Linux: plugin (vst2) ui broken (due to scaling) for some (most) plugins

Help, Support & Bugs
1

On Linux (NixOS), KDE Plasma with scaling enabled, most VST2 plugins don’t render UI correctly when opened in Renoise.

For example TAL-NoiseMaker VST2 version - free download but also many other plugins have problem rendering. It seems that UI is scaled but plugins which have fixed dimensions in UI won’t increase are cropped at their 1:1 scale size.

image

  • on the left NoiseMaker opened via Renoise
  • on the right NoiseMaker opened via Carla

Note that actual rendered area is of same size in both case but UI from renoise is cropped because it’s scaled:

image

Steps to Reproduce:

  • install VST2 plugin that doesn’t support UI resizing like NoiseMaker
  • setup scaling in desktop (tested in KDE Plasma)
    image
  • open VST plugin via renoise

Expected

This is unclear frankly. Ideally the UI would be scaled but not cropped (it would fit the whole window). But I assume the dimensions are probably hard-coded on plugin side so it’s the plugin which cases the problem.

Realistically speaking I think the only feasible solution would be to force scaling in VST plugin windows to 100% as Carla does.

Actual

UI is not fully usable because it’s cropped.

3

It seems this option is not available on Linux?

image

5

Ha good idea! Sadly it seems to have no effect on the scaling in window for VST plugins image

But it scaled rest of the GUI down for me.

7

I just force it to load the plugin again (I would guess these values gets read while calling new window to open) but I tried it again with full restart of Renoise and indeed no change. I guess scaling is one of the things that is handled per OS and sadly also one of those which can be quite annoying on Linux specifically.

8

One think I wonder about is if using VST3 versions of plugin as oppose to VST2 can help with issue like this. I’m not familiar with VSTs myself enough to be able to tell. And given that these are closed source plugins which are released only as shared object binary for ubuntu which won’t link correctly on my system I would need to manually patch elf headers in VST3 versions as I did in VST2 ones which takes some effort.

Anyway even if you don’t know @EatMe thanks a lot for the tips. I really appreciate your help <3

10

Yes I think you’re right in that this is not completely fault of Renoise. I think Renoise just opens the window and KDE actually does the scalling of that window but plugin can’t handle it. But when I open the same plugin in Carla it seems the scaling is ignored and plugin renders correctly. I haven’t checked but my guess is that Carla starts the window in environment where scaling is disabled like:

export QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR=1

I think Renoise could use similar trick to fix problems like this.

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