Qualia Display in full res HiDPI

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dc443
 
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Qualia Display in full res HiDPI

Post by dc443 »

Hey Adafruit!

I got this monitor in today and put it together, you're right, it's a super cute little monitor. It's really really lightweight.

The only problem (and unfortunately its a rather big one) is that I can't for the life of me get HiDPI 1024x768 working with my rMBP 15" (mid 2012).

It sets HiDPI 1024x640 (via SwitchResX), and various other ones, but all of the 4:3 HiDPI modes are simply failing to set.

I think I could get work done on it at this 1024x640 setting while it's missing a good 256 lines of retina display but I'd rather have it work the way it really should :(

Any ideas?

P.S. It works great at the native 2048x1536. However, I basically can't stand text rendering with non-HiDPI doubled mode at this point. I got spoiled by my rMBP. Needless to say, at such a high DPI, full res is just not practical for everyday comfort.

I also have a much lower DPI set of 2560x1440 monitors, they also don't seem to be capable of being set to HiDPI mode, so even with these much higher DPI screens I never really got much everyday use out of them -- I use those with my Windows rig.

Update: Yep, at least with the Qualia I can set a HiDPI setting that maintains pixel doubling ratio, it just has black bars... On my 2560x1440 monitor I cannot set any of the *x720 HiDPI modes. I'm pretty certain that this is a software problem on Apple's end, where something is kind of bugged ever since BANNED. Which is a bit of a shame since BANNED brought out the actual useful multi-monitor functionality, while simultaneously breaking the ability to run the high resolution setups in a comfortable way.

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waaronw
 
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Re: Qualia Display in full res HiDPI

Post by waaronw »

Hi dc443,
I just wanted to confirm that under BANNED, I'm also unable to set any of the 4:3 HiDPI modes on the Qualia. It's not a problem with the screen as far as I can tell, as other HiDPI modes do work after a fashion, but the 1024x768 HiDPI (which would be perfect for this screen) simply doesn't set. I've tried quite a few tools along the way! For the record, Retina Display Menu (RDM) proved the most useful and simple. SwitchResX was unable to help. Attempting to switch to the desired modes produced a console entry similar to:

4/10/14 7:56:48.097 PM WindowServer[28656]: CGXCompleteDisplayConfiguration: Monitor 6a351131; Mode -1554994880 not available

I'm running 10.9.2 and it seems 10.9.3 will be bringing external HiDPI support for some (4K) monitors, so I'm going to cross my fingers and hope that at least one of the 4:3 HiDPI modes will work on this after the update.

But even with this limitation, this thing is an awesome aux screen!

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dc443
 
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Re: Qualia Display in full res HiDPI

Post by dc443 »

Yep, I am currently running it sitting right up close at the edge of my desk at the full 2048x1536 resolution and it's quite useful especially if I use it with a terminal or if I set up a browser window with the zoom scaling cranked up. Having the UI chrome take up half as much space isn't so much a bad thing either!

Can you confirm that this is the place to get RDM? I have searched for quite some time on finding fixes for this issue but I definitely did not stumble upon this one till you showed it to me. BTW, none of the links on that reddit thread are working for me. Is there a github?

I wasn't able to find any console messages but that makes sense, the way these programs were behaving, it clearly was just refusing to set the mode.

Another slight wrinkle I am experiencing is that the PWM frequency of 4kHz is quite audible to me at anything other than max or min brightness, so I am wanting to apply a tweak... that's a separate topic!

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waaronw
 
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Re: Qualia Display in full res HiDPI

Post by waaronw »

That's where I got RDM - the dropbox link from the reddit. I looked for another source without success.
I'm generally a fan of EasyRes for menu bar resolution switching, but RDM gives access to all the modes you could want for the internal and external monitors - of course, that's only if the window server lets them be set!

U47
 
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Re: Qualia Display in full res HiDPI

Post by U47 »

Just to let everyone know, I'm running v10.9.3ß (build 13D45a) and it exhibits the same problem with the Window Server not allowing 1024x768 HiDPI. BANNED.

markpaterson
 
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Re: Qualia Display in full res HiDPI

Post by markpaterson »

Has this bug been fixed in 10.9.4? What about the Yosemite betas?

