Don't ever turn the resolution on a 4k monitor down, unless it's for performance reasons (e.g. gaming). Every OS has UI scaling built-in now. It works perfectly in Windows 10 and MacOS. It works pretty well in Linux, but given the mess that is Linux UI toolkits, not all applications will scale properly. Everything I use regularly looks fine, even in experimental non-standard scaling like 175%.

Running a 4k monitor at 1920x1080 looks like crap. Running a 4k monitor with 200% UI scaling gets you the same dimensions but glorious smooth fonts.

> Don't ever turn the resolution on a 4k monitor down, unless it's for performance reasons (e.g. gaming). Every OS has UI scaling built-in now.

So, I have a game I want to run hitting the following properties:

- The game should only render 1920x1080. This keeps fps around 30.

- The game should cover my whole screen.

- Running the game should not resize all my other open windows.

All of these seem like stupid-obvious goals, but there doesn't seem to be a way to get them all. The game itself offers fullscreen (which automatically resizes my other open windows, when the game resolution is lower than the desktop resolution -- I don't understand this ridiculous anti-feature, but it doesn't seem to be configurable), and windowed mode where the window occupies a range of pixels equal to the game resolution (which is a really small window, and really hurts enjoyment of the game). I've tried sending win32 messages [well, SetWindowLong; I think "messages" are something different] to a 1920x1080 game window to expand its rectangle, but the game just starts rendering higher-resolution images for the bigger window -- even though it's configured for 1920x1080 -- dropping the frame rate.

Are you saying there's a way for me to scale this window to get the behavior I want? (Render a 1920x1080 image, then paint it over the 3840x2160 desktop.) What is it?

If the game offers "borderless fullscreen" or "fullscreen windowed" then that's what you want. There are 3rd party utilities that can force it for games lacking the option, but I can't speak to how well they work.

Right, that's what I tried to do, but the game renders an image by referring to the window size rather than the graphics settings. (Or at least, when I force the window into borderless fullscreen, fps drops to the same rate at which it normally renders 3840x2160.)

Maybe enabling GPU scaling in conjunction with the game's regular fullscreen mode set to 1920x1080 might do the trick?

In that case, instead of physically changing your monitor's resolution when entering (true) fullscreen mode, the GPU should simply rescale the game output as required to match your regular resolution.

Yes, don't use Windows as your OS. You'll get a higher fps and a better response time running even an non native games outside of Windows.

> Don't ever turn the resolution on a 4k monitor down, unless it's for performance reasons

ehhhhhh.....

> It works pretty well in Linux, but given the mess that is Linux UI toolkits, not all applications will scale properly.

Yep, exactly.

>1920x440

I'm so confused. Just missing a 1 and 1920x1440 is an actual monitor resolution I've never heard of? 1920x1080? 1920x1200? 2560x1440?

Some mix of the above. It's probably been a good half decade since I actually looked at the resolution setting for that monitor, and I'm definitely getting into the years where brains will fart.

An appropriate DPI is at least 300 at laptop distances which is the point when you start to not need subpixel antialiasing and font hinting which sacrifices letter shape for sharpness.

That means about 4K for 15 inches.

Well luckily for the low low price of $4000, you can get a 32" 8k monitor, which hits that sweet spot.

https://www.newegg.com/dell-up3218k-32/p/N82E16824260551

Save a couple hundred bucks and buy it from Dell.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-ultrasharp-32-8k-m...

These show up on ebay from time to time for significantly less. It's not a half bad monitor but it is a pain to drive.