Blackmagic Forum

Hi there,

I'm currently using the free version of Davinci Resolve on Windows 10.

The problem is that the font of the UI is too small.

Someone in the forum says that it can be changed through

File>Preferences>Global Settings>User interface> UI Scale.

But I can't find the "Global settings" either at the Davinci Resolve or File.

Can someone help?

You dont mention your monitor res so try setting the windows graphics sizing to 200%.

If things are too small with Display Scaling set to 100%, then a physically larger monitor is needed. I recommend the following as minimums.

24" @ 1080
27" @ 1440
32" @ 2160

sonhs0713 wrote:
I'm currently using the free version of Davinci Resolve on Windows 10.

The problem is that the font of the UI is too small.

I also wish there was a special setting for smaller screens. There are a lot of small texts where increasing the font size would not increase the window screen estate at all.

Examples are for instance:
- Media Storage file attributes
. Timeline time codes
- Fusion node names and frame numbers
- Color node menu, keyframe timecodes
- Fairlight effects menu and effects setting parameters, audio meter numbers

Etc, all if these are quite a pain to read on a laptop 15.6 screen. Adding a few pixels to all of these in "small screen" mode would make for a much easier-on-your-eyes UI, especially for us who are a little older and use glasses.

Note that not all texts suffer from this and that some text elements, if given a bigger font, would reduce the useful screen estate for important elements. Also setting the display scaling does not impact Davinci font sizes at all relative to screen size (at least not on V15).

sonhs0713 wrote:Hi there,

I'm currently using the free version of Davinci Resolve on Windows 10.

The problem is that the font of the UI is too small.

Someone in the forum says that it can be changed through

File>Preferences>Global Settings>User interface> UI Scale.

But I can't find the "Global settings" either at the Davinci Resolve or File.

Can someone help?

I have the same problem. Is this only available in the paid version?

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.

Modoud, this is perfect. It works as needed on a Window 10 desktop with a 32" HP Pavilion monitor, Radeon RX 5500 XT video card. Thank you.

This works for other Windows BMD Apps too - e.g. Disk Speed Test etc.

Just getting around to using Resolve 17 back on my Win10 laptop Moumoud's tip and it worked great - I hope BMD is paying attention and can make this easier to address

I think there is a fundamental problem that relates to resizing of images in the viewers. You may notice (depends on material - so YMMV) that using "system (enhanced)" override scaling will show poor image quality in the viewers.

I find standard Windows 125% scaling on a 32" UHD monitor works well, although I agree that some text is a little too small. Smaller monitors would be unworkable at this resolution IMO.

Peter Clegg wrote:

sonhs0713 wrote:I'm currently using the free version of Davinci Resolve on Windows 10. The problem is that the font of the UI is too small. Someone in the forum says that it can be changed through

File>Preferences>Global Settings>User interface> UI Scale.

But I can't find the "Global settings" either at the Davinci Resolve or File.

I have the same problem. Is this only available in the paid version?

I have the Studio version of 17.2.2, and under the menu tree:

DaVinci Resolve -> Preferences

going to the "User" tab of the setting box and selecting the "UI Settings" section, there is no option for UI scaling.

There are no controls for UI scaling inside DaVinci Resolve.

The software derives its scaling from the operating system and display. Only 100% and 200% scaling values are supported.

We do not test other scaling values. It may be functional for some setups but there are enough documented cross-platform inconsistencies and issues - menus, UI corruption, mouse cursor offsets and more - that we do not recommend using a scaling factor other than 100% or 200%.

Shrinivas Ramani wrote:There are no controls for UI scaling inside DaVinci Resolve.

The software derives its scaling from the operating system and display. Only 100% and 200% scaling values are supported.

We do not test other scaling values. It may be functional for some setups but there are enough documented cross-platform inconsistencies and issues - menus, UI corruption, mouse cursor offsets and more - that we do not recommend using a scaling factor other than 100% or 200%.

WOW! After all these years of people mentioning and ranting about this (serious) problem, many posts complaining about this, weird solutions and head scratching, BMD finally outright states that they DON'T test anything other than 100 and 200%, and moreover they don't recommend anything other!