Eager to purchase a Qualia but kinda holding off until a retina solution is found for BANNED and beyond.

Also as a side note, how does native res compare to native res on the MacBook Pro Retina (2880x1800) in terms of GUI usability, text size, toolbars, icons, etc? Similar size or way smaller? I can just about handle native res on my MacBook.

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dc443
 
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Re: Qualia Display in full res HiDPI

Post by dc443 »

markpaterson wrote:Has this bug been fixed in 10.9.4? What about the Yosemite betas?

Eager to purchase a Qualia but kinda holding off until a retina solution is found for BANNED and beyond.

Also as a side note, how does native res compare to native res on the MacBook Pro Retina (2880x1800) in terms of GUI usability, text size, toolbars, icons, etc? Similar size or way smaller? I can just about handle native res on my MacBook.
You'll have to find someone else to test the Yosemite stuff, introducing potential instability to my setup would not be wise for me.

10.9.4 did not fix the window server's refusal to set 1024x768 HiDPI. 1024x640 works though, and looks very slick, horizontal black bars notwithstanding.

Here is a shot of both screens on max brightness (I have a mid 2012 15" rMBP) and on their native resolution settings... you can tell that the Qualia is slightly bluer and slightly brighter, as well as having a slightly higher dot-pitch (which the specs will reveal as well).

Image

markpaterson
 
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Re: Qualia Display in full res HiDPI

Post by markpaterson »

wow thanks for the side-by-side. i assume you've tried playing around with SwitchResX, etc?

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dc443
 
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Re: Qualia Display in full res HiDPI

Post by dc443 »

Same as before for me with SwitchResX.

U47
 
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Re: Qualia Display in full res HiDPI

Post by U47 »

Just an update:

1024x768 HiDPI still does not work as of the Yosemite Public Beta (10.10ß 14A299I). As mentioned above, other HiDPI resolutions supplied by SwitchRexX do work, if you can stand some letterboxing.

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iccir
 
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Re: Qualia Display in full res HiDPI

Post by iccir »

I have this working in Yosemite, but it's a bit of a hack.

See:
https://github.com/iccir/QualiaHiDPI

You will want to copy the DisplayProductID-c111 file to /System/Library/Displays/Overrides/DisplayVendorID-610 (or run the included install.command).

This overrides the settings for 2048x1536 and ensures that the kDisplayModeValidForHiResFlag flag is set.

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dc443
 
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Re: Qualia Display in full res HiDPI

Post by dc443 »

I think SwitchResX is saying my Qualia is "C115".

I don't know what I'm doing so here is an EDID dump.
Attachments
qualia.txt
(3.99 KiB) Downloaded 171 times

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dc443
 
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Re: Qualia Display in full res HiDPI

Post by dc443 »

I tried copying the file,

sudo mv DisplayProductID-c111 DisplayProductID-c115

This did change something -- now the display in the lists is shown as "Qualia", however sadly the 2048x1536 is still not "scaled".

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dc443
 
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Re: Qualia Display in full res HiDPI

Post by dc443 »

Hallelujah!!!!

I used the c112 file, renamed to c115, and it works!!!

HiDPI 1024x768 is settable in the Display menu.

So this means that the DisplayProductID key does matter also.

So happy.

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dc443
 
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Re: Qualia Display in full res HiDPI

Post by dc443 »

This is a long shot. But, has anyone have any success with intermediate HiDPI modes for driving Qualia? I would love to get 1600x1200 (render at 3200x2400, downsample to 2048x1536) on this thing. 2x scaling (1024x768) is great most of the time, but UI elements are so big it is almost overkill, and native 2048x1536 can also be great but is pretty much eye bleach, so an intermediate 4:3 HiDPI resolution would be sweet (like the 1680x1050 scaling I use with my 15" rMBP most of the time, the rest of the time I switch to pixel doubling 1440x900).

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