jono grant Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 I just got a 4K monitor for the first time. Pictures and video look fantastic. But Cakewalk and most other programs are all fuzzy and look like crap! I've read about scaling and tried various things including Windows 10 dpi fix but nothing helps! Programs seem to look okay at 100% scaling but they are ridiculously small! Even Windows recommends 150% Anyone have any tips for making this work correctly? Really hoped this would work! Jono Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noynekker Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 Hi Jono . . . I think it's because you have to view content that is actually 4K capable. There was a great recent thread here (wish I could find it) that mentioned the perils of expecting cakewalk / windows programs to look super crisp in 4K. I think it might just be better to just get a larger non 4K monitor to make things bigger. I've seen Cakewalk on a 32" BenQ monitor at a studio, and it looks amazing . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jono grant Posted December 18, 2019 Author Share Posted December 18, 2019 6 minutes ago, noynekker said: Hi Jono . . . I think it's because you have to view content that is actually 4K capable. There was a great recent thread here (wish I could find it) that mentioned the perils of expecting cakewalk / windows programs to look super crisp in 4K. I think it might just be better to just get a larger non 4K monitor to make things bigger. I've seen Cakewalk on a 32" BenQ monitor at a studio, and it looks amazing . . . Many other programs, like any Microsoft programs, word etc, all look like I would expect. Just certain ones including Cakewalk,Sony Vegas or Sound Forge are all fuzzy and worse than I'm used to. Windows automatically adjusted my video's scaling to 150% and everything looks the right size. It seems like the latter programs I listed like Cakewalk, don't react properly to video scaling and the other ones do. My monitor is 32" as well. Already way bigger than I need. And seriously, if I set scaling to 100%, the size is ridiculously small, even for someone with 20/20 vision. (Cakewalk's resolution seems only correct at 100%) Not sure what to do. It would be great if I could set Cakewalk to run at a lower resolution just so it wasn't blurry. J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gswitz Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 Cakewalk looks great on my 55 inch screen. Idk enough about monitors too help though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jono grant Posted December 18, 2019 Author Share Posted December 18, 2019 21 minutes ago, Gswitz said: Cakewalk looks great on my 55 inch screen. Idk enough about monitors too help though. I'm guessing you have your computer display settings at 100% for scaling?... with a monitor that big, I imagine the fonts and programs are all big enough at 100% I can't see anything unless I set the video scaling up to 150% Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jono grant Posted December 18, 2019 Author Share Posted December 18, 2019 (edited) @Noel Borthwick Hi Noel, I'm combing the internet trying to get some advice on this and wondered if you can shed any light on it? Basically, Cakewalk is not responding well to scaling on a 4K display monitor. It only looks good at 100%. Other programs I have look perfect at different scaling percentages. At anything other than 100%, Cakewalk looks all fuzzy and blurry. I have a few other programs that are behaving this way but for the most part, the majority of my programs look excellent on the 4K monitor at 150% scaling (this is also the percentage Windows recommended automatically for my 4K 32" display) Any ideas would be appreciated, thank you! Jono Edited December 18, 2019 by jono grant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Nicholls Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 I run a 4K monitor (3840 x 2160) at 125% and although Cakewalk is not as "crisp" and pixel perfect as it is at 100%, it is more than just "ok". It is very usable. You're asking the impossible for a non-vector based graphics application to look perfect at anything other than 100% or integer multiples of same. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noel Borthwick Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 What @Colin Nicholls said. This is a known issue and we have plans of gradually addressing it. Its not impossible but its a significant amount of work for the UI to fully handle DPI scaling in the app. Today we let windows do the best it can - hence the somewhat fuzzy images. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Variorum Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 Hey @jono grant... If your monitor's resolution is 3840 x 2160 and you're feeling brave, you could try going in to the Advanced scaling settings (right below the regular Scale and layout option) and manually set scaling to 200%. This would result in an even multiple for the horizontal and vertical pixel usage on your monitor which should give you a sharp picture, albeit one equivalent in resolution to a regular 1920 x 1080 monitor. This would affect all applications you run, so you'd have to be Ok with switching back and forth when necessary... Just a thought ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jono grant Posted December 18, 2019 Author Share Posted December 18, 2019 1 hour ago, Colin Nicholls said: I run a 4K monitor (3840 x 2160) at 125% and although Cakewalk is not as "crisp" and pixel perfect as it is at 100%, it is more than just "ok". It is very usable. You're asking the impossible for a non-vector based graphics application to look perfect at anything other than 100% or integer multiples of same. That gives me a workaround actually. If I set the scale to 200% , it's nice and crisp and big but not huge. I suppose I could set it like that when I'm working in CW for now. PS. It's less about the graphics of the program really, more about the text. The menus (File,Edit etc.) are fuzzy; shouldn't the menus look the same as any other windows program or are they part of the non-vector based graphic you're talking about? Cheers Jono Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jono grant Posted December 18, 2019 Author Share Posted December 18, 2019 5 minutes ago, Variorum said: Hey @jono grant... If your monitor's resolution is 3840 x 2160 and you're feeling brave, you could try going in to the Advanced scaling settings (right below the regular Scale and layout option) and manually set scaling to 200%. This would result in an even multiple for the horizontal and vertical pixel usage on your monitor which should give you a sharp picture, albeit one equivalent in resolution to a regular 1920 x 1080 monitor. This would affect all applications you run, so you'd have to be Ok with switching back and forth when necessary... Just a thought ? Ha! I just wrote a post now saying that! Ya, it looks good at 200%. The only down side is switching it back and fourth all the time. It would be nice if in the cakewalk.exe, you could go to compatibility settings and set a particular scale for that program, rather than just the setting for ignoring high DPI scaling. That would be good. Thanks J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heinz Hupfer Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 HI:) Three 42" Monitors with 4096x2160 and 150% Scaling looking great. My new Room is not ready yet, but Monitors and loudspeakers will stay like that. The third monitor on the right is black, cause yesterday one of my sons stole my dvi-hdmi adapter over christmas? He is at home for holidays from the university....... If you wish I can look after all setting that I have made on the nvidia card and in windows..... Greetz, Bassman. