High DPI Plug In Support

[monkeymanx]

Having recently upgraded to a large 4K monitor I've noticed that some of my plug ins do not support High DPI mode within Cubase. Some do and look great. Even some of the smaller developers support it like Klanghelm with proper scaling. I just updated my Eventide plugins and they are fine now too. Izotope plug ins are glitchy and unusable in high DPI mode. Slate plugs don't support it either.

So, is this something that is low on a developer's list of things to do? I feel like we are moving into the age of higher resolution screens. The stuff that properly scales looks great. Games look excellent as well.

Also this seems to be a Windows only issue as OS X seems to have been properly scaling for some time since they introduced their retina screens.

[rageix]

Welcome to the club man. What you will notice is that 4k screens are second class citizens in the audio world and although some developers do properly support them, many still don't. 4K screens are still the minority unfortunately even though more and more new computers come with these screen resolutions.

I would advise dumping Cubase and move to Bitwig or Ableton which will properly scale your old plugins to a usable size, they'll be pixelated and blurry but a proper size to work with. Bitwig is slightly better than Ableton in this regard but generally speaking both are a good pick that properly handle this. You could ask Cubase or the individual plugin developers to fix this issue, but in my experience it is not worth your time (some will most wont). Just move on and give your money to a DAW developer that can get it done or move to plugins that actually support high dpi screens.

[monkeymanx]

Dang, I was hoping their wasn't a club for this hahaha. Oh well. I'm kind of stuck with Cubase as I've been using it for about 15 years now. I have been able to use other hosts decently but Cubase is home for me. I've tried Studio One a bunch of times (recently even and is now for sale in the marketplace) and that had the closest feel to Cubase.

I've been thinking about just using mostly stock plugs within Cubase as pretty much all properly scale. I've probably been taking for granted just how good the stock plugs are within Cubase as I took a couple for a test run on some drum tracks and pretty much all my bases were covered.

It just seems odd that small time single run operations support High DPI but then some big name developer doesn't.

[Jace-BeOS]

Yeah, there is a club for this. And it’s weirdly small...

[midi_transmission]

There is no hope. I bet this will be a problem in the next 10 years in Windows.

You can only use a DAW which looks really good with scaling - not all which say they support it do it without flaws - and use only plugins which work great with HIDPI. Or you have to use integer scaling like 200% in Windows. This works great for every DAW and every plugin. But then you have space like at 1920x1080 on a 4k.

The real problem is this damn 4k idea for computer screens. It's too low for integer scaling on large displays. Apple knows why the use higher resolution screens.

[monkeymanx]

I have a 55" OLED screen and run UHD at 175% scaling. If I set it to 200% scaling, plugins still don't look great when not running in high DPI mode.

[midi_transmission]

Do just plugins doesn't look great? Have you restarted Windows after the change? Usually all old programs look exactly like at 100% just two times in size, but with smaller pixels this is not a problem.

I experimented a lot and never had problems at 200% with older applications. Zero blur, just two times in size. But I don't know Cubase, maybe you must enable some HIDPI mode or something that plugins are scaled by Windows and not by Cubase.

[midi_transmission]

https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-u ... Windows-10

"3rd party plug-ins need to support HiDPI on their own, else they may appear small and/or with a truncated user interface"

Not sure if I understand it correctly. But this sound really bad. The hosts I tried just scale the plugins at the Windows scaling setting. So with 200% it's two time as big as with 100% but perfectly sharp.

By the way. According to the link Cubase is always scaled to 200% starting at 150% scaling in Windows. Like I said, this makes sense as it's working great for older application.

[monkeymanx]

For me when not in high DPI mode the text and stuff doesn’t look great. I wasn’t aware it actually locked to 200 percent. Looks like I have more screen real estate at 175%. I will have to test it later.

[DominikS]

Welcome to the club man. What you will notice is that 4k screens are second class citizens in the audio world and although some developers do properly support them, many still don't. 4K screens are still the minority unfortunately even though more and more new computers come with these screen resolutions.

I would advise dumping Cubase and move to Bitwig or Ableton which will properly scale your old plugins to a usable size, they'll be pixelated and blurry but a proper size to work with. Bitwig is slightly better than Ableton in this regard but generally speaking both are a good pick that properly handle this. You could ask Cubase or the individual plugin developers to fix this issue, but in my experience it is not worth your time (some will most wont). Just move on and give your money to a DAW developer that can get it done or move to plugins that actually support high dpi screens.

I wouldn't say that the problem is in the software (I also use Cubase), but in the plugin developer.

[antic604]

I would advise dumping Cubase and move to Bitwig or Ableton which will properly scale your old plugins to a usable size, they'll be pixelated and blurry but a proper size to work with.

That's no longer the casewith v11, as Cubase can also scale non DPI-aware plugins ("Allow windows to be resized" option):

https://steinberg.help/cubase_pro/v11/e ... tml?hl=dpi

[rageix]

I would advise dumping Cubase and move to Bitwig or Ableton which will properly scale your old plugins to a usable size, they'll be pixelated and blurry but a proper size to work with.

That's no longer the casewith v11, as Cubase can also scale non DPI-aware plugins ("Allow windows to be resized" option):

https://steinberg.help/cubase_pro/v11/e ... tml?hl=dpi

It's weird having someone necro a comment from over a year ago. I do agree with you antic604, Cubase now does handle plugins scaling much much better both VST2 and VST3. Hell Cubase 11 now scales even better than Ableton. I now actually main Cubase, love it.

[antic604]

Hell Cubase 11 now scales even better than Ableton. I now actually main Cubase, love it.

How so? That's not my experience.

[rageix]

How so? That's not my experience.

I run Windows 10, 4k @ 200% scaling. Pretty much every plugin scales correctly in Cubase 11, and all the ones I had issues with in Ableton or Studio one scale correctly. If a plugin does not scale correctly, as long as it's VST2, you can use the Allow Window To Be Resized option, but most of the time you don't even need this. The only plugin I can think of that I have run into that doesn't work correctly resized is Xfer OTT oddly enough. I should send a bug report to Steve.

[antic604]

How so? That's not my experience.

I run Windows 10, 4k @ 200% scaling. Pretty much every plugin scales correctly in Cubase 11, and all the ones I had issues with in Ableton or Studio one scale correctly. If a plugin does not scale correctly, as long as it's VST2, you can use the Allow Window To Be Resized option, but most of the time you don't even need this. The only plugin I can think of that I have run into that doesn't work correctly resized is Xfer OTT oddly enough. I should send a bug report to Steve.

I'm asking what in Live - or S1 now that you've added it - doesn't work that works in Cubase 11? Becuase both Live & S1 have option to scale DPI-unaware plugins, too.