Windows 10's DPI scaling and Adobe AIR

aureliendc

Hi everyone,

Do you guys know if there is a way to disable Windows 10's DPI scaling in AIR?

My issue is coming from the fact that flash.display.Stage.fullScreenWidth is returning a value affected by the Windows's DPI scaling. For example, with a native resolution of 1920x1080 (and a DPI scaling of 125%), I get a full screen resolution of 1536x864.

I'm using that resolution to compute the best textures scaling for an optimal rendering quality (for full screen rendering of course).

I have also found this old / unsolved issue: https://tracker.adobe.com/#/view/AIR-3975136

Maybe one of you have more experience on this topic...
Thanks in advance for your help.

Best,
Aurélien

2dguy

aureliendc For example, with a native resolution of 1920x1080 (and a DPI scaling of 125%), I get a full screen resolution of 1536x864

Just curious..if your app bypasses getting the current resolution and assumes a res of 1920x1080 for test purposes, is the app actually running in 1920x1080 or did windows change the physical resolution to 1536x864 before your app started?

hardcoremore

You can disable it manually by right clicking on exe file and chosing Compatibility->Change High DPI Settings and set it up to use Applications DPI. But it would be great if harman could implement that you can configure inside AIR that you want to discard Windows DPI

aureliendc

hardcoremore Yes, I'm actually looking for a such option. I doubt that end-users will go deep into changing that even if it looks like a common problem for many games out there. I think DPI scaling doesn't really make sense for full screen games...

tuarua

Have you tried these instead?

Capabilities.screenResolutionX;
Capabilities.screenResolutionY;

aureliendc

tuarua Same result. I have also tried to get the Screen using the example provided by Adobe. All of them are affected by the DPI scaling (at least from my discoveries).

joshtynjala

You may be able to use the native stage's contentsScaleFactor to adjust the values.

aureliendc

joshtynjala On my side (through ADL.exe), native stage's contentsScaleFactor always returns 1.0. DPI scaling doesn't seem to have an impact on it.

aureliendc

2dguy Yes there is definitively an impact on the rendering quality! I tried a huge DPI scaling of 225% and my app is looking extremely blurry. I think that's maybe a real issue here because most of the Windows users nowadays are using a DPI scaling greater than 100% (usually recommended by Windows 10 in the Display Settings section).

Could you guys try to reproduce it on your side?

maxddd

Try to set <requestedDisplayResolution>high</requestedDisplayResolution> in app.xml, will it be better?

aureliendc

maxddd Try to set <requestedDisplayResolution>high</requestedDisplayResolution> in app.xml, will it be better?

It really sounded like it was it but unfortunately I'm still getting a lower resolution than expected 😕 This descriptor element seems to be something mostly for Macs with high-resolution displays...

aureliendc

joshtynjala Thanks Josh! You're right, contentsScaleFactor is right when <requestedDisplayResolution>high</requestedDisplayResolution> is set 😀

Thanks maxddd too!

Okay, so now I can properly compute the best textures scaling by doing:

public static function computeRecommendedTexturesScaleFromScreen():Number
{
	Log.info("[Resources Controller] Finding recommended textures scale for current screen...");
	Log.info("[Resources Controller] Native stage's content scale factor: " + Starling.current.nativeStage.contentsScaleFactor);
	var fullScreenWidth:uint = Starling.current.nativeStage.fullScreenWidth * Starling.current.nativeStage.contentsScaleFactor;
	var fullScreenHeight:uint = Starling.current.nativeStage.fullScreenHeight * Starling.current.nativeStage.contentsScaleFactor;
	var fullscreenPixels:uint = fullScreenWidth * fullScreenHeight;
	Log.info("[Resources Controller] Fullscreen resolution: " + fullScreenWidth + "x" + fullScreenHeight);

	var bestPixelsDiff:uint = uint.MAX_VALUE;
	var bestTexturesScale:Number = SUPPORTED_TEXTURE_SCALES[0];
	for each (var scale:Number in SUPPORTED_TEXTURE_SCALES)
	{
		var scalePixelsDiff:uint = 800 * scale * 480 * scale;
		if (Math.abs(scalePixelsDiff - fullscreenPixels) < bestPixelsDiff)
		{
			bestTexturesScale = scale;
			bestPixelsDiff = Math.abs(scalePixelsDiff - fullscreenPixels);
		}
	}

	Log.info("[Resources Controller] Recommended textures scale: " + bestTexturesScale + "x (" + 800 * bestTexturesScale + "x" + 480 * bestTexturesScale + ")");
	return bestTexturesScale;
}

Note: 800x480 is texture scale of 1.0

Everything seems to be fine from the logs now:

[2020-08-31 21:25:46.319] [INFO ] [Resources Controller] Finding recommended textures scale for current screen...
[2020-08-31 21:25:46.319] [INFO ] [Resources Controller] Native stage's content scale factor: 2.25
[2020-08-31 21:25:46.319] [INFO ] [Resources Controller] Fullscreen resolution: 2560x1440
[2020-08-31 21:25:46.319] [INFO ] [Resources Controller] Recommended textures scale: 3x (2400x1440)

🚩 Now the game looks slightly better in full screen but doesn't match the quality of a DPI scaling of 100% yet... 🤔

Does anyone have any other track to investigate on?

Thanks in advance for your help.

joshtynjala

aureliendc Perhaps <requestedDisplayResolution>high</requestedDisplayResolution> will enable contentsScaleFactor value larger than 1, though.

m4her1

aureliendc This solution worked for me on Apple Macbook Pro M2. Worked like a charm, actually. Thank you

aureliendc

Hi back,

Concerning my above 🚩, the best approach I found is to configure the executable in order to override the High DPI scaling to be performed by the Application.

Step by step: Right click on the .exe -> Properties -> Under Compatibility tab, click Change high DPI settings -> Under High DPI scaling override, check Override high DPI scaling behaviour. Scaling performed by: Application.

It seems to be good then, I checked on my steam library and few games (incl. Celeste) do this.

aureliendc

One last thing:

From my last discoveries, on Windows 10 with the above manipulation, the quality is way better if <requestedDisplayResolution>high</requestedDisplayResolution> is not set.

So on Windows, I would recommend to not request for high display resolution & configure the executable to override high DPI scaling to Application. On mac OS, that's probably another story... but I cannot test this scenario.

Any second look at this would be very welcome. Thanks in advance!

aureliendc

Apparently the Override high DPI scaling setting on the .exe is reset when moving or copy/pasting the file 😣 That's probably a Windows user setting... So I don't see any way to properly distribute a pre-configured binary to solve this...

aureliendc

I have created this issue https://github.com/Gamua/Adobe-Runtime-Support/issues/483 since I cannot find any proper solution.

pol2095

you can use this ane to get the Windows scalingFactor

aureliendc

pol2095 Thanks for the ane, unfortunately this is not solving my real issue. I can get it with the Windows scaling factor with the Stage::contentsScaleFactor when <requestedDisplayResolution>high</requestedDisplayResolution> is set.

My issue is actually to disable the Windows DPI Scaling to get access to the actual monitor resolution.

pol2095

I added a method dpiAware() in the ane