Palette display on second monitor

[tim.hansenW6HFY]

Just installed AutoCAD 2020 (on Windows 10), having issued with the palette displaying too large on my secondary monitor. I run AutoCAD on a 4k monitor and put my palettes on one or the other of my lower res monitors (1920 x 1080). In 2019, the icons on the 4k monitor were very small but the palettes looked fine on the other monitors. In 2020, the icons on the 4k now look fine but the palettes on the other monitors are too large, too low a resolution. Is there a new setting to help with this?  I've also had trouble with palettes not being accessible on the lower res monitors, as if the monitor resolution was set too low so the palette all but disappears off the screen and I can't grip anything to move it. In the end I edited my menu file and modified the workspace palette section so all my palettes are docked on my 4k monitor, but I'm not happy with that.

Any way to change the resolution of the palettes on my secondary monitors? 

[pendean]

2020 is not 2019: lots of things changed.

1920x1080 displays icons much larger than 4k displays: that's just the nature o the settings and why most of us run the same display settings on both monitors.

If your video card drivers allow it, you can play around with scaling in the display to get them to the size you want, just realize that then affects al other programs on that other monitor.

[tim.hansenW6HFY]

Lots of things changed?? Anyway...

It's not like I don't expect there to be a difference in the resolutions of the 2 monitors. It's that the 1920 x 1080 screen is displaying the palettes as if it were a 1024 x 768 screen. Interestingly enough, I have played around with it and have found that when I drag a palette off to the 4k screen, then over to the second screen, it looks fine. But alas after restarting AutoCAD it reverts to the much lower resolution even though no settings have been changed. The resolution is so much lower that some of the palettes are located off screen.

Guess I'll keep playing around.

[dan908 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

It is a problem we have been reviewing more and more because we know a lot of people have 1080p monitors hooked to a docking station and laptops which most of the new ones are 4k. The palettes will keep the scaling and resolution of the screen that AutoCAD is on. So, if you have AutoCAD on the 4k and the 4k display has screen scaling of 150%, your palettes on 1080p are going to look really bad. And vice versa. The best recommendation is to try to have monitors with similar resolutions.

Anyway, the reason it looks like very low resolution is the screen scaling factor set in Windows. But, that is also what makes your 4k readable. Something we will continue to research. And, yes, undocking your monitor may cause palettes to be offscreen.

Thanks for asking. Something important we are looking at.

[tim.hansenW6HFY]

I've reset my 4k to 100%, so far the results are good, we'll see if they're stable. In doing this the icons on the 4k are much smaller, but it matches the look I had in 2019 so I'm used to it.

[CoffeeTeaSugar]

Hi Dan08,

Has this problem been resolved now? Or is AutoDesk Still exploring?

[dan908]

Hello,

It is not something that has been resolved yet. We have stopped exploring it because of the underlying way that it is handled in Windows - it is just unfortunate because AutoCAD's palettes tend to remain on screen during a working session and Excel or another desktop product usually the palettes/ dialogs open and close fairly quickly so they do not get transitioned between screens.

[wcbcad]

I just built a new computer with new monitor.  I am now having this issue with my 2ND and 3RD display.

I use both Revit and Autodesk Architecture.  Revit does not have this issue.  Maybe talk to the guys in the Revit department?

[jtoone11]

Been having this issue.  Would love a fix. I upgraded to C3D2022 and Windows11 hours apart and unfortunately ran into this issue.  My palettes displayed great on my 1920x1080 before the upgrades.  Hoping this is still on the list of issues to be resolved. I also have a similar issue with C3D not remembering the palette position/location when I am docked to two identical ultra-wide monitors. Though I havent had time to troubleshoot whether it is a docking/videocard issue, but it started happening around the same time.

[swortmanW3D83]

Any update on this? Currently having this issue and my company doesn't want to replace all the perfectly good 1080p monitors.

[swortmanW3D83]

Other CAD software doesn't seem to have this problem...

[MarkJ2027]

Bump - same issue over here.  Very frustrating having to drag the material browser window way over into the other screen just to be able to see anything in it, and even then it's only showing a portion.  

[tim.hansenW6HFY]

Having not thought about this in some time I had to recheck my display settings. I still have the 4K monitor set to 100% (rather than the recommended 150%), and things are still stable. I keep all my palettes (even the ribbon), on one of the lower res screens. The only thing I run on the 4K now is AutoCAD, all my other software I run on the other low-res screen. The only thing I access on the 4K is the quick access toolbar, everything else is command line or palettes on the low res. When a dialog box pops up on the 4K I either fill it with muscle memory or drag it to a low-res screen if I need to read anything. A minor inconvenience now that I've been doing it so long. So, no software related resolution to the issue, just a work around, still.

[MarkJ2027]

Thanks for that^!
I actually just found a solution that worked here:
https://www.synergis.com/2019/06/19/4k-resolution-in-autodesk-products/ 

[swortmanW3D83]

Thanks! That fixed the issue of the palettes getting stuck off screen.

[MarkJ2027]

It seems doing this fixes the palette issue, but now all of AutoCAD looks blurry as if I'm trying to stretch 1080p into a 4K space.

Right now I'm working on figuring out how I can have both at the same time