Windows scaling issues for high-DPI devices

Summary

When you use a high-DPI device such as a Surface Pro 3, Surface Pro 4, or Surface Book together with external monitors, you experience the following issues:

Elements such as applications, the taskbar, icons, toolbars, text, and dialog boxes appear to be fuzzy.

Elements are too large or too small compared to the rest of the desktop.

Blurry text appears in applications or in the Windows interface.

Although these symptoms may be seen on a single monitor, they’re more common when you use multiple monitors that vary in display resolution. These symptoms also occur when the hardware configuration changes, such as when you dock and undock a device that uses external monitors, or you detach an external monitor from the device.

These issues commonly occur in the following scenarios:

Applications are moved between monitors that use different display resolutions.

The monitor that applications are displayed on changes between docked and undocked configurations.

Users mix connections during the same logon session. For example, users log on through a remote desktop connection (RDC), and later connect directly without first logging off.

Display information is determined when a user logs on to the system. A logoff-logon process resets the display information and improves behavior. However, the issue recurs if the monitor configuration changes during the same logon session, such as when you dock or undock the device or detach an external monitor.

This issue has become more prevalent since the introduction of 4k and higher resolution monitors, especially when these monitors are mixed together with older, standard monitors.

For more information about how Windows scales applications, see the following Core Team Blog articles:

Resolution

To resolve this issue, use the following methods.

Check for software updates Improvements are continuously being added to Windows 10 and Office 2016 applications. If you are experiencing a specific issue, first check whether it has been resolved in the latest Windows release or cumulative update. To check Windows 10 updates, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

Match screen resolutions Consider deploying monitors that have complementary screen resolutions.

When you use multiple monitors (including when you dock or connect to remote screens), a greater difference in the resolution between the native device and external device is more likely to cause the issues to occur. For more information, see the following OneDrive presentation:

Use UWP applications Use or deploy Universal Windows Platform (UWP) applications instead of Win32 applications.

Modern (UWP) apps always scale correctly. If there is a comparable modern app available, you can substitute that app to mitigate the scaling issues. For example, Edge is a modern app that does not cause the DPI Scaling issues that Internet Explorer might experience. Similarly, Remote Desktop is an alternative to mstsc.exe.

Check for known issues See the following articles for more information about known issues in these specific products.

Note Office 2016 applications started being released starting in September 2016. Additional updates are scheduled to follow.
Internet Explorer

3165808 Internet Explorer 11 Window display changes between built-in device monitor and an external monitor

Workaround

To work around scaling issues, try the following methods:

Log out and in Log out and log back in to the system. This improves how applications and elements are displayed when the monitor configuration changes.

Adjust display settings Windows 10

Select Display > Change the size of text, apps, and other items, and then adjust the slider for each monitor.

Earlier Windows systems

Right-click the application, select Properties, select the Compatibility tab, and then select the Disable display scaling on high DPI settings check box.

Change application properties In Explorer or on the Start menu, right-click the application name, select Properties, select the Compatibility tab, and then select the Disable display scaling on high DPI settings check box.

Note: In Windows 10 Version 1703 and later version of Windows, the text of the Disable display scaling on high DPI settings option is changed to Override high DPI scaling behavior, scaling performed by: Application.

Check whether applications are DPI-aware To determine an application’s support of DPI Scaling, follow these steps:

In Process Explorer, click the columns, and then add the DPI Awareness column to the view.

Start the application that you want to check.

In Process Explorer, locate the application, and then examine the DPI Awareness column.

DPI Awareness status definitions

Per-Monitor Aware: Per-monitor DPI-aware. These applications check for the DPI when they are started, and adjusts the scale factor whenever the DPI value changes. These applications are not automatically scaled by the system.

System Aware: System DPI-aware. These applications do not scale for DPI changes. They query for the DPI one time, and then use that value for the lifetime of the application. If the DPI changes, the application does not adjust to the new DPI value. It will be automatically scaled up or down by the system when the DPI changes from the system value.

