Monitor scaling question

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d-pupp
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Monitor scaling question

Post by d-pupp »

I have a really old vga monitor

output from wlr-randr
Make: Acer Technologies
Model: AL1706
Modes:
1280x1024 px, 60.020000 Hz (preferred, current)
Scale: 1.000000

Question
Will it hurt my old monitor if I set the scaling?

wlr-randr --output VGA-1 --scale 1.1

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bigpup
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Re: Monitor scaling

Post by bigpup »

what is the issue you are maybe trying to fix?

What specific Puppy version you using?

What is the graphic hardware providing input to the monitor?

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mikewalsh
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Re: Monitor scaling

Post by mikewalsh »

bigpup wrote: Tue Jan 23, 2024 7:45 am

what is the issue you are maybe trying to fix?

What specific Puppy version you using?

What is the graphic hardware providing input to the monitor?

Mm. I was going to ask the same thing. Is this a built-in graphics chip.....or is it a separate, discrete GPU?

Mike. ;)

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dimkr
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Re: Monitor scaling

Post by dimkr »

It won't hurt your monitor (the monitor displays the 1280x1024 grid the OS tells it to display), but:

  1. Scaling means more work for CPU/GPU, if it's a slow computer that's connected to the old monitor - you might notice that things are slower
  2. Fractional scaling is a big problem, very few applications support it natively - everything will be stretched to 200% and downscaled to 110% or simply stretched from 100% to 110%, so expect everything to be blurry
  3. wlr-randr only works under Wayland and only under some Wayland compositors (most wlroots-based compositors) - wlr-randr won't work under any Puppy with X.Org
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MochiMoppel
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Re: Monitor scaling

Post by MochiMoppel »

d-pupp wrote: Tue Jan 23, 2024 12:18 am

Will it hurt my old monitor if I set the scaling?

wlr-randr --output VGA-1 --scale 1.1

Not your monitor, but maybe your eyes :lol:
VGA is analog, so even with its native resolution you won't get the same crisp image you could expect from a DVI monitor.
Scaling the image down in order to squeeze more information into your real estate will make text smaller and blurrier.

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Re: Monitor scaling

Post by dimkr »

1.1 means scaling up (a 100px wide image becomes 110px wide), not down. Things will be blurry not because you're scaling down but because the resolution is low (110% won't look as blurry with a 4k monitor) and because software needs to scale text and images correctly but doesn't (for example, GTK+ 3 doesn't support fractional scaling - text is rendered at scale 1, then the window is stretched to 1.1 without adding more "pixels" to each letter).

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Re: Monitor scaling

Post by d-pupp »

Thanks everyone

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

Puppy is Vanilliadpup 11 wayland
I was just looking for an easy way to make the fonts bigger globally.

You are correct is does make it fussy. Strangely 1.2 seemd better than 1.1???

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Re: Monitor scaling question

Post by mow9902 »

In many puppies there is a small utility named "Font Manager" listed under Desktop group. Not sure if this exists for Vanillapup ...but it is has the option to set a font size globally.
The default is usually 96 or 100, but I have mine set to 102.

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Re: Monitor scaling question

Post by d-pupp »

@mow9902 99
Vanilliadpup11 is still under development so not everything is working yet.
I opted for lowering the resolution. Just got to figure out how to set the refresh rate.
The help show it something like this but it didn't work

wlr-randr --output VGA-1 --mode 1024x768@60Hz

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Re: Monitor scaling question

Post by dimkr »

There's no way around this, text will be blurry with any scaling factor between 1 and 2, and a lower resolution will make everything blurry. GTK+3 doesn't support fractional scaling.

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