Steam UI Finally Has A Scaling Mode For HiDPI Monitors

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Steam UI Finally Has A Scaling Mode For HiDPI Monitors

At the same time as adding HiDPI monitor support for Windows 10, Valve has added a "2X-scaling mode" for the Steam client to satisfy modern high resolution monitors...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Steam-2X-UI-Mode

[blae]

You don't need to set GDK_SCALE=2, it should just work if you're running HiDPI. GDK_SCALE=1 or 2 is just for forcing the HiDPI mode off or on.

The bug report on github opened in 2014, so this has been a long time coming! Glad it's finally here. It's also there for macOS.

[pal666]

why every browser has ctrl+wheel bindings for changing fractional scale, but desktops and steam (which is just wrapped browser) need some magic variables or screen sizes to do fixed scaling x2?

[caligula]

why every browser has ctrl+wheel bindings for changing fractional scale, but desktops and steam (which is just wrapped browser) need some magic variables or screen sizes to do fixed scaling x2?

You don't even need HiDPI to scale the window. People run Steam also on HTPC machines which means the viewing distance can be 10 times longer and some scaling is needed.

[andrebrait]

why every browser has ctrl+wheel bindings for changing fractional scale, but desktops and steam (which is just wrapped browser) need some magic variables or screen sizes to do fixed scaling x2?

Because browsers don't display decades old desktop applications but some HTML pages, which have *some* standart by which it is possible to calculate how stuff should look like when upscaled whereas desktop applications may or may not take advantage of GUI toolkits that are able to scale, and even then it's tricky. If desktop applications were written in (and restricted by) HTML+CSS it would be easier to scale things painlessly (but even then, some pages don't work well when upscaled).

GNOME hasn't got fractional scaling working so far and KDE isn't exactly the nest example of a working implementation, though it does work somewhat better than I would expect.

Unity is pretty much the only DE that does fractional scaling well if at all, at least in Ubuntu 16.04.

[geearf]

You don't even need HiDPI to scale the window. People run Steam also on HTPC machines which means the viewing distance can be 10 times longer and some scaling is needed.

That's my case

Alas times 2 is a bit too much...

[FireBurn]

About bloody time!!

[andre30correia]

Because browsers don't display decades old desktop applications but some HTML pages, which have *some* standart by which it is possible to calculate how stuff should look like when upscaled whereas desktop applications may or may not take advantage of GUI toolkits that are able to scale, and even then it's tricky. If desktop applications were written in (and restricted by) HTML+CSS it would be easier to scale things painlessly (but even then, some pages don't work well when upscaled).

GNOME hasn't got fractional scaling working so far and KDE isn't exactly the nest example of a working implementation, though it does work somewhat better than I would expect.

Unity is pretty much the only DE that does fractional scaling well if at all, at least in Ubuntu 16.04.

the worst is ubuntu changing to gnome. worst features

[FishPls]

why every browser has ctrl+wheel bindings for changing fractional scale, but desktops and steam (which is just wrapped browser) need some magic variables or screen sizes to do fixed scaling x2?

Steam isn't just a wrapped browser. It's mostly a VGUI mess, that also happens to have a browser inside it. The biggest issue though is VGUI, that shit has existed since Half-Life.

[eydee]

Dynamic, or at least configurable should be preferred over hardcoded 2X. People using higher than 4k in the future will still have a hard time, until another fix comes after Valve Time + 20 years.