Unaware: DPI-unaware. These applications do not scale for DPI changes. They are always assumed to have a scale factor of 100 percent (96 DPI). These applications are automatically scaled by the system at any other DPI settings.

For more information, see the following MSDN topic:

Report an issue Many UI elements have been updated because of customer feedback. Because DPI Scaling issues can involve multiple symptoms and configuration, information from users can help us identify specific scenarios and prioritize the development of updates.

To provide such feedback, follow these steps:

Record monitor configurations. To do this, take a screenshot of Display window ( Start > Settings > System > Display).

For each monitor, note the make and model, scaling percentage, and resolution.

Record the steps that you must follow to reproduce the issue.

Take screenshots or video of the desktop or applications before and after the scaling issues occur.

Run DXDiag.exe on the system.

Select Start > Feedback Hub. Search on “DPI” to check whether any listed issue matches your specific issue. If you find a match, you can add additional feedback, including screen shots, DXDiag results, and any other relevant information.

More Information

Display scaling is a deceptively complex problem. There is no magic bullet or single fix to resolve all DPI Scaling problems. DPI Scaling benefits from continuous improvements in the core operating system, in application development models, and in applications from both Microsoft and third parties.

Different versions of Windows and application development models have different display scaling capabilities and limitations.

For example, in Windows that were released earlier than Windows 8.1, desktop environment and applications understand only one scale factor, generally based on the primary display at the time that the logon session starts. When the display changes in the middle of a logon session, the system bitmaps scale content from the system scale factor to the new monitor scale factor. This makes sure that content doesn’t become excessively large or small. However, text may appear blurred. (The effect is worse when you scale up.) If the system shrinks or stretches UI elements to the correct size, this may cause some blurriness in dialog boxes and other UI elements.

In Windows 10, investments were made so that large parts of the desktop UX will scale crisply in docking-undocking scenarios. Additional scalability improvements were made to the taskbar, File Explorer, desktop icons, context menu, and other UI elements to improve the user experience.

Microsoft is continuously updating the system and first-party applications. Third-party applications may require similar investments.

References

MSDN: Writing DPI-aware Win32 applications

Thurrott Blog: July 13, 2015 post that discusses DPI Scaling. Article is based on the «Devices» chapter of the Windows 10 Field Guide.

Windows Blog: July 15, 2013

Build 2015: Display Scaling: What it is and what you need to know about it to have great visuals

Build 2014: Windows Desktop Development Platform Advancements

Build 2013: Making your desktop apps shine on high-DPI displays

Windows 10 display resolution and scaling

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Is this only happening to one particular game? Have you tried checking the settings of the game and see if you have options to change the resolution?

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My question has not been answered as of yet. I have been looking for a way to make the graphics on my HP laptop smaller so I can fit more on the screen. This would be extremely valuable to me during game play. My laptop has a NVidia graphics card which set to the maximum resolution, The scaling is set to !00% which is the minimum for scaling. I have tried everything I can think of to make the graphics smaller to fit more on the laptop screen. Now I am asking if anyone knows way make the graphics smaller. Scaling would help if I could get it below 100%. If anyone can help, I would appreciate it.

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You can try these settings in the NVidia control panel:

On the Scaling tab, select «Override. » and then select a lower resolution value in the drop down box. If that doesn’t help you can try the following setting on the Size tab instead.

Select «Enable desktop resizing» and click the «Resize» button.

