ArchiCAD 21 & Windows 10 DPI scaling issues on 4K monitors - and partial workaround

[Paul King]

I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has completely solved the issue of pixelated display of ArchiCAD drawing text and linework under Windows 10 Creators Update and April Update, for those on 4K monitors and thus with desktop UI scaling > 100% (I use 200%, as menu text and mouse pointer is otherwise infinitesimally small)

It seems the DPI compatibility settings when you right mouse click the ArchiCAD application icon to access properties finally do have an impact after the April Update, though for me this only improves pixelation of menu text. Placed notes, dims, linework etc within ArchiCAD views are still pixelated.



Essentially ArchiCAD is still DPI unaware, and a Windows desktop DPI scale factor of 200%, while it works perfectly for most apps, just causes every pixel in the ArchiCAD app window to quadruple in area - which looks pretty crude, and the smaller text (eg headings in info box) is particularly nasty.

On a budget 28" 4K monitor, you might not notice this much, as everything is shrunk anyway (the 4K addressable resolution spec is pretty nominal), but for those on full sized workstation monitors (i.e 42" and upwards), the difference between crude pixel enlargement vs proper vector based scaling is quite pronounced.

Compatibility settings that at least clean up ArchiCAD's pixelated menu and pallet text for me are per the attached screenshot. No particular science or logic to these - just trial & error.

Nothing I have tried so far improves the DPI scaling behaviour of the content of ArchiCAD windows however. Has anyone had better luck?

My reading is that DPI scaling is a very complex issue, and that having multiple monitors, each with different resolution, or starting up windows on one monitor but working on another higher resolution monitor that starts up slightly later (as laptop users tend to do) can confuse things for Windows OS in its handling of 'dumb' DPI unaware apps like ArchiCAD.

Note that for me at least, ArchiCAD Advanced Redraw Options make absolutely no difference to display appearance, whether 3D or 3D antialiasing is ticked or not, or whether 2D drawing acceleration slider is off, or full.

[Laszlo Nagy]

I cannot help you with this issue.
But just FYI, ARCHICAD 22 will support DPI scaling on Windows 10.
Check out this clip, the relevant part starts at 1:37:

https://youtu.be/n7Gemx6e6HA?t=97

[Paul King]

Hopefully it also addresses the DirectX/OpenGL issues exposed with Windows 10 April update? https://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=61239&p=282008#p282008

Will there be a fix for AC21?

Most practices must continue to use previous ArchiCAD version for at least a year due to projects already underway, and due to inevitable early release bugs not picked up in beta testing (perhaps because I am no longer getting invited to test!), and due to several months development delay in release of compatible CADimage tools...

[Paul King]

A further issue introduced by a recent update to ArchiCAD 21 is that when display scaling is not 100%, the blinking cursor disappears in certain dialog fields - for example in library part parameter fields.

Will this be fixed? Soon? it is a rather debilitating bug, given that there is no way to work with display scaling set at 100% on a 4K monitor

[Anonymous]

Paul,
You mention that you are working on a 42inch 4K display, what are the specs of this display and how are you connecting to your computer.

A large part of your issues could actually be that your connection (eg hdmi) cannot adequately deliver a 4K signal at more than 30Hz refresh rate and the monitor is having to interpolate the data it is missing. Your connection will need to be HDMI 1.4 or DisplayPort 1.2 to deliver an adequate signal for a reasonable 4K experience, you will need to purchase HDMI and DisplayPort cables that are certified to this standard as most cables are not.

I have no issues with ArchiCAD on Windows 10 scaled 125% on 4K displays. Biggest issue is having a graphics card that can drive all those pixels when I have 2 screens connected.

4K is still ‘bleeding edge’ technology and you really need to make sure all parts of your system are up to the task.

Edit: I have had a look at your system specs in your signature and your system is probably being very much pushed to drive 4K display you really need a Quadro P4000 8Gb or GTX1080 8Gb to drive those screens and you would also need a more modern processor so that the graphics cards are not bottlenecked by the processor.

