Score:0

Ubuntu 20.04 blurry when using fractional scaling

us flag

I just got a Dell XPS 15 9510 with a RTX 3050Ti and a 4K monitor at work that I'm using together with an external 4K monitor. I installed the latest NVidia drivers on the laptop after the Ubuntu install. Since the text is too small in 4K on the 15" laptop monitor I set it up with fractional scaling to have 200% on the laptops 4K monitor and 100% on the external 4K monitor using the Ubuntu monitor options. The issue I have now is that all the text is blurry on the external monitor while the laptop monitor looks great.

If I set the scaling to 125% on the external monitor it doesn't look as blurry but I need the full 4K on that monitor.

Is there any way to fix this issue? The apps I'll be using the most on that monitor are VS Code, Chrome, Firefox and the terminal as I'm a web developer if that matters.

Any help, tips and tricks on what I could do is greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

sudodus avatar
jp flag
Yes, fractional scaling creates some blur. Normally 200% should not be blurry, but I think that the different resolutions of the two screens may cause your problem. Is the whole screen blurry, or only the windows of some application programs?
TS1997 avatar
us flag
I’ve only noticed that text is blurry, I haven’t noticed that the entire screen is blurry. Also, it’s the monitor set to 100% that’s blurry, the one at 200% looks great
TS1997 avatar
us flag
I also tried changing the font scaling from 1.0 to 1.1 using Gnome Tweaks which improved things but it’s not great yet and it doesn’t look great on the laptop monitor with that change
heynnema avatar
ru flag
Sounds like it might be a low-quality HDMI cable issue. Do you have another high-quality cable to try? Also, you set your laptop to 200% and it looks good... what happens if you set the external to 200% also? Also, in `Tweaks` have you changed hinting and antialiasing?
TS1997 avatar
us flag
The external monitor looks blurry with any scale but it gets better as I increase the scale since everything gets bigger. I also tried a DP-cable (I’m using HDMI) but that didn’t change anything
Score:0
cn flag

Make sure you get the resolution of your 4K screen right , the texts and fonts will look small if the resolution is not set properly.

  1. adjust the screen resolution first and then see what fractional scaling is doing to both of the monitors
TS1997 avatar
us flag
I did set the resolution to 4K (the maximum/recommended) on both monitors before activating fractional scaling. After that I set the scaling to 200% on the laptop monitor and kept it at 100% for the external one. The text on the external one with 100% scaling is blurry while it looks great on the laptop monitor set to 200%.
TS1997 avatar
us flag
I also tried changing the font scaling from 1.0 to 1.1 using Gnome Tweaks which improved things but it’s not great yet and it doesn’t look great on the laptop monitor with that change
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