Arch Linux

Oldmoth

Member

Registered: 2013-01-25

Posts: 24

Macbook Pro Retina. Decimal HiDPI or set 1920x1200 resolution.

I'm running Arch on a 2013 Macbook Pro 13" with Retina display and Gnome. At the moment I am using the full resolution 2560x1600 and have scaled the fonts up a bit which is ok for now.
But I would really like to either HiDPI scale it to 1920x1200 (1.34 scaled) or I would just like to set the resolution to 1920x1200.

Option #1 (HiDPI Scaling)
Gnome doesn't seem to have an option to scale decimally it is either on for off, if anyone knows how to scale the Gnome Shell decimally this would be my preferred solution to downscale to 1920x1200. From what I have found so far this doesn't seem to be possible.

Option #2 (Set resolution to 1920x1200)
This one I thought would be easier, I picked 1920x1200 because it 16:10 like the screen. However, it is not listed as a selectable resolution so I added it with xrandr but when I set it either using the display property in Gnome or using

xrandr --output eDP1 --mode 1920x1200_60.00

it flickers for a bit then jumps back to 2560x1600. Any ideas why?

xrandr output

Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 2560 x 1600, maximum 32767 x 32767
eDP1 connected primary 2560x1600+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 286mm x 179mm
   2560x1600     59.97*+
   2048x1536     60.00  
   1920x1440     60.00  
   1856x1392     60.01  
   1792x1344     60.01  
   1600x1200     60.00  
   1400x1050     59.98  
   1280x1024     60.02  
   1280x960      60.00  
   1024x768      60.00  
   800x600       60.32    56.25  
   640x480       59.94  
   1920x1200_60.00  59.88  
DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
VIRTUAL1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

Knasher

Member

Registered: 2013-10-09

Posts: 12

Re: Macbook Pro Retina. Decimal HiDPI or set 1920x1200 resolution.

You could try xrandr scaling. 

xrandr --output eDP1 --scale 0.75x0.75

Would keep the resolution at 2560x1600 but give you an effective resolution of 1920x1200.

Oldmoth

Member

Registered: 2013-01-25

Posts: 24

Re: Macbook Pro Retina. Decimal HiDPI or set 1920x1200 resolution.

That should do the trick with a bit of tweaking, it does look a little fuzzy at first glance but I'll have a play with it.

kennyd

Member

Registered: 2010-10-20

Posts: 19

Re: Macbook Pro Retina. Decimal HiDPI or set 1920x1200 resolution.

there is

org.gnome.desktop.interface text-scaling-factor

and

org.gnome.desktop.interface scaling-factor

that might be of some use.  (gsettings/dconf)

Last edited by kennyd (2015-05-05 13:28:02)

Oldmoth

Member

Registered: 2013-01-25

Posts: 24

Re: Macbook Pro Retina. Decimal HiDPI or set 1920x1200 resolution.

Scaling factor is not decimal which is a little annoying but the text scaling kinda makes up the difference.