Visual Studio Community 2015 blurry on second monitor to Surface Pro 4

Question

My surface pro 4 display is 2736×1824, scaling 200%. The external monitor I plugged in on HDMI is 1920x1080, scaling 100%.

Other apps (such as Chrome) display OK on the external monitor, but Visual Studio text editor is very blurry - so blurry that my eyes kept trying to refocus and became very tired very quickly.

So I basically had to turn off the large monitor and work only on the surface's own display.

What can I do to fix it?

Oxazine

Possible duplicate of Visual Studio 2010 blurry font – Algonquin

Not sure if it will work, but try this: Right click on VS in the start menu and select "More" and then "Open File Location". Right click on the VS exe (or shortcut) in file explorer and click "Properties". Select the "Compatibility" tab. Under "Settings", check the "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings" option and then close the properties dialog. Launch VS as you would normally. – Jose

None of the things above worked – Oxazine

I got exactly the same thing with a 4K monitor next to a 1980x1200. VS really sucks at this. It is in every version, also 2017 Enterprise. What might help is setting both displays to the same dpi, rendering your surface useless but at least you can work on an external display. – Mistakable

Answer 1

This worked for me: ensure that your high resolution display is not your primary. Set one of your other / Full HD displays as primary, and reboot -- the reboot is unfortunately required.

Diggins

This works! For future readers - no need for a full reboot, but you do need to sign out and back into Windows. – Transsonic

Pretty sure that the problem is simply not signing out after making display changes: I opened Display Settings and there was a red message stating something along the lines of "some apps may not respond to changes until you sign out", but it's somewhat easy to miss (or maybe it doesn't show up until you reopen that screen - not sure). – Wrap

Can't believe this actually worked... The first though I had was, what if I set the first screen to main screen again and then logout/login. Will it go back to being blurry? To save you that test... The fix is permanent, even when you reset the first screen to be the main screen. – Salangi

I don't understand how Microsoft test Windows 10 on Surface 4 Pro. It's an very expensive device! – Crystacrystal

Answer 2

Try to set the scale of 'text apps and other items' to 100% for all of your monitors. Open 'Settings' of windows 10 and go to the 'Display' and find 'Change the size of text, apps, and other items:' to set its scale to 100%. Yes it can make you hard to read text on your high resolution (but small in physical size) monitor. So, it's your choice as

Kanarese

This is totally impossible. The resolution of Surface Pro 4 is so high, and text at 100% on the tablet is so tiny, it is virtually impossible. – Oxazine

Answer 3

I had this problem in Visual Studio 2019 on Windows 11 with a laptop and an extended display configuration that had the same resolution.

This is the issue

Visual Studio 2019 code editor appears blurry on a Web Forms page (but not the code behind file)

• 1 - Laptop = main display at 1920 x 1080 (6 bit / 60 Hz)
• 2 - External Display = extended display at 1920 x 1080 (8 bit / 60 Hz)

Example 1

• Laptop configured as 125% (recommended) scaling
• External Display configured as 100% (recommended) scaling

Result = Text did not appear clearly in editor

Example 2

• Laptop configured as 125% (recommended) scaling
• External Display configured as 125% scaling

Result = Editor appeared clearly but display 2 appeared with larger text

Example 3

• Laptop configured as 100% scaling
• External Display configured as 100% (recommended) scaling

Result = Editor appeared clearly but display 1 appeared with smaller text

Working - Setting the higher resolution display as primary

As suggested by Anton on this thread, the actual solution was to set the highest resolution display as the main display device (in my configuration it was the 8-bit external display), set the recommended scaling for each display and restart the PC.

On Windows 11 set the recommended scaling for each display

1. Open "Settings"
2. Search for "Display Settings" and select it
3. Click the higher resolution display where it says "Select a display to change the settings for it"
4. Expand the "Multiple displays" sub-tab
5. Tick "Make this my main display"
6. Select the "Recommended" scale % option for each display
7. Restart machine
8. Check the applications that weren't displaying clearly

Both screens should display at their recommended scale resolution correctly.

During Windows login the laptop display will be blank and the external display will be active if the external display is the main display device and it is connected.

Make sure the external display is switched on during Windows login, otherwise the laptop display will still remain blank. Or disconnect the external display to switch back to the laptop during the login.

Checking Bit Depth

If you have both displays that have the same resolution, set the primary display as the one with the higher bit depth. My Laptop was only 6 bit while the external display was 8 bit.

You can check what this is by opening the "Display settings" and select the first display device and open "Advanced display". This will indicate the selected refresh rate and the current bit depth.

Sputnik