4K/2160p output

Most Android devices display the user interface at HD/1080p/1920x1080 even when configured in Android settings to output at a higher resolution such as 4K/2160p/3840x2160.

DS Loader uses the reported Android Window Manager display size, which is typically 1920x1080, to compose the graphical output. This means text, images, web pages, and other components are limited to 1920x1080 resolution.

Videos above HD will typically display at their native resolution because they are rendered directly to the screen using hardware acceleration. However, if there are two video resources in an item (one for HD and one for 4K), the HD item may be selected incorrectly for the screen because DS Loader is unaware the screen is capable of displaying 4K.

To enable image and web page output above HD and to ensure 4K videos are selected for display, the system software needs to be modified. A computer with ADB (from the Android SDK) is required and some simple shell commands need to be issued.

Enable debugging

1. Enable developer tools:
1. Open Settings.
2. Click About.
3. Click Build 10 times.
2. Enable debugging:
1. Open Settings.
2. Click Developer options.
3. Click USB debugging to enable and/or Network debugging to enable.

Debugging over USB

1. Connect a USB cable to the device (port usually labelled OTG).
2. Open a command prompt / terminal window.
3. Navigate to the location where the Android platform tools are installed.
4. Execute the following command:

   adb shell

5. Approve the debugging request that appears on the Android device.

Debugging over network

1. Open a command prompt / terminal window.
2. Navigate to the location where the Android platform tools are installed.
3. Execute the following commands replacing the IP address with that of the device. (Can be found in System, About, Status).

   adb connect 192.168.2.188:5555
   adb shell

4. Approve the debugging request that appears on the Android device.

Increase window manager resolution

1. Run the following commands in the ADB shell:
   

   wm size 3840x2160
   wm density 480

2. Verify that the Android desktop/launch now displays at a higher resolution.

Note: There is a performance penalty for increasing the window manager resolution, but it is currently the only way to prevent Android down-scaling images to HD before up-scaling to 4K with loss of quality.

Also note that many devices still fail to render above 1080p even when the window manager resolution is increased.

More useful Android shell commands

View information about what Android is displaying including rendering resolutions:

dumpsys SurfaceFlinger

View a live view of the logs:

logcat

Install DS Loader (exit android shell first):

Download ds-loader.apk to the local PC then issue the following command:

adb install ds-loader.apk

Uninstalling DS Loader:

adb uninstall net.targetr.stacks.central