Just how much customization is possible?

Framework Laptop 16
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Specifically, I’m lookng at the display (pun intended :slight_smile: )

This will probably come as a surprise, but for me, a 1200P display in the Framework 16 is about the only display that makes sense. My eyesight has significantly degraded in the last few years due to a number of eye problems. to the point that 1200P on a 16 inch display is about as fine a resolution as I can read.

“But …” I hear you say " … why not just set the magnification to 150% and it’ll all be fine." That would work, except for one issue. I also run a pair of 1440P 27 inch monitors, which I can read at 100% magnification, they’re attached to a GPU card in a TB3 eGPU enclosure. Windows starts to experience some rather interesting bugs when you have multiple monitors attached to a system set to different magnification factors. Which make the system less than enjoyable to use.

So to keep this whole thing usable I MUST have a laptop display no greater than 1200P. I know that Framework don’t directly offer such a display, but there are plenty of 16 inch 1200P panels out there. Is it even remotely possible to fit a third party display into a Framework system, or am I locked into the higher resolution offerings?

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Just set the resolution of laptop display to 1920x1200

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a lower resolution draws less power and that is what I think OP is looking for

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you might just have to look for laptop displays that are 16 inches 16:10 that have a similar EDP connector to the FW16 as well as similar cable routing… it isn’t a great solution but that’s kind of what there is

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On your current setup I’d try setting a different resolution rather than using scaling, as knipp30 mentioned. Then you can see if that still causes the bugs you’re seeing in windows.

You are not locked into any resolution.
The only trouble is that you are limited to using the Framework supplied cable. Due to there being seemingly no standard or quasi-standard pinout for motherboard-side laptop display connectors, only the Framework cable will match.
Display-side laptop display connecters do have a few commonly used quasi-standard pinouts. So you just need a display that will fit, has the same pinout & in the same location, so that the Framework cable can reach. I think the pinout for the Framwork cable can be found on their github. If not, the Framework 16 display is a BOE NE160QDM-NZ6, you should be able to find the pinout with that.

The OP said nothing about power draw. Only that scaling causes bugs in windows, when using multiple monitors with different scaling.

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when you set the resolution to 1920x1200, it uses less power too :slight_smile:

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you can just set it to not-native 1920x1200. (since native is 2560x1600)

I will say, I was skeptical about the whole “high-res” thing, thinking 100% scale wouldnt work for me. It kind of did.

In case you didn’t, maybe you can look out for replacement 1200p panels, though I dont think its entirely possible.

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Changing the resolution fixes the Windows bugs, although it does produce some rather odd effects when dragging a window to and from the laptop display. In effect the window size “snaps” to the new resolution at some point as it’s dragged across the border.

A little disconcerting the first few times you see it, but workable as long as I don’t try and make a window span that particular border.

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For me this only happens when I have displays with different scaling factors - a thing you wanted to avoid, so do check this on your side as well.

I currently have the FW16 display and two 4K monitors all at 150% scaling and windows don’t jump when dragged back and forth.

Also, curious what issues are you experiencing when mixing scaling factors across displays?

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One of the most obvious ones is that the Edge “right click” context menu appears in the wrong place. I will very often use the “Right click” → “Open in new {tab,window}” route to open links, for example when looking at search results.

It’s quite annoying when you’re working on the laptop’s built in display and the context menu appears over on one of the external displays attached to the eGPU.

(Emphasis mine)

That’s the reason. As long as all displays are at the same scaling factor, everything works fine. Things only break when you have (for example) laptop display at 150% and monitors on eGPU at 100%

In any case, I can avoid the scaling factor issues by running the laptop at a “lower-than-native” resolution, and then setting all the scaling factors to 100%. I still get the “windows size snap” when dragging a window across the boundary, but to be honest that doesn’t happen often enough for it to be an issue. Once only when the application is initially opened, after that everything is fine. This is significantly less often than the Edge “right-click” menu issue. So I do have a workable solution.

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