So for me with a 42'' monitor @UHD, my only options are 100% which means I can't read sh#t unless I move an inch close, OR 200% which makes everything look like it's for a goddamn 5 year old.
Right. Gotcha.

Shrinivas Ramani wrote:There are no controls for UI scaling inside DaVinci Resolve.

The software derives its scaling from the operating system and display. Only 100% and 200% scaling values are supported.

We do not test other scaling values. It may be functional for some setups but there are enough documented cross-platform inconsistencies and issues - menus, UI corruption, mouse cursor offsets and more - that we do not recommend using a scaling factor other than 100% or 200%.

Wait..you get screen each window of the UI is on and you get each of their DPI values, yet you work in fixed sizes defined in numbers of pixels and expect your user to set a "scale" for each monitor?
This is barbaric!
This is 2021, not 1991.
Your UI framework should have your font-sizes defined in PT (typographic point = 0.3528mm) and calculate the number of pixels based on display DPI independently for each display.
(Touchscreen items should also never get their touch-area made smaller then a human finger.)
This should result in calculated sizes for buttons, menus, ...
Layout managers should use that item sizes to see about placing items where they are supposed to be
and where to overflow them, if there is not enough space.

An mobile devices this is how you do things for more then 16 years now and it adjusts beautifully
from low resolution TV screens to high DPI watches.

Shrinivas Ramani wrote:We do not test other scaling values.

I sincerely hope you are just joking, right? 100% is way too small and 200% is way to large.

This is the year 2021 with modern smartphones, dynamically adjusted resolutions. Even Open-Source can adapt to various resolutions to make things better readable.

You should really re-consider this and make the UI (manually) adaptable to todays screens and resolutions. After working an hour with Resolve I have to take a long break because my eyes are burning due to the small UI and the colors you choose for displaying.

MarcusWolschon wrote:(Touchscreen items should also never get their touch-area made smaller then a human finger.)

Tell that to the folks who designed the onscreen keyboards for smart phones...

Sean Nelson wrote:

MarcusWolschon wrote:(Touchscreen items should also never get their touch-area made smaller then a human finger.)

Tell that to the folks who designed the onscreen keyboards for smart phones...

Well, it's in the Design Guidelines.
https://material.io/design/usability/ac ... typography

Yea, too many touch screen things on a phone or tablet are too small for my fingers, which is why I mostly use a stylus on touch screens.

100% or 200% ... wow. And "we" complain about PrPro where it only works with 100%, 150%, and 200%!

The fonts are readable on the two screens I use for UI, but certainly not what I would choose if I could.

At least Resolve can recognize monitors separately and auto-size for each monitor.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

rNeil H wrote:Yea, too many touch screen things on a phone or tablet are too small for my fingers, which is why I mostly use a stylus on touch screens.

As a touch typist of several decades who knows that if you misplace your finger you get either the wrong character or multiple characters, phone keyboards were very frustrating for me to use.

And then I discovered the secret...

Unlike mechanical keyboards where it's easy to press two keys at once, a touchscreen keyboard will only ever produce a single keystroke per touch. It doesn't matter if your fingers overlap multiple keys, it only matters where the "centre" of the touched area is.

Once I figured this out, my touch typing speed increased considerably because I no longer tried to touch each "key" daintily in order to avoid touching any others. Now I just slam my fingers down, making sure their position is centered over the keys that I'm aiming for.

Shrinivas Ramani wrote:There are no controls for UI scaling inside DaVinci Resolve.

The software derives its scaling from the operating system and display. Only 100% and 200% scaling values are supported.

We do not test other scaling values. It may be functional for some setups but there are enough documented cross-platform inconsistencies and issues - menus, UI corruption, mouse cursor offsets and more - that we do not recommend using a scaling factor other than 100% or 200%.

Sorry, but after all this time this is not a good enough answer.

We know only 100% and 200% are supported, we want to know why nothing has been done to address this in the last 5 years...?? The mouse cursor offset kills my work flow with my wacom as I am forced into system 150% scaling.

I agree, this is super idiotic that DVR does not support - in particular - the 150% scaling which is a Windows default for all 4K monitors (a vast majority of what is sold now).
And it is a default for a reason: the 100% setting makes the fonts on most of 4k displays too small to read and 200% makes fonts and widgets huge, which wastes so much space that it is problematic to navigate in DVR.

