Recent Update breaks UI

[Anonymous]

My machine has a 3200x1800 13 inch panel on which the default Win 10 scale I keep using is 150%. In connection to all the high DPI scaling solutions offered on the forums much earlier, I had to compromise to 150% to start with.

After a recent update, the UI seems broken in several ways. It's not extremely unusable but I'm feeling inconvenient using it. Pictures and Description below:

The descriptions are as follows:

1. The component names and even the UI element names seem to scale according to the Win10 scaling factor, and are therefore crisp

2. UI icons are blurred

3. Some overlap issues in some UI elements

4. Even the 3D model seems a bit blurred

5. There are huge grey bars when the side file menu is opened

6. The side menu scaling seems to be at 100%, despite the system's scaling is set at 150%

What I've tried so far:

- All the permutations of High DPI scaling settings offered

- "PreferExternalManifest" registry entry fixes

- Re-installing Fusion 360

Also, two other issues have accompanied this problem:

1. Right Click leads to "create hole" menu 98% of the times

2. Align components doesn't seem to work at all

Eager to find out solutions and to know if anyone else is facing the same.

[jhackney1972]

My video card does not offer the exact screen resolutions you listed but at a resolution of 3840 x 2160 and a text and apps scaling factor of 250%, both recommended by Windows, I do not see any of your issues.  I, of course, am using the same version of Fusion 360 which everyone does.

I would suggest that you check your video drivers and try some other screen resolutions and scaling factors and see if you can find the issue.  You might want to visit the Autodesk Graphic Hardware resource page, see if your card is listed.  If so, download and install their certified drivers.  Fusion 360 will not be listed, just use another graphics application such as Inventor.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your time!

The previous issue somehow got fixed on tinkering around more with the scaling settings but the text is now a bit blurry (Red is the native one and blue is the blurriness across the UI)

Now came a new issue - which someone has already posted a week ago:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-support/recent-update-broke-ui/m-p/8894107

All of them seem to be intertwined.

[lance.carocci]

@Anonymous, sorry that you're dealing with this. Fusion 360 is currently a "DPI Unaware" application, meaning it is always rendered assuming 100% Scaling (96 DPI). While this may change in the future, that fact - in conjunction with the scaling options detailed below - should hopefully explain your current experience trying to override Fusion's scale. 

When Windows attempts to scale interface elements (be it Fusion or MS Paint), it has a couple ways to do so:

• Custom Scaling: Scale everything to the same value (e.g. 150% across the board) - this may introduce pixelation for images and media not optimized for larger zoom scale
• Let Windows try to fix apps so they're not blurry: Scale everything as best as possible (e.g. up to 150%) - this may result in some visual elements smaller or out of alignment, such as tiny icons inside of large toolbars, or underlines overlapping with text, because Windows scales UI elements independently to avoid pixelation

In addition, if you use multiple display scales or resolutions (common when using multiple monitors) Windows has a few ways of determining what scale an application should use:

• Use the DPI set when Windows was started
• Use the DPI in use currently when starting the application

And finally, Windows has 3 different methods for scaling:

• Application (previously known as "Disable display scaling on high-DPI settings"): Windows defers to the application to determine its scale
• System: when the display scale changes, the current application scale will be magnified or reduced to match (like resizing an image up and down)
• System (Enhanced): for GDI-aware applications, the application can scale and resize on a per-monitor basis
  • GDI Scaling allows Windows to natively scale visual content on behalf of DPI unaware applications. Visual elements, especially text, can appear much sharper for these applications when this feature is enabled.

Much of this sourced from https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2017/05/19/improving-high-dpi-experience-gdi-based-desktop-apps/

Which option is best depends on the application, the user's preference, and if they're moving the application across displays of varying scales. Accordingly, despite the undesirable nature of these interface anomalies, the behavior you describe sounds about in-line with how application scaling currently works on Windows.

That said, you noted this happened after a recent update. This scaling behavior has existed prior to this, so it's possible that your preferences were specific to the old application executable, and need to be reapplied after the update to the new executable.