[feature request] ON/OFF high-DPI support for VST

[antic604]

While Bitwig was one of the first to provide really good and consistent support for high-DPI screens (eg. 4K laptops) by resizing the VSTs to follow Windows' scaling settings, in recent months other DAWs pulled ahead in how they handle it.

Specifically this concerns plugins - like from U-He, Arturia, D. Sches, Reveal Sound and others - that allow the user to change the size of the GUI, usually in few increments ranging from 50% to 200% or so. How is it problematic?

Let's consider an example:

1. I'm running Bitwig on Surface Pro 4, Win10 with a 200% scaling (both in Windows and Bitwig),
2. When I open U-He's RePro-1, Bitwig will run it at 100% size AND stretch it x2 following the 200% Windows scaling factor, resulting in a sharp, but 2x2 pixels,
3. If I'd try to change the RePro-1's internal GUI size to 200%, it would simply get huge and stretch out of the screen,
4. In Studio One 4.1 or Live 10.0.2 (both pretty recent upgrades) the default behaviour is the same, BUT user can - per plugin - decide to disable it and use plugins' internal scaling instead,

Compare those (open in separate tab, click to see them in full resolution):
Bitwig: https://i.imgur.com/uBysXOf.png
Studio One: https://i.imgur.com/9q8xfsf.png

It's not a huge difference (when seen normally on screen) but it becomes distracting especially on devices with a lot of contrast and high-frequency detail like grids, meshes, textured knobs, etc.

I think it's time devs added a - per-plugin - option to disable the scaling and leave it up to the plugin.

[Whywhy]

+1

[don_looney]

+1

[Hanz Meyzer]

And the same for the bitwig GUI itself, please. In macOS, there is such an option in the app properties, strangely Bitwig prevents to use it (only with workaround).

[antic604]

And the same for the bitwig GUI itself, please. In macOS, there is such an option in the app properties, strangely Bitwig prevents to use it (only with workaround).

Really? Isn't Bitwig itself sharp on macOS? Or are you saying you want to force low-res mode and can't do it?

[Fourstepper]

Has this been implemented over time? Can't find it in a changelog

[don_looney]

+1

[antic604]

Has this been implemented over time? Can't find it in a changelog

Yes, around 2.4 last year.

[Fourstepper]

Awesome, will go check it out!

[antic604]

Awesome, will go check it out!

Just a heads-up - you right click on the plugin in Browser (side or pop-up, doesn't matter) and it's one of the options there.

I'd rather them doing it somewhere in the Settings, but at least it's here.

[Fourstepper]

Thanks, will check what the options are

[wentzelitis]

disabling this option just fixed an issue for me with Algonaut Atlas 2 taking a long time to load for the first time each project. Disabled this setting by right clicking the plugin and now the plugin loads instantly. was kind of just trying random things hoping to fix/troubleshoot and got lucky. (disabling the global scaling option also fixes it) Just wanted to comment because I see people with Bitwig more than other daws complain about slow to load plugins, so it's worth trying this if you have a plugin that has issues with bitwig. it may just be due to their scaling implementation.