IntegerScaler

IntegerScaler is a free utility for pixel-perfect integer-ratio scaling (a.k.a. integer scaling) of games with no blur. For example, at the Full HD (1920×1080) resolution on a 4K monitor (3840×2160), each logical pixel is displayed as a square group of four (2×2) physical pixels of the same color.

Such lossless scaling may be useful for modern 3D games as well as for old games and pixel-art games. See e. g. a screenshot showing the “SimCity 2000” game (1993) (640×480 native resolution) upscaled to 4K with IntegerScaler.

Unlike similar software, IntegerScaler is compatible not just with Windows 10+, but also with Windows 7. Unlike FSR, DLSS, and other similar scaling algorithms, integer scaling is computationally free, does not affect performance, and has virtually zero lag.

How to use: switch the game to windowed mode and press Alt+F11 when the game window is active (focused). If Alt+F11 does not work for the game, make the game window inactive, use delayed scaling via Ctrl+Alt+F11 or via the “Scale after 5 seconds” item of the menu of the IntegerScaler icon in the notification area (system tray), then make the game window active back. Make sure the game is operating in the DPI-aware mode. Read below for details.

Windows 11 and DirectX 12: some users report that in recent versions of Windows 11 at least when using nVidia GPUs (graphics cards), there is blur when using magnification mechanism built into Windows, including when using standard Windows application Magnifier. Also, there is blur in games that use DirectX 12 (e. g. “Cyberpunk 2077”), even in Windows 10. This cannot be fixed on IntegerScaler level, this should be reported to Microsoft: more reports result in a higher probability that the issue would be resolved.

Tested games

See also

SmartUpscale — web-browser extension for preventing blurring images on web pages.
bsnes-mt — SNES (Super Nintendo) emulator with support for pixel-perfect integer-ratio scaling.

Features

Integer-ratio scaling with no blur for games that support windowed mode.
Support for Windows 7 and newer.
Ability to automatically scale specified games (via auto.txt file).
Ability to use custom background color instead of black (the -bg option).
Ability to limit the cursor-movement area to game window (the -clipcursor option).
Support for scaling with fractional scales (the -fractional option).
Ability to specify a custom scaling ratio, a fractional one in particular (the -ratio option).
Ability to crop (the -crop option).
Ability to resize game window (the -resize option).
Ability to disable hotkeys (the -nohotkeys option).
Ability to scale automatically with a specified delay after the app start (the -scale option).
System-tray icon with menu.
Support for two user-interface languages: English and Russian.
100% portable app:
- does not need installation — just unpack and use;
- does not write files outside of its folder;
- does not write to Windows registry;
- free of dependencies like .NET Framework;
- can run from an external storage such as a USB flash drive.

The application simulates full-screen mode for windowed games. The scaled image is centered on the screen. The screen area around the image is filled with solid-color background (black by default).

Integer scaling ratio for filling the screen as entirely as possible is calculated automatically and recalculated when scaled-window size is changed according to the game’s resolution.

Scaling is not applied to maximized windows.

Scaling is automatically disabled when the scaled window is closed, and is also temporarily disabled when the scaled window is minimized or maximized, and automatically enabled once window is returned to normal (not minimized, not maximized) state. Scaling also disables temporarily when the scaled window loses focus e. g. as a result of pressing the Alt+Tab keyboard shortcut.

User interface

The user interface of the program consists of the two parts:

keyboard shortcuts (hot keys) for controlling scaling;
icon in the notification area (system tray) with a menu.

Keyboard shortcuts

Pressing the Alt+F11 keyboard shortcut enables scaling for currently active window. Pressing it again disables scaling regardless of what window is active.

Pressing the Ctrl+Alt+F11 keyboard shortcut enables scaling with a delay of 5 seconds. This allows to enable scaling even in games which block third-party keyboard shortcuts while the game’s window is active: just press the keyboard shortcut while the game window is inactive and then switch to the game window in 5 seconds. The same action can be done via the “Scale after 5 seconds” item of the application menu.

Additionally, the program disables scaling when the Ctrl+Alt+Delete keyboard shortcut is pressed.

