XWayland fractional scaling like in KDE

Desktop
1

Hi there!

Is there any way to make XWayland apps scaling on GNOME works just like in KDE with “Apply scaling themselves” option selected?

I just tried 225% scaling on KDE, and with that option selected all my mainly used applications (Chrome, VSCode, and some Jetbrains IDEs) scales itself perfectly fine, with crisp and easy readable fonts. However, if I select “Scaled by the system”, they all looks blurry and get painful to work with.

On GNOME, there is no such option in UI, and it looks like GNOME applies same logic as KDE with “Scaled by the system” selected. I get that it more versitale logic since it works with legacy apps that cannot scale itself propery, but in my case I think I just don’t use any, and can easely sacrifice them to make apps I really need be usable.

What I’ve tried so far:

  1. running “echo Xft.dpi: 216 | xrdb -merge” – this is how KDE does it, I believe. For some reason, has no effect on Gnome.
  2. running "gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings overrides “{‘Xft/DPI’: <221184>}”, no visible effect
  3. adding “Xft.dpi: 216” to .Xresources file – nothing either.

If it matters, I use Ubuntu 23.10 with GNOME 45.

2 Likes
2

Bumping this in hopes it is seen by more people. Sadly, I myself do not know of any solution to this short of disabling fractional scaling and increasing the font size to what you want, which works well for Electron-based apps, but GTK based apps are left with really tiny icons, making them uncomfortable to make out (which kind of defeats the point of fractional scaling).

I really hope the KDE solution gets implemented. I’m not even asking it be the default, but simply that we are given the option between the current method of XWayland scaling and KDE’s, as like @CodeCapy said, I personally do not rely on any X11 apps that don’t support fractional scaling out of the box, or don’t even allow the passing of variables to scale (like Steam).

This really is the one thing that keeps me from using GNOME; at least half of the apps I use (and nearly all games) are very unpleasant to use on my 2254x1504 monitor. Please don’t exclude us users of ~1440p displays!

3

Same issue here.

It’s the main reason I moved from Gnome to KDE. KDE with Wayland is in a very good spot now. All important problems (in my workflow) are fixed.
Gnome is a no go (for me) because of this exact issue (XWayland apps forced to scale, it should be optional)

I am really hoping someone will get around to implementing this option for Gnome eventually. I’d love to give it another spin.

Also, if someone finds a workaround for this I am equally as interested.

I guess it’s now very clear that Wayland is the future and that we are gonna have XWayland apps for years to come so at some point there will have to be a solution for this in Gnome as well.

1 Like