topic Re: New monitor help please in Installation & update

New monitor help please

Michka — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 22:30:23 GMT

Building a new computer to run archicad 27 is there a particular type of screen I should avoid? I can't decide between a wide screen or an ultra wide screen? I'd love anything over 34inch. Ideally I would love to be able to use the 1 large screen with a few windows open one always being archicad and then email or a web browser open.

is there a preferred resolution for archicad

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Thankyou

Re: New monitor help please

Barry Kelly — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 00:57:55 GMT

@Michka wrote:

is there a preferred resolution for archicad

In my opinion, low resolution.

It seems to me people buy big hi-res screens and when they run Archicad, the icons are so small they can't see them.

So the first thing they doo is increase the screen display scaling in the system settings.

This defeats the purpose of having a hi-res monitor if you ask me.

Archicad seems not to like system display scaling very much, especially if it is not done in multiples of 100%.

But maybe that is just my experience.

I am running a laptop with 2 x 24" monitors, both running at 1920 x 1080 resolution (they can go much higher).

As they are 2 separates screens, I could have them set at different resolutions, but as i mainly use Archicad on both, I don't.

If I open my laptop screen as well that gives me a third screen that I can have at another resolution.

In my opinion, I prefer 2 or more screens rather than one large one.

Barry.

Re: New monitor help please

Lingwisyer — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 01:35:57 GMT

If the purpose is about having emails or other documents open at the same time on the side, it would be better to just use a second monitor. I would suggest getting a good large 16:9, then having a cheaper 9:16 on the side.

Ling.

Re: New monitor help please

Michka — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 03:52:10 GMT

Thankyou for your reply, do you think this will work?

https://api.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/samsung-odyssey-g5-32-qhd-165hz-1ms-gaming-monitor-g51c-syls32cg51#specifications

Re: New monitor help please

Lingwisyer — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 04:50:11 GMT

I would recommend a monitor with an IPS panel if it is primarily for work such as any of the Dell Ultrasharps.

Re: New monitor help please

mikas — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 02:21:00 GMT

Display size and pixel sizes are very much of and about personal preference. That Samsung seems to have unnecessarily big pixels, at least to me they would be. I think 109 ppi is the normal for 27" 2560x1440 monitors.

As mentioned by Barry, the super dense pixel monitors can have too small text and buttons at default resolutions. That too depends on your preferences and you eyes of course.

On Mac, they use (Apple uses) Retina pixel densities. It's 4x the normal density. Text and interface elements are still that of a 109 ppi monitor, but the huge resolution adds up to a super crisp view for the user. You have almost true hairlines for example.

I jumped from Mac to PC a few years ago, but still have this 5K iMac 27". It beats all my Dells and Samsung with its crispiness.

That said, you can have the "Retina" effect with a PC too. My main display is now Dell U4021DW (40": 5120x2160), with a pixel density of 140 ppi. I can change the display scaling aka resolution, or interface elements to ~~120~~ 125% for example, but the Archicad lines (or anything displayed) will be crisper to my eye. It's not that Apple "retina", but in that direction of display crispness.

I have tried many displays till today. I like the Dell U3821DW (38" 3840x1600) too, it's 109 ppi, so a normal-density monitor.

Samsung 49" 5120x1440 is 109 ppi, and pretty handy because it can double as two monitors if you need to. It can split two display streams side by side. So can the big Dells too as a matter of fact. It can be convenient in some use cases. Windows 11 does have pretty good window management today, I am quite pleased with their solution at that. Please see some monitor specs compared in the screenshot (https://www.displayspecifications.com/en/comparison/6a452fb6cc#google_vignette), maybe pay attention to ppi when choosing the monitor for your work, and consider closely your eye capabilities too. BTW, you can have 4x 2560x1080 Archicad windows tiled simultaneously with that 40" Dell, attached a pic from my desktop today. I had a heavy multitask-day today 😉

Re: New monitor help please

Lingwisyer — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 07:03:44 GMT

Ideally you will not use Scaling for what ever monitor you get, as you will lose sharpness as you try to display half pixels or get to a point where you should have just gotten a monitor with a quarter of the resolution...

Retina computer screens are >200 ppi but everything is designed to an appropiate scale for it. This sort of ppi works poorly on Windows... I had a laptop once with a ppi of 260, that for many people would still be too small at 200% scaling...

Re: New monitor help please

Michka — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 07:01:33 GMT

Thanks so much for all this… this has been extremely helpful

Re: New monitor help please

Lingwisyer — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 07:16:46 GMT

In my opinion, the only reason to not get an IPS monitor is if you are wanting really high refresh and response rates, which might matter if your primary use is gaming, and not wanting to break the bank.

Re: New monitor help please

Scott Boyd Turner — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 09:04:00 GMT

Michail,

I have been using this same monitor with no issues in AC, generally like to have AC full screen but also divide the screen into several windows when needing to review / compare docs or write a spec

Re: New monitor help please

scottjm — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 08:20:36 GMT

To clarify about the windows display scaling on a 4k monitor. This will increase the size of the toolbars and buttons in archicad so they are readable, but will still retain a high ppi in the canvas area of archicad. Running at 125% or 150% will give you a slightly smaller canvas area than running at 100%. But you will still have a significantly crisper and larger canvas area than a 1080p monitor.

I run 1x 27" 4k @ 125% scaling and 2x 1080p 24" @100% scaling. I find that's perfect yo put outlook or pdfs on the smaller monitir and archucad on the big one.

Where the scaling becomes an issue is different scaling on different monitors (like I have) and moving archicad between these monitors can confuse it and the colour picker or print dialogue sometimes go astray and cut off part of the dialogue.

Re: New monitor help please

Lingwisyer — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 08:59:49 GMT

Have they fixed all the display scaling issues in AC and made it fully compatible? I guess most modern up to date software should be...

Re: New monitor help please

scottjm — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 16:02:29 GMT

The only issue I've had in 26 is the colour picker and print dialogue. But there is a registry tweak to fix if it does go weird.

Re: New monitor help please

mikas — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 16:36:42 GMT

I tried text scaling too (120%), but it does not take effect on most of the interface elements in ArchiCAD. Menus do grow, and some other text like headers in modal dialogs I think. This is on my 40" and 140ppi.

I agree it's on the tiny side of pixels, but it depends. I kind of got used to tiny pixels by now. I am an old man, and have to use +1,5 reading glasses, but I like the real estate of this, and the fine lines.