7 ms·

I would have switched in a pinch if Zed had their low-DPI font rendering in order. At the moment it just looks bad.

by julik 9mo ago

veidr 9mo ago
This is interesting to me, because I see this kind of comment on almost every Zed post. I haven't used a low-DPI monitor for like... not sure, but more than a decade, I'm pretty sure, so for me the weird blocker I have with Zed is the "OMG YOU HAVE NO GPU!!!! THIS WILL NOT END WELL!" warning (I run a lot of Incus containers via RDP, and they mostly have no GPU available). But what kind of monitors are you low-DPI people using? Some kind of classic Sony Trinitron CRTs, or what? I'm actually curious. Or is it not the display itself, but some kind of OS thing?
- Octoth0rpe 9mo ago
  Depending on the definition I'm not a low DPI user myself, but in my friend group, I seem to be the only person who cares about >160 dpi, lots of people are using 1440p displays, or >34" 4k displays. In Apple's mind, high dpi (eg retina) is > 218 dpi, so my lowly 34" 5120x2160 doesn't count for them. But it is > 160 which is my personal threshold for hi dpi. There aren't all that many >20" displays on the market that meet Apple's definition of high dpi, and not a ton more that meet my much looser definition.
  - drcongo 9mo ago
    I was imagining 72dpi like old CRT monitors, but yeah, I'd agree that 160 feels like a fair threshold.
- burlesona 9mo ago
  I have a 4-5 year old ultra wide monitor which is a lot of pixels but low dpi. I really like the single monitor containing two screens worth of pixels, but I wish it was high dpi. At the time there weren’t really high dpi ultra wides available, and they’re still expensive enough that upgrading isn’t a high priority for me… but I’m sure I will at some point.
- Gracana 9mo ago
  Regular HD LCD monitors are typical office fare.
- landtuna 9mo ago
  I actually don't understand what I'm missing. I'm using two old monitors, a 27" at 2560x1440 and a 23.5" at 1920x1080 (in addition to my high DPI Framework 13 screen). How else can I get at least 4480 across (after scaling to a font size I can read - I'm 49) and still cover that many inches? My DPI right now is about 100, so to double that, wouldn't I need 8960 across 44 inches? I don't really want to pay $1500 for resolution my eyes are probably too old to notice.
  - kccqzy 9mo ago
    It’s okay eyes are just different. I personally enjoy 220DPI, but 60Hz looks absolutely fine. However at the workplace enough people complain about 60Hz that all the monitors at work are 120Hz. I don’t notice any additional smoothness at all so it’s all wasted on me.
- jsheard 9mo ago
  Typical DPIs are still all over the place depending on the demographic. Macs have been ~200dpi forever, while cheap PCs are still mostly ~100dpi, and decent PC setups tend to land somewhere in the middle with ~150dpi displays which are pretty dense but not up to Mac Retina standards. Gamers also strongly favor that middle-ground because the ultra-dense Mac-style panels tend to be limited to 60hz. Zed started out as a Mac-only app, and that's reflected in the way their font rendering works.
  - veidr 9mo ago
    I guess that makes sense. I'm a 280ppi convert, so I judge Mac users with pity — Linux and Windows work perfectly with my 31.5" 8K display (from fuckin' 2017 btw...) but Macs can only drive it at 6K, which adds a fuzz factor. Unless you use it at 4K, but macOS isn't really usable that way (everything way too small). But yeah, it's 60Hz. Which has sucked ever since I accidentally got a 120Hz display, so now 60 Hz looks like 30Hz used to... Monitor Resolution PPI ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 31.5" 8K 7680 × 4320 280 27" 5K 5120 × 2880 218 31.5" 6K 5760 × 3240 210 23" 4K 3840 × 2160 192 27" 4K 3840 × 2160 163 34" 5K ultrawide 5120 × 2160 163 31.5" 4K 3840 × 2160 140 39.7" 5K ultrawide 5120 × 2160 140 44.5" 5K ultrawide (LG 45GX950A-B) 5120 × 2160 125 P.S. I had a chance to try that LG 45GX950A-B at Yodobashi Camera in Akihbara the other day, and... that measly 125ppi might overperform at the distance you have to put it at. But then again my 50-year-old eyeballs are starting to be like "anyway you need your glasses bro" so... YMMV
    - jsheard 9mo ago
