PSA: Surround/Eyefinity in Windows 8.1

[Brett]

It was high time for me to do a Windows reinstall this weekend for me, and since Windows 8.1 hit MSDN, I decided to take the plunge. I ran into a problem with Surround on my nVidia card in Windows 8.1 that was not present in Windows 8.

Basically, everything looked blurry or fuzzy. For whatever reason, the taskbar, Metro UI, and other native Windows stuff was fine - but every other application just looked bad. I soon realized that applications were actually "zoomed in" - for example, I made an image in MSPaint which was 1680px wide, as a scale, and the image extended a quarter of the way on to the monitor to the right of it.

I did a little digging, and I figured out it was actually Windows resizing the stuff to accommodate for what it perceives as a much larger resolution. It must count the pixels, not realizing it's actually a 3x1 ultrawide display, and assume it's something akin to a Retina display, or a 2560x1600 on a tablet or something, where scaling like this would make sense.

I did some more digging, and it turns out this feature was indeed added in Windows 8.1: http://www.techradar.com/us/news/software/operating-systems/windows-8-1-dpi-scaling-why-you-shouldn-t-bother-getting-excited-1161343

So here's how to fix it:

• Enable Surround
• Control Panel -> Display -> Screen Resolution -> Make text and other items larger or smaller
• Click "Let me choose one scaling level for all my displays".
• Under "Change the size of all items", select "Smaller - 100% (default)".
• You will need to log off and back on to finish the process.

And that's just about it. This new feature seems to be a refinement of the old "adjust font sizes" setting, which scaled only font sizes. Windows 8.1 scales *everything*, much like web browsers evolved from scaling just text to scaling the page itself. Unfortunately the detection of the "need-ness" of this feature is broken by Surround.

I'm also happy to report that Surround works just the same way as it did on Windows 8. WIN+P works for switching between "gaming" and "working" modes.

Hope this helps somebody out!

[LuckyNoS7evin]

Quick Note:

I didn't get this with Eyefinity, I don't know if it's just Surround or if I was just lucky it worked "Out of the box"...

Side Note:

Brett I'm also an MSDN guy but after install I get an odd SecureBoot isn't configured correctly, it was a fresh install and I have UEFI enabled in "BIOS", windows is activated, just wondering if you get the same?

[Brett]

Interesting to know it didn't happen with Eyefinity, really seemed like something that would happen with both.

I don't have that SecureBoot problem. I also did a fresh reinstall. This computer isn't UEFI though (older Rampage III Extreme). Bah, I hate that whole UEFI thing. I feel for you because it's a little tough to Google for relevant information for 8.1 as of now. Maybe try a post on TechNet? I see a few MS employees answering 8.1 questions on there.

While we're on the subject, I also found that I had to uninstall/reinstall a few of the Metro apps to get them working (specifically Music, News, and Weather). They worked at first, but then all of a sudden they stopped working: They would open very briefly, showing the intro screen with the big logo, and then immediately close. Uninstalling them, and reinstalling them (via Store -> Right-click top of screen -> Your Apps) did the trick.

[LuckyNoS7evin]

Interesting to know it didn't happen with Eyefinity, really seemed like something that would happen with both.

I don't have that SecureBoot problem. I also did a fresh reinstall. This computer isn't UEFI though (older Rampage III Extreme). Bah, I hate that whole UEFI thing. I feel for you because it's a little tough to Google for relevant information for 8.1 as of now. Maybe try a post on TechNet? I see a few MS employees answering 8.1 questions on there.

While we're on the subject, I also found that I had to uninstall/reinstall a few of the Metro apps to get them working (specifically Music, News, and Weather). They worked at first, but then all of a sudden they stopped working: They would open very briefly, showing the intro screen with the big logo, and then immediately close. Uninstalling them, and reinstalling them (via Store -> Right-click top of screen -> Your Apps) did the trick.

Ye, I'll get on TechNet, it's not a massive issue at the moment, it only affects the watermark on windows desktop but that's the only thing

I will keep an eye on the apps thing and get back to you if it happens to me... just checked weather and it was working

[Haldi]

meh... i have the same problem! But not on Surround, on my Laptop!
I have a 13" 1920x1080 pixel Screen and thus scaling was activated on 125% even on W8.

Then the update to 8.1 changed scaling from software that worked with it, to ALL software! Now a lot of Programs (i.e Miranda fusion chat, or all auto it scrips) are horribly zoomed/pixeled/blurred.

The Problem is if i deactivate scaling, back to 100%, it's all so extremly small. And this is a Asus TransformerBook Touchscreen Tablet. So i can't hit anything with my fingers

i have absolutly no idea why M$ changed from scale programs that work properly to scale all programs. But it's no good for Laptops.


btw, also getting that "secure start not configured" but thats because i deactivated Secure boot when i tried to install Android (didn't work -.-) and now i use it for when i use my Smartphone to boot linux img''s via usb emulation.

[LuckyNoS7evin]

Fixed Secure boot issue and by fixed I mean changed a setting to test and it worked

in BIOS turned the SATA mode to RAID rather than ACHI... don't know why that matters but it does

[Haldi]

and i got rid of the blurred windows ^^

Switched to 100%, logged out, switched back to 125% restart.

And now as before windows scales 125% and all apps/programs who don't support it scale 100%!