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jono grant Posted December 18, 2019 Author Share Posted December 18, 2019 11 hours ago, Heinz Hupfer said: Thanks! I would love to know how you got it looking good! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azslow3 Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 lol... why people still fall into the same trap? Next will be 16k.... Are you still going to buy it for 10' tablets? I understand there can be some advantages for photo processing (but I guess HDR bring more here). Who professionally works with 4K Video also obviously need 4K screen. But why have pixels which is impossible to use 1x1? Yes, everything can be a tick smoother, with 4x processing power or 4x picture size. I am still happy with HD Ready TV for TV (42') and FHD 24'' monitor. I use 100% on FHD 15' notebook monitor as weöö, so I guess I will use 100% on 32'' 4K in case I buy it. And I wish me a new projector in 4K, since I have 3m screen. But when someone needs scaling to work normally, it simply make no sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitman Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 21 hours ago, noynekker said: I've seen Cakewalk on a 32" BenQ monitor at a studio, and it looks amazing . . . That's what I have. Not that I'm smart it is cheap and what I could afford. I like it. No room for larger the way I have boxed myself in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heinz Hupfer Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 @azslow I've had 2 42" UHD TVs but it looked - as Jono Grant said - fuzzy, especially with the waveforms zoomed in. These 4k monitors are much better, I don't need 8k.... Bassman. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azslow3 Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 Hi, 150% zoom means 1.5 pixels pro one. So such scale will be fuzzy by definition. 100%, 200%,400% are fine. HDPI aware apps just calculate everything themselves, obviously avoiding not even graphic scaling and rendering fonts and other vector graphics in native DPI and desired size. Another approach is declare the interface HDPI aware, but scale the picture at constant 2x. Such apps are not really HDPI, but kind of trick OS and so avoid 150% PS. @bassman. I have seen your BCR2000 preset, but I have not checked it yet. Sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heinz Hupfer Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 @azslow No problem Alexey, You must not! I can live with this litte bug.... But 150 % with a 4k monitor is much better than 100 % with an UHD TV! It was very ugly! 100% with that 4096x2160 resolution doesn't work for me, it's too small(text)! I'm old and the eyes are not getting better:) 200% is too big and I have not that much space on the track view as I love. With the new room I tried all resolutions with all percentages and this 150% one was the best for me and the look on these 4ks! Bassman. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azslow3 Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 2 hours ago, Heinz Hupfer said: But 150 % with a 4k monitor is much better than 100 % with an UHD TV! It was very ugly! 100% with that 4096x2160 resolution doesn't work for me, it's too small(text)! I'm old and the eyes are not getting better:) I see that as the only and artificial problem. Back in time, they had high granularity in monitor/tv native resolution. So there was 800x600, 1024x768, 1440x900, 1680x1050, 1920x1080 etc. monitors. Smart people cood choose "optimal" for own perception and desired size resolution, so apps are looking good without doing anything. F.e. I had 19' 3x4 monitor with 1024x768, 19' 16x9 with 1440 and 24' with 1680. At some point, apps have moved toward "native" FHD wide screen design. That is working well, from 14' on notebook up to 27' on desktop, without any scaling (at least for most people). They have now "jumped" 2x in resolution (fixed), but not so in size. 4K on 14' is an overkill and 55' you are not going to use from 30cm distance. It can all be good for video, 60' TV looks a tick better in 4K then in FHD from several meters (but effect of frame interpolation and HDR is way more visible). But for monitors that is almost pointless. After disaster with 3D, they have decided to go "safe way" in marketing: 4K, big size, curved. Just to sell something "new", not because it make sense. In such discussions I always remember my good friend. We have bought Panasonic plasma TVs at the same time, he took FHD and I HDReady (the price difference was almost 50%). 5 years later we have bought our first BluRays, so he could finally use the advantage... But for the price difference I could get new projector with 3m screen. Way more enjoyable with movies. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heinz Hupfer Posted December 19, 2019 Share Posted December 19, 2019 @jono grant https://1drv.ms/u/s!Al2mKojzOW0MmoUVd4e_PeywqcyRjw?e=14tNCD Now that I've looked after the settings, I've seen that it's not 150%, but 175%. can remember, I wanted to try again these both, cause the monitors are about a bit more than 1 Meter away from the sitting position. In the settings i have been experimentating a lot, but as you can see in the pictures, came back to change nothing but setting the resolution in nvidia and the scale in windows. For sure, as azslow said, 100% and 200% are better, for me 100% is too small, 200% too big, so I have to use 150 or 175, must try again... This weekend I have to fasten the speakers in these positions, how it is now, it's just for testing out, and the sound is very good now. I've attached the EQ settings after analysing. The best positions I ever had...problems are in the best made room! So nothing special and it works for me very well. Try to take the screen a few inches away from you and set another resolution , until you are satisfied. I've had the problem with the speakers and the sound. So now from above the monitors it is really good and I have to correct very little with the main EQ after listening with mic to pink noise.... Bassman. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now