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Comment by pcr910303 | Hacker News Reader

Macs does support non-integer scaling. In fact, macOS currently ships non-integer scaling by default in certain MBP models. It gets criticized from time to tome, though the newer 14/16” MBPs ship 200% as default again.

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Unless things changed since last I checked ~2 years ago, macOS’s 150% scaling actually renders at 300% and downscales. It looks pretty bad (visible aliasing on any kind of text) and is wasteful performance-wise.

As far as I know, it's worse, it renders at 200% and downscales.

macOS draws only at 1x or 2x. 3x is iOS only.

Apples decision to support only integer scaling was what allowed them to adopt Retina displays very quickly. Unfortunately it led to a subotimal solution in the long term.

That's just how to do it. You scale extra information down. Anything else doesn't work outside of vector based formats.

It also applies to text, which is vector-based (and which usually constitutes most of what's on the screen!).

it actually looks great on the LG 5k giving you 2880 pixels across and there's no significant performance hit w a M1 macbook air.

It's still provides subpar image quality and is wasteful, even if the M1 won't audibly complain. I'd never use it.

> It gets criticized from time to tome, though the newer 14/16” MBPs ship 200% as default again.

The new 2021 MacBook Pros were such a great design and it's clear how every small thing points to them being the greatest since 2015 Pros.

I upgraded from 2015 13" Macbook Pro to 2021 14" Macbook Pro, and it's remarkable how similar the devices are. The physical dimensions are almost identical. Neither have a touch bar. And they both have a similar selection of ports (HDMI, SD card, aux, mag safe), and in very similar locations. The difference is basically improvements in quality of pretty much everything: better screen resolution and size, better webcam, better keyboard, better speakers, USB-C instead of thunderbolt ports and USB-A, better battery life, and of course a much much faster processor and thermals.

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