HiDPI 100-200% Restrictions

At the moment we are restricted to either 100% or 200% if we use HiDPI. In my case 100% is almost unreadable as it is too small and 200% is enormous and therefor takes up too much real estate. In a word HiDPI is unusable.

Now if you want HiDPI and want to use anything in between 100% and 200% the only current option is to switch to another DAW. All the main competition appear to run HiDPI and allow you to scale without any issues. Namely Live, Bitwig, Reaper, Studio One 4 etc.

Question does anyone know if this issue is up for being resolved and if so any ideas as to when? I ask because if it is in the near future I will stick with Cubase if not I am sadly going to have to make a move as I am having vision problems.

Put another way my monitor is scaled to 150% which is perfect for me. Cubase with HiDPI selected gives me 200%. If I do not select HiDPI Cubase goes to 150% but it is as blurry as hell. Going by the response it looks like no one else is affected. Ah well.

It’s not just you. On my laptop (which is 1080p, and 125% looks good for everything else) I can choose between Cubase looking appropriately sized and everything is slightly blurry, or crisp graphics and things are smaller than they should be. For now, I’m choosing ‘small and crisp’ because I can’t deal with the blurry thing for long sessions. I have 20/20 vision, and I can appreciate how anyone else could find this annoying because it bothers me as well. Everything I’ve researched through Steinberg or on forums say basically that “this is the way it is.” Pro Tools also lagging behind in its support for hidpi on Windows.

They do say there is an update arriving soon so lets hope it gets resolved then.

Please try the following:

CHANGE DPI SCALING LEVEL FOR DISPLAYS REGISTRY SETTING

Open Registry Editor by pressing Windows + R key combination, type in regedit and press Enter.
If prompted by UAC, press Yes to continue.
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
In right-side pane, look for a Win8DpiScaling and set the value to 1 and close Registry Editor.
Restart your computer.

When I received my current laptop, even some OS windows were blurry (Device Manager, Task Manager etc). I have used this fix and it worked. I am trialling Cubase 10 with 2 x 1080P monitors (15" internal and 23" external) and Cubase looks good on both in High Dpi mode.

Sorry I never replied earlier your suggestion did not work for me I am afraid. My monitor is 27" HD Resolution 2560 x 1440 and is perfect at 150% so I am stuck with 100% Too small 200% Too big and HiDPI turned off blurry as hell. Bottom line not fixed on latest update and I am being forced into using another DAW which I might add is growing on me by the minute. Not that losing a long term customer ever mattered to Yamaha but if is not fixed on the next update I will sell my Cubase 10 Pro.

Could it be that your eyesight is outside the range that the whole hidpi thing is made for? I have to wear glasses to use computers and to do a lot of other things too.

I run a 30" 2560x1440 screen- it’s a tiny bit larger than yours and at 100% things look normal-sized.

I use 2 4k monitors and it seems to work well for me. At 4k it basically makes Cubase the same size that it was when I was running 1080p monitors. I can only guess that the 1440p isn’t optimal as video formats have pretty much gone from 1080p to 4k, even though gaming has made use of different resolutions. I know this isn’t a good answer for those having problems, but if you are considering upgrading your monitor to 4k, Cubase looks great with the HiDpi settings.

Must be the the 3" Steve as believe me at 100% I need a magnifying glass. Please accept that when using S1, Reaper and Live with HiDPI at 150% it is perfect. So with all due respect suggestions of changing monitors or getting my eyesight sorted whilst being valid comments are not really the issue. I believe it is Steinberg who should get it sorted, don’t you think?

Clearly 4K is one step on from HD I do not dispute that, what I do dispute is the fact that Studio One, Live and Reaper manage to run with HiDPI perfectly at 150% and Cubase doesn’t using my HD Monitor. I am happy for those where 100% and 200% scaling is perfect for them. I only ask that Steinberg gives a thought for those who require 125%, 150% or indeed 175% scaling. The only realistic option for me is to switch DAW’s which after so many years with Cubase is not the option I would have wished for.