Autoscaling

It’s possible to automatically apply scaling to user-defined games. Each game is defined and identified by full path to its executable file (*.exe). Those paths should be listed one-per-line in the text file named auto.txt inside the IntegerScaler folder. An example of auto.txt contents:

D:\games\Steam\steamapps\common\GRID Autosport\GRIDAutosport_avx.exe D:\games\Steam\steamapps\common\Oddworld New n Tasty\NNT.exe D:\games\Steam\steamapps\common\pCars\pCARS64.exe

There is currently no user interface for editing this list, so a third-party text editor like Windows Notepad should be used.

The auto.txt file should be saved using the UTF-8 encoding, this is required for international characters in paths to game executables to be correctly recognized.

Command-line options

Command-line options (parameters, arguments) allow to use optional advanced features of IntegerScaler. They are not required for basic usage of IntegerScaler.

Options can be specified in the “Target” field on the “Shortcut” tab in properties of the shortcut (*.lnk) to the executable file (*.exe) of IntegerScaler. A shortcut can be created with the item “Create shortcut” of the context menu of the executable file, shown via a right click on the executable file.

Parameters should be specified after a space following a path to the app’s executable file. Parameter name and value are separated with a space. Specific order of parameters does not matter. The parameters can be used separately, independently from each other.

Note that command-line options have nothing to do with auto.txt and will not work if you place them there.

In the option descriptions below, the following notation conventions are used:

all-caps words like POSITION1 are placeholders meant to be replaced with actual values;
square brackets around an option value mean that the value is optional and can be omitted.

-align POSITION1[,POSITION2] or -a POSITION1[,POSITION2]

Aligns the scaled image relative to the screen.

Possible values for alignment:

left (or l) — to the left;
top (or t) — to the top;
right (or r) — to the right;
bottom (or b) — to the bottom.

If just one alignment keyword is specified, the scaled image is centered relative to the screen by the second dimension. If both keywords are specified, the scaled image is positioned to the corresponding corner of the screen. If contradicting keywords are specified (e. g. left,right), the option is ignored.

The keyword order in the value does not matter.

Examples:

-align top
-align bottom,right

-background COLOR or -bg COLOR

Overrides the color of background filling the screen space around the scaled image. The default background color is black.

An arbitrary color can be specified in the R,G,B format (without spaces), where R, G and B are integers in the 0–255 range, corresponding to the red, green and blue color components correspondingly, e. g. 64,128,192.

Some values are predefined:

gray — gray;
white — white;
none — disables background.

Examples:

-background 64,128,192
-background gray
-background none

-clipcursor or -cc

Limits the mouse-movement area to the client area (window area except borders and title bar) of the game window.

-crop [VALUES] or -c [VALUES]

Crops the game window. Syntax of values:

-crop WIDTHxHEIGHT[,POSITION1[,POSITION2]]

The client area of the game window is cropped to the specified size (e. g. 640x480) with optional alignment of the cropped area relative to the original client area. To crop on a single axis, the size on the other axis should be set to zero: e. g. 0x216 will crop the height to 216 pixels while not affecting the width.

Possible values for alignment:

left (or l) — to the left;
top (or t) — to the top;
right (or r) — to the right;
bottom (or b) — to the bottom.

If just one alignment keyword is specified, the cropped area is centered relative to the client area of the window by the second dimension. If both keywords are specified, the cropped area is positioned to the corresponding corner.

The keyword order in the value does not matter.

If more than two keywords are specified or the keywords contradict with each other, the option is ignored.

Examples:

-crop 640x480
-crop 640x480,top,right
-crop 0x216,bottom

-crop [WIDTH_L[,WIDTH_T[,WIDTH_R[,WIDTH_B]]]]

The client area of the game is cropped by cropping-out lines of the specified width on the perimeter starting with the left in clockwise order.

Examples:

-crop 10
-crop 10,20
-crop 10,20,30
-crop 10,20,30,40

-crop [POSITION1[,POSITION2]]

The client area of the game is cropped automatically for using screen space entirely vertically or horizontally with optional alignment of the cropped area relative to the original client area. Only applies at an integer scale.

Examples:

-crop
-crop top
-crop bottom,right

-fractional or -f

Not recommended.
Enables using fractional (non-integer) scales when scale is calculated automatically. Allows to use screen space fuller, but may introduce distortion and pixel shimmering due to uneven pixel sizes.

-locale LANGUAGE or -l LANGUAGE

Overrides the language of the app’s user interface. Supported values:

en — English;
ru — Russian.