Please support at least the (default Windows) 150% scaling!

As far as I can quicly check, the problem is related to the fact that DVR uses a non-HDPI-compatible QT version, 5.4.1, which dates back to 2014 and is not maintaned since 2017!
It is a 7 year old library, for goodness sake!
The current QT 5.15.2 supports HDPI scaling of any size (according to the documentation) and - according to QT - is backwards compatible.
I know, that the practice of "library compatibility" may be quite far from reality, but gosh, it is really past time when the 7 year-old library should be upgraded!

+1 for 150% option in Resolve and Fusion. As stated 4K monitors need this as 100 and 200% are at the opposite ends of anything useful.

+1 for a 150% option in Resolve 18.

Hope never dies.

+1

+1

+1 for 150% scaling support.

+1 for 150% scaling support.
Sooner is better.

I've only begun using Davinci (17 now) and am really loving it! ...except for the inability to change the font size within the UI. Sure I found that I can increase the font size by using the compatibility settings BUT that is changing the font size for EVERYTHING and the real problem is that I am using monitors of differing resolution and making them any larger causes issues on the other screens.

I'm disappointed to see how many are asking for this here and the apparent response that it won't be implemented. Nearly every other application I have - including the video editor I am giving up to move to make this move recognizes the change in monitor resolution and appropriately rescales the fonts.

Please implement this...I would prefer to spend the money for the full version of Davinci Resolve instead of another monitor that I really don't need...

+1

+1.
Yes, please at least add support for 150% scaling, or a way to scale the text of the UI.
This is the single biggest remaining issue with this software IMO.

I don't really understand the stubbornness in regards to this. Is there an actual valid reason that makes it impossible to implement?

I have the same issue!
Running Resolve Studio on a 27" 4K monitor and the fonts are way too big using the windows recommended scale (150%)

blackproaus wrote:I have the same issue!
Running Resolve Studio on a 27" 4K monitor and the fonts are way too big using the windows recommended scale (150%)

the BMD DR recommanded scale is 100% or 200%

Mark Foster wrote:the BMD DR recommanded scale is 100% or 200%

...except that for some monitor sizes 100% is too small and 200% is too large. This is why everyone is asking for support for fonts sized at 150% of nominal.

I'm optimistic that the real solution to this is to simply make all the fonts fully scalable and that this is perhaps why it's taking so long. Anyway that's my little fantasy and I'm sticking to it....

Sean Nelson wrote:I'm optimistic that the real solution to this is to simply make all the fonts fully scalable and that this is perhaps why it's taking so long. Anyway that's my little fantasy and I'm sticking to it....

Maybe stop doing that, since we got an official BMD response in this very thread that only 100% and 200% are supported and they are not even testing on other scaling, never mind working on them.

Sadly yes.
This scaling thing is so damn anachronistic.

I'm personally fine with Davinci Resolve running in 100% on my 4k screen, but the issue I am facing is that I can not find a way to force Resolve into running in 100% even though the Windows UI Scaling is set to 150%.

Until before 17.4 there was an option to override the default behavior (starting at 150% windows ui scaling, resolve will switch to 200%) into always running at 100%.

However, with 17.4 these QT variables don't work anymore. Is there any replacement for this workaround with 17.4 ?

150% setting does enlarge the UI elements in Resolve but they're too large for 4K display. 125% would be spot on but it doesn't do anything.

Sent from my Mi 9T using Tapatalk

Mario Kalogjera wrote:150% setting does enlarge the UI elements in Resolve but they're too large for 4K display. 125% would be spot on but it doesn't do anything.

Sent from my Mi 9T using Tapatalk

That's because when Windows is set to 150%, Resolve scales to 200%. 150% is the Goldilocks zone for 32" UHD.

chrisbrearley wrote:

Mario Kalogjera wrote:150% setting does enlarge the UI elements in Resolve but they're too large for 4K display. 125% would be spot on but it doesn't do anything.

