KDE Scaling @ 150% feels "blurry", while @ 100% strains eyes

Framework Laptop 16 Linux
1

Which Linux distro are you using?
Fedora 41 KDE Spin

Which kernel are you using?
Linux 6.13.5-200.fc41.x86_64

Which BIOS version are you using?
Not sure, probably unrelated
Which Framework Laptop 16 model are you using? (AMD Ryzen™ 7040 Series)
Laptop 16 (AMD Ryzen 7040 Series) (AG)

I’m not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but there feels like there’s a huge difference in picture quality between 100% and 150% scaling on Plasma. I am using Wayland but I can’t imagine that makes a huge difference. Basically, it feels like when I’m scaled at 150% that the image quality is “worse”. It reminds me of when you use paint to upscale an image and it anti-aliases the image to try and fill in the blanks. At 100% though, everything is too small and it strains my eyes. I’ve been trying to see if I can just scale every application individually which seems to be working fine for what I can scale. For example, Firefox manually scaled by 1.5 using about:config, looks crisper than when the entire DE is scaled by 1.5. Why is this?
I’ve attached 2 screenshots of the two different settings where you can clearly see the quality difference. (Please disregard my theme, I know it is jarring)

Screenshot_20250313_234024
Screenshot_20250313_234024482×117 16.8 KB

Screenshot_20250313_234322

If there’s a good way to make the scaling look crisp like it does when I manually scale things, please let me know because I have not found a way to do it.

2

Try using x11 instead of Wayland for fractional scaling? For Fedora 41 you need to install x11 manually

3

In systems settings under Display Configuration, you can choose between “Apply scaling themselves” or “Scaled by the system” for “Legacy applications (X11)”. You could just try out the other option and see if it improves the scaling behavior.

1 Like
4

Scaling has ben greatly improved with the latst Plasma KDE releases.
Using Plasma 6.3.3 through KDE Neon - that is a real bliss.
Fonts and everything is a bliss compared to other OS’s.

Operating System: KDE neon 6.3
KDE Plasma Version: 6.3.3
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.11.0
Qt Version: 6.8.2
Kernel Version: 6.11.0-19-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS w/ Radeon 780M Graphics
Memory: 60,6 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon Graphics
Manufacturer: Framework
Product Name: Laptop 16 (AMD Ryzen 7040 Series)
System Version: AG

Display configuration:

image
image841×913 96.9 KB

PS: I enabled wayland wherever I can, also for firefox when I’m using it.
Brave behaves as requested (my daily browser driver).

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5

In terms of changing the Legacy applications behavior, I don’t think I use many applications that are X11 only, so changing that had no affect on the buttons on Firefox (which is used by my example), but for the sake of science, I did try it anyway.
Same goes here for X11, I don’t want to use X11. It’s a legacy codebase in maintenance mode with no new features coming ever, and it doesn’t have any security/privacy protocols the way Wayland does. However, for the sake of science, I did try it also.

This is 100% Scaling on Wayland, “Apply scaling by themselves” selected, with about:config layout.css.devPixelsPerPx set to 1.5
100-wayland-scaledbyself

This is 150% scaling on Wayland,“Apply scaling by themselves” selected, with about:config layout.css.devPixelsPerPx set to -1 (default)
150-wayland-scaledbyself

This is 150% scaling on Wayland,“Apply scaling by themselves” selected, with about:config layout.css.devPixelsPerPx set to -1 (default) as well as turning off X11 permissions in application manager
150-wayland-scaledbyself-librewolf-wayland

This is 150% scaling on Wayland,“Apply scaling by system” selected, with about:config layout.css.devPixelsPerPx set to -1 (default)
150-wayland-scaledbysystem

This is 150% scaling on Wayland,“Apply scaling by system” selected, with about:config layout.css.devPixelsPerPx set to -1 (default) as well as turning off X11 permissions in application manager
150-wayland-scaledbysystem-librewolf-wayland

This is 100% Scaling on X11 with about:config layout.css.devPixelsPerPx set to 1.5
100-x11-about-config-scaling

This is 150% scaling on X11 with about:config layout.css.devPixelsPerPx set to -1 (default)
150-x11

It looks like somehow, 100% Scaling on X11 is blurry, but 150% is fine. (The blur behind the windows needs to be recompiled for X11 and that does not affect this test)

On Wayland, my best option looks to be manually scaling the applications by hand, which is disappointing. I will report back when Plasma 6.3.3 is released for Fedora. I am currently on 6.3.2.

6

6.3.3 does not solve the issue and looks the same

7

Which theme are you using?
Using breeze here and don’t have these.
Bet the theme you use is not a clean 6.3.x release one.

8

A quick tip:

If you want to check if an application window renders as xwayland or wayland-native, start xeyes, move your cursor over the window you want to check, and wiggle it around. If the eyes track your cursor then its an xwayland window, otherwise its wayland-native.

1 Like
9

This is the theme, the README.MD says it’s been tested on Plasma 6.3.0, althoguh I will admit, I feel today that it might actually look better. Gonna take a screenshot now for comparison.
Screenshot_20250317_170427

Something is definitely different but I’m not sure it’s as crisp as regular 1x scaling.

10

Well, try out the breeze plasma theme, the default plasma theme.
Others my work, but depending on how these have been programmed, which tech they use, they may behave differently.