Larger Interface

And that's the trickiest part of it, actually. Because there are so many 3rd party libraries out there, you cannot expect each and every library developer to go out and update their library to be scalable (through whatever means it would get implemented). A bunch of those 3rd party devs are also defunct as well, so those would literally never be fixed. Also I'd argue that just doing dumb rescaling and having it all blurry is absolutely not doing anyone any favors.

That's because if somebody has eyesight issues, they aren't using a 4K monitor, or they have one regular non-HiDPI monitor for Kontakt. Seriously. I've seen that scenario an awful lot. It's really as simple as that.

What is "a bunch"? Is it the whole Kontakt userbase, which is several million people, each of them using it in different ways? You can bet composers are all over quickload and database, and you can bet all the developers (and tinkerer users) are all over the Expert tab. You just don't have those stats in front of you.


Now. I am not saying Kontakt's UI shouldn't be improved. It absolutely should. It should maybe be even entirely re-thought on the basis of what it's supposed to be. But even a from-scratch rewrite would take a lot of time, based on how the codebase has "organically grown" through 20 years.

 

Bull's eye. Most popular DAW updates add a bunch of "innovative" or "ground-breaking" features nobody asked for and very few people actually use, and the features people have been requesting for years and bugs that have been reported ages ago don't get done. NI seem to be on the same boat.

Komplete 13 is (and has always been) NI's flagship software product. The last few Komplete versions have all been essentially a few gold nuggets (some of them recycled e.g. FM8) plus a gazillion Kontakt libraries that make up the bulk&bloat of the product, and that's what supposedly people pay over 1000 Euros for. It's fair to assume Kontakt is a critical part of Komplete and therefore NI's business since, so you'd think NI would be going out of their way to nurture and develop Kontakt. Thought K13 might deliver an updated version with a larger GUI—wrong! This is the problem with de facto "standards" and the reason I think it's tragic DAWs are now adding native support for NKS, thereby locking themselves into NI's ecosystem. NI has done for samplers what Pioneer has done for DJ gear, and now we are all stuck with it. I for one won't be upgrading Kontakt until they deliver a bigger GUI.

There are large 4K monitors though, like the one I'm about to get But Kontakt's GUI is too small by any standards. My farthest comfortable viewing distance is 75 cm with a 21.5" 1920x1080 display. That means for me a 43" 4K display also viewed at 75 cm would give me the same experience. I know you do a bunch of work with Kontakt, EG, just wondering what display setup do you use?

 

I mentioned my display setup a few posts back. And yeah, I'm aware of those 43" 4K displays. They are basically 4 regular 1080p monitors smashed together. So they're not really HiDPI at that size - dot pitch is roughly the same as on a regular non-HiDPI monitor. In fact I think I'd like one for myself.

 

Aha I missed that. However I don't think you said the display size which is also important. BTW 1920x1200 is IMO the a very nice display ratio, way better than 1920x1080. I would love to see it come back.

 

Yeah 2x24", at roughly half a meter distance. Really nice Dell monitors. And yes 16:10 FTW!

 

But this isn't just about 4k and having the UI be nicely sharp when resized. A big blurry text is still readable, but fonts which are so small they're just a couple millimeters are hard to read even up close. I have a 34" 1440p display and letters in Kontakt are roughly 4mm tall. This is already smaller than the default font in a web browser (I'd say by about 40%).

A blurry text is infinitely more readable than text so small you can't even make out letters. For example, this is the Database upscaled to 200%



Is it ugly? Yes, annoyingly. But what is even more annoying is when the text is so small you have to bend over to read it. It's not a problem of crispiness but viewing distance. If I had anything besides a keyboard in front of my monitor I'd already sit far enough to not be able to read any of the UI without focusing extra hard. The thing about viewing distance is that if I sit even closer than I am now I can read Kontakt much better for sure, but I can also see individual pixels on my monitor.

But I understand that nobody would want Kontakt to be blurry since that'd just scream "low quality". The thing is, upscaling with nearest-neighbour interpolation basically makes all of these problems disappear. The reason simple upscaling pixels is ugly is because all the antialiasing and subpixel rendering gets upscaled as well. Just take any arbitrary photo on your computer, look at it at 100%, then zoom out to 50% and try to see the same details - that's how Kontakt feels. Now upscale it to 200% with nearest neighbour and stand further away from your monitor. You'll be able to see the exact same details at 100% when sitting closer. More importantly, when you look at the 200% from close up it still doesn't look like blurry poop.

I do realize that most 3rd party libraries will never be updated, but that's fine, at least they'll remain usable. It's also what other DAWs do. If you look at for example upscaling in FL, it does exactly this for the builtin plugins, e.g. this



The way I understand VST is that the plugins fundamentally render to a render texture, which the host could just render at 2x upscale, and it'd really only need to pass in mouse input events at a recalculated (downscaled) position. In the case of Kontakt this seems that it'd be even simpler, since it literally defines an API for devs to build the UI with, so it has control over how they render?

