So I’ve gone through all the threads on the issues with scaling for high-DSP monitors, and I’m aware that many or most of these issues stem from limitations with the Qt framework (and until that’s sorted, there’s little remedy for these things), but I’m wondering if anyone’s run into this specific issue:
When I open the VST window for Noteperformer on a 4K monitor (with Windows scaling set to 150%), the contents of the window have scaled, but the window has not, and since the window isn’t adjustable, it looks like the attached pic. Here’s the curious part. While the graphics have scaled, all the actual underlying interactable buttons and sliders are in the same place, and can be controlled by clicking where they should be. It’s obviously not really feasible to work with it this way. Here’s the kicker though. I know that changing the scaling to 100% makes it temporarily workable (I say temporarily because the rest of Dorico is then a little too small to be comfortable), but sometimes, even at 150% scaling, it will automatically fix itself (completely normal, everything looks and works the way it should). I cannot figure out for the life of me what it is that causes this to happen, but I’d really like to know.
I know that in Halion, fixing some window size issues is possible by pressing ‘e’, and so I’ve tried that and literally everything else I can think of (all manner of maximizing and minimizing, switching back and forth between scaling percentages, and the like), but I’m still unable to put my finger on what it is that is causing it to spontaneously fix itself. None of those specific methods seem to be it. It really just happens sometimes. I’ll be working, and I’ll switch back to the VST window, and it has normalized itself in my absence.
Has anyone else run into this, and, if so, have you happened to stumble upon how to reliably correct it?
Edit: And of course, by high-DSP, I mean high-DPI. Doh
Curious. Well, I did think to report it directly to Arne (and now have), but I just wanted to see if anyone else had the same experience and if they knew a fix. I’ll report back with anything that comes up.
If I playback the file for about 10 seconds or so, I can usually (but not always) get the scaling to correct itself by clicking the little pulldown arrow in the upper right and selecting “Switch to Generic Editor.” Then on the smaller generic editor, I click the same pulldown and select “Switch to Plug-in Editor.” This seems to need to be done during playback. It also seems to help if the specific vst window that is open is one that is currently being used for playback (e.g. I try this with the vst window that houses the strings while the strings are playing). If it doesn’t work the first time, I just repeat switching between the generic and the plug-in editor, usually 2 or 3 times, but sometimes as many as 10 or so. After that, it’s pretty reliably corrected itself.
I don’t know if this info is helpful at all to either the team or Arne or perhaps some other user, but on the offchance it cues anyone into the underlying issue or helps someone else sort it out for themselves, there it is
Ok, a better discovery thanks to Arne’s response. He suspected it had something to do with using multiple monitors with different DPI settings. I’m not doing so currently, but I have in the past, and I wonder if there’s some residual settings somewhere that are causing an issue.
In any case, what reliably works for me to fix it in a matter of seconds (as opposed to above, which could sometimes take up to even a minute) is to drag the vst window to the edge of the screen as if trying to drag it to another monitor. It can require a little bit of wiggling of the window around one or more edges to get it to respond, but after a second or two, it’s fixed.
For anyone else that’s having the same issue, hope this helps.
Hi DPI has gone through a bit of evolution in Windows versions. Windows 8 only supported a single scaling which would be applied to all monitors. Windows 10 introduced support for different scale factors for different monitors.
Applications therefore identify their level of compatibility - system-wide or per-monitor scaling. Lots of apps only support system-wide scaling, and this is only applied if the system monitor (main one) is scaled. The OS then handles changes in scaling when you drag the app from one monitor to another with different scaling.
Apps that support per-monitor scaling are notified when the scaling of the screen they are on changes or when the window moves to another screen, then they have to redraw themselves with the new scaling.
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