Regards
Scott

[Paul King]

sboydturner wrote:
Paul,
You mention that you are working on a 42inch 4K display, what are the specs of this display and how are you connecting to your computer.

A large part of your issues could actually be that your connection (eg hdmi) cannot adequately deliver a 4K signal at more than 30Hz refresh rate and the monitor is having to interpolate the data it is missing. Your connection will need to be HDMI 1.4 or DisplayPort 1.2 to deliver an adequate signal for a reasonable 4K experience, you will need to purchase HDMI and DisplayPort cables that are certified to this standard as most cables are not.

I have no issues with ArchiCAD on Windows 10 scaled 125% on 4K displays. Biggest issue is having a graphics card that can drive all those pixels when I have 2 screens connected.

4K is still ‘bleeding edge’ technology and you really need to make sure all parts of your system are up to the task.

Edit: I have had a look at your system specs in your signature and your system is probably being very much pushed to drive 4K display you really need a Quadro P4000 8Gb or GTX1080 8Gb to drive those screens and you would also need a more modern processor so that the graphics cards are not bottlenecked by the processor.

Regards
Scott

Thanks Scott - a reasonable suggestion, but in this case the problems are almost certainly software related, because they are not present under ArchiCAD 22, and were not present on ArchiCAD 21 prior to the windows 10 creators update. The blinking cursor disappearance began with ArchiCAD 21 release 6000 - was not preset with earlier versions (though other issues were improved by release 6000)

So far it appears ArchiCAD 22 solves all 4K monitor DPI scaling issues that were in ArchiCAD 21 apart from the issue with sunstudies (if text scaling is >100%, sunstudy animations for 3D window save out only black frames) . Unfortunately, the improvements in AC22 do not help when most projects are still in ArchiCAD 21 - though they suggest that the problems should be solvable for 21 in principle.

My GPU hardware (per my signature), though a couple of years behind the crest of the wave, is on paper capable of driving up to 8 separate 4K monitors at once. I only use a single 4K monitor, and a smaller second monitor for emails etc - so not at all challenging.

The newer GTX 1080 is only around 25% faster than my GTX980Tis = and I have two of them to share the load in a dual monitor setup - so substituting these with a single GTX1080 would actually be a downgrade. Processor is also a few years old, but so far CPU does not seem to be a bottleneck - ArchiCAD seldom pushes my system CPU utilization to the point where there is any noticeable lag (due to optimized multi thread background processing) , even in quite complex projects. Cinerender is the only thing I can think of that might really benefit from faster CPU, but with 4 GPUs at my disposal, it would be a waste to use Cinerender , given the availability of Octane Render for ArchiCAD. The benchmarked real world differences between my i7 4770K CPU and a current processor (say i7 6700K) are relatively small most of the time, and any upgrade would trigger cost of full motherboard replacement as well - so certainly nice to have, but hard to justify.

Edit - on second thoughts there is one other case that might well benefit from faster CPU - projects with lots of SEO and complex morphs etc do introduce lag for me.

[Paul King]

Hi, just wondering if any further workarounds have been found by people still running ArchiCAD 21 on a 4K monitor under Windows 10?

Sadly I am required to use AC21 on a freelancing job for a large and complex project, and I simply can't read the menu or navigator text on my 4K monitor.

[Barry Kelly]

If the screen scaling (100%) isn't an option and you don't have a non-4k monitor you can use, is it an option to work in 22 and then save back to 21?
You don't have to migrate libraries (you can stay with 21 library).


Barry.

[Paul King]

Barry wrote:
If the screen scaling (100%) isn't an option and you don't have a non-4k monitor you can use, is it an option to work in 22 and then save back to 21?
You don't have to migrate libraries (you can stay with 21 library).

Thanks Barry - that is a good suggestion.
In this case I have to access the project remotely via Teamwork, which complicates things, but straightforward library compatibility might be an argument to at least migrate the project to AC22.

In this case the existing file is huge and slow, and in my view might benefit from going to at least AC23.

I have yet to encounter a project I could not migrate successfully to the latest version (whatever it happened to be), though in fairness there is usually some troubleshooting time involved that people who are not at the coalface themselves might see as unproductive.