<story><title>Dummy display for Apple Silicon Macs to achieve custom resolutions</title><url>https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDummy</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>leokennis</author><text>You maybe wouldn’t expect it, but in this regard Windows is far superior to macOS. It will output whatever resolution your monitor has, and then you can just set a “scaling factor” which will make the interface exactly the size you like while still being pixel perfect.&lt;p&gt;Given how simple most UI is, especially these days (circles filled with gradients, roundrects) and given how many different screen sizes and resolutions are used even within Apple’s first party displays, it’s almost insane macOS isn’t resolution independent.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>grishka</author><text>Android is like that too. Some devices have non-integer pixel densities (multipliers or device pixel ratios or scaling factors or whatever term you prefer), especially 1.5x aka &amp;quot;hdpi&amp;quot; that was popular around 2011. You can provide separate resources for each pixel density if you still use bitmap graphics for some reason. Oh and there&amp;#x27;s also &amp;quot;ldpi&amp;quot;, which is something like 0.75x, though there were very few devices with it.&lt;p&gt;With how advanced macOS graphics stack is, I don&amp;#x27;t understand why does Apple not do this, instead insisting on using integer multipliers. Some iPhone models, too, render the UI at 3x and then downscale it to fit the screen. Even more curious is the fact that they have returned it as a float for as long as retina displays were a thing: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;developer.apple.com&amp;#x2F;documentation&amp;#x2F;appkit&amp;#x2F;nsscreen&amp;#x2F;1388385-backingscalefactor?language=objc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;developer.apple.com&amp;#x2F;documentation&amp;#x2F;appkit&amp;#x2F;nsscreen&amp;#x2F;13...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;edit: one important difference I forgot to mention. On Android, all draw calls on the Canvas, and all view dimensions and other things like text sizes, always take physical pixels. It&amp;#x27;s your job to multiply and round everything correctly. On macOS and iOS, all graphics APIs take &amp;quot;points&amp;quot;, which are those logical pixels you get &lt;i&gt;after&lt;/i&gt; the scaling is applied, &amp;quot;density-independent pixels&amp;quot; as Android calls them. I guess Apple thought it would make it easier to adapt existing apps to retina displays. Android has always supported UI scaling, so there was no problem designing the API the way it is.</text></comment>
<story><title>Dummy display for Apple Silicon Macs to achieve custom resolutions</title><url>https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDummy</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>leokennis</author><text>You maybe wouldn’t expect it, but in this regard Windows is far superior to macOS. It will output whatever resolution your monitor has, and then you can just set a “scaling factor” which will make the interface exactly the size you like while still being pixel perfect.&lt;p&gt;Given how simple most UI is, especially these days (circles filled with gradients, roundrects) and given how many different screen sizes and resolutions are used even within Apple’s first party displays, it’s almost insane macOS isn’t resolution independent.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>seanalltogether</author><text>I agree, resolution independence should be a higher priority for macos. They&amp;#x27;ve been able to dance around the subject by just doubling everything and calling it retina, but true accessibility would allow everyone to set the scale that works best for them.</text></comment>