UI Font size of Davinci resolve

I am using the Studio version.
DR 17.4 is useless now because of its newly implemented UI scaling issue. It is really disappointing. Maybe we just all need to buy Macs?
I am not sure why BM had to break something that worked.
I downgraded back to 17.3 and it is displaying perfectly, so it definitely something newly added.
I hope it can be fixed soon.

If the font were bright white it would be better and easier to see but they are not. Please make them brighter.

Ricardo Marty

100% UI scaling on 4K monitor? One can hardly read the text on the screen with 100% scaling.

Anyway, it is better to right-click on the Fusion and/or Resolve EXE file. Choose Properties then Compatibility Tab.
Click on Change High DPI Setting. Check the box for Override high DPI scaling behavior and choose System from the dropdown. See image.
However, I think UI scaling issue needs to be fixed. It worked perfectly until version 17.3.x.

Definitely something Blackmagic has to adress ASAP! Using an totally outdated library for the UI is a No-Go!

Hey guys, I'm having a problem with the 17.4 version. It works just fine, although I haven't actually tried using it, but the menu text has this wierd auto-hinting going on, similar to what the screen looks like when you need to calibrate your display for text, with the text having this kinda green and blue hinting effect. Is this due to scaling do you think??? I haven't seen anyone mention my problem specifically, at least, not in words that explain the problem, besides the word "scaling", and I'm just wondering what, if anything can be done to improve the look of the text. To be clear, I CAN read it, it's just that it looks ugly.

Also, I'm on a monitor that's 1080p, and only text in davinci craps out, if that helps... Besides that, active tabs and any text that is bold(denoting active tab) or menu items hovered over also appear fine in their white state


**Edit** I don't know why, but turning down my monitor's sharpness from 100 to 20 or 30% even though that's the only program that needs it turned down, is beyond me...

Seriously: I know someone who has bought extra strong glasses for such cases.
Effective, but at the same time it seems a little quirky in high-tech times.

Definitely something Blackmagic has to adress ASAP! Using an totally outdated library for the UI is a No-Go!

QT is not outdated, but maybe they are using an older version or not using its high-dpi functionality.

Qt supports high-DPI displays on all platforms, and provides a unified API that abstracts over any platform differences. Qt will automatically account for the display resolution when using higher level APIs such as Qt Widgets and Qt Quick, and applications only need to provide high-resolution assets, such as images and icons. Changes in the platform's user preferences are automatically picked up.

+10000000

Yeah, total disaster on my new laptop XPS 15 with OLED 4K-ish screen. UI is crazy big, totally unusable as you can't even see timeline at all, but all other apps are perfect (Windows 11) from Office Apps to Creative Cloud.

Setting custom scale to odd number as suggested above defaults it to 100% which is too small but at least semi-functional until BM can fix this.

Even if they don't fix scaling...just allow us to choose a font size . In my case 150% is too big 125% better as I sold my 4k screens just for DVRS. Recently I was using Vegas and Kdenlive again and tbh I can't use DVR it just kills my eyes even on 1440p screen. Using 2xscaling makes it look like MineCraft.

+ 1

+1000...

It's is a totally antiquated methodology to not allow simple text elements to be enlarged WITHIN the application without globally affecting the entire OS.

This same problem exists in FCP and a few other "pro" apps. Inexcusable.

Has anyone tested this in Resolve 18?

Fusion 18 standalone release notes:
"• Fractional UI scaling support, including 150%, in Preferences."

Has anyone tested this in Resolve 18?

Fusion 18 standalone release notes:
"• Fractional UI scaling support, including 150%, in Preferences."

Doesn't seem to be any change in Resolve 18 in this regard.

Bummer... again
But thanks for testing.

Fusion Studio looks absolutely beautiful on a 4k screen at 150% scaling this was definitely my most desired feature, it really is a shame than on the other hand Resolve doesn't seem to have the same options to adjust the scaling. I've been searching in the Menus for a while and there is nothing.

I hoped so much that Resolve would support 150% scaling with version 18. And it was another disappointment. Nothing seems to have changed in that regard. Is it realy that difficult to implement 150% scaling support in Resolve on Windows? I could understand if it was only a feature requested by a few people but this thread shows that many users are waiting for this issue to be solved. According to previous posts it seems that it even works fine with Fusion Studio. Why not with Davinci Resolve?
Regards
Juergen

Is it realy that difficult to implement 150% scaling support in Resolve on Windows? I could understand if it was only a feature requested by a few people but this thread shows that many users are waiting for this issue to be solved.
Juergen

I don't use Windows . I use KDE on Linux which is also QT based and everything looks beautiful - much better than scaling on Windows. Sadly Davinci is not one of them. Pity about 18 - haven't installed it yet. Was also hoping they could just allow a basic font size for the menus nevermind overall "scaling".