Default language corresponds to operating system’s user interface if it’s Russian, and English otherwise.

Example:

-locale ru

-maxratio RATIO or -mxr RATIO

Allows to specify a maximum scaling ratio. The specified ratio is ignored if it’s lower than 1. The special value system corresponds to OS-level zoom: e. g. it’s equivalent to 2 if OS-level zoom is 200%.

Examples:

-maxratio 2
-maxratio system

-nohotkeys or -nohk

Disables hot keys (keyboard shortcuts).

-ratio RATIO or -r RATIO

Note: using fractional scales is not recommended because this results in image distortion and pixel shimmering due to uneven pixel sizes.

Allows to specify a custom scaling ratio. Both integer (e. g. 2) and fractional (e. g. 1.5) values are supported — regardless of whether the -fractional option is specified. The specified ratio is ignored if it’s lower than 1. If the ratio of 1 is combined with disabled background, scaling is not done, and just the game window is resized if the -resize parameter is specified.

Example:

-ratio 3

-resize WIDTHxHEIGHT or -rs WIDTHxHEIGHT

Not for scaling! For specifying a custom scale, use the -ratio parameter.

Resizes the game window so that its client area (window area except borders and title bar) has the specified size in pixels.

Useful for games that:

don’t resize the game window according to in-game resolution;
or set a wrong window size not matching the in-game resolution;
or don’t allow to change in-game resolution in windowed mode, but adjust it according to window size.

As a result of using the -resize parameter, the size of the rendering (client) area of the game window before scaling and the internal game resolution must be equal. Otherwise using this parameter may result in image distortion and pixel shimmering.

Example:

-resize 1920x1080

-scale [DELAY] or -s [DELAY]

Applies scaling in 0.5 seconds after starting IntegerScaler (if no delay is specified) or with the delay specified in milliseconds.

Examples:

-scale
-scale 3000

Parameter values are case-insensitive.

In the following example, background is overridden to gray, cursor-movement area is limited to the client area of the game window, the game window is resized so that its client width and height are 1920 and 1080 correspondingly, the user-interface language is overridden to Russian, hot keys are disabled and scaling is applied in 3 seconds (3000 ms) after starting IntegerScaler:

IntegerScaler_64bit.exe -background gray -clipcursor -resize 1920x1080 -locale ru -nohotkeys -scale 3000

The same example with shorthand variants of parameters:

IntegerScaler_64bit.exe -bg gray -cc -rs 1920x1080 -l ru -nohk -s 3000

Advantages over scaling via GPU

Ability not just to center the scaled image, but also align it to any of the sides or corners of the screen (-align option). This allows, for example, to prevent burn-in of OLED displays, by distributing wear more evenly over the screen area when the image does not occupy the entire screen.
Ability to crop the image for fuller usage of screen area (-crop option).
Ability to specify a custom scale different from the mathematically maximum one (-ratio option).
Ability to use non-integer (fractional) scales for fuller usage of screen area (-ratio and -fractional options). When using GPU for scaling, such ability is only available in Intel drivers.
Ability to specify a non-black color of the background around the scaled image (-background option).
Unlike the nVidia implementation of integer scaling, IntegerScaler is compatible with HDR, including the “Auto HDR” feature in Windows 11.
Unlike the AMD implementation of integer scaling, alignment works properly. In the AMD implementation, the image is not centered vertically, but aligned to top edge of the screen that affects, for example, RX 550 and RX 570 GPUs.
Unlike the nVidia and Intel implementations, IntegerScaler works not just under Windows 10+, but also under Windows 7.

Advantages over Windows Magnifier

IntegerScaler has the following advantages over the Windows’ built-in Magnifier:

only important part of the window is displayed — with no borders and title bar;
the space around the image is filled with black color like in full-screen mode;
the image is automatically centered on the screen with no need for precise mouse positioning;
scaling ratio is calculated automatically for filling the screen as entirely as possible.

Compatibility with games

For information about compatibility of some games with windowed mode and IntegerScaler, see the table.

Windowed mode

The application is compatible with absolute majority of games that support windowed mode, and does not work with games running in full-screen mode.

If specific game has no explicit setting for switching between full-screen and windowed modes, the Alt+Enter keyboard shortcut may help.

