Ultra Hi Res Laptop screens - do they work on win 8??

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JWR

821 posts

Ultimate Geek

#928425 6-Nov-2013 23:04

That is Windows 8 information tho - not Windows 8.1.

JWR

821 posts

Ultimate Geek

#928438 7-Nov-2013 00:25

That link does refer to Windows 8.0.

The screen scaling is different in 8.1.

zaptor

745 posts

Ultimate Geek

#928801 7-Nov-2013 14:20

Apparently the new 8.1 scaling is affecting gamers:
http://www.thenewsreports.com/a-fix-for-the-jittering-mouse-issue-caused-by-the-windows-8-1-update-affecting-game-play/1705/annier

No doubt a subsequent patch will address the issue.

I think the crux of the matter is that Windows is in the (very) early stages of transitioning to a resolution agnostic UI. They introduced a resolution independent API/framework with Vista (WDDM). It's definitely a better graphics subsystem than what was used in XP. With each subsequent version of Windows, more and more of the UI work has been offloaded onto the GPU.
On the other hand, Apple has had Quartz for donkeys years. Quartz Extreme was added to OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) over 11 years ago.
The Quartz API is derived from Postscript, and as such supports resolution independent (i.e. vector based) rendering.

dpw

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#930107 9-Nov-2013 21:14

Ok, I have had my Dell XPS 15 QHD+ for 3 days now. The first couple of days was spent battling Windows in trying to upgrade Win 8 it came with to Win 8.1 Pro. That's kinda done for now. I have installed quite a few apps now and have found a few to be misbehaving on this high-res display. The major culprits are so far Mailbird and GIMP. Both did not scale well at all. The text in Mailbird is tiny, especially the content of emails. The icons and buttons on GIMP are tiny and a pain to use.

Other than that everything else seem to be okay.

Android user, software developer, a semi-typical (not a gamer) geek, and a Bernese Mountain Dog nut!

http://savitarbernese.com | https://nz.linkedin.com/in/danywu

thelimoman

81 posts

Master Geek

#930225 10-Nov-2013 11:42

dpw: Ok, I have had my Dell XPS 15 QHD+ for 3 days now. The first couple of days was spent battling Windows in trying to upgrade Win 8 it came with to Win 8.1 Pro. That's kinda done for now. I have installed quite a few apps now and have found a few to be misbehaving on this high-res display. The major culprits are so far Mailbird and GIMP. Both did not scale well at all. The text in Mailbird is tiny, especially the content of emails. The icons and buttons on GIMP are tiny and a pain to use.

Other than that everything else seem to be okay.

How do you like that laptop overall? I get a reasonable discount through my work and it looks pretty tempting... It'd be a pain having the change display resolutions constantly for different programs but worth it in the long run as display scaling support gets better.

By the way, what are the colours like? A few of these new QHD+ displays seem to have issues with murky yellows...

dpw

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#930693 11-Nov-2013 14:01

thelimoman:

How do you like that laptop overall? I get a reasonable discount through my work and it looks pretty tempting... It'd be a pain having the change display resolutions constantly for different programs but worth it in the long run as display scaling support gets better.

By the way, what are the colours like? A few of these new QHD+ displays seem to have issues with murky yellows...

Colours? Hmm... it seems to be okay. I'm new to the glossy screen world so I'm not sure how well the colours are displaying yet. I haven't spent too much time in Adobe Lightroom yet. From the small amount of time I spent there it seems to be just fine. I'm not sure what you're referring to by "murky yellows" though.

In general the laptop is nice. There are a few items that feel somewhat "unpolished", e.g. trackpad, touchscreen, but in general it's great. I'm also coming from a couple of Macbook Pros, so I don't have other PC laptops experience to compare with. Maybe the unpolished-ness is only relative to the Apple hardware I've used.

Android user, software developer, a semi-typical (not a gamer) geek, and a Bernese Mountain Dog nut!

http://savitarbernese.com | https://nz.linkedin.com/in/danywu

thelimoman

81 posts

Master Geek

#930704 11-Nov-2013 14:23

dpw:
Colours? Hmm... it seems to be okay. I'm new to the glossy screen world so I'm not sure how well the colours are displaying yet. I haven't spent too much time in Adobe Lightroom yet. From the small amount of time I spent there it seems to be just fine. I'm not sure what you're referring to by "murky yellows" though.

In general the laptop is nice. There are a few items that feel somewhat "unpolished", e.g. trackpad, touchscreen, but in general it's great. I'm also coming from a couple of Macbook Pros, so I don't have other PC laptops experience to compare with. Maybe the unpolished-ness is only relative to the Apple hardware I've used.

A glossy screen should have clearer colours I think, the trade off is glare. The new Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro has a QHD+ plus screen and it's been notorious for having terrible reproduction of yellows, making them almost a golden-brown. It's good to know that it doesn't seem to be an issue here. I'm looking for an ultrabook type thing for graphic design so colour accuracy is pretty important!

Yeah any PC trackpad out there would seem really poor compared to that on a Mac. The new Precision Touchpad drivers in 8.1 were meant to fix that but I don't think any manufactures have taken advantage of them :(

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