Are Mac Retina displays less crisp in R2013b?

If you have a MacBook Pro with a Retina display, you may notice that in R2013b text is displayed less crisply than earlier releases of MATLAB.

[Douglas Schwarz]

I find that the text is significantly less sharp in R2013b than in R2013a on a NON-Retina display MacBook Pro. Is there anything that can be done about that?

Answer 1

[Ken Atwell]

This is the case. R2013b looks less sharp than earlier releases of MATLAB on MacBook Pros with a Retina display. MathWorks is aware of the issue; more information can be found at:

http://www.mathworks.com/support/solutions/en/data/1-N0GH8T/

Answer 2

[Dennis]

Allow me to be more frank: 2013b looks borderline unusable on a Retina display. It's like reading without glasses (for those who need them). I would not upgrade until a fix is available.

Answer 3

[John]

For those running r2013b on a retina Macbook: the blurry interface is caused by an outdated version of Java that ships with this release (as oppose to previous releases, which used the system Java runtime). You can easily change the Java runtime used by Matlab to a more recent version. This solves the blurriness on your retina Mac.

To do this, first locate the path to your system Java runtime (JRE), for instance:

/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_45.jdk/Contents/Home/jre

Then set the environment variable MATLAB_JAVA to this path. Follow the instructions in the following article if you don't know how to do so:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/135688/setting-environment-variables-in-os-x

After rebooting, r2013b will no longer look blurry.

[Ken Atwell]

The Solution mentions this:

http://www.mathworks.com/support/solutions/en/data/1-N0GH8T/

If you experiment with this, keep your eye out for a different problem -- the cursor insertion point may not be where it is drawn on the screen. We found it very difficult to edit text, making the burry text the lesser of two evils.

[Markus]

I just updated to JDK7u45 and I can not confirm this bug. Sometimes the cursor does seem to 'drag' along, but it is just for a few ms and if anything just a minor disturbance. I don't know if it got better since Java7u40, but with Java7u45 on my Macbook Pro with retina it is 99% the way it should be. I am just mentioning that here, so in case other people read that, I think they should still give it a try.

[Erik Johnson]

For those of us who do not have the full Java Developer Kit (JDK), but still have the Java 7 Runtime Environment (JRE) installed, the JRE is instead at

/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home

(You can tell if the Java 7 JRE is installed by opening "System Preferences"; if there is a Java preferences item, click it to open the Java Control Panel; then click "About..." in the General pane to see what version of Java 7 is installed.)

[Erik Johnson]

Another approach for getting the "right" JRE loaded in MATLAB is to replace the problematic JRE 7u11 with a link to the correct one:

cd /Applications/MATLAB_R2013b.app/sys/java/jre/maci64
mv jre jre.orig

Then one of the following two should be done (depending on the JRE location):

ln -s '/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home' jre

or

ln -s /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_45.jdk/Contents/Home/jre

[Steve Cowper]

Erik - I'm having this blurry font problem too under OSX 10.8 with JRE u45 and I tried to follow your instructions above but although I can see what looks like an 'Internet Plug-Ins' directory under Library, I can't seem to be able to go into this directory…

drwxr-xr-x 12 root wheel 408 21 Nov 17:01 Internet Plug-Ins

Steves-MacBook-Pro:Library stevecowper$ cd Internet Plug-Ins -bash: cd: Internet: No such file or directory

Any thoughts on what I'm doing wrong?

[Andrew Janke]

@Steve Cowper - You need to quote the directory name since it has a space in it.

$ cd "Internet Plug-Ins"

[Julian Williams]

Just a quick update for those of you of the cut and paste mentality:

If you have R2014a then you need to:

cd /Applications/MATLAB_R2014a.app/sys/java/jre/maci64 mv jre jre.orig

Then execute:

ln -s '/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home' jre

We have four different types of mac with retina and the Internet Plug-Ins version always works. I think if you have disabled the java pug-in for security reasons then you will need to download the newest JRE from Oracle.

I am amazed that given the cost of Matlab each year (most expensive single purchase in our institution) then not being able to update something as easy as Java seems a bit odd! Especially as the rest of the support package is so good.

[Tracy]

@Julian Williams - I'm not very familiar with paths on a Mac so might have misunderstood your tip. I executed the first command, which I understood to be changing to the directory storing Matlab JRE information, and then renaming(?) the jre file "jre.orig". I then executed the second line, which I understood to be linking that directory with the JRE.

Now, Matlab can't locate the JRE and I can't launch Matlab, either from the taskbar or from the terminal. Do you have any tips for undoing these commands (e.g. unlinking that directory and the JRE?), or how to work around this?

[Billy]

Thanks for the advice! I've replaced the jre folder with a symlink to the jre from my jdk (7u51), and MATLAB now looks good on the Retina display and on a 4K monitor I have running in HiDPI mode. However, Simulink still does not seem to be taking advantage of it and still looks very pixelated. Do I have to repeat this procedure somewhere else for Simulink?

Thanks!

[Richard]

Using R2014a on Macbook Retina.

I have corrected the sharpness on Matlab editor and all the popup windows by replacing the JRE file. The problem is that in SIMULINK and STATEFLOW the fonts are still blurry until they are selected. When a blurry line name, box name, or command is selected it instantly sharpens into focus. As soon as it is deselected it returns to blurry. Please help....

Answer 4

[Namshik Han]

Thanks Erik. Your second approach works perfectly.

[Hannes Greim]

The problem with this solution is that, while it addresses the fuzzy font issue, it introduces a new issue in the JVM which causes the cursor position to be misrepresented on the display. See: http://bugs.sun.com/view_bug.do?bug_id=8020752

[Kasper]

Sure - but now it is actually possible to read the text :-) And the misplaced cursor disappears as soon as you edit the line or click another place in the editor - as far as I see it. Please correct me if I am wrong!

 - I can correct myself. The problem with the cursor is pretty bad. I found out after 10 minutes of use.

[Carlos]

It causes other problems as well. At least for me, in Mavericks using java 1.7 51, zooming into plots often beachballs. Unusable.

[Andrew Janke]

Cursor placement and text spacing may be fixable by changing fonts. I switched to Meslo LG for my fixed-width font, and all the text fields look great now; no cursor issues.

Stability is a problem for me. Occasional plot issues, and using help() at all is an instant beachball. But I'll put up with a couple crashes a day to get a readable display. Just hope this is fixed soon.

Answer 5

[Andrew Janke]

Another workaround is to run the Windows version of Matlab in a virtual machine on your Mac. Retina support (called "Hi-DPI" in Windows parlance) works mostly fine out of the box on the Windows side for R2014a on Windows 7. (You just need to adjust your font sizes. And the ribbon is displayed really small.) It doesn't seem to have the stability issues that running OS X Matlab against a newer MATLAB_JAVA does.

I'm running OS X 10.9.2, Windows 7 SP1 in a VM under Parallels Desktop 9, Matlab R2014a.