Cubase 10.5 HiDPI on Windows 10

Cubase
#1

Dear Community - dear Cubase.

My eyes hurt. Its 2020, SpaceX is soon heading towards MARS, and we, the musicians, composers, producers, are stuck with “ultra low graphic-quality-userinterfaces” on ultra high definition monitors - realy?? :smiley:

My question:
Does anyone know, when Cubase Pro will finally be fully usable with HiDPI on Windows? By fully usuable, I imagine something like 150% scalling, nice scalled Pluginsizes, Waveforms that are sharp, etc…? As we all know, there are thoose issues with either cubase beeing to big or to small on 4k, cause of their limited scaling-modes (100% and 200%). And yes, there is a workaround (dsr-factors). But: NVidia dissabled that feature on most of their newer grafficard-driver and/or randomly show or not show that option in their drivers.

Any informations or insights?

#2

I know what you’re asking, but my insight is: why on earth would anybody want a ultra high res display for music production? Many studios in fact use relatively low PPI television monitors for displays.

#3

I hate to be that guy but This has been covered extensively in the other threads about it…
No one knows when,
they are aware and
Yes, you can only currently choose certain levels of Magnification/Zoom (Win) within Cubase.

I’ve been on my 4k for almost 7 years now and the amount of real estate on 4k vs 1080 is well worth the current issues. iow, I will never go back to a1080 workspace. If there are “many studios” it’s because they can’t not that they won’t.

#4

Sure, I like lots of real estate too. But the problem is the PPI, not the number of pixels. If your PPI is so high that you need scaling, then maybe you should be using a bigger monitor with that same number of pixels. In other words, the pain that HiDPI has inflicted on musicians is because they are using a high PPI that is suitable for photography and video, but unsuitable for music production.

#5

… all these discussions? Just rubbish. I am so tired of this Steinberg’s problem ignoring

The HiDPI programming???
150% scaling? Or 125% and 175% etc? Matter of hours, not more!! I have 4K displays maybe for about 4 years. I have maybe 10 licenses of Cubase, Nuendo, Wavelab, etc. Bought every new upgrade in hope, they will finally add full HiDPI support on 150% DPI (even they still claim - yes, bigger support for HiDPI). And my beloved software still not fully support that. This is just crazy!

And what more? What about the old plugins with non Hi-dpi interface? Programming - 2 hours, not more!!! Because you can put these old plugins on a frame and stretch them. Will they be blurry then? OH b-ull-s-hit!!! Because on the 2x bigger dpi-scale is the result absolutely the SAME as on lower resolution with nonHiDPI scaling. There is totally no difference. In reverse, on higher DPI will it be slightly crispier. Nobody will complain about its overscaled design!!! Because it will be just bigger. Like you stretch your fullHD video on 4K fullscreen size. They can just add an button next to “take snapshot of the plugin” with double, tripple scaling of any plugin. 2 hours of cubase/nuendo programming, problem? Solved for another 10years.

sad, sad, sad, sad. How many sad HiDPI posts I read here?? Maybe hundreds of them.

I can be something like this … see the attachement

CUBASE ZOOM.jpg
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#6

Will AI will be composing and mastering our music by time we get working HiDPI Windows support?

I don’t even KNOW where to find a 1080P monitor anymore lol, I am working in 8k video later this year and I am banging my head everyday that 4K is still not working in Cubase/Nuendo with my Native Instruments, Waves and hundreds of other plugins. I also have a Macbook, and ofc this isn’t an issue so I do not think Steinberg realizes how much of a pain it is for us Windows users.

I am a high end developer, and I work with video/audio/gaming/VR/AR and 4k is a REQUIREMENT for studios doing the same. Look at Steinbergs ads, all showing video scoring and multiple monitors on high end setups.

Devs, creators and pros need the color accuracy, calibration, brightness and HDR that only modern 4K+ monitors have. And they NEED Windows as only Windows can run VR, games and use NVIDIA GPUS for 3D rendering.

This problem seriously would take 2-3 hours of programming maximum. Just add the option to scale the plugin 100, 120, 150,200 and check that dragging across different monitors with different resolutions resets the window. Other DAWs have done this forever… Bitwig has a scaling option in addition to the default way that Ableton handles it nicely.

HELP US STEINBERG, DON’T FORCE US TO SELL OUR CARS TO BUY CHEESE GRATERS - I MEAN, MAC PROS!!!

#7

Has anybody submitted an official support ticket to Steinberg about this issue and got a reply?

#8

That would be just amazing. Thanks to all for your reply. I hope steinberg will see this post and hey, why dont we hand in official support tickets - Im going to do that.

#9

I can’t wrap my head around why anybody would defend Steinberg in this situation. HiDPI was a selling point in Cubase Pro 10; that and ARA was my reason to upgrade. And here in 10.5 - 18 month (give or take) later, it still doesn’t work reliably for production work. Same could be said for ARA; plenty of obvious bugs.