      There are actually 218ppi 180hz panels coming soon, although they will no doubt cost a kidney for the first few years. https://rog.asus.com/monitors/27-to-31-5-inches/rog-strix-5k-xg27jcg/ https://rog.asus.com/monitors/27-to-31-5-inches/rog-strix-5k...
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- julik 9mo ago
  Mine is 2560x1440 which is a pretty nice "sweet spot" size. A comparable 5k to 6k display still commands a substantial price, and - given that I work at two locations - would need me to have two of them. The screen I use as my current (a 3x2 BenQ) also has some amount of subsampling going on, because running it at 2x ("Retina native HiDPI") all the UI controls are too damn big, and space is not enough. Running it at 1x (everything teeeny-tiny) is just not very good for my eyesight and not very workable - and, again, with Zed bumps into the same broken antialiasing rasterizer they have. And it is not an OS thing. The OS renders subpixel antialiased fonts just fine. But Zed uses its own font rasterizer, and it completely falters when faced with a "standard passable resolution" screen - the letters become mushy, as if they have been blurred - and rather sloppily at that.
  - EnPissant 8mo ago
    It depends on your OS. Linux and Windows are significantly better for both 1440p and 4k monitors. Both Linux and Windows have subpixel rendering and configurable font hinting for 1440p. And they both have fractional scaling UIs for 4k. macOS on the other hand only really looks acceptable on a 5k monitor.
  - kristianp 8mo ago
    When people says things like "mine is 2560x1440" on HN, are they talking about the mac scaled resolution? I feel like some context is always missing from resolution discussions, and it's a topic non-technical people can weigh in on as well.
    - indymike 8mo ago
      The 2560x1440 is QHD which is kind of a happy medium: high resolution enough to look really sharp, but not so high resolution that you have to scale it up like Macs do on retina displays. Having had retina Macs (and been very happy with them) since they came out, I've been using 16" and 17" QHD panels on my linux laptops for about five years... and they are actually just fine.
- karmakaze 9mo ago
  My 42.5" 4k LG monitor is 104 DPI being Low by macOS conventions.
- mr_toad 8mo ago
  > But what kind of monitors are you low-DPI people using? They’re still pretty common in enterprise. So cheap. At this point most desks probably cost more than the PCs on top of them. TBF, enterprise probably still has to deal with ancient apps that can’t handle higher resolution well.
drcongo 9mo ago
Mind explaining how / why you have a low DPI monitor? I haven't even seen one in maybe a decade.
- freehorse 9mo ago
  Many people call 1080p/24" "low DPI" these days. Though no idea what OP actually has.
- Octoth0rpe 9mo ago
  Define low dpi. Apple's definition has been >218dpi, which is much higher than 4k@27", which is about the smallest 4k monitor one can buy (exluding 15" portable monitors)
- gkbrk 9mo ago
  1080p is the most popular screen resolution by far, and on regular monitors 1080p is "low DPI". https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
  - evanjrowley 9mo ago
    It blows my mind that the most ubiquitous computer screen resolution worldwide is considered too niche for decent support by the Zed project. Hopefully that will change in 2026?
    - Octoth0rpe 9mo ago
      The gamer market while overlapping with the developer market, is not a perfect circle. And where the circle does overlap, devs often work on a different display than they game on.
    - stouset 9mo ago
      Perhaps reserve your mind being blown for situations where the GP hasn’t confused pixel count and pixel density. Zed “supports” 1080p monitors just fine. Supports is in quotes because it doesn’t need to do anything nor care at all about the count of pixels on the screen.
r4victor 9mo ago
Is it on linux?
- ed_blackburn 9mo ago
  Yes. And Windows. https://zed.dev/docs/linux https://zed.dev/docs/linux
EnPissant 8mo ago
I used to have the same complaint, and recently swapped to 4k monitors. I thought that would solve my zed font problems, but text presentation is still bad. In zed, it feels like there is significantly more spacing between each line compared to vscode (or any other text editor).