I don't think anyone here is expecting that NI will come up with a magical solution that'll work for every abandoned plugin (since it's a fundamentally unsolvable problem) without getting visual artifacts. The problem with not even providing an upscaled option is that all the new devs creating new instruments for Kontakt are going to be doing it with low res images, so the problem just feeds on itself.

Even if Kontakt just provided a way for the dev to give it a 2x images (just like the early days of retina displays on a mac) and have the ability to only run those plugins larger, that itself would be a huge step forward, since the big library authors could update their instruments, and the problem would naturally resolve itself over time. Ideally I'd imagine still having an option to 2x upscale old incompatible plugins, but I do understand why this will probably never happen, though I feel the reason isn't "it's hard technically", and more "we're worried people will start saying kontakt is ugly if they upscale old plugins".

If the reason the UI isn't scalable is developers, I'm pretty sure the regular user wouldn't mind having a scalable UI that doesn't have developer features. As for composers, maybe the ones that use it don't post videos online, but having watched probably thousands of hours of people making music I don't recall even once someone open the quickload or database tabs. Maybe I just watch noobs But from what I've seen the pros usually already have a template ready, and the rest just opens an instrument from the list, only using search. But I'll concede on this, since the UI of Kontakt iself isn't the main problem.

To be completely honest the best solution I would imagine (which is never going to happen, but would be nice), is if Kontakt could be consumed as an API and could be both tightly integrated into a DAW (e.g. with Bitwig plugins), or just have a completely custom UI built on top. To some extent it seems to me that Kontakt is just much a standard as VST is. I do see that there are probably impossible logistics and legal issues with this, so I'm not even saying it as a suggestion. And even considering how conservative the music industry is as a whole (saying that coming from software engineering where opensource is everywhere) and how slow things move I'm just hoping something with regards to the UI size is on the roadmap.

It just saddens me that a company which makes a sample player that made probably over a billion dollars (since you say millions of users) doesn't have this problem figured out in 2020

edit: Sorry for the long post

edit2: Just a small thought. Since the biggest problem in upscaling is images, a potential solution could even be just rendering the text/UI bigger, and giving the user an option to replace the image. Personally I'd be more than happy to do this for all the things I use, I bet for most things it would be totally fine to just replace the image with a solid color. I know this is one of the things that'll also never happen in a commercial setting, since the company that sells the instrument could probably sue Kontakt because harms them by making their instruments ugly ... but it does solve the technical issues. I'd even re-draw the UI images for the things I use daily myslelf if it meant I could have it 2x bigger

 

Sorry to ask so many questions, it's just that I'm trying to decide between 43" and 49" and I can use your display set-up as a reference to work out, quite accurately, what would allow me to use Kontakt without straining my eyes. I need:

1. ✔ Your display diagonal size: 24"
2. ✔ Your display resolution: 1920x1200
3. Your furthest viewing distance at 100% display scaling (Windows 10) whilst still being able to read random characters (i.e. not actual words) in Notepad using "Font = Courier New, Style = Regular Size = 1.

The answer to the third question gives me an idea of your visual acuity. For me the max comfortable viewing distance of Notepad text with said font settings is 55 cm on a 15.3" 1920x1080 display. Knowing my viewing distance for one monitor I can calculate the viewing distance for any monitor resolution and size (already got a spreadsheet to do just that). Since I know you are a heavy Kontakt user, I can use your viewing distance for Notepad to work out a PPI that's suitable for my visual acuity. I've chosen Notepad as the reference because I don't have Kontakt installed at the moment. If you are on Mac, then ignore my message.

 

No it's exactly the former. Kontakt is using NI's own homebrew UI toolkit that is 20 years old and when it was created things like HiDPI and being pixel-agnostic didn't exist. Too many products tied into it and expecting it to work exactly as it does and no other way. Thankfully they broke off of it and started using Qt for more recent products.

Devs would like bigger UIs just as users, so no.

All the good ones are too busy to do videos.

Hey, same here! I want Kontakt to be the best there is (well I develop for it and have been for the past 11 years, so I'm a stakeholder!).

 

Are you SURE it's size 1, not 10 or 11?

(I'm on Windows and I can tell you all this info, for sure. But my eyes are still 20/20 without glasses so I may not be a valid yardstick for your monitor choice!)

 

Just like to add my support here. For me at nearly 50, it's the small fonts that bother me the most. I have an 49" samsung ultrawide 5120x 1440 with windows scaling at 150%. Nearly everything else is fine but kontakt just vexes my eyes . Reading glasses sort of work but for your young 'uns who might not understand, reading text when you get older becomes difficult due to a lack of accommodation - the range at which your eyes can focus from near to far. This deteriorates dramatically by the time you reach your 50s. It happens to more or less everyone. So whilst reading glasses may help a little, they don't adjust for the eyes lack of accommodation - so they might work for one distance but not for others..... For example: for you younger people, holding a book close to your eyes is ok, and moving it further back is ok - your eyes accommodate for the change in distance. For us slightly more mature peeps, if you put reading glasses on to read a book at say 12", and then you move that book nearer or further, the eyes struggle to accommodate - you may even have several different strength reading glasses for different distances. So, perhaps a little more understanding would be great for us crusties who still want to create music using the latest software.

