Running Ubuntu 20.04, I didn’t take any special configuration steps and everything is very generously scaled, in fact I prefer tiny text and icons tiny so if anything I would dial it back but it’s not crowded right now.
My XPS 15 is also a 4k display so by comparison the LG has a huge dot pitch. I might have gone a step larger but the 32" was an exact fit for my workspace.
Thank you for the suggestion, gvcastellano.
What exactly did you mean by “dial it back” ?
“dial it back” == “reduce text+icon scale” Somewhere in the morass of Gnome options there must a setting to reduce the size of text and icons which I haven’t bothered to look up and don’t even know if this would work for KiCad. I’m not completely sure though. Between having two displays with vastly different dot pitches, and the fact that my apps are split about 50-50 of scaled and bit-mapped, getting everything Just So is a fool’s errand so if something works I tend not to muck with it.
So “reduce text+icon scale” means lower dots per inch (or dots per mm) of screen real estate means less sharp resolution.
I happen to use the K Desktop environment, if that makes any difference.
No, scaling changes the number pixels used to render “images” (scare quotes b/c not just images, but text, icons, lines, whatever is made up of pixels). So on a high-res monitor if you don’t scale up everything is tiny. I’m probably not explaining this well b/c in my day all we had was bitmap.
Hello!
From my experience, 27 inch is too small for 4K resolution. I made the mistake to buy 2 of them because they were cheap, which is the worst reason. Now I have changed them for 43 inches. By the way, it’s not expensive. About 600 USD which is about half of the cost of an Apple display I bought in the past. The advantage is that you can have schematic and PCB on the same screen, and especially with Kicad 5.99, you click on the schematic, you get the PCB moved and scaled, and similarily when you click the PCB. And if you do FPGA hardware, you can also run Quartus in parallel, and open the FPGA pin planner, just to make sure what pin you are connecting and where.
If you want to go to 4k, it pretty much means you need a whole new PC & more modern video hardware.
Not necessarily. Of course, you need a motherboard that supports 4K, but all motherboards have been suporting 4K for a while, even without adding a graphic card. Beside this, Kicad does not require gaming-class video, so even if it works in 30Hz mode, it’s perfectly fine.
Just for fun: I also made a few PCs with minimal specs, 3 years ago. Low-end Core I5, mini ITX motherboard. Here they are:
Edit: I forgot to mention for the geeks: note that there are 2 serial ports. Not inserted at the time the picture was taken.
Russ’ PC is 10 year old. That is probably a bit too old to consider serious upgrade.
Unless upgrade means Mobo + Processor + RAM + SSD.
A 10 year old PC probably has DDR3, and a new Mobo has DDR4.
A new Mobo, is probably capable to handle NVMe which is about 6x faster as a 10 year old SATA SSD, and prices are quite reasonable (Last time I checked, there’s a virus going round).
Same for the power supply. Once you upgraded most of the electronics in a PC, do you then really consider to keep on chugging along with a 10 year old power supply with half worn out electrolytics?
You would be far better off simply using an ordinary HDTV, 1920 x 1080 resolution. Paying all the extra money for a computer monitor is pointless. I use an ordinary 40 inch TV with great results,
Accurate color reproduction is of no importance at all but resolution is everything. Your computer’s monitor adapter must output HDMI or DVI, which is HDMI without digital sound) or you will need to also use a converter to HDMI or DVI in addition.
If that works for you, that is good. For me, 1920x1080 at 40-inch diagonal is far too low resolution for computer work. For watching videos it’s fine, though!
Hello!
It doesn’t get that hot, because anyway Kicad doesn’t need huge computer power resources. The rear plate is not shown, but there are many holes in it for air evacuation. The air comes from the bottom fan. As I said, I bought an average mini ITX motherboard and a cheap Core I5. The memory is 16 GB, and I recently upgraded to a 1 TB SSD drive but it can work with 128 GB if you use Linux only.
For those who would like to build that kind of hard, be aware that the usual cable mess inside of a PC has to be tuned a little bit otherwise it doesn’t fit. I have shortened all the wires of the power 24-pin cable, and also the HD power cables. You can notice that all the wires have been cut, shortened, soldered and protected with thermo insulator. You can also notice the huge (and expensive) power button and the HD LED (blue) that can be seen on the front pane through the polycarbonate which is not completely opaque.
One more thing: don’t do that to save money because if you take into account the time you will spend on it, you could be more productive on some other task. I built that because I don’t like off-the-shelf cases which are built in food can technology. It’s OK for sardines in oil, not for a computer.
You would be far better off simply using an ordinary HDTV, 1920 x 1080 resolution. Paying all the extra money for a computer monitor is pointless. I use an ordinary 40 inch TV with great results,
All opinions are acceptable. If this fits your needs, you are perfectly right. The fact that these monitors exist proves that some people (including me) buy them, and therefore don’t think it’s pointless. You may consider to rephrase “is pointless for me”.
The desired monitor resolution was never mentioned. And, the typical computer monitor resolution 10 years ago was low. I simply made a resonable guess at what the desired application was. If 1020 resolution is “far too low resolution for computer work” then the desired solution is in the 99.99… percentile of “resolution for computer work”. Using 10 year old computer hardware for this very high end application is unrealistic to obtain even mediocre performance.
What is NVMe and why should I care?
Yes, I have a SATA hard drive, not a SSD.
Whoa… you are using a stone age computer. IDE < SATA < NVME… and not all NVME are the same (and I don’t remember).
Much increased productivity with a faster drive; the major bottleneck in most systems.
I have an earlier version of this:
ONN 43" 4K
I got it for less than $200 USD.
Ubuntu Mate 20.04.1 LTS set to 3840x2160 @30Hz and Mate Tweak HiDPI set to HiDPI. With HiDPI set to “Regular” most OS text is stupid small on the screen.
I would like a dual monitor setup, but I do not have the physical space for such. I can often get away with multiple windows on the one TV panel and changing the zoom level for each window (Ctrl+mouse-scroll).
30 Hz is getting a bit slow even for CAD
I do wish the refresh rate was higher, however I do not perceive any issues with the current refresh rate.
Very happy with the current results for the price.
Can you blink your eyes faster than 1/30 of a second ? 
No, but you can just start to see annoying jerkiness when at about that point.
Is the refresh limit the monitor, the graphics card or even the HDMI cable limited?
Drawing a 4K display eats bandwidth
Modern LCDs and OLEDs don’t produce visible flicker when refreshing, unlike CRTs and plasma screens. For a static image a refresh rate of only 1Hz is obviously fine (dynamic refresh rates down to 1Hz are used in a mobile phone I’ve just been reading about, but I can’t remember what model it is - the OnePlus 9, possibly?).
The problem comes with motion. When scrolling, or dragging CAD objects across the screen, the refresh rate reveals itself as jerky motion. It is so common we’ve all got used to it, but it is widely accepted that when using a scroll-heavy product such as a mobile phone, refresh rates of 120Hz make a very substantial difference over the widely accepted 60Hz.
So there isn’t really an ideal refresh rate because it depends on how much movement there is on the screen. Also, some people are much more sensitive to motion judder than others, so individual needs vary.
Having said that, I would have thought a refresh rate of 30Hz would be OK for CAD, for most people. After all, the classic frame rate for a movie is only 24fps, and even now loads of vids on YouTube are 30Hz. Personally I find a 60Hz LCD or OLED screen just fine for all computing work, unless it’s a CRT or plasma screen, in which case I can see flicker until the refresh rate is above 75Hz.
I did that same thing (43" 4K 30hz TV) for several years. The lag is 100% noticeable and annoying even for office work or web browsing. Do not recommend.
