High DPI support - tiny interface fonts - not working windows scaling

[an-imagination]

Installed latest painter.
Interface UI text is tiny - nearly unreadable.
Windows scaling does not help.
Disabling Highdpi support in preferences does not help.

How do I get a usable UI with this software?

Thanks for help.

[an-imagination]

I am on a 27 inch display with 2560 x 1440 resolution.
Win scaling is set to 125%.

Example screen of painter and affinity photo.
Painter is not usable affinity is perfect.

Please, how can I get the UI of painter to scale correctly? Is is really not usable as it is.

[an-imagination]

I now used the custom scaling of Windows to bypass the not working scaling of painter.
UI elements size is now usable but as always with this workaround the text gets blurred.

Please Adobe / Allegorithmic do something so your software works correctly with Windows scaling.

[Froyok]

The application should follow the system setting, so that looks like a potential bug.
Please check out the guidelines on how to report an issue, we are missing some information in your messages: https://forum.substance3d.com/index.php/topic,22451.0.html

[an-imagination]

I have attached the logfile.
Screenshots are in post 2.

Steps to reproduce:
- Use PC with Windows 10
- Use 27 inch display with 2560x1440 pixel resolution
- In Windows Display Settings in "Change the size of text, apps and other items" set value to 125%
- Start Painter or Desinger (both show the issue)

Result is like shown in the screenshot.
Workraound is described in post 3. But that one creates blurred text.

[an-imagination]

Hello Support,

do you need more information from me?
Will there be some kind of feedback from your side about the status of the ticket?
Or should I send a new ticket via the Painter software?

[marco pedrana]

I have the same exact problem.

I'm on Windows 10, 27 inches monitor at 2560x1440 resolution (native);
if Windows display settings are @ 100% scaling the interface's fonts are tiny and unreadable; if at 150% the fonts are huge and the UI unuseable (as well as the rest of Windows) but no other scale setting in between works: it's either small fonts in the range 100% - 149% or huge at 150%.

I tipically have the scale factor at 125% or 130%, it works with Photoshop.

I used the same workaround as an-imagination user, but yes, the fonts are blurry. 

[an-imagination]

@Froyok

any news on this issue?
Should we create a ticket via the software?
Any additional information you need from us?

It is really a relevant issue if the UI does not work well.

[Sidney Sena]

I have the same problem than you. For years substance softwares has this problem and the company just don't care about it. I had my money back on substance painter 2020 because of it. I hope some day, maybe in the release of substance 2035 they can fix it.

[an-imagination]

@Sidney Sena
so, you say it is a known issue and Adobe Does not plan to fix it?

@Froyok
is that really the situation? I can't belive Adobe is ignoring a serious issue in the UI.

[Sidney Sena]

@an-imagination
Exactly: it is a known issue and Adobe does not plan to fix it.

[an-imagination]

Hello support team,

i would appreciate to get a feedback about the issue.

I made this ticket,
I wrote an email,
I wrote a site mail

but nobody is answering.

[Viktor.Svoboda]

Problem is with your QT library, why can't you update to newer version? On VFX reference platform this bug was reported 6 years ago O.o

Something is completly f***up; in Manjaro - KDE, 3840x2160, scaling to 150% works like a charm....except viewport, they are tiny, but UI INCLUDING fonts is scaled properly, see screenshot, no - i did not use scaling workaround, all fonts are clear and sharp (UI and settings). Could not replicate this on Windows. Also Designer is scaling properly except Menu fonts.

Seriously, there is not a single person with 4K monitor in your office? Your scaling problem was reported since HiDPi became new norm, I bet there is bug reported by Moses.

New materials in Substance Source are cool, but most of us would prefer software that we could see what we are doing, especially graphic software. Foundry Mari is using QT library and yet you can customize fonts and size as much as you like - killer feature to Painter coffin???

[Froyok]

We do use HDPI internally, we are several having 2K and 4K monitors in the development team.

To give a few more details: right now we have no control over this issue because we are dependent on Qt (the framework that allows us to build the UI). Our current version (5.12) doesn't support all the HDPI scaling values which leads to discrepancy between the system and the application as you all noticed.

So it's not that we don't want to fix it, it's just that for years Qt never supported it properly in the first place and fixing ourselves would have been very complicated.

Recent version of Qt (5.15 I believe) now seems to have a better support of intermediate UI scaling values, however we don't know yet when we will update to this version (or a newer one). Updating to new versions is not a simple task and has lot of technical implications for us, this is not something we do lightly. There is lot of QA/testing involved as well.

[Viktor.Svoboda]

Hi, thank you for quick and clear answer....finaly

Yes, we understand that it is not easy and fast fix. Lot of us were just frustrated that we did not get any logical answer from Adobe...and before.

It is painful to look at Substance Painter in 4K. No developer should develop app that make user's eyes bleed. I am just suprised that this "bug" is not on top of your priorities, yet it took Adobe 10 years to implement such easy feature as adjust the brush size via mouse scroll/tablet drag so who knows how long this will take.