After I've seen the recent Adobe rant from Corridor Crew I thought I should give Resolve a whirl as I can feel their pain with AE and PR.

Sadly the UI scaling (or lack there of) is THE showstopper issue that will keep me from switching to Resolve until fixed.

I am using an LG 38GL950G (3840x1600) display.

Resolve 18 outright *IGNORES* the 150% scaling setting in Windows 10 -> Text and icons are too small to read from normal viewing distance as it renders at 100% scaling

When you go the route to enforce the windows 10 150% scaling through the properties of the shortcut -> Compatibility:

• text gets larger but very blurry
• video clean feed is now missplaced (does not fill up the screen, part of the image is missing)

When you go the route of enforcing a scaling factor of 2 as explained here

Code: Select all

"C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -WindowStyle Hidden "$Env:QT_DEVICE_PIXEL_RATIO=1;$Env:QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR=2;start 'C:\Program Files\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Resolve.exe'"

then the UI is *WAY* too large to use.

I also tried the suggestion to set a custom scaling value of 149 (which Windows does not recommend you to do) then this does not affect the UI scale of Resolve in any way on my system.

It honestly boggles my mind that users have been rightfully complained about this for years but nothing was done about it by the developers so far.

Either most users have perfect eye sight or just the right monitor for the Resolve UI to be readable.

Assuming it isnt already, this issue has to be made a top priority as I don't think that I am the only one who won't use Resolve because of it.

DPI is not given in percent.
It's "dots per inch". So it's a number. Not a ratio relative to anything else.

DPI is not given in percent.

While I indeed used the wrong term I am very sure you know what I mean. But I fixed that now so that should clear things up I hope.



Resolve remains unusable for me as long as these are my scaling options:

• 100% scaling - way too small text with my setup
• 150% compatibility workaround scaling - blurry text/icons/ui, video clean feed offset and cut off
• 200% scaling - unusable because way too large
• buy a new monitor where 100% or 200% scaling results in an usable UI (LOL, yeah, not happeing obviously. Love my LG 38GL950G)

Resolve's scaling feature is antiquated compared to every other software package out there which limits its growth potential.

Another aspect is that Resolves UI seems very 16:9 focused. The strict default layout is not ideal for 21:9 as well as having secondary monitors in portrait.

I really hope that BlackMagicDesign will devote some dev resources to overhauling the UI in terms of scaling and overall customization soon.

Blows my mind that this is still an issue after all this time.

I bought DaVinci Resolve today and I'm horrified to find that I can't enlarge the text on the user interface. This is a shame nowadays. Please correct this omission in the user interface, because it is very difficult to work with small text on a large screen.

I expect it to happen with DaVinci Resolve 18.

It hurts my eyes to stare at the menu in those small letters.

Thanks in advance!

I bought DaVinci Resolve today and I'm horrified to find that I can't enlarge the text on the user interface. This is a shame nowadays. Please correct this omission in the user interface, because it is very difficult to work with small text on a large screen.

I expect it to happen with DaVinci Resolve 18.

It hurts my eyes to stare at the menu in those small letters.

Thanks in advance!

What is ever more insane is that there is no official statement from BMD (that I can find) where they at least tell us that this is being worked on.

Nowadays, most people learn software through video tutorials, and in most cases, teachers increase the text of the user interface to make it easier for students to see. The easier it is to learn a software through video tutorials, the more people use this software, especially with free YouTube video tutorials. Therefore, I can confidently say that if this functionality is available, in the long run it will lead to more new users and future customers.

Nowadays, most people learn software through video tutorials, and in most cases, teachers increase the text of the user interface to make it easier for students to see.

YouTubers who don't record these tutorials on a 1080P display are doing themselves a disservice by locking out a healthy swath of their potential audience. It's not as though a cheap 1080P monitor is a very big investment for someone who's producing these things. And even if you don't have such a monitor you just have to resize your Resolve window to 1920 x 1080 for recording.

I'm all for improving the UI, but I just think that trying to justify it using YouTube tutorials is a weak argument...

+1 - this is a significant usability issue for me. I tried the windows scaling workaround, which helped somewhat, but marker and flag windows disappear as soon as you start entering text, making that fix unusable.

You know this problem in Windows Da Vinci could be relatively easily solved without getting into the complexities of overhauling the interface scaling on your windows version of your app by simply allowing users on windows to choose the menu/general font used by the application.

MS windows API does allow this to be done relatively easily (compared with the Mac for example).

Then users could at least choose a bold font, and if there was the ability to specify the size within a range ie smaller or larger, I suspect this relatively simple UI change would make most Windows users MUCH happier, me included.

