In 2024, with GNOME 45, Wayland, and 1.25 fractional scaling, regular DPI displays still look better than HiDPI displays. This is a photo of Discord on two laptops side by side.
The blurry one is the HiDPI display from Framework 13. The sharp one is a regular DPI display from Dell XPS 13. Both laptops.
The difference is even more stark in person.
Even the screenshots from the Framework are blurrier than the screen shots from the Dell.
Non integer display scaling will always look like crap. Either set the scaling to 1 or 2 if you want it to look sharp. It's better to increase font and icon sizes if they are too small.
Apple, too. The 2012 MacBook Pro had a high DPI display, and everything scales normally even when dragging windows over to non-HiDPI external monitors.
That's not even getting into the mobile OSes, which have to deal with nonstandard display sizes and resolutions all the time, across multiple settings for accessibility.
Either set the scaling to 1 or 2 if you want it to look sharp
I just switched the scale to 2x on the Framework and it also looks blurry. Actually, I wanna say the Framework display at 2x is worse than at 1.25x... I can see more of the fuzz around the fonts now. Framework at 2x on the left, Dell XPS 13 with the font size increased on the right.
It’s better to increase font and icon sizes if they are too small.
I haven't tried this, but seems logical.
Coming from a Dell XPS 13 where everything Just Works ™ , I'm bummed Framework's choice for display isn't Linux compatible. I might just end up returning the Framework, the blurry fonts are messing with my eyes...
Did you make sure to disable fractional scaling before setting the 200% setting? If not, then it's not an actual integer scaling and it will have the same issues as other non integer scales