Question about extended monitor scaling in 8.1

[mitchellvii]

One of the obvious problems when using a Full HD or Quad HD monitor on a tablet device like the Surface Pro is the whole magnification business, especially when it comes to extended monitors.

For instance, as far as I can tell, if I set my Surface Pro to 150 zoom so that I can read text, it also sets my external 22" 1080p monitor to 150 zoom which makes things on that size screen awkwardly large. This will become even more pronounced when we get into the qHD screens and we have to set zoom to 200 to be able to read text.

The ideal solution would be to be able to set zoom for each monitor separately, such as 150 for the SP and 100 for the extended monitor. I got the impression Microsoft was going there but as far as I can tell this is still not possible. They added some sort of slider which seems to zoom text but does the same on all monitors. This seems to have simply replaced a zoom number with a slider which I don't see does me any good.

Am I missing something? Anyway, is MS ever going to allow us to set zoom on extended monitors individually? Is this already possible and I just don't get it? Microsoft has a tendency to add new features then do nothing to explain how they work.

 

[Crimson Idol 8]

This article may be of use to you.

Windows 8.1 and high-PPI displays: Better, but still lacking | Ars Technica

 

[mitchellvii]

This article may be of use to you.

Windows 8.1 and high-PPI displays: Better, but still lacking | Ars Technica

Yeah thanks have seen that but it seems like Microsoft sought to solve the wrong problem. They tried to make everything look the same on both monitors while I want things to look different. The SP at 150 and the extended monitor at 100, or in case I get a qHD tablet eventually, the tablet at 200 and the extended monitor at 100.

I've noticed that setting the slider option at "smaller" tends to match 125 on my SP and a bit closer to 100 on my extended monitor, but it renders fonts quite fuzzy on the big monitor.

I guess I just don't see why MS cannot enable independent zoom on each monitor and let us configure it as we like instead of all this dumb dpi matching. How hard can it be?

 

[demandarin]

I thought one of the new features of 8.1 was that they allowed different scaling for multiple monitors. I read that somewhere.

 

[CrippsCorner]

Yes I'm pretty sure I read that too. I have no experience with it though as I use my Surface exclusively with Modern UI.

 

[jnjroach]

It does, you click on the monitor in the Screen Resolution CP and click the hyperlink to make things larger or smaller. I'm running equiv 150 on SP2 Main and equiv to 125 on my 24" External Monitor

 

[dgg4]

It does, you click on the monitor in the Screen Resolution CP and click the hyperlink to make things larger or smaller. I'm running equiv 150 on SP2 Main and equiv to 125 on my 24" External Monitor

I'd really love to get my setup to do that! Mine works as described in the Ars Technica article mentioned above. That is, regardless of which monitor I select in the CP Screen Resolution panel, clicking on "Make text and other items larger or smaller" and unchecking "Let me choose one scaling level for all my displays" doesn't apparently make my two displays scale independently. The two displays scale together. I can make them both small or large, but not different.

I'm assuming this is because of what the Ars Technical article said about Win8.1 deciding for itself how to scale the two displays if you uncheck the "Let me choose one scaling level for all my displays" -- and both displays are 1920x1080. But, if I could manually control them, I'd set the SP2 to 150% and the 27" to 100% scaling. Having played with them, that looks the best.

But I don't seem to have the ability to force them to different scalings. I uncheck the "Let me choose one scaling level for all my displays" and it does what it wants.

 

[Triguna]

Hi,
I have the same problem as dgg4 described above. No chance to scale my two displays independently. Did anyone find some work-around to this since the last posting? In our company this is a really critical issues whether or not to go with SP2s.

 

[daniielrp]

It does, you click on the monitor in the Screen Resolution CP and click the hyperlink to make things larger or smaller. I'm running equiv 150 on SP2 Main and equiv to 125 on my 24" External Monitor

Can you confirm the connection type you're using? Displayport to hdmi etc. ?

I know some monitors can give information to windows to tailor specific settings, where some do not and just appear as generic monitors, so wondering if this might be why it works for you but not for others.

Going to test it on my set up when I get home from work and report back

 

[MickeyLittle]

I know that the people at Plugable Technologies would love to find a working solution for this as well. I picked up the Plugable UD-3900 Docking Station a few days ago and I have the same problem. So I emailed them and this is the response.

Gary (Plugable Support)
Jan 23 15:39
Hi Mickey,
It looks like what we're encountering here is the result of new "DPI-scaling" implemented by Microsoft in Windows 8.1, which attempts to get things sized correctly based on both the resolution, size, and pixel density of a given display. Doing some further research shows plenty of 8.1 users with tablets (specifically, high-resolution, high DPI tablets such as your Surface Pro) and external monitors are experiencing the same behavior.
From the research I've done, it seems to essentially boil down to 8.1 not allowing independent settings for each display (even though the menus give the impression that this is possible). This is supposed to work, but for the time being it just doesn't, unfortunately.
Not sure if or when Microsoft will resolve this issue, but as it's ultimately a Windows issue, they are the only ones capable of resolving it.
Sorry for the bad news - wish I had a better solution to offer. If the docking station won't fit your needs due to the above, or for any other reason, of course a return is always an option!
Thanks,
Gary


Seems like a great company to me and I'm using it this weekend to see if I can live with this setup under these circumstances or not.

 

[Triguna]

Thanks a lot Daniiel and Gary!
This is really kind of bad news. Not sure if we will wait for MS to resolve or look for alternatives. Working with blurred displays is at least no option.

 

[Kimparker]

Well I was thinking of that I mean why MS cannot allow separate zoom capability on each one observed and let us set it up as we like instead of all this foolish dpi related. Is it really so difficult. custom web design company