Sent from my Mi 9T using Tapatalk

That's because when Windows is set to 150%, Resolve scales to 200%. 150% is the Goldilocks zone for 32" UHD.

Yeah, that's what I figured. It's way too large for 40". The Resolve icon properties trick with "Override high DPI scaling behavior", while it does work initially, has it's own set of problems so is of little use.

I have the same problem. It would work for me if the fonts were a brighter white.

Ricardo Marty

Hi. I have got this answer from Blackmagic support:

On Windows, the GUI is currently only scaled with scaling settings of 100%, 200% and 300% for super high resolution monitors. This means you can either have it native/100% or 200% so it may look quite large on your monitor, or quite small.

Improvements to this have been requested a number of times but I'll mark this ticket as a feature request again for you.

Too bad

rauberdaniel wrote:I'm personally fine with Davinci Resolve running in 100% on my 4k screen, but the issue I am facing is that I can not find a way to force Resolve into running in 100% even though the Windows UI Scaling is set to 150%.

Until before 17.4 there was an option to override the default behavior (starting at 150% windows ui scaling, resolve will switch to 200%) into always running at 100%.

However, with 17.4 these QT variables don't work anymore. Is there any replacement for this workaround with 17.4 ?

Wow is that true?!
If so, I will not update to 17.4.
The display scaling problem is my biggest issue with Resolve.
I have a 32" UHD monitor and like many others, 100% is way too small and 200% is way too big. I have Windows at 150% and all other programs scale normally.

If I had to choose between 100% and 200% I would choose 100% otherwise all the advantage of the higher resolution is lost. But as soon as Windows is set to 150%, Resolve automatically goes to 200%!

So far I have got around this by using this trick: Simply set the target of the Resolve shortcut to this value:
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'"

But if now in version 17.4 not even this workaround works, I am almost forced to use another monitor.... But what are the options? Back to 1920x1080 or UHD with 50"? Blackmagic can't be serious.
Somehow only the new MacBooks are getting attention in the latest updates. Very sad.

Try setting the scaling to 149% for 100, and 150% to 249% for 200.

Peter Chamberlain wrote:Try setting the scaling to 149% for 100, and 150% to 249% for 200.

Thanks for the quick response, Peter. Just tested it with v17.3 and it works fine. No need for the poweshell trick anymore.
I will test it later with 17.4

Can you think of any other problems that could arise because 149 is an odd number?

Thanks for your help!

SandroSchreiber wrote:

Peter Chamberlain wrote:Try setting the scaling to 149% for 100, and 150% to 249% for 200.

Thanks for the quick response, Peter. Just tested it with v17.3 and it works fine. No need for the poweshell trick anymore.
I will test it later with 17.4

Can you think of any other problems that could arise because 149 is an odd number?

Thanks for your help!

Most apps support 150% but setting it at 149% will make those apps default to a value below 150% such as 100% (as in Resolve), 125% etc.

Blackmagic needs to fix this UI scaling to support other settings other than 100% and 200%. This is 2021.

OK, too soon. To be able to set 149%, custom scaling must be activated, which sets all monitors to the same value. I have a second HD GUI monitor that I have to set to 100%. Unfortunately, the workaround does not work in a multi-monitor setup with different resolutions.

I have got this answer from Blackmagic support:

"On Windows, the GUI is currently only scaled with scaling settings of 100%, 200% and 300% for super high resolution monitors. This means you can either have it native/100% or 200% so it may look quite large on your monitor, or quite small.
Improvements to this have been requested a number of times but I'll mark this ticket as a feature request again for you."

This is bad and I really hope they are going to fix this very soon

For crying out loud. For years you can't solve that.
Just fire the idiots and hire the guys who worked on the standalone Fusion, because it's interface works on high DPI displays without ANY problems.

Peter Chamberlain wrote:Try setting the scaling to 149% for 100, and 150% to 249% for 200.

HOW ABOUT YOU GET AROUND TO IMPLEMENTING 150%? IT'S BEEN REQUESTED MORE THAN ENOUGH TIMES. FFS.

+1 for 150% scaling on Windows.

It was bad enough with the override hack (blurry font), but now we don't even have that?

100% and 200% are not viable options for a great many monitors.

How many people have to complain to get this fixed?