Bug ID 1227124
Summary XWayland applications appear blurry and have resolution issues when fractional scaling is enabled under GNOME
Classification openSUSE
Product openSUSE Tumbleweed
Version Current
Hardware x86-64
OS openSUSE Tumbleweed
Status NEW
Severity Major
Priority P5 - None
Component GNOME
Assignee gnome-bugs@suse.de
Reporter reiokorn@tutanota.com
QA Contact qa-bugs@suse.de
Target Milestone ---
Found By ---
Blocker ---

Summary:
When fractional scaling is enabled on GNOME (experimental option), XWayland
applications, such as Steam, OnlyOffice, and Wine, experience significant
usability issues. These include blurry appearance and the inability to set
native resolutions for games.

Description:
When fractional scaling is enabled on GNOME:
1. Blurriness: Applications not yet on Wayland, like Steam and OnlyOffice,
appear blurry when using XWayland.
2. Resolution Issues in Wine: For gaming applications running on Wine (also not
yet on Wayland), the native resolution option becomes unavailable. Users are
forced to choose between:
   - 200% scaling with 0.75 font scaling (equivalent to 150%)
   - 100% scaling with 1.5 font scaling
   This forces users to decide between larger fonts or larger icons, neither of
which is ideal.

Additional Issues:
- While Wayland-native applications work as expected, XWayland applications
face these issues.
- The mentioned scaling options work for GTK applications, but QT applications
become too small and require additional scaling adjustments through environment
variables.

Potential Fix:
There is a pending merge request that aims to allow XWayland applications to
scale themselves, which could circumvent these issues: [GNOME Mutter Merge
Request #3567](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests/3567).

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Enable fractional scaling on GNOME.
2. Launch any XWayland application (e.g., Steam or OnlyOffice).
3. Observe the blurry appearance.
4. Attempt to set native resolution in a game running on Wine and observe the
unavailability of native resolution options.

Expected Results:
XWayland applications should scale properly and maintain clarity, and users
should be able to set native resolutions in Wine without being forced to choose
between suboptimal scaling options.

Actual Results:
XWayland applications appear blurry, and native resolution options are
unavailable in Wine when fractional scaling is enabled.

System Information:
- OS: openSUSE Tumbleweed # VERSION="20240625"
- Desktop Environment: GNOME
- Fractional Scaling: Enabled
- Applications Affected: Steam, OnlyOffice, Wine (among others)

This issue significantly impacts user experience, requiring cumbersome
workarounds and affecting a broad range of applications, when using a HiDPI
monitor and the need to use fractional scaling on GNOME to make it usable.


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