I would have switched in a pinch if Zed had their low-DPI font rendering in order. At the moment it just looks bad.

by julik 9mo ago

I would have switched in a pinch if Zed had their low-DPI font rendering in order. At the moment it just looks bad.

veidr 9mo ago

This is interesting to me, because I see this kind of comment on almost every Zed post. I haven't used a low-DPI monitor for like... not sure, but more than a decade, I'm pretty sure, so for me the weird blocker I have with Zed is the "OMG YOU HAVE NO GPU!!!! THIS WILL NOT END WELL!" warning (I run a lot of Incus containers via RDP, and they mostly have no GPU available). But what kind of monitors are you low-DPI people using? Some kind of classic Sony Trinitron CRTs, or what? I'm actually curious. Or is it not the display itself, but some kind of OS thing?

Octoth0rpe 9mo ago
Depending on the definition I'm not a low DPI user myself, but in my friend group, I seem to be the only person who cares about >160 dpi, lots of people are using 1440p displays, or >34" 4k displays. In Apple's mind, high dpi (eg retina) is > 218 dpi, so my lowly 34" 5120x2160 doesn't count for them. But it is > 160 which is my personal threshold for hi dpi. There aren't all that many >20" displays on the market that meet Apple's definition of high dpi, and not a ton more that meet my much looser definition.
- drcongo 9mo ago
  I was imagining 72dpi like old CRT monitors, but yeah, I'd agree that 160 feels like a fair threshold.
burlesona 9mo ago
I have a 4-5 year old ultra wide monitor which is a lot of pixels but low dpi. I really like the single monitor containing two screens worth of pixels, but I wish it was high dpi. At the time there weren’t really high dpi ultra wides available, and they’re still expensive enough that upgrading isn’t a high priority for me… but I’m sure I will at some point.
Gracana 9mo ago
Regular HD LCD monitors are typical office fare.
landtuna 9mo ago
I actually don't understand what I'm missing. I'm using two old monitors, a 27" at 2560x1440 and a 23.5" at 1920x1080 (in addition to my high DPI Framework 13 screen). How else can I get at least 4480 across (after scaling to a font size I can read - I'm 49) and still cover that many inches? My DPI right now is about 100, so to double that, wouldn't I need 8960 across 44 inches? I don't really want to pay $1500 for resolution my eyes are probably too old to notice.
- kccqzy 9mo ago
  It’s okay eyes are just different. I personally enjoy 220DPI, but 60Hz looks absolutely fine. However at the workplace enough people complain about 60Hz that all the monitors at work are 120Hz. I don’t notice any additional smoothness at all so it’s all wasted on me.
jsheard 9mo ago
Typical DPIs are still all over the place depending on the demographic. Macs have been ~200dpi forever, while cheap PCs are still mostly ~100dpi, and decent PC setups tend to land somewhere in the middle with ~150dpi displays which are pretty dense but not up to Mac Retina standards. Gamers also strongly favor that middle-ground because the ultra-dense Mac-style panels tend to be limited to 60hz. Zed started out as a Mac-only app, and that's reflected in the way their font rendering works.
- veidr 9mo ago
  I guess that makes sense. I'm a 280ppi convert, so I judge Mac users with pity — Linux and Windows work perfectly with my 31.5" 8K display (from fuckin' 2017 btw...) but Macs can only drive it at 6K, which adds a fuzz factor. Unless you use it at 4K, but macOS isn't really usable that way (everything way too small). But yeah, it's 60Hz. Which has sucked ever since I accidentally got a 120Hz display, so now 60 Hz looks like 30Hz used to... Monitor Resolution PPI ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 31.5" 8K 7680 × 4320 280 27" 5K 5120 × 2880 218 31.5" 6K 5760 × 3240 210 23" 4K 3840 × 2160 192 27" 4K 3840 × 2160 163 34" 5K ultrawide 5120 × 2160 163 31.5" 4K 3840 × 2160 140 39.7" 5K ultrawide 5120 × 2160 140 44.5" 5K ultrawide (LG 45GX950A-B) 5120 × 2160 125 P.S. I had a chance to try that LG 45GX950A-B at Yodobashi Camera in Akihbara the other day, and... that measly 125ppi might overperform at the distance you have to put it at. But then again my 50-year-old eyeballs are starting to be like "anyway you need your glasses bro" so... YMMV
  - jsheard 9mo ago
    There are actually 218ppi 180hz panels coming soon, although they will no doubt cost a kidney for the first few years. https://rog.asus.com/monitors/27-to-31-5-inches/rog-strix-5k-xg27jcg/ https://rog.asus.com/monitors/27-to-31-5-inches/rog-strix-5k...
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
julik 9mo ago
Mine is 2560x1440 which is a pretty nice "sweet spot" size. A comparable 5k to 6k display still commands a substantial price, and - given that I work at two locations - would need me to have two of them. The screen I use as my current (a 3x2 BenQ) also has some amount of subsampling going on, because running it at 2x ("Retina native HiDPI") all the UI controls are too damn big, and space is not enough. Running it at 1x (everything teeeny-tiny) is just not very good for my eyesight and not very workable - and, again, with Zed bumps into the same broken antialiasing rasterizer they have. And it is not an OS thing. The OS renders subpixel antialiased fonts just fine. But Zed uses its own font rasterizer, and it completely falters when faced with a "standard passable resolution" screen - the letters become mushy, as if they have been blurred - and rather sloppily at that.
- EnPissant 8mo ago
  It depends on your OS. Linux and Windows are significantly better for both 1440p and 4k monitors. Both Linux and Windows have subpixel rendering and configurable font hinting for 1440p. And they both have fractional scaling UIs for 4k. macOS on the other hand only really looks acceptable on a 5k monitor.
- kristianp 8mo ago
  When people says things like "mine is 2560x1440" on HN, are they talking about the mac scaled resolution? I feel like some context is always missing from resolution discussions, and it's a topic non-technical people can weigh in on as well.
  - indymike 8mo ago
    The 2560x1440 is QHD which is kind of a happy medium: high resolution enough to look really sharp, but not so high resolution that you have to scale it up like Macs do on retina displays. Having had retina Macs (and been very happy with them) since they came out, I've been using 16" and 17" QHD panels on my linux laptops for about five years... and they are actually just fine.
karmakaze 9mo ago
My 42.5" 4k LG monitor is 104 DPI being Low by macOS conventions.
mr_toad 8mo ago
> But what kind of monitors are you low-DPI people using? They’re still pretty common in enterprise. So cheap. At this point most desks probably cost more than the PCs on top of them. TBF, enterprise probably still has to deal with ancient apps that can’t handle higher resolution well.

