Make RealmWorks High DPI Aware
 

RealmWorks is not high-DPI aware, which causes issues with newer displays. Just got a new Dell XPS 13, which I love overall, but RealmWorks displays poorly on it.

By default, Windows 10 will employ display scaling on high DPI settings. This makes RealmWorks look blurry and washed out.

You can disable display scaling on high DPI settings for RealmWorks by right clicking on the shortcut for RealmWorks and selecting that option under the Compatibility tab in the Properties window. But this leads to a worse result with tiny menu text, small and out-of-place icons, and very tiny cursor graphics.

The other option is to lower your display's DPI settings, but then you lose the benefits for having a high-DPI display and degrade the look of the apps the support it.

I have no idea what effort is involved, but any modern software should be high-DPI aware and support auto-scaling on high-dpi displays.

I haven't run into those problems - not yet anyway. But I agree - RW should be able to run beautifully on any screen.

I second the motion, it's quite surprising how many apps are not high-DPI aware :(

Aside from the options you mentioned, there is a utility program called "XPExplorer - Windows 10 DPI Fix" that works pretty well up to 125% dpi scaling. I also found the following post that worked for me (sitting at 150% and RealmWorks looks fantastic) but your results may vary, "Fix Windows 10 Blurry Text...". There are other solutions offered in the (very long) thread as well.

Hope those help in the meantime :)

+1

Planning to buy a new desktop with a larger screen.

I'm presently shopping for a new monitor and was looking at getting one of the snazzy 4k ones but if RW isn't high DPI...

The next large Windows 10 update ("Creators Update") is adding a new option for upscaling unaware applications that may help here. (It's available in Insider builds if you're brave enough to give it a try on actual hardware.)

Otherwise, it appears that the version of the control library used in Realm Works is not high-DPI aware. They'd need to update to a newer version of that first.

I'm glad I'm running at standard DPI on my non-standard resolution monitors. :)

kbs666, don't let RW not being high-DPI aware put you off from buying a high-DPI screen. At least realmworks doesn't "lie" about being high DPI aware. There are some apps that Windows things are and they just don't scale. They'll have VERY small text. Luckly there is only one app that I am having that issue with (I'm looking at you SpiderOak). With RW, it just isn't as crisp. The funny thing is, on an old monitor it probably would be normal, but when compared to everything else on a high-res screen, it looks rather faded. But it hasn't impacted my use the the program.

Word of warning: do not disable scaling on high DPI in compatibility mode under the program short cut properties. I will really mess up the RW display. Let Windows autoscale.

As for lowering the DPI, tere is no way I'm going to lower my brand new laptop's display to a much lower DPI just to make RW look more crisp. This display is SOOOO much better for video, for document markup, for graphics editing. It is a very noticeable improvement for most apps that can take advantage of it.

As for the Creators Update, I'm not brave. I'll let a few hundred thousand braver folks use the update for a while before I upgrade. It is nice that Microsoft is addressing this. It would be nicer if developers designed with high-DPI displays in mind.

I'm hoping for this too. I just got a new transformer, specifically because I wanted a screen with the kind of resolution and colour quality you don't get on real laptops. Finally, a display where I don't have to disable font smoothing to keep from feeling sick!

Anyway, Realm Works is more usable than a lot of older programs (my poor GIMP is lagging behind there, alas :\ ) but some of the buttons are still making me super glad I have a stylus. Hopefully that Windows update will have this covered.

Just to follow up: I tried the new scaling method in my test instance of Windows 10 (currently at 15031) and it failed miserably, only showing parts of Realm Works' windows. Whether that has any bearing on how it's going to work at release on actual hardware is yet to be seen, but I thought I'd let you folks know.

Blah :( sad to hear this. I do hope it gets sorted soon...