macOS Resolution Scaling limiting In Game Resolution

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Buck Naked Jan 19, 2019 @ 1:21pm

My 27" 4k monitor uses 1080p UI scaling to achieve a legible UI in macOS. The thing is, it seems to then limit my resolution settings in all steam games to 1080p instead of offering 4k as an option. Blizzard games don't do this, but all Steam games seem limited to this.

Aside from switching to 4k scaling every time before I launch a game, is there any way to rectify this? This seems like a glaring oversight since Blizzard achieves this without issue.

Last edited by Buck Naked; Jan 19, 2019 @ 1:21pm

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Showing 1-7 of 7 comments

Chasseur Velites Jan 20, 2019 @ 7:15am

check if you mac is running in full 1080 if so change it, on the game itself you should be able to change the res and if you are unable try changing you window options to fullscreen or windowed and see if this soles the problem.

Buck Naked Jan 20, 2019 @ 8:48am

Hey, appreciate your reply but I don't think you understand what I'm saying. macOS is running at 4k, I can verify through my monitor settings that it is. It is using 1080p UI scaling in order to make the text and menus legible. There is no option in game for 4k unless I set UI scaling to native 4k.

I don't understand why every game in steam can't see that my system is capable of much higher resolution than 1080p... Again, Blizzard games give me a 4k option no problem: WoW, Diablo III, and Starcraft II.

Last edited by Buck Naked; Jan 20, 2019 @ 8:49am

Vegeta and 4 insects Jan 23, 2019 @ 1:37pm

lol

Janichsan Jan 24, 2019 @ 2:10am

This has nothing to do with Steam, but depends on the game (or the used engine). For instance, any Source engine game give me all available resolutions as option, while Aspyr's port of Borderlands 2 has the same limitations you see.

It hinges on how the developers query macOS for the available resolutions. Internally, macOS treats "Retina" (HiDPI) resolutions as their lower DPI counterpart (i.e. 3840x2160 HiDPI is treated as 1980x1080) and only reports them as such, if the developers do not specifically ask for all resolutions. The difference is literally one single line of code. The problem is that this option is not documented in Apple's developer documentation.

Last edited by Janichsan; Jan 24, 2019 @ 2:12am