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Is there a way to make all monitors play nicely with each other?

I have a laptop with a 4K screen, and I'm (at least temporarily) using a physically larger 1080p monitor beside it. So, the monitor is larger, but there are less pixels. I don't really mind the aesthetically jarring effect of this, but is there some way I can tell Windows that the monitor ISN'T 4x smaller than the laptop screen (aka change the pixel density settings)? Because as it is, it's doing its best to adjust scaling but fails when A: windows straddle the screens and B: the mouse jumps on the Y-axis when moving between them.

Also, windows will occasionally keep their scale from the other monitor when moving from one to the other, for example if I unplug the external monitor while the laptop is asleep the windows will jump to the laptop screen at 1/4 size. Any way to fix these things?

Davis Diercks
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    Set them to the same resolution? – Seth Sep 29 '17 at 08:26
  • What do you mean? And how would I do that? – Davis Diercks Sep 30 '17 at 19:51
  • Open your display settings (right click your desktop) and set both of them to the same resolution and/or adjust the scaling for either display. – Seth Sep 30 '17 at 20:30
  • Ok so I can set the resolution of my laptop to the same of the external monitor and that fixes the scaling issue, but then I'm not making any use of the higher resolution in the hardware (as in I may as well just have two lower resolution monitors because that's what I'm telling Windows to think it is). Is that just a side effect of the best solution available? – Davis Diercks Oct 05 '17 at 23:44
  • To be honest I don't really get the scaling issue. In addition that dialog will have options for scaling as well. If you create a 640x480 window you create on one of the displays will still be 640x480 on the other, the lower resolution will just make it feel bigger. The pixel density of a display is fixed, it's a fraction of physical pixels and physical dimensions. – Seth Oct 07 '17 at 06:39
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    Yes, everything works as intended, but for example let me describe the process of moving a window from the 4k screen (A) to the 1080 monitor (B). I start out with the window looking great on A, I begin to drag it, and as it crosses over into B it remains good on A but is 4x its intended size on B. I continue dragging and when it is completely on B it "jumps" to the correct scale. Going from B to A is the same but the portion of the window on A will be 1/4 the size while the part on B is correct. Not a huge issue, but I'd like to know if there's a way I can smoothly transition between monitors. – Davis Diercks Oct 08 '17 at 22:10
  • Different but related (and significantly more annoying) problem, when I unplug the monitor if windows are minimized, They will be 1/4 scale on my laptop the next time I bring them up, and/or the window size will be far too big or small such that I have to resize it. – Davis Diercks Oct 08 '17 at 22:12
  • Related: https://superuser.com/a/977456/161006 – andrewb May 16 '18 at 00:12

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Not sure if you already solved this, but maybe LittleBigMouse can help: https://github.com/mgth/LittleBigMouse

It allowed me to solve some issues with the 'gaps' between the screens (allow corner crossing), but it allows you to correct/optimise mouse movement between displays with different DPI values.

My setup in LBM: LBM in 4 monitor action

My setup IRL: enter image description here

M.D. Klapwijk
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