External monitor Resolution default /scaled lag Problems

Ask the community
1

It took me a relatively long time to figure out what the problem was. However, I am still not sure why it is so and hope someone can help me. Figma is super laggy when I set the external monitor to SCALED resolution. With “Default for display” it runs super smooth. Unfortunately, Default is so high that I can’t work with it and everything is extremely small (not just Figma, the whole OS). I’m not sure if it’s because of the processing power (Macbook Pro late 2016) or if I can solve it differently with a scaled resolution. Thanks for your help!


2

I think you should also include what display you’re using.
My guess is that most of this is based on your system performance and has nothing to do with Figma.
MacOS, especially on laptops, doesn’t like the scaling thing, because it needs to re-render everything as a virtual canvas, so a lot of work for the video card.

3

Hi Remus thanks for your reply and confirming my suspicion that scaling requires a lot of power. I’m afraid that it’s really the model of my Macbook. External monitor is an ASUS (one of them PB287Q) 4k 28 inch.

I also noticed that the same thing happens with Spline (3d software) and I think both are Electron apps and I found something about it.

4

I have the same issue. My screen is LG HDR 4K. To avoid ridiculously large text I’ve set the resolution to scaled, but the lag in Figma is unbearable. When deactivating scaling the lag is acceptable.

  • MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018)
  • 2,9 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i9
  • 16 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
  • Radeon Pro 560X 4 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB
1 Like
5

I think the lag starts when we maximize the app window to full view!

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6

Hi guysi I had a same problem, when I do that on this link the problem was solved. Check it out >

H7LNQ
H7LNQ792×581 56.4 KB

  • Go to display settings
  • Switch “Default for Display” on your external monitor display settings
  • Hold OPTION and click Scaled
  • Check “show Low-Resolution modes”
  • Select desired resolution with (low resolution) attached to it
  • Mac Speed Normal!

Enjoy!

2 Likes
7

Thanks for the tip! The only thing with this solution is that we loose the sharpness of the 4K screen right?

8

I guess so.

9

Hi guys, recently i bought a 4k screen for better work flow and faced with the same issue, my mbp(2020) 13" i7 32gb ram. I couldn’t not find any solution, read all the articles on the internet but no solution.

My tricky solutions are, (I recommend the second solution)
first one is: if you want to use your monitor scaled down you shouldn’t use your figma full screen, try to find the best not laggy size for you and stick with it, it works fine.

The second one is: use your monitor 1080p not 2k or 4k use it 1080p and open figma (it’ll be huge :smiley: ) and go to view>interface scale and make it at least 80% and whola it works smooth as butter.