Native 4K with Radeon 5500 XT

[geoffoliver]

It was worth a punt, sorry we can't resolve this in the proper manner.

No worries. I appreciate the help

 

[JerryM]

rx 5500 xt should definitely work with 4k. Check config

 

[geoffoliver]

rx 5500 xt should definitely work with 4k. Check config

Is there something specific I should be looking for? I ran it through the sanity check and it came back ok.

I think maybe I didn't explain my problem well enough. I can actually select what "looks like" a 4k resolution from the display prefs (and everything is waaaay too small to be usable), but out of the box, macos wants to display at 1080. It's so weird. Right now I'm running on a scaled resolution and it's not terrible. Certainly not as crisp as the 5k iMac sitting right next to it, but I'm pretty sure it's better than a 72dpi screen. I should probably just pull one out, and hook it up to compare.

 

[JerryM]

Is there something specific I should be looking for? I ran it through the sanity check and it came back ok.

I think maybe I didn't explain my problem well enough. I can actually select what "looks like" a 4k resolution from the display prefs (and everything is waaaay too small to be usable), but out of the box, macos wants to display at 1080. It's so weird. Right now I'm running on a scaled resolution and it's not terrible. Certainly not as crisp as the 5k iMac sitting right next to it, but I'm pretty sure it's better than a 72dpi screen. I should probably just pull one out, and hook it up to compare.

Definitely not sharper than 5k. When it says “looks like 1920x1080” it should actually be 4K with the largest scale.

 

[geoffoliver]

So it seems this would be as good as it gets, then? A "looks like" resolution of 2560x1440 with some slightly fuzzy text

 

[JerryM]

So it seems this would be as good as it gets, then? A "looks like" resolution of 2560x1440 with some slightly fuzzy text

So in your system report or monitor info it doesn’t say 3840x2160? Have you tried holding alt and click scaled in system preference/display to see all possible options?

 

[geoffoliver]

Well this is odd. In the system information, it says the monitor is capable of 5120x2880, which it absolutely is not. Maybe that's part of the issue.

Re: option+clicking - this does indeed show me a whole mess of scaled display options.

 

[JerryM]

can u post your config list?

 

[geoffoliver]

Yes indeed. See attached.

I'm using iMacPro1,1 because I saw somewhere that it would give me better video performance (turns out that wasn't true) but I was just too lazy to revert it. I didn't really see any difference, so I didn't see a need to change it back. I'm certainly willing to do that, though. FWIW, I had previously tried iMac20,2 with the same level of success.

 

[geoffoliver]

Looks like in the newest buying guide, my graphics card didn't make the cut I guess I should feel happy that it's working at all.