I know there are problems that Cubase can only scale to integer numbers on Windows. I can understand the difficulty of that problem, because the interface is not vector based.
I am having a different problem though. The scaling looks fine on my particular screen, however, when I open a plugin which does not support a high resolution like Kontakt 6 everything is way too small no matter how good your eyesight is. I know that in Ableton there is an option to leave non scalable plugins at their unscaled resolution, making everything a bit blurry but at least readable.
I really hope there is a solution like this in Cubase. I mean Kontakt is such a common sample based engine, there must be other people with the exact same problem.
There’s not. Your choice is tiny plugins or a lower resolution (or a larger screen i guess?). As you say - it’s not technically the fault of the Steinberg, plug-in developers REALLY need to pull their finger out and sort it - the N.I stuff is a great example. Komplete 12 dropped recently and they still haven’t updated any of the heavily used plug-ins (Kontakt/Komplete Kontrol/Reaktor etc) for Hidpi scaling.
That being said, Ableton has a solution as you said, so does S1 (although I have found it glitchy), and apparently Bitwig has an even more solid solution of everything basically being resizable, any of these solutions in Cubase would be nice.
Regarding the scaling issue in Windows (I assume you mean that you can scale the whole program to either 100 or 200% and nowhere in between in Hidpi), you seem to have a deeper understanding of this than me so I’m hoping you can clear up a query…
If Cubase is not vector based, and I’m assuming it would be a huge overhaul to MAKE it vector based (at which point half the users would complain about the changes anyway, so probably a pointless endeavour), does this basically mean all of us Windows users at the mercy of Microsoft to decide whether to implement a better scaling solution for non-vector based software? I also use Reaper and S1, and I believe neither of those is vector based (reaper def isn’t), but they scale accurately with Windows in 4k - so I’m hoping you can shed some light on this for me.
Unfortunately it kind of is the fault of Steinberg. They should simply add an option to disable HiDPI scaling for individual plugins and that would already solve this particular issue. As the plugins are opened in separate windows this should be pretty easy to be implemented. This is exactly the way Ableton handles it. You are right that another solution would be the plugin developer updating their interface, but I am almost absolutely certain that this is never going to happen for the Kontakt Player in particular as all the individual instrument’s interfaces would have to be updated as well, which would mean lots of work for old products. On top of that there will always be plugins remaining which do not support high resolution so it really is mind-boggling Steinberg have not yet thought of this obvious arising issue when introducing HiDPI “support”. The only permanent solution is allowing plugins to remain unscaled. There should simply be an option in the top right menu of the plugin window.
That being said, Ableton has a solution as you said, so does S1 (although I have found it glitchy), and apparently Bitwig has an even more solid solution of everything basically being resizable, any of these solutions in Cubase would be nice.
Yes, the vast majority of other DAWs has implemented this correctly by now. I believe it really depends on what kind of GUI library/software they use in order to design their GUI. If it weren’t for Expression Maps I would be using another DAW, but so far I couldn’t find anything which compares to this specific feature. As of now I have simply deactivated HiDPI mode in the Preferences, so everything looks quite blurry but it is still readable. Nonetheless it is a shame since I solely had to deactivated it because of Kontakt and nothing else. I wonder what other people do.
Regarding the scaling issue in Windows (I assume you mean that you can scale the whole program to either 100 or 200% and nowhere in between in Hidpi), you seem to have a deeper understanding of this than me so I’m hoping you can clear up a query…
If Cubase is not vector based, and I’m assuming it would be a huge overhaul to MAKE it vector based (at which point half the users would complain about the changes anyway, so probably a pointless endeavour), does this basically mean all of us Windows users at the mercy of Microsoft to decide whether to implement a better scaling solution for non-vector based software? I also use Reaper and S1, and I believe neither of those is vector based (reaper def isn’t), but they scale accurately with Windows in 4k - so I’m hoping you can shed some light on this for me.
I am not an expert either, however, a program does not necessarily have to be vector based to scale to non-integer numbers. They would simply have to create more pre-scaled versions of their interface at 1.5x, 2.5x or even 1.25x etc. so the scaling would simply jump to the closest pre-scaled GUI, or better yet they would give you the option to choose out of the pre-scaled GUIs the one which suits you best no matter what your system wide scaling is set to. A vector based interface on the other hand does guarantee scaling seamlessly without any increments whatsoever. I believe the GUI of Cubase is still based on old code when developers weren’t aware of this becoming a problem one day. The GUI of Ableton is seamlessly scalable, so I assume it must be vector based.
On macOS scaling is handled differently in the first place with help of some sort of algorithm which causes generally fewer problems, even though different problems arise concerning pixel-by-pixel resolutions when working with graphics in photo editing software (which surprisingly is scaled correctly in Windows). I don’t think Windows is going to change the way HiDPI works, so we are actually at the mercy of Steinberg to get this sorted.
Thanks for your reply Doricardo! Yes the option you mentioned would result in blurry GUI’s, but they’d be the right size right? That would be preferable at this point. Such a shame Steinberg feel that updating padshop, or a new delay plugin, is more important than these critical UI issues.
This will probably get removed by a mod - but search Reaper - Reaticulate. I’ve been a professional Cubase user for 10-15 years, but I’ve grown tired of waiting for certain basic things to get implemented and bugs being ignored. 10.5 was the nail in the coffin for me, and I’ve moved over now. I’ll keep an eye on Cubase and maybe 11 will bring the changes and bug fixes I’m looking for.