Windows 10: Improving high-DPI experience in GDI based Desktop Apps

Brink · May 19, 2017

In recent years, High-DPI displays have become common. Having a lot more pixels to display your application on seems like a simple recipe for crisper graphics but, counterintuitively, the opposite is often the case. Many applications were written without taking the DPI of displays into account and are not able to natively render their contents on High-DPI displays. The visual elements (e.g., text, images, icons) of these applications will appear blurry.

GDI was for many years the de facto win32 2D API and is behind many of these older pre-high-DPI applications. GDI is used by applications to render graphics and formatted text on displays and printers. Beginning with the Creators Update for Windows, we have added a new feature, called GDI Scaling, that allows GDI to natively scale visual content on behalf of DPI unaware applications. Visual elements, especially text, can appear much sharper for these applications when this feature is enabled. This will give Desktop users and IT Pros a way to improve existing applications that are difficult or unpleasant to use because of blurry text and graphics.

In this article, we will describe the challenge presented by high DPI displays, show you several ways to configure GDI Scaling, discuss how GDI Scaling works and give instructions to developers on updating their apps to run with GDI Scaling. While consumers and IT professionals may find this discussion informative, the primary target for this article are developers wanting to understand how best to make legacy GDI apps look right on high DPI monitors...
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Read more: Improving the high-DPI experience in GDI based Desktop Apps - Building Apps for Windows

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Jennifer Bri · May 19, 2017

Regarding High DPI Scaling Behavior In Windows 10 (p)

Hi David,

High-DPI scaling improves the way Windows 10 handles automatic scaling per-monitor, which reduces the amount of blur or incorrect size for legacy apps. Here are the three scaling options:

System (Enhanced) will make the text and interface look crispier and elements will be sized correctly. This new option will override the way that a particular app handles the DPI scaling, which can result in interface elements and text
being blurry, and allows Windows 10 to take care of the scaling.

Application used to be referred as "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings." Using this option will force the app to run on a per-monitor DPI awareness.

When you enabled System, Windows 10 will stretch the interface, bitmap elements, and text will be blurry. This is the standard way Windows 10 handles scaling.

The new DPI scaling settings are only available for traditional desktop (GDI-based) apps. Windows Store apps cannot be configured with these options because they're already optimized for high pixel density displays.

Should you need additional information, do let us know.

Louie Del · May 19, 2017

What does the new DPI options do?

Hi,

There are lots of improvements and upgrade made in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, this includes the new DPI options with enhanced feature. To give you an overview of the settings under
Override high DPI scaling behavior, you can check the following settings and its effects:

The Application setting was previously referred to as "Disable display scaling on high-DPI settings". It also forces the process to run in per-monitor DPI awareness mode. Windows will be prompted not to bitmap stretch UI
(User Interface) from the exe in question when the DPI changes.

The System setting will bitmap stretch the UI when the DPI changes.

The System (Enhanced) setting is for applications that are GDI-based Windows or Graphics Device Interface (GDI) scaling. It will DPI scale the application on a per-monitor basis. This means that application will definitely become per-monitor
DPI aware.

Feel free to respond if you need more help.

Windows 10: Improving high-DPI experience in GDI based Desktop Apps

Improving high-DPI experience in GDI based Desktop Apps

Improving high-DPI experience in GDI based Desktop Apps

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