Laptop Resolution

[jeff.dickson]

I'm getting ready to purchase the Dell M3800 to use with primarily AutoCad and MS Office. Would I benefit from the QHD+ resolution (3200 x 1800) over the FHD resolution (1920 x 1080)? I mostly do my drawing on external monitors at the office, but do have have to draw quite a bit on laptop screen too when home or traveling. This also brings me to another question...can anyone recommend a good docking station for this unit? The USB 3.0 unit Dell has seems to have terrible reviews. My current computer is a Latitude D630 with a true docking station (with DVI and VGA connections), so this all new to me. TIA

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

Welcome @forums.autodesk.com!

I guess there will not be an answer like "yes, it's a must" or "no, you never need that".

My personal oppinion is (may change in the next few years) a resolution of 3200x1800 will make sense with monitors > 30", I can't imagine that it will make a big difference on a small laptop display (as long as you don't look at the screen with a magnifying glass).

- alfred -

[Fuscha]

Hi, I`m pretty sure that you`re not working with monitors above 24` but otherwise it`s worth consideration because in my opinion more than 24`with FHD gets a bit `grainy`.

[braudpat]

Hello

I am using every day multiple laptops : 14" to 15.6"

and a standard PC with 19" screen

and a beautiful Workstation HP Z1 and its 27" integrated flat screen !!

With large screen (from about 24" to 30"), you need a LARGE desk because you can't be too near from the screen ... 

Bye, Pat

[johnheaney39]

Hi Jeff, i am interested to know how you got on with this, did you purchase the M3800 and if so how is it performing for you?. I have just taken delivery of one and am having some rather frustrating issues with it. With the display resolution at the natve 3200x1800 and windows scaling at the recommended 200% the tool palettes and command line are too large, the drawing area menus i.e. navigation tools are too small and the ribbons are just fine!. From the research that i have done it would appear that this is a known issue with QHD monitors and Autodesk applications. The only work around that i can come up with is to reduce the screeen resolution and scaling factor, which begs the question of why spend the extra on the QHD if you cant use it. I have not seen anything to suggest that autodesk are going to resolve this anytime soon.

I am thinking the better option would be to buy a laptop with lower resolution, which should be cheaper, and put any savings towards a better external monitor(s). Obviously the GC would need to support the higher resolution.

if you, or anyone else, has come accross this issue and has any comments, suggestions or indeed has the same set up without these issues please post back.

[jeff.dickson]

Hi John, I did purchase the M3800 and I feel your pain/frustration.  I have gone through the exact same steps/processes as you have, and ended up doing exactly the same thing.  Going with the native rez and having to scale 200% is ridiculous.  At this point I see no redeeming factor to have a QHD+ monitor. Although the M3800 users thread raves about it, I thing it's just to have bragging rights over a MBP.  It had been quite a while since I had upgraded laptops and needed a true workstation.  When Dell was having their fire-sell at years end I actually ordered a pre-configured unit w/1920x1080 rez then cancelled it to get the QHD+ thinking I might be future proofing by getting the higher rez. I also wanted Win7; it comes with a Win8.1 "upgrade" but I can't don't want finger prints all over my screen.

I just purchased a new 24" cad recommended monitor and it's native rez is-1920x1080.  I run 2 external monitors at work and tried just last week to run the M3800 at it's full rez...that lasted about half a day.  What good is it that you can get more text on the screen if you can't read it?? I've even played with the rez as I've written this reply and the highest I can endure is 2048x1152.  

I will say the nVidia GC has been a major upgrade from anything I've had in the past and is worth the money, so don't short yourself there if they downgrade it in the lesser rez model.

Other than the rez and lack of applications that utilize it, my biggest complaint is the complete lack of documentation that comes with the M3800 .  I just last week found info on the nVidia Desk Top Manager buried in a thread I read somewhere.  I don't know if it will lead me to have a different conclusion once I figure it out all 190 pages (sorry about the rant), but if I had a do over I'd have stayed with the lower rez unit-that would have paid for the new monitor.  

Hope this helps and let me know what you do...misery loves company...

Jeff 

[johnheaney39]

Jeff,

Thanks for replying.  The best configuration that i came up with was the screen resolution set to 2048x1152 and scaling at 125%. Having just about accepted this compromise i find that the nvidia graphics card wont function correctly with revit applications. Having wasted another 20+ hours trying to find a resolution to this without any success  (i wont bore you with the detail but i actually changed out the motherboard and done a full clean OS install in my efforts to resolve this) i am giving up and asking for a full refund. In my first post i suggested that the scaling issue was an autodesk problem, this may be incorrect, not really sure where the responsibility would lie here. Hardware / OS / Apps??.  I think for now i will just have to blame dell as its their hardware that is loaded with their preferred OS and marketed specifically to run the apps that it cannot currently run. The issues may very well be short term and i am sure that a simple update through service packs, drivers and the like would straighten the whole thing out and have this otherwise beautiful piece of hardware functioning exactly as it should but for now it does not and i cannot afford to wait for the fix. I will say that the guys i have been dealing with at DELL ave been very helpful and they have gave very good customer service.

I am sitting here totally peed off at the whole thing as i really wanted this machine to work. I now have to go back and start the whole process of looking for a new machine. If you have any suggestions on this front i would be delighted to hear them.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply, these forum's really are invaluable when it comes to researching 'issues' and always provide a great source of knowledge, information and experience. 

Take Care.

JJH

[jeff.dickson]

Hi John:

Sorry to hear about your ongoing issues... simple update through service packs, drivers ... I gotta ask, what OS are you running?  If it's Win 8.1, I suspect that's the root cause of your problem.  That's why I did a mad scramble at years end to get a "downgraded" Win 7 machine.  At the time Autodesk didn't support Win 8, and I've heard that even now is problimatic.

I've found this to be a solid piece of hardware and the Nvidia to be a strong suite.  I'd try a do-over with the lower rez unit and Win 7 if you can.

Jeff

[gregbass]

Bump ... has anyone found a solution to this yet? I have a user who purchased a M3800 and it has the same problem.

[pendean]

Apps (and Windows) haven't caught up with these higher res displays.

This tip will jerry-rig most software to work, but your user will see these same issues everywhere else this tips is not designed to fix, which is a shame:
http://www.danantonielli.com/adobe-app-scaling-on-high-dpi-displays-fix/