I may have found one way to assist in sizing the UI Font sizing in DaVinci Resolve. I'm using a Surface Pro, Windows 10, and I'm NOT making movies, I wanted to use this software to create better YouTube posts on talks I give.

I downloaded and opened 17 and couldn't read a thing. WAY to small. Hunting around in Windows I found nothing that would fix it. However I tried the following steps and made the UI Menu readable (BTW: there are things in this that BMD needs to address):

1) Go to Resolve 17 Icon and right click.
2) Click On "Open file location"
3) Right Click on Icon in file location and select "Properties"
4) Click on "Compatibility" tab
:NOTE to BMD - I seen that "Compatibility mode ONLY has ios and windows 7 and 8 - Really? we're on 10.
5) Click on button "Change high DPI settings"
6) Click in box "Override high DPI scaling behavior.
7) In "Scaling performed by:" Select "System (Enhanced)"
8) Click "OK"
9) Click "Apply"
10) Click "OK"
11) Open DaVinci Resolve 17 and I could then read the menu items.

This is great!! It works well! thank you so much!

There's a comment in the Resolve 18.1 thread that suggests that this new version now supports Windows scaling - perhaps this is the solution to the issues that people have raised in this thread?

Sorry to drag up an old thread;

Is there a way that the UI can be scaled under MacOS? I can't see the UI scaling option that the Windows version has. Using 18.6.2.

I don't want to scale the whole desktop (i.e. macos settings -> Displays) as changing it from the native resolution causes major playback issues on my system (Apple state that its because they scale the desktop rather than just changing the resolution). For example, I get 60fps at the native 3840x2160 but changing to a lower resolution option such as 2560x1440 causes it to drop to 15-39fps.


Thanks

I never had such a problem with the speed, but IIRC there was an app called Res-X or something like that offering scaling of the desktop for individual programs. Maybe that helps.
Which Mac and which OS?

Have a look in Preferences/User/UI Settings.

Have a look in Preferences/User/UI Settings.

Ah, that's a new feature I didn't know about -- thanks for the tip, Charles.

I never had such a problem with the speed, but IIRC there was an app called Res-X or something like that offering scaling of the desktop for individual programs. Maybe that helps.
Which Mac and which OS?

Thanks- I think it was SwitchRes-X?

Its a 2020 Macbook M1 Air with Sonoma latest version

Have a look in Preferences/User/UI Settings.

Thanks, I don't have that in the settings though, could just be the WIndows version that has it?

Yes, MacOS is supposed to take care of it. For me it does without any severe speed penalty.

Ok thanks; the audio stutters a bit when starting a playback as well so there is something obviously noglt quite right. I’ll reinstall the OS over Christmas and see if things improve.

Just a minor update in case its useful for others:

1. If I use stills (photos) such as PNG files, the frame rate dives through the floor for those sections. Need to try to find a way to convert stills to 5 second video clips so Resolve uses them properly. I've tried using HEIF stills but Resolve corrupts quite a few (separate thread on this bug).

2. If I shut the lid of the Macbook Air M1 and only use the external monitor, the frame rate dramatically increases (increase of 20-30fps). I suspect that the MBA M1 can't really handle two screens properly, I'll hopefully replace with a Macbook Pro over the next few months.

3. If I change the external monitor screen resolution/scale to the native resolution, the frame rate dramatically increases as well.

Just a minor update in case its useful for others:

1. If I use stills (photos) such as PNG files, the frame rate dives through the floor for those sections. Need to try to find a way to convert stills to 5 second video clips so Resolve uses them properly. I've tried using HEIF stills but Resolve corrupts quite a few (separate thread on this bug).

Have you pre-scaled the images to the resolution of your timeline? That can make a big difference in performance if the images you're using are of significantly higher resolution. You can use Photoshop or some other image editing tool to downsize the images to match the resolution you need so that Resolve doesn't use up a lot of unnecessary memory and CPU resources moving around pixels that it's just going to end up discarding anyway. This can be especially important if you're applying effects to the image (such as titles, color adjustments, etc.)

Just a minor update in case its useful for others:

1. If I use stills (photos) such as PNG files, the frame rate dives through the floor for those sections. Need to try to find a way to convert stills to 5 second video clips so Resolve uses them properly. I've tried using HEIF stills but Resolve corrupts quite a few (separate thread on this bug).

Have you pre-scaled the images to the resolution of your timeline? That can make a big difference in performance if the images you're using are of significantly higher resolution. You can use Photoshop or some other image editing tool to downsize the images to match the resolution you need so that Resolve doesn't use up a lot of unnecessary memory and CPU resources moving around pixels that it's just going to end up discarding anyway. This can be especially important if you're applying effects to the image (such as titles, color adjustments, etc.)

Thanks - hadnt thought about that, will give it a try