I don't understand how to use it (new to Mac Os)

[JensMertelmeyer]

I am sorry for cluttering this up, at least I can post it as a discussion instead of an issue.

I have a 2560x1440 monitor in 27 inch. The default Mac OS display results in everything being uncomfortably small. On Windows, I set "DPI scaling to 125%", and I'm good to go.

As far as I understand Mac OS, there is no such thing as "make everything 25% bigger". If a display is in "retina mode", then it basically renders at 200%. But there's nothing in between 100% and 200%.

What I understand is that this is exactly where this tool comes in: It will emulate an external display with, for example a resolution of 4096 x 2304. Mac OS will then render everything at 200% and by mirroring my physical display with the virtual, I will scale everything down to my native 2560x1440.

Is that correct? I think that downscaling a higher resolution image should result in a higher quality image than rendering at, for example 100% in 1920x1080 and then stretching that bitmap across my screen. Still, I must be doing something wrong, because everything still looks blurred and washy.

[waydabber]

Yes. If you have a 2560x1440 display and you want to get, you should create a 16:9 dummy, mirror it to the display and set the dummy's resolution to somewhere at or below 2304x1296. If you download the v1.1.0 beta, you'll have a nice slider for the dummy to change the resolution easily and figure out the best scaling. The image should be at higher quality as the desktop should always be rendered at double (in this case 4608x2592) and scaled to the native resolution of 2560x1440. If this is not the case then something might be wrong.

[hanoii]

I am confused on this math, I have a new Dell s2721dgf, it's a 2K monitor and I'd like the text to look as my 4k monitor scaled to 2590x1440, is that reasonable? If so, what should the resolutions be on either Dummy and actual display? I tried several alternatives but I always end up with the same picture as if there was no dummy display.

Any help @waydabber ? Thanks a lot.

[JensMertelmeyer]

I am actually having the same problem, I still find it really hard to understand what is actually going on. So far, it does not appear to do any upscaling at all. Maybe it's a hardware issue? I have been trying this on a very old Mac Mini (2014), maybe its hardware does not support high resolutions?

[waydabber]

@hanoii - If you have a QHD (2560x1440p) display (Dell s2721dgf is that I presume), then by default it should have that resolution. If both are identical in size (27" for example) then the resolution should be scaled the same, albeit the QHD display will be non-HiDPI. You can create a HiDPI 2560x1440 resolution using a mirrored Dummy but that will not improve quality much (but it will improve quality of zooming or screenshots).

@JensMertelmeyer - I am not sure how well dummy mirroring works with a 2014 mini, I never tried. I used SwitchResX with a 2012 Mini and it did work and the 2014 has a slightly better graphics - so you can try using that app to create scaled resolutions.