OS X: Low res window chrome (title text) and fix

Anything that prevents you from playing the game properly. Do you have issues playing for the game, downloading it or successfully running it on your computer? Let us know here.
IsaacHeron
Burner Inserter
Burner Inserter
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2016 4:03 pm
Contact:

OS X: Low res window chrome (title text) and fix

Post by IsaacHeron »

When launching Factorio on OS X the window's title ("Factorio 0.12....") is in low resolution, even when using a retina display (e.g. iMac 5k).
Opening the Factorio.app "Get Info" dialog (right click on app) shows "Open in Low Resolution" activated but grayed-out.

To change this setting, right click the app again and "Show Package Contents". Navigate to the folder "Contents" and edit "Info.plist" (full path is "~/Library/Application\ Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/Factorio/factorio.app/Contents/Info.plist" for the Steam version).
Add

Code: Select all

	<key>NSHighResolutionCapable</key>
	<true/>
inside the "dict" tag. It is import not to add it between existing key/string pairs.

OS X seems to cache these settings and you need to run

Code: Select all

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -f ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/Factorio/factorio.app
(found here http://stackoverflow.com/a/20452270)

After this the window's chrome is in retina resolution after a game restart. Unfortunately the game's graphics aren't. I know it is pixel art, but rendering the game in retina would mean a crisp image when zoomed all the way out. Using WaiTex and retina rendering would look great when zoomed out. For this to work I think the game would need to support the higher resolution of retina displays. Currently the game uses four physical pixels as one logical one it seems.

You can trick Factorio into using a higher logical resolution by going to "System Preferences > Displays" and selecting "Resolution: Scaled" and then "More Space". Now everything is tiny.
Run Factorio, use the WaiTex mod, click the window's zoom button (traffic light buttons, top left; don't use the game's option for fullscreen, it produces a white bar at the top) and zoom your map all the way out. You now see more pixels and a bit crisper graphics. The "More Space" option simulates a higher logical resolution (3200 x 1800 on a 5k iMac) than the normal one (2560 x 1440). This way Factorio uses more logical pixels than normal. It gets a little bit blurry during upscaling to the display's native resolution (5120 x 2880 for a 5k iMac) because the ratio isn't 2x anymore. (It looks a bit like FSAA.)
This is something to try until the devs support OS X's retina resolution and thus all glorious 14.7 million physical pixels.

More on this topic: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202471
IsaacHeron
Burner Inserter
Burner Inserter
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2016 4:03 pm
Contact:

Re: OS X: Low res window chrome (title text) and fix

Post by IsaacHeron »

I've found SwitchResX (http://www.madrau.com) which changes the resolution when an app is launched. Unfortunately this resolution change is for the whole system and not just one app (which makes the rest of OS X very tiny) and is unusable for me as I often switch apps.
Running Factorio at native 5120x2880 looks amazing with the high res images (WaiTex) though. So much detail is visible even when zoomed way out. I won't post a screenshot, it's 32MB :)
Post Reply

Return to “Technical Help”