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4K Installed


SpiceWare

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Just finished getting the monitors installed and cables run to the various computers.

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Besides my Mac Pro, I have a couple work computers set up at my desk. I had been using a 4-port DVI KVM, but when I checked out DisplayPort KVMs I got a bit of sticker shock - $950 for single monitor, $1400 for a dual monitor. There are a couple cheaper models at $428(single) and $700(dual), but they only support 4K @ 30 Hz. So for now I'm just using the KVM as a K-M and using the monitor's menu to switch video inputs.

I still need to tidy up the cables, but have put that on hold for now because one of the 15' mini DisplayPort cables is bad - whichever display it was hooked up to would periodically flicker (I tried it on both). I'm currently using one of the 6' cables that came with the monitors, Opus is guarding it:

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At the moment I'm marveling at the clarity, but also thinking "gee, these are quite a bit larger than I was expecting - perhaps I should have gone with the P2415Q". I suspect that will pass once I get used to them :D

Addendum: AtariAge's text box toolbar:
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Fuzzy? Now I see what I've been doing wrong - I just looked it up, and I was supposed to be making them funny instead.

 

My bad. ;)

 

Yeah, the browsers are going to be scaling bitmapped images up to your resolution, so they will look fuzzy unless higher resolution assets are available. In the case of Artie, they aren't.

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What is the LifeSpan box - is your desk above a treadmill?

Chris

Yep, got it May of 2014. Wrote up a number of blog posts about it.

 

It connects to the Mac via bluetooth and normally you see stats like in the last image in this blog entry, but I'd turned the Mac off while rearranging everything and hadn't yet reestablished the connection.

 

Normally I walk 10 miles per workday (not so many on Saturday & Sunday) for 50+ per week. The past month's only averaged 5 miles per workday though as I've been fighting a bug* since the start of the year. I start the day feeling good, but tend to run out of steam in the afternoon and end up crashed on the couch after work. I was surprised I felt good enough to set up the monitors Friday night, had planned to do it Saturday morning - maybe I'm finally getting over this bug.

 

I've settled on 2.3 MPH while working, though I have to pause the treadmill whenever I do detail work. I use a trackball which helps a lot, it's easier to control while walking than a mouse.

 

* I originally thought it was allergies, but have since learned it started late this year.

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So is the reported resolution 1080p @ 2x then? How is the performance on those? I know the Mac Pro has a fairly beefy GPU as far as Macs go, but I still worry about performance, especially in apps (i.e, games) that push 3D performance.

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Yep, it defaults to 1080p HiDPI where each virtual pixel is backed up by 4 real pixels. Anything rendered using standard API (text, buttons, menus, etc) know that it's really 2160p and is drawn with extra detail. Software that does its own thing, and isn't aware of HiDPI, ends up look blocky.

 

Because of how that works you can end up with a program where parts of it are really detailed and other parts are block - an example is the toolbar right above the comment I'm typing. I've added a screenshot - the B, I, U and S are drawn using graphic images, thus look crappy compared to the Font Name dropdown and My Media which are regular text. There's a way for web sites to serve up higher quality graphic images for HiDPI displays, Torchy's Tacos website looks awesome, though I'm not familiar with how that's done.

 

For normal window management I've not noticed any performance issues. Trigger Mission Control and all the open windows shrink in size, etc. just like before. For games you'll see a hit.

 

In StarCraft II at 1920x1080 I'd get 45 fps with Graphic Quality set to Extreme(all settings maxed out) and Antialiased On. When I switched to 3840x2160 the frame rate dropped to 23. That's better than I expected, I thought it would drop to 11 as it's pushing 4 times as many pixels. I was able to get it back to 45 fps by setting the Graphics Quality to Medium and Antialiased Off.

 

You don't really need antialiasing at such high DPIs. I noticed that back in 2000 when I figured out how to make OS/2 drive my 19" Sony at 2048x1536.

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