Comment by 1718627440
6 days ago
> For example, no fractional scaling for 4k monitors.
I don't have a 4K monitor, but what does `xrandr --output HDMI1 --scale 0.8x0.8` do? I have a 1024x768 monitor and do to all the useless whitespace in modern programs, I scale into the opposite direction.
But I agree Gnome lost the plot completely, and sadly Gtk too. Which is a pity, because I prefer GTK+ to Qt, but they deprecated so much useful Widgets and the alternative given is 'just don't do that'.
You can use xrandr to scale the desktop, but it's not the same thing.
You can render at 2x in Mate, and then scale it down slightly (ie 1.25x1.25) with xrandr, but taking a large image and scaling it down using a cubic filter won't look as sharp as real fractional scaling.
The command you gave is upscaling, which will be worse than 2x + downscaling.
Real fractional scaling scales the sizes of elements before rendering. This results in the sharpest image and there is no resizing/filtering in the loop.
Then I don't understand how this actually works. Doesn't this require support by the underlying UI kit? Because after the UI kit, there will already be pixels and scaling that will always be blury.
Yes, it needs to be supported by the UI kit. That's why GTK needs to support this, not just Gnome. Gnome uses GTK4, which supports this. Mate uses GTK3, which does not.
KDE Plasma uses QT6, which also supports this.
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