And I agree with another poster - bigger blurry text is better for us than smaller sharp text.

Also contrast is very important too......

 

FWIW as a new Kontakt user, I could really do with this feature too. I have a smallish monitor - 22" or thereabouts, 1920x1080, and because I have a large desk with a bunch of kit on it, the monitor is quite a large distance from me. Everything else about my interface (DAW and unrelated things) is fine to view at this distance, but Kontakt I basically can't really use properly.

Like posters above, I do understand that it's hard to achieve (I work in tech as well and I know what it's like to be working with a legacy codebase!) but I am sure NI have the resources to achieve it if they wanted to. Similarly, I get that not all instruments would get their UIs updated to match, but I bet a lot of them would as they know it'd be a better experience for their users - and using that as an excuse locks us in stasis where neither side is willing to make the first move, and the end user loses out.

Anyway, just wanted to add another voice in favour of NI trying harder on this one.

 

I run Windows 10 scaled at 200% on a 55" Roku TV and the Kontakt window and it's plugin resize perfectly, however, in FL Studio 20, the Kontakt window is still at 100% not 200% even tho FL Studio is at 200% See screen shot, left Kontakt window is in FL Studio, the one on the right is stand alone.

 

I fully understand that reworking or rewriting an old code base is very resource heavy work and does not appear to be cost effective to managers. I truly believe that NI has run out of time on this. You cannot just tell customers to buy a standard def monitor and live with it. Those monitors are no longer manufactured, if they are, their cost is at a premium because they are now "specialized equipment".

 

Did you try running "FL64 (scaled).exe" instead of "FL64.exe"?

If it's too much trouble to revamp the old code, then why not just make a new one from scratch with the same functionality, at least on the surface, but fresh modern code? I think it's acceptable running two different versions of Kontakt, old and new, to support "legacy" libraries. The only thing I'd do, however, is upscale the old version so we don't need to squint at our screens—even if it doesn't look crisp, people would understand.

IMO it's in NI's best interest to do something about Kontakt, otherwise some other company will eventually come and pick up the slack.

 

[QUOTE="If it's too much trouble to revamp the old code, then why not just make a new one from scratch with the same functionality[/QUOTE]

These are important decisions that the company needs to make in regards to current and future investments in "work-hours" i.e. resources. My point is that this particular issue should be very high priority. It is disrespectful to the customer and to the brand that the UI is essentially unusable on most modern setups unless the various hacks described in this thread are used. i..e, buy a standard def monitor, zoom the OS so that the NI VST looks good but nothing else, use 3rd party zoom software.

If the free Guitar Rig can scale perfectly well why can't a paid for Drummer?

 

That's pretty much the only way to go about this. But even that would require at least 2 years to complete, considering all the different parts of Kontakt's GUI.

AFAIK this was already implemented in the most recent versions of Kontakt (IIRC 6.4 onwards), so DAW-side scaling now works properly in Cubase, S1 and Live (it used to be broken).

Because GR6 had the GUI redone from scratch, and uses vector graphics, whereas AR Drummers use raster graphics and 20 years old graphics framework that doesn't know what UI scaling is.

 

What's two years anyway? I'd bet Kontakt is NI's most important product. NI needs Kontakt just as much as users need Kontakt. When they get around revamping Kontakt, and I'm sure they will, they will have done it for their own benefit, not for the benefit of us users. It's just a question of when...

 

As long as nobody knows the source code beside Native Instruments theirselves and there are no further files giving an advice, it is very speculative that an old framework which isn't beeing updated is the reason for the given window layout. Native Access uses QT, but only Native Access.

The only clear fact is that the NI plugins don't use the native widgets and it's theming of the operating system where they are running. For that reason, changing the widget styling (by setting font sizes and so on) of the operating system has no effect.

 

And Massive X, Guitar Rig 6, Mod Pack, Crush Pack.

 

The funny thing is that Native Access simply crashes if I put my DPI at 192, the one thing that makes "most" programs scale correctly.

Anyway, it might be a "luxury" issue but really... it is 2021 by now more than just a few odd balls are running 4k. I literally have to get up from my chair just to decipher NI software... which is laughable at best.

As a programmer, just using fixed sizes and then refusing to change it? Come on, these are your customers!

The issue is that NI should implement fractional (re)scaling, rather sooner than later. You can simply check for hidpi awareness, if not supported check DPI setting and scale accordingly (96 = 100%, 192=200%, etc). Even if the UI's become blurry, they are at least usable without getting up or trying to hit a pixel with a cursor that is bigger than the target knob!