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Windower & 4k Issue

4kUHDWindows 8.1

Best Answer Iryoku , 06 November 2014 - 12:14 PM

Out of curiosity, what is your DPI set to? I have a hunch that it's set to 144 DPI (150%) and that for some reason either FFXI or Windower (Does this happen without Windower?) is multiplying the input resolution by DPI / 96.

 

Edit: After further research this may actually be Windows' doing. Starting with Windows Vista there is a feature called DPI Virtualization. If the system DPI is set higher than 120, and an application does not specify that it is DPI aware, Windows will lie to the application about the system DPI and automatically scale the window up by a factor of DPI / 96. To make matters worse Windows 8.1 added support for per-monitor DPI settings and a new class of process DPI awareness to support this. Windows 8.1 also began automatically selecting the DPI for you, where before Windows would always assume 96 DPI unless the user manually changed the setting.

 

For the time being you can either ignore the issue (just divide the target resolution by 1.5 in Windower), or disable DPI virtualization for pol.exe by editing its compatibility settings (it's labeled "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings"). The later option is probably the best, as the former will probably result in a blurry display.

 

I've opened issue #634 for this on our issue tracker, but a fix is unlikely to make it into 4.x.

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    8 replies to this topic

    #1 msthief

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      Posted 06 November 2014 - 01:01 AM

      Note: I know that 4k and UHD supposedly relate to separate resolutions. However, I will use the term interchangeably here to mean 3840x2160.

       

      Relevant parts:

      2x GTX 970 SLI

      32" Monitor UP3214Q connected to one of the 970's via Displayport

      Windows 8.1

       

      I installed FFXI and Windower, set Windower resolution to 4k, open up ffxi and the picture is WAY too big with a good portion of it hanging off the screen (not viewable). A little bit of adjusting left me with setting the resolution at 2560x1440 which covers the entire screen perfectly. I run the game in borderless window.

       

      However, everything else leads me to believe that I'm running 4k. Control panel//display and Nvidia control panel say 4k. 720p videos open up such that their height is 1/3 of my screen size, 1080p open up to be about half the height of my screen. 4k pictures lines up perfectly.

       

      Is there an issue with 8.1 and/or 4k resolution that I don't know about? I'm happy with my entire system, but this is just bugging me and I hope that someone here can elaborate.

       

       

      Thanks!



      #2 Arcon

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      Posted 06 November 2014 - 06:54 AM

      While this shouldn't be related to the window resolution, can you still tell us what your UI scale option is at?



      #3 msthief

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        Posted 06 November 2014 - 07:30 AM

        UI Scale is at 1x.



        #4 Iryoku

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          Posted 06 November 2014 - 12:14 PM   Best Answer

          Out of curiosity, what is your DPI set to? I have a hunch that it's set to 144 DPI (150%) and that for some reason either FFXI or Windower (Does this happen without Windower?) is multiplying the input resolution by DPI / 96.

           

          Edit: After further research this may actually be Windows' doing. Starting with Windows Vista there is a feature called DPI Virtualization. If the system DPI is set higher than 120, and an application does not specify that it is DPI aware, Windows will lie to the application about the system DPI and automatically scale the window up by a factor of DPI / 96. To make matters worse Windows 8.1 added support for per-monitor DPI settings and a new class of process DPI awareness to support this. Windows 8.1 also began automatically selecting the DPI for you, where before Windows would always assume 96 DPI unless the user manually changed the setting.

           

          For the time being you can either ignore the issue (just divide the target resolution by 1.5 in Windower), or disable DPI virtualization for pol.exe by editing its compatibility settings (it's labeled "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings"). The later option is probably the best, as the former will probably result in a blurry display.

           

          I've opened issue #634 for this on our issue tracker, but a fix is unlikely to make it into 4.x.


          Edited by Iryoku, 11 December 2014 - 01:45 PM.


          #5 msthief

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            Posted 06 November 2014 - 04:47 PM

            Disabling DPI virtualization worked. I disabled it both on windower.exe and pol.exe before reopening, after opening I noticed that 2560x1440 now only covers 2/3 of the screen each direction. My resolution settings for windower now match up with the rest of my system.

             

            Thank you very much for solving this problem, to be frank it looks similar but all I see is a giant pair of wings these days... amphiptere monstrosity.

             

            For the record, I re-enabled DPI virtualization for windower.exe (left it checked for pol.exe) and it works just as well. All one needs to do is check that box in pol.exe and they're good. This seems like a pretty straight forward fix when you guys get around to it, but if I can be of assistance please don't hesitate to ask. Really appreciate the work you guys do, thank you.



            #6 msthief

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              Posted 06 November 2014 - 04:55 PM

              And thank you to Arcon. I had no idea what UI scale was before, but now I need it to make the text readable.



              #7 Iryoku

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                Posted 06 November 2014 - 08:20 PM

                Glad to hear!

                 

                Unfortunately fixing it correctly in Windower isn't as simple as it sounds. But we should do it eventually, as it makes using Windower simpler.



                #8 Nifim

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                Posted 06 January 2017 - 01:45 AM

                Sorry for bumping this but i just got a new 3840 x 2160 monitor. A few weeks ago i had got a monitor that broke the next day but the day i was using it was fantastic ffxi look great was easy to read all was good. My replacement was a slightly different monitor ,apparently they didn't have the one i ordered in stock/for sale anymore, this monitor is exhibiting the error mention in this thread.

                 

                Now i was wondering the previous monitor came with a DVI cable, which i used, the new one only had a dinky hdmi and i just bought a display port cable to use the 4k res. is it possible the error does not happen when using a DVI cable?



                #9 Iryoku

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                  Posted 07 January 2017 - 04:36 AM

                  It's not actually an error. FFXI isn't DPI aware. Windows knows this and applies DPI virtualization. Windows 8.1 and newer detect the DPI of your monitor if the monitor reports that information and automatically apply the appropriate DPI scaling settings for you. The combination of these two things results in FFXI being scaled up by 125% or 150% etc. You have 2 options:

                  1. Let Windows continue to apply DPI virtualization, but adjust the game resolution to compensate. This blurs the game slightly.
                  2. Disable DPI virtualization for pol.exe. This will result in a better image, but the UI will be smaller, and adjusting the UI scale may break the mouse.






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