Recently, I connected a new monitor to my Macbook. The model is ViewSonic vx3209-2k. Obviously, it is a 2k monitor, and I have heard that connecting a 2k monitor to a Macbook can cause font blurriness. But you never know until you try it yourself. Sure enough, after connecting the monitor, the font appeared smaller and slightly blurry around the edges.
Because I did some research in advance, the overall display effect was within my expectations, and now it's time for some fun tinkering. I searched for related articles online and found issues such as not being able to use the monitor after system upgrades and the need for custom monitor configuration files. I had a feeling that the whole process would be troublesome. However, after encountering some difficulties (failed attempt to install switchResX), I found that the entire process was actually quite simple.
Device Information#
- Macbook 2016 (12")
- macOS 10.14
The Easiest Solution#
Tools
- Enter Recovery mode (restart and hold cmd + R)
- Open Terminal and enter
csrutil disable - Download Enable-HiDPI
curl -o ~/enable-HiDPI.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/syscl/Enable-HiDPI-OSX/master/enable-HiDPI.sh
- Change the script's permissions,
chmod +x ~/enable-HiDPI.sh - Run the script,
~/enable-HiDPI.sh - Set the parameters, for example, enter
1920*1080 - Download RDM
- Restart and apply the settings
- Finally, enter Terminal again and enter
csrutil enable
Image:
Related Concepts#
- Retina: a display technology that compresses more pixels on the screen
- PPI: the number of pixels per inch, calculated as ppi = $\frac{\sqrt{horizontal^2 + vertical^2}}{screen size (inch)}$
- HiDPI: achieving high density within a unit area through software