10.7: Enable HiDPI mode for higher resolution displays

Aug 24, '11 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: RMo

The earlier hint, "Signs of resolution independence" in Preview reminded me of another discovery that points to not necessarily full blown resolution independence but perhaps a compromise of making larger widgets on high-resolution displays.

To enable HiDPI mode, you first need Xcode 4.1 for Lion. It's a free download from the App Store. (Xcode 3 will not work.)

Launch Quartz Debug from /Developer/Applications/Graphic Tools, then enable the 'HiDPI' support. This setting is found under Window » UI Resolution. You'll be forced to log out and re-login to activate the change.

Now, check out the Displays preference in System Preferences. Some resolutions will now have '(HiDPI)' appended to their name. Choose one to see this feature in action.

HiDPI mode uses graphics (and fonts) that are twice as large as standard DPI mode, similar how how the retina display on the iPhone 4 works. If a high-resolution image is not provided, pixel doubling is used instead. While it might be a little large for daily use now (although I wonder if it would be useful on media centers or other 10-ft-UI devices), perhaps Apple is thinking about doing this in the future when displays catch up due to apparent difficulties vectoring and supporting arbitrary resolutions, which seems to have been in the works since at least 10.4.

[crarko adds: When I tried this on my MacBook the only HiDPI resolution enabled was 640x400, so I didn't go very far in trying to use it. If you do this with a large display please post your findings in the comments. Quartz Debug will be running when you login, so you can set it back to the old settings and then logout/login again, and things are back the way they were.]

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