I run two 27" monitors 25601440 at 100%
Looks great and sharp, same size as 19" 1920
1080 at 100%
Key is don’t scale, get a bigger screen if your eyes can not keep up.
Neither OSX or Windows are fully HiDPI, and it will take years before app developers will feel the need to invest time and money to do the work necessary.
Cubase is of to a good start, but there still is a long way to go.

27" Screen is more than big enough thank you and I have just had some new glasses so my eye sight I am informed is just fine. Not sure what all this defence of Cubase is about when clearly they are adrift from the competition. Suggestions of new and bigger screens as your eyes are clearly crapped out. What about cornea grafts or laser surgery? OK you win I finally hang up the white flag Cubase is up with the best at 100% and 200% anything in between is pure overkill.

Lastly how about and this is only a respectful suggestion asking Steinberg to catch up with the rest and get it sorted?

It’s just the immediate solution, get a bigger monitor. If you are going to wait for Cubase and plugins to scale the way you want, it could be a long wait.
Windows 10 is slowly catching up to OS X, there are still years before full scaleable programs are going to be the norm.
Why not spare yourself the aggravation and change your setup to something that is nice to work on.
A 50” or bigger 4K TV at 200% might be the ticket if you got room for it, just as a practical example.
Learning a new DAW, would personally be my last resort.
I do hope the scaling problems on Windows systems will get fixed sooner than later!!!

Thanks peakae I honestly appreciate all the input and suggestions. I am going to mark this Resolved as I have now switched to another DAW which happily uses HiDPI at 150% and gives me a perfectly clear GUI. Not the solution I had hoped for or wanted but due the circumstances I see no other realistic option at the moment. Thanks again and all the best.

The same problem here… I am so frustrated with this :frowning:(( still no update on this. And I bought few months back another license for cubase 9,5, 10, than Nuendo… in hope, there will be funtional update on this soon. Nope. It is still there… I loved cubase for so long time. But in todays conditions - not having full suport for 4K screens, and overscalled plugins (like all other companies do) this is so amateurish.
:frowning:((((((

The 200 % scaling with a 50" monitor is not a solution. It makes everything look ridiculously large. The 200 % setting might be useful only with some 4k laptop. I am still waiting for the next update that will fix the scaling issue, preferably with 125 % or 150 % setting. My Cubase 10 license is still sitting unused, until this issue is fixed. It is a shame that I cannot even investigate the general features of the DAW, because it is unusable at the moment.

That’s why you don’t have the problem: You’re running 27" WQHD monitors, so that gives you 108.8 PPI on 100% scaling. That’s perfectly OK indeed.

However, to arrive in the same ballpark on a 34" UHD (4K) screen, you need 125% upscaling, which gives you around 104 PPI. A 28" UHD screen would need 150% to arrive at 104.9 PPI. Only from screen sizes 42" upwards, you can actually use 100% scaling in UHD (104.9 PPI again), but that’s not really a desktop monitor anymore.

These years have actually passed already, and some developers have invested the time and money, and others didn’t.

Bitwig, for example, scales perfectly on all 25% increments. Studio One is a bit less flexible in that it only scales to the same factor as the OS, but in practice, that gives you the same options.

I’m with the posters above; I’ll stick to Studio One until this is fixed. And if Studio One gets an articulation manager before Cubase gets a scalable GUI, I might stay there …

I totally agree, but I chose the screens exactly for that reason.
Cubase is old, with a ton of legacy code that needs to be rewritten and still play nice with other untouched parts of the program. I just don’t expect full scalability before C10.5 or C11.
And yes I want it, I want it all :slight_smile:

Bitwig is the current one-to-beat for HiDPI on windows (as previously mentioned). Seemless scaling of the UI, and also the best handling of VSTs that don’t support native scaling (Studio one is a close second).

Cubase has a way to go yet, but each improvement has been on the right path.