The display will change to the following where you can set the underscan values:

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As far as I know the Display settings are available by default in the Nvidia control panel. The only reasons I can imagine that they would not be present are;

— the installed Nvidia driver could be corrupted or a version that is incompatible with Win10, or

— an incorrect driver type is installed, eg. a desktop graphics driver IPO mobile/integrated graphics chipset driver or vice versa, or

— the computer could be using a Microsoft legacy driver for an Nvidia graphics chip that Nvidia doesn’t offer support for in Win10, in which case you could be out of luck. I have an MS supplied Win10 driver in an older netbook (Win7 era) for which Nvidia stopped updating the drivers and the Nvidia control panel (as in the screen caps I posted earlier) wasn’t included with it. The only display settings that are available are the ones accessed from Control Panel or the «Settings» app, which are pretty basic.

Use Windows 10’s individual display scaling to perfect your multi-monitor setup

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One great thing about Windows 10 is that it has lots of small but essential tweaks for power users. For this tutorial, we’re looking at a great option for anyone running a multi-monitor setup, especially for folks rocking 4K monitors.

Windows 10, like Windows 8.1, includes an option to adjust the DPI (dots per inch) scaling on a per-monitor basis using a percentage scale. This wonderful tool gives you more granular control when you’re using monitors of varying resolutions or monitors with the same resolution but different screen sizes. This is far preferable to applying a single DPI scaling percentage to all of your monitors—which can result in nasty sizing wonkiness—as older versions of Windows did.

Per-monitor action

To get started, right-click any empty space on your desktop and select Display settings towards the bottom of the context menu. Alternatively, you can go to Start > Settings > System > Display.

The Settings app in Windows 10 is ready for per-monitor display scaling.

Once you’re there, you’ve won half the battle. You should see a graphical layout of your monitor setup. In this case I have a laptop display labeled 1 and an external monitor labeled 2.

Lower down the screen under Scale and layout you’ll see a drop-down menu labeled Change the size of text, apps, and other items: X% (Recommended). It used to be a slider in earlier versions of Windows 10, but because this feature defaults to certain scaling pre-sets, a drop down made more sense. Before you start changing the scaling, check to see which monitor is highlighted.

In this case, the laptop monitor is highlighted in blue, but I don’t want to change the scaling for this display—the 1920-by-1080 view automatically scaled to 125% is just fine. The larger 1080p monitor, however, would be easier for my tired eyes to handle with a little scaling applied.

Windows 10’s per-monitor display scaling in action.

All I do is click on monitor 2 in the Settings screen, and then choose my scaling as seen above. The pre-set choices for my 1080p monitor were 100, 125, 150, and 175 percent. Some displays will have different scaling options. I have a laptop with a 1366×768 display that maxes out at 125 percent, for example. Your mileage will vary depending on the resolution of your monitors.

For best results sign out and back in to Windows 10.

Now that we’ve applied different scaling settings we have to do a little clean-up. At this point, Windows 10 may tell you that you need to sign-out and back in again before some apps on your PC respond to the new scaling settings.

When we first looked at this feature back in 2015, you definitely wanted to follow Microsoft’s advice right away. Now that we’re deeper into the age of 4K, however, it’s not as necessary as many developers are packaging high-dpi assets in their programs.

Still, if you’ve got a lot of older programs that don’t get updated much, signing in and out again is advised.

Once you’re back in, we’ve got one more scaling setting we can use. Open the Settings app again to System > Display. Under the scaling drop-down, select the Advanced scaling settings link.

Windows 10’s advanced scaling settings.

That will take you to a second page. Here, turn on Let Windows try to fix apps so they’re not blurry by clicking the slider. This will let Windows try to scale up any apps that aren’t making the cut.

A note for power users

Power users with multiple monitors at the same resolution may want more refined scaling than the pre-sets can offer. They can return to the advanced settings screen under Custom scaling (pictured above). Here you can enter a percentage between 100 and 500 to apply a blanket scaling to all your monitors.

This article originally published July 30, 2015.

Ian is an independent writer based in Israel who has never met a tech subject he didn’t like. He primarily covers Windows, PC and gaming hardware, video and music streaming services, social networks, and browsers. When he’s not covering the news he’s working on how-to tips for PC users, or tuning his eGPU setup.