled is equal to a 32" 2560x1440 monitor.

32" 2560x1440 displays have the same PPI as 24" 1920x1080 displays (92 PPI).

MacOS has flawless scaling since the first retina Macbook Pro. What you are describing makes no sense to me...

some apps aren't optimize for it

It’s done by macOS and shouldn’t be something the application notices, can you give some examples of applications which don’t work well with scaling enabled?

I think you need a relatively new GPU. Some older models (older then 2015-2016) don't offer scaled resolutions yet, but you can still go for non-scaled 1440p. It is not as sharp on a native 4k display, but still way more readable.

Also always connect via DisplayPort instead of HDMI if you can, safes a ton of trouble.

I have a Macboom pro retina 2013. Scaling works just fine on my 32" 4K screen...

i use a macbookpro 2015 mid year, mh, thanks

Author of the article here. For instance, text in tabs in Chrome isn't not scalable, also many mac os apps (e.g., Textexpander) aren't scalable because they are not optimised for it. Should have made it more clear in the article.

What everyone suggests isn’t something the apps opt in or out of. It happens at a lower level and everything is told that you are running at a different resolution.

I also thought that, as I do have a 32" 4K DisplayPort monitor with plenty of scaling options presented in macOS (and even more options if you hold Alt/Option while clicking the "Scaled" radio button).

On other monitors with macOS I have sometimes not been given scaling options. I'm not entirely sure what the rules are about when or when macOS doesn't show scaling, so maybe there is something with the laptop model/Thunderbolt -> HDMI adapter/monitor that is catching him out.

Aside from that I definitely agree that 32" is not for everyone and I'm not sure if I would buy it again.

Sometimes you have to alt-click, or at least you used to have to a couple of releases back, to get to the nice scaled modes.

Not sure why.

Had exactly the same thought. Maybe he didn't find the settings. Who knows...

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