Scaling the UI (Preferences->General UI->Global UI Scale) used to work fine, but in 20.5.278 (Win) I get random behavior. The value is set to 1.2, but Houdini randomly chooses whether to scale the UI or not: sometimes it launches in "normal size" (too small for me), sometimes with the UI scaled up (the way I want it). I checked my houdini.env, I don't set the UI scale there, so there shouldn't be any interference. And even if there were, the effect on the UI should be constant, not random. Has something changed in 20.5?

I have never had issues with global UI scaling in Linux or Windows 11 on any of the production versions of 20.5? I just looked at the changelog to see if there was some fix as well, nothing. It could just be your system. Maybe an HDA/plugin compatibility issue. Is there a way you can set 20.5 to its defaults temporarily and see if the issue persists?

Seems like there's a conflict between the UI scale set in Houdini's Preferences dialog and the HOUDINI_UISCALE variable in houdini.env. I've now set the Preferences value to 1 and the HOUDINI_UISCALE variable to what I want. As of right now, the Houdini UI scale seems to work. I also have my custom DPI value set in Windows (for Win apps), which, I think, may add another factor to the DPI conflicts. As a person gets older, every day he faces the same question: "How do I set the fonts in this darn app so I can see stuff"

element33
Seems like there's a conflict between the UI scale set in Houdini's Preferences dialog and the HOUDINI_UISCALE variable in houdini.env. I've now set the Preferences value to 1 and the HOUDINI_UISCALE variable to what I want. As of right now, the Houdini UI scale seems to work. I also have my custom DPI value set in Windows (for Win apps), which, I think, may add another factor to the DPI conflicts. As a person gets older, every day he faces the same question: "How do I set the fonts in this darn app so I can see stuff"

The env var should always override the preference. It would be nice if the OS scale was used so we didn't have to set the scaling in the app itself. AFAIK Houdini ignores any OS specific scaling--it just uses the setting to set the default value of the preference.