Hidpi scaling issues xrandr on boot

hjohnson02 · 2018-08-25 16:33:20

Installed arch yesterday following the beginners guide and the general recommendations. Using i3 gaps and Xresources if that is relevant. Having issues getting the scaling right on my monitors. According to what I've found so far I will need to adjust the Xrandr settings and dpi. Setting the xft.dpi to 144 looks fairly good on the 4k monitor but looks too large on the 1080p display of course. The monitor setup includes a 3840x2160 monitor vertical and a 1920x1080 monitor horizonal to the right. Have them set to both be horizontal currently until I get the scaling right. Thanks in advance.

xrandr output

[hjohnson@hjohnson ~]$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 5760 x 2160, maximum 16384 x 16384
DVI-I-0 disconnected primary (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-I-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-0 connected 3840x2160+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 600mm x 340mm
   3840x2160     60.00*+  30.00
   1920x1080     60.00    59.94
   1600x900      60.00
   1280x1024     60.02
   1280x800      59.81
   1280x720      60.00    59.94
   1152x864      59.96
   1024x768      60.00
   800x600       60.32
   720x480       59.94
   640x480       59.94    59.93
DP-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-D-0 connected 1920x1080+3840+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 531mm x 299mm
   1920x1080     60.00*+ 144.00   119.98    99.93    84.90
   1680x1050     59.95
   1440x900      59.89
   1280x1024     75.02    60.02
   1280x960      60.00
   1280x800      59.81
   1280x720      60.00
   1152x864      75.00
   1024x768      75.03    70.07    60.00
   800x600       75.00    72.19    60.32    56.25
   640x480       75.00    59.94

Things that are working

Set the xft.dpi to that of the 4k monitor 163

xrandr --output DVI-D-0 --scale 1.5x1.5

xrandr --output DP-0 --rotate left --left-of DVI-D-0

Issue being that the fonts don't look very crisp seems blurry..

Scaling issue has been fixed only thing that remains is scale does not set at boot

first xrandr command executes but the second which pertains to scaling does not. Have to enter the scale manually each time.

#!/bin/sh

userresources=$HOME/.Xresources
usermodmap=$HOME/.Xmodmap
sysresources=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xresources
sysmodmap=/etc/X11/xinit/.Xmodmap

# merge in defaults and keymaps

if [ -f $sysresources ]; then

    xrdb -merge $sysresources

fi

if [ -f $sysmodmap ]; then
    xmodmap $sysmodmap
fi

if [ -f "$userresources" ]; then

    xrdb -merge "$userresources"

fi

if [ -f "$usermodmap" ]; then
    xmodmap "$usermodmap"
fi

# start some nice programs

if [ -d /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d ] ; then
 for f in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/?*.sh ; do
  [ -x "$f" ] && . "$f"
 done
 unset f
fi

xrandr --output DP-0 --rotate left --left-of DVI-D-0 &
xrandr --output DVI-D-0 --scale 1.5x1.5&
feh --bg-scale /home/hjohnson/Downloads/patrick-tomasso-399557-unsplash.jpg &
exec i3

Last edited by hjohnson02 (2018-08-26 00:18:10)

seth · 2018-08-26 05:55:51

Do not fork the xrandr calls (regardless of other issues and in geneal, not even the second one)

Oh, and welcome to the forum

hjohnson02 · 2018-08-26 16:05:57

seth wrote:

Do not fork the xrandr calls (regardless of other issues and in geneal, not even the second one)

Oh, and welcome to the forum

So what are you recommending that I do? Just use one monitor or use both and not scale the lowdpi one? Thanks for the response

progandy · 2018-08-26 16:14:58

Run the commands without forking (without appending & )

seth · 2018-08-26 16:17:41

I recommend to not fork the xrandr commands (it's by 99% chance what voids the second xrandr call in your xinitrc)
About dealign w/ a HiDPI/FullHD hybrid: X11 (unlike wayland) does not support DPI per output, so you *have* to align the physical DPI or deal w/ the size differences.
For this it's a matter of preference: you can either drive the HiDPI output at FullHD or scale up the FullHD output. Neither is a perfect solution, so you'll just have to make a choice.
(The reason is that X11 is old - older than linux. 32 *years* old)

hjohnson02 · 2018-08-26 18:15:01

progandy wrote:

Run the commands without forking (without appending & )

Oh okay thanks I wasn’t familiar with that term.

Arch Linux

#1 2018-08-25 16:33:20