Why AutoCAD 2015 is still not HiDPI compatible?

[knmdk]

Hey Charlie Crocker & Rob Maguire of Autodesk,

I guess you did something wrong because a $4200 program shouldn't look like this on a $4000 laptop with the latest Windows 8.1 on board:

GUI isn't just about color of background these days. Seriously it took you 1 year to change background color and re-make tabs? Please call developers of AutoCAD 2014 for Mac and tell them show you what GUI should look on a modern HiDPI display: right font sizes, full interface scalability, crisp icons. You surely called them when you were copying thier UI icons so don't tell me you haven't got right number. Believe me Rob this screen shot up here isn't a way AutoCAD should "truly take advantage of the graphics hardware available in the latest computers" (your quote). My notebook 1,5 years old and, well... I guess you're missing something. 

It's simply patheric how little Autodesk can deliver in a year of hard work. Do you even think on how strongly your real development progress & quality affects all parts of future of society? If you place yourself in position of leader of CAD you should meet the highest development standards before most users think of it.

Cheers!

[TerryDotson]

I had this same type of problem on AutoCAD 2014 on a Surface Pro (1920x1080).  When you use 100% font scaling everything was too small to read, then you use > 100% the fonts were out of control in AutoCAD and it's dialogs.  Basically gave up on that machine, it just sits there.

Of course Microsoft dumbed Win8 down so there is no longer any advanced settings dialog, you basically can't set it to 100% and control the text size on everything.  Even when I bump everything up on "Change only the text size" the main dialog font is the original (too small to read) size.

Sticking with Win7 around here.  Maybe when MS loses enough money and market share they will fix Windows.

Edit: This toggle is worth looking into but doesn't seem to help here.

[knmdk]

It appears there's a kind of temporary workaround to make AutoCAD 2015 a bit usable with 150-200% DPI scaling. Unfortunately it will work only in Windows 7 (Windows 8 & 8.1 are missing required feature). Steps are quite straightforward:

- right-click your Desktop,

- choose "Personalize",

- click on "Window Color" (on the bottom of Personalization dialog),

- click again on "Advanced appearance settings..."

- in the appeared "Window and Color Appearance" dialog choose item "Message Box",

- change font size for this item to 10-11,

- apply changes.

So basically the font size in AutoCAD 2015 palettes depends in the font size set for Message Box. Experiment a litle (try setting font size 10-13) and apply changes. Then restart AutoCAD. Even that I mentioned this won't work with Windows 8/8.1 there's probably a way of doing same thing through registry editing. The mothod I've used is based on this article from 2005 by Lynn Allen.

[knmdk]

Windows 10 Enterprise Technical Preview, AutoCAD 2016, HiDPI display. Pathetic...

Widely-advertised Start Tab looks especially cool:

P.S. The above screenshots (and many posts in this thred) were intensionally deleted by Autodesk a month ago (when was being app was released). I hope that was done because developer agees it's major fail and not usable at all.

[pendean]

This remains the best workaround to date:
http://www.danantonielli.com/adobe-app-scaling-on-high-dpi-displays-fix/

[fahim]

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@pendean wrote:
This remains the best workaround to date:
http://www.danantonielli.com/adobe-app-scaling-on-high-dpi-displays-fix/

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In fact, it has been the best one I’ve tried so far. It allows me to work, but the aspect is blurry.

Are we (owners of computers with a 3200 x 1800 resolution) doomed to use AutoCAD with a blurry aspect?
Or will this be fixed in a near future?

I ask this because I still have 2 days left to switch this computer for another one with a smaller resolution

[pendean]

Yes, we owners of such cutting edge hardware are doomed to this blurry solution until all these clueless software vendors start using Video engines designed for the newest hardware 😞

[fahim]

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@pendean wrote:
Yes, we owners of such cutting edge hardware are doomed to this blurry solution until all these clueless software vendors start using Video engines designed for the newest hardware 😞

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How paradoxal... should I switch for a smaller resolution computer?

Or hope for a better future?

It's because I bought this computer this month hoping to carry it at least for the next three years... PhotoShop and AutoCAD are things I use all the time...

[pendean]

I'm stuck with mine but I can't make that call for you. You decide.

[fahim]

Hehe I guess I decided to keep it.

Whenever I click the program icon to launch it, or click on a .DWG file to launch the software, I get the alert in the image I attached.

Then, it opens the software with a new empty document, not the one I selected.

I have to select the .DWG I had originally selected to open, again.

Is this normal with the manifest addon?

[pendean]

The pop-up is a side-effect of the workaround: I never open a file without AutoCAD open though, and I manage to avoid a lot of issues.

[fahim]

It happens to me even if I open autocad through it's launch shortcut in the desktop, so it's kind of the same as double-clicking any .dwg file 😕

[pendean]

Weird: I tried it and it works fine. What is the DWG associated with in Windows Explorer?

[fahim]

I don't know exactly what are you asking, so I attached an image showing what I see.

[pendean]

Right-click on a DWG file, select OPEN WITH.. What is the default application?

[fahim]

It's autocad.

[Rodinski]

I tried what was suggested and it worked.  However, it only worked when I first launched it.  Any other attempt has it revert back to it's original.

I'm trying to get this to work nicely with my Surface Pro 4.

[Edit]  Found a fix.  Go into the bin folder and tell Inventor and uncheck the dpi scaling option under it's properties (compatability).

[pendean]

"dwg launcher" is the correct option: change it.

[jchavez1976]

I tried this workaround, but it is not working for me.  I followed the instructions exactly, but I get 3 errors. Here they are

http://www.jchavezdesign.com/screenshots/

[derekanderson]

knmdk's method works the best. Change the message box font size down a notch or two and it looks SO much better. this will actually fix lots of other Windows applications that pull font sizes from the windows default theme. THANKS!!