Poll: Anyone using Dorico on display higher than 2160?

I’ve been hearing about a new line of Apple monitors that may be coming out this year. And Dell makes an 8k monitor, if you’re willing to part with a kidney!

They all seem a bit too pricey for me, but I’m just curious if anyone is using Dorico on a monitor with a higher vertical resolution than 2160 (standard 4K).

Just for fun… anyone running Dorico in 8k?? Step forward, mortal, and claim your reward! :sunglasses:

  • 1080
  • 1200
  • 1440
  • 2160 (4K)
  • Higher than 4K

0 voters

I’m still traumatized by my switch to 4K several years ago on my desktop. No thank you :rofl:

Why’s that?

I have my eye on this:

It looks perfect for a score in vertical orientation but with plenty of room for the panels.

In a word, scaling. So, the size of the monitor I got (28") means that a 1.5 scale is warranted to make things legible; 1x is too small, and 2x is cartoonishly large. If you have multiple monitors at different scales though, sometimes certain windows get confused and that’s especially bad if those windows aren’t resizable (this was a problem I had with Noteperformer for a good long while; not all the content was visible). There were some other issues that I ran into on Windows, but sadly I’m drawing a blank. They were mostly annoyances similar to that though. Maybe some things with gaming? Running games at 1080p to be able to use high graphics settings really didn’t look great, and my previous 1080p monitor, though only a few inches smaller, looked fine in the same situation. I seem to remember some annoyance with youtube videos too? Can’t remember… :confused:

Additionally certain OSes don’t support fractional scaling very well yet… which is a problem because I couldn’t resist being a hipster and switching to Linux. Just couldn’t stand Windows for a number of reasons and Mac is nice but still has a few of the same problems as Windows AND it’s wayyyy out of my price range. So, even if all my Windows issues were or are now sorted out, I’ve gone ahead and adopted a whole new set of issues :stuck_out_tongue:

So, yeah, the short of it is that 100% of my life is compatible with 1080p, while some percentage less than that is compatible with 4K.

I find a 4K 43" monitor useful to show tabloid pages at actual size. While 8K might make this sharper, I don’t see it as necessary. 4K works fine for me; increased resolution would not let my eyes see smaller images comfortably.

Love it. I want one for Christmas. Oh, wait, that’s already gone, right?

This MacBook Pro (a loaner from another job) is 2880 × 1800 at 220ppi. I can read 2 whole pages of large orchestra clearly (with glasses).

This is why I find 1440p the best compromise. It’s basically your 1.5x scaling, but native.

1 Like

Funny story, I’ve actually been running my 4K monitor at 1440p to avoid the fractional scaling issue. I’m finding it to indeed be a nice compromise, at least for now. Only drawbacks in my case are specific to running at a non-native resolution, those being a little bit of blurriness and some coil whine from my graphics card. But as far as screen real estate goes, especially in terms of Dorico, 28" of 1440p is real nice. I probably wouldn’t be interested in 4K until at least the mid-30s.

Yeah, I’m running a 27".

I have LG Ultrafine 5k 27” - after I got used to the imacs in my school I just could not go back to lower resolution…

1 Like

TBH, “size isn’t everything”.

Pixel density is much more important for a clear display. A 32" 4K will have a pixel density of around 150ppi; a 27" will be 163ppi.

Apple ‘Retina’ displays are c. 218 ppi. Some of the new laptops are even higher, c 250 ppi.

Of course, the smaller the pixels, the greater the need for appropriate scaling. MacOS doesn’t actually look very good on low-density displays anymore. My 27" 2K Thunderbolt Display (at only 109ppi) makes some of the text in Dorico’s panels look a bit crappy.

Also, make sure your computer can drive that size at a decent refresh rate. 30 Hz is too low, and can make your eyes tired.

3 Likes

This is it. I had a 32-inch 4K, but the pixel density was not great. I downsized to a 27” and am much happier. And with a monitor arm, it’s easy to move it closer.

1 Like

I guess the Pro display XDR would be the ideal monitor at the moment. I’m just a bit worried if the 6k resolution would affect the performance of Dorico. It also seems to be a bit problematic with viewing angles. And it is of course very, very expensive… But perhaps these issues will be addressed in the next version - I would love to have that kind of screen estate without compromising resolution.

Eizo has had the square 1920x1920 FlexScan EV2730Q out for many years - I have four. My main development computer has three with the music (Dorico/Nuendo) computer with one. Yes it’s great for scores, less moving around, and overall a better monitor if you use your computer for anything but watching movies.
For example, I think you do a lot of Vocal stuff? Anyhow here’s a score on my screen

Best part is plenty of room for the lower zone

And here’s Nuendo

OT I’m not fond of high DPI screens, I have one on my laptop. Too many apps can’t deal with it properly.

1 Like

The idea behind Apple “Retina” is that, at the desired viewing distance, you should no longer be able to distinguish the pixels. I’ve seen people use a widescreen TV across the room as a display. As long as there are enough pixels in your field of view, that’s the key.

1 Like

The Dell 8K is on sale at the moment… :sunglasses: :sunglasses: :sunglasses:

1 Like

Today a had a brief change to try dorico with the very expensive Pro display XDR 6k-monitor.

I opened a fairly big project (around 30 instruments), my impression was that zooming around was a bit laggy and there was a noticebale delay when selecting notes. Of course the amount of music you could fit on the screen was impressive. Turning the display to portrait mode did not seem like a very good idea to me, since it becomes actually quite narrow.

I was running the display from my 2020 Intel Macbook pro with highest specs available at that time.

It seemed to me that with my computer the LG 5k -monitor has a better balance between performance and screen size. I’d be interested to hear if newer M1 or M2 macs would deliver a more fluent performance with a 6k monitor.

I’ve just bought the new 5K Apple Studio Display, and I have to say, I’m amazed by it.

It’s replacing my old 27" Apple Thunderbolt Display (2560 x 1440), so this is basically four times the pixels in the same space. The difference is incredible. It’s like getting new glasses!

macOS has removed sub-pixel aliasing, so if you’re not using a high-density DPI display, text does look a bit crappy.

But this is really crisp – staff lines are super-fine; text is very smooth, and ‘you can’t see the join’. The brightness is also stunning – in fact I had to turn it down and put a yellow tint on Dorico’s page background, cause it was so bright. You can see the full gamut of greys in macOS’s UI scheme…! :roll_eyes:

But it’s basically the same quality as a Retina laptop screen, but much bigger.

My 2018 Intel Mac Mini (with its Intel UHD 630 graphics) was struggling to push pixels for the Studio Display (and a 1080p second display). Some of the screensavers were a bit stuttery, and it was running quite hot.
But my 16" M1 Pro MBP handles it with utter indifference, and still isn’t warm. Supposedly, it can cope with 2 x 6K displays at once! Plus I love the fact that the Thunderbolt cable that connects the display charges the laptop!

The speakers are incredible, too – I was using a pair of Bose externals, but they’re redundant now. I’ve got a 7-port USB-A hub plugged into the display, with all my peripherals attached, so I can unhook my laptop with no bother.

The microphones are very good, too; the webcam works well, and the Centre Stage gimmick is quite fun.

Dorico looks absolutely beautiful on it: all the different UI colours are clear; the notation is crisp and smooth.

One other thing: it manages to use one third of the power of my old TB Display, so with the latest energy prices, it’ll pay for itself in 10 minutes!

(UK people of a certain age may recognise the monitor stand as one for a BBC Micro - still doing service after all these years!)

7 Likes