Steinberg has got to get their **** together, and stop selling these half baked features that never fully materializes. If you bought Cubase 10.0 to work in HiDPI on your 4k display laptop, you got suckered - plain and simple. The last update for that branch has been announced, so you’re straight out of luck! Simple 2:1 scaling for plugins would actually make it usable. As for the 100% / 200% only caveat: that was announced upon release … so … i guess thats more of a feature request. But seriously - you can’t sell something and never deliver; that’s illegal!

If HiDPI is useful or not shouldn’t really be part of the discussion IMHO. And - might i add - If this problem is unfixable in 18 month, something is either seriously wrong with the code - or much more likely - not a priority @ Steinberg.

#10

Yes I have a couple of months ago and my complain was that Native Instruments Kontakt 6 scaled ugly small on my 4K monitor with Cubase HiDPI.
The answer from Steinberg was that the problem was caused by Native Instruments Kontakt and I should contact them to solve the problem.
I did contact Native Instruments but NEVER got an answer from them!

I understand FishCorp’s frustration, because now I’m also forced to work without HiDPI in Cubase 10.5.12 with blurred fonts.
Now, that is a customer friendly option, isn’t it?

#11

I was talking about PPI, not the pixel count. I’m just curious why people want to use scaling. I use a 4k monitor in my studio, but it would never occur to me to buy one that will require scaling before I can use it for music production. I’m not defending Steinberg. This obviously must be fixed (the same can be said for sampler track, mixer snapshots, ara support, audio alignment, etc.). I’m just curious about this problem. Are people using 4k laptops?

#12

Personally i just find high PPI content easier to read. Currently i’m running 2 x 24" 1920 x 1200 displays at the studio. I imagine you have a large 4k display, if you’re comfortable with 1:1 scaling. My laptop, however, has a 15" 4K screen, and Cubase (the parts that are actually HiDPI) looks amazing!

The only showstopping thing preventing me for grabbing new 4k displays for the studio is the inability of Cubase to scale up HiDPI-unaware plugins. Ableton Live does this, same goes for Studio One. I’m not asking for magic - just a simple checkbox in the plugin-manager (like Ableton btw) that scales up plugins 2:1.

Lots of plugins are built on the JUCE framework, which finally seems to have HiDPI on Windows under control. However - Native Instruments seems stuck, in regards to their back catalog of plugins, and so does a lot of other smaller plugins developers. UAD also comes to mind … (at least on Win; not sure about OSX).

I bet the real issue stems from Steinberg using Qt as the interface-framework, which pretty much puts it out of their control, unless they fork the code. Ableton as well as Studio One seems to have a custom windowing system already!

In any case - making HiDPI a selling point of a product, then not delivering a usable implementation (when everybody else is able to do so), is just not … well … not ok!

#13

Agreed - all Steinberg needs to do is 2:1 scaling for HiDPI-unaware plugins like Ableton and this issue is solved. And check that if you drag the plugin from 1080p to 4k it resizes as it should.

There are just too many plugins that will never be scaled, and musicians should be able to use legacy plugins just like we do vintage equipment. Native, Waves, Arturia, Korg, etc…

We should all submit official support tickets for a HiDPI Windows fix - maybe we all write the same text about the HiDPI bug and they will pay attention by the multiple requests. Like a HiDPI petition.

If it is a selling point of a product, it must function properly. Any modern DAW needs proper HiDPI for the variety of monitors out there.

STEINBERG INVENTED THE VST, so their DAWs should support their own amazing invention better than other DAWs.

Even MusicRadar.com’s review said HiDPI is buggy at the very top of their NUENDO review! Steinberg MUST know this is a huge issue?!

https://www.musicradar.com/reviews/steinberg-nuendo-10

MUSIC RADAR NUENDO REVIEW

OUR VERDICT
Nuendo offers lots of power to those working with picture, game audio and VR, all the while keeping Cubase users happy

PROS
ARA 2 support
Video cut detection
Video rendering

CONS
Audio alignment features need further tweaking
Price
HiDPI support is still limited on Windows

#14

My problem is with vst plugin guis when using windows scaling. For example, nexus gui is unusable at 125% in Cubase but looks absolutely fine in reaper…

I do get the impression from reading around that Steinberg are completely aware of the situation and are working on it…

#15

Well Cubase got an update and no HiDPI fix was mentioned, I am using Nuendo, did anybody install the new update and check if they SILENTLY fixed this?

I seriously doubt it if it wasn’t in the release notes… but it is worth a try???

#16

I tried the Cubase update to see if they silently fixed it by some miracle, but of course HiDPI is still tragically flawed on Cubase/Nuendo on Windows still.

Looks like I need to use Ableton for my plugins to work until this is finally resolved…

#17

It is a pain to see how incredibly long Steinberg leaves this halfbaked Cubase UI unfixed!
This behavior really alienates customers.

#18

I find myself quite happy using my 4k display in native resolution along Cubase 10.5.

If you are using Windows 10, I would suggest to try out if this fixes your problem. I have no scaling issues with any plugins, had them before just as you described.

Cubase 10 looks actually really nice on a 4k Display and it scales nicely, it seems that Windows can cause these scaling issues.

#19

But if you do that then you can’t use windows scaling…

#20

Exactly. Because Windows 10 scaling is broken.