drcongo 9mo ago

Mind explaining how / why you have a low DPI monitor? I haven't even seen one in maybe a decade.

freehorse 9mo ago
Many people call 1080p/24" "low DPI" these days. Though no idea what OP actually has.
Octoth0rpe 9mo ago
Define low dpi. Apple's definition has been >218dpi, which is much higher than 4k@27", which is about the smallest 4k monitor one can buy (exluding 15" portable monitors)
gkbrk 9mo ago
1080p is the most popular screen resolution by far, and on regular monitors 1080p is "low DPI". https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
- evanjrowley 9mo ago
  It blows my mind that the most ubiquitous computer screen resolution worldwide is considered too niche for decent support by the Zed project. Hopefully that will change in 2026?
  - Octoth0rpe 9mo ago
    The gamer market while overlapping with the developer market, is not a perfect circle. And where the circle does overlap, devs often work on a different display than they game on.
  - stouset 9mo ago
    Perhaps reserve your mind being blown for situations where the GP hasn’t confused pixel count and pixel density. Zed “supports” 1080p monitors just fine. Supports is in quotes because it doesn’t need to do anything nor care at all about the count of pixels on the screen.

r4victor 9mo ago

Is it on linux?

ed_blackburn 9mo ago
Yes. And Windows. https://zed.dev/docs/linux https://zed.dev/docs/linux

EnPissant 8mo ago

I used to have the same complaint, and recently swapped to 4k monitors. I thought that would solve my zed font problems, but text presentation is still bad. In zed, it feels like there is significantly more spacing between each line compared to vscode (or any other text editor).