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Is there a way to set custom DPIs for external monitor vs laptop panels?

Windows 8 on ThinkPads
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hyde
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Is there a way to set custom DPIs for external monitor vs laptop panels?

#1 Post by hyde » Sun Apr 24, 2016 7:11 pm

I am using T450s with FHD IPS panel, the fonts are a bit too small for my weary eyes to see at full resolution, recently I tried using different sizes for Desktop vs Laptop in the Display settings.
Result: Windows things I am going blind and makes everything huge. Taskbar looks like it takes up about 1/10th of the display, and in browsers or outlook or office programs, the top section takes up a lot of space with huge icons everywhere.

I understand there is a custom DPI option if I select same size for all displays, but is there a way to trick win8.1 to have custom dpis for individual displays through registry or something?
If anyone is curious, I am using this with docking station and it's connected to 2x23" FHD monitors. Maybe there is someone in similar situation as me, and figured out a middle ground (things not too small in laptop and not too big on monitor).

8/18/11 - X220 i5-2540M, IPS, Intel 6205 Wifi, 8GB, U2312HM
1/15/12 - S405 (Wife's), A6-4455M, 14", 4GB
7/02/15 - T450s i5-5300U, 14" FHD IPS, FP, 12GB
7/1/20 - T490 i5-10210U, 24GB, 14" FHD TS IPS, 512GB NVMe,
5/20/23 - T14 Gen 3 AMD 6650U, 1TB, 32GB, WUXGA

jedisurfer1
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Re: Is there a way to set custom DPIs for external monitor vs laptop panels?

#2 Post by jedisurfer1 » Sat Jun 11, 2016 3:36 pm

You should be able to have 2 different dpi on 2 displays. Also use an addon like nosquint on your browser, let's you customize the page/text size etc.
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hyde
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Re: Is there a way to set custom DPIs for external monitor vs laptop panels?

#3 Post by hyde » Tue Jun 21, 2016 7:17 pm

jedisurfer1 wrote:You should be able to have 2 different dpi on 2 displays. Also use an addon like nosquint on your browser, let's you customize the page/text size etc.
Hi, thanks for the reply but it does not allow me to have 2 different specific dpi. It let's me choose predetermined set of sizes as defined by Microsoft but when doing that there is a big difference between it's normal and small or normal and large settings.

I've used nosquint before, it's fine but once again it's dpi dependent, so if I am on a laptop and use nosquint to make fonts and pages larger, nosquint will not recognize that I am on a monitor and automatically make them smaller, since both laptop display and monitor are running on same resolution.

I wonder if Windows 10 fixes this issue.

8/18/11 - X220 i5-2540M, IPS, Intel 6205 Wifi, 8GB, U2312HM
1/15/12 - S405 (Wife's), A6-4455M, 14", 4GB
7/02/15 - T450s i5-5300U, 14" FHD IPS, FP, 12GB
7/1/20 - T490 i5-10210U, 24GB, 14" FHD TS IPS, 512GB NVMe,
5/20/23 - T14 Gen 3 AMD 6650U, 1TB, 32GB, WUXGA

brchan
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Re: Is there a way to set custom DPIs for external monitor vs laptop panels?

#4 Post by brchan » Tue Jun 21, 2016 7:24 pm

On windows 8.1 and up, you can set the DPI scaling for each display: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperi ... ancements/

Under linux, xrandr supports different DPI scaling by using the --scale argument.

Code: Select all

xrandr --output HDMI1 --scale 2x2 --mode 1920x1200 --fb 3840x4200 --pos 0x0
The above makes everything on the hdmi monitor 2 times larger.
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