DPI-awareness

It’s important to make sure the game is in DPI-aware mode. The criterion is simple: the game-window size in physical pixels should correspond to in-game resolution. For example, window of a game running at Full HD resolution should occupy about 1/4 (1/2 horizontally and 1/2 vertically) of 4K screen at 200% OS-level zoom, not entire screen.

Games that are not DPI-aware require disabling DPI virtualization (DPI scaling) in executable’s (*.exe) properties, to have proper window size with no possibly blurry scaling automatically applied by Windows to non-DPI-aware applications.

DPI scaling for a specific game can be disabled via properties of the game’s executable (the “Properties” context-menu item).

Windows 10: “Properties” item → “Compatibility” tab → “Settings” section → “Change high DPI settings” button → “High DPI scaling override” section → “Override high DPI scaling behavior. Scaling performed by” checkbox → “Application” dropdown item.
Windows 10 (older versions): “Properties” item → “Compatibility” tab → “Settings” section → “Override high DPI scaling behavior. Scaling performed by” checkbox → “Application” dropdown item.
Windows 7: “Properties” item → “Compatibility” tab → “Settings” section → “Disable display scaling on high DPI settings” checkbox.

Mouse

Perceived movement speed of mouse cursor may increase proportionally with scaling ratio.

Administrator mode

For scaling games running as administrator, IntegerScaler should also be running as administrator.

Aero / DWM composition in Windows 7

For scaling to work in Windows 7, the Aero mode (DWM composition) must be enabled (the Windows’ built-in Magnifier app has the same requirement). IntegerScaler automatically tries to enable Aero if it’s disabled. This is irrelevant to Windows 8+ where DWM composition is always enabled.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Can it scale games in full-screen mode?

No. The game to scale must be running in windowed mode. Full-screen integer scaling is possible via graphics drivers with modern graphics cards (GPUs).

Can it scale just one display without blacking-out other displays?

No. The only reasonable way to do this has serious performance impact that would contradict with the app’s purpose of providing the same performance as in full-screen mode, just with no blur.

Why is game window just centered and not scaled?

Most likely your screen resolution is not enough for integer scaling at the chosen resolution of the specific game. Both horizontal and vertical screen resolutions must be at least twice greater than the game-window size. Otherwise, the maximum integer scale is 1.0 (100%) which is equivalent to regular centering with no scaling.

For example, this happens at the window size of 1280×720 (HD) and screen resolution of 1920×1080 (Full HD), because 1920 / 1280 = 1080 / 720 = 1.5. More details are in the answer to a similar question in the article about integer-ratio scaling.

If fuller screen-space usage is more important for you than image quality and having no distortion, you can try to enable using fractional scales with the -f (-fractional) command-line option.

Is it safe to use with anticheat-protected games?

IntegerScaler does not inject anything into the game process, so it should be safe to use with anticheat-protected games as long as the anticheat software does not blindly consider any third-party software running simultaneously with the game as cheat-related.

There were no reports about any anticheat-related issues since releasing the first IntegerScaler version in January 2019.

Is it open-source?

No. The source code of the app is closed and is not a subject for opening. You might be interested in the author’s IntegerScaling library (C++/Rust/JS/PHP) for calculations related to integer scaling.

Could it support Linux?

Highly unlikely. IntegerScaler uses a scaling mechanism built into Windows and missing in Linux. But integer scaling is already possible in Linux in other ways:

xrandr 1.5.1+ supports scaling with no blur via the nearest filter, but some full-screen games are cropped;
a feature similar to that of xrandr is supported by the nVidia driver as a part of the “Transform Filter” feature;
the Proton wrapper used in the Steam Play feature for running Windows games supports integer scaling.

Download

IntegerScaler
Version 2.18 (2021-09-25), 7z, 312 KB

Also available as Zip archive (430 KB).

Previous versions are available via version history (see below).

Page navigation

Features
User interface
Autoscaling
Command-line options
Advantages over scaling via GPU
Advantages over Windows Magnifier
Compatibility with games
Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

System requirements

Windows 7+ (32/64 bit).
The program needs neither installation nor any extra libraries.

Reviewed in Canard PC: IntegerScaler was reviewed in the issue #395 of the french paper magazine “Canard PC” (June 2019).

User reviews

I just wanted to warmly thank you for IntegerScaler. I’m so glad I discovered it. Since I switched to LCD many years ago, there was always something wrong with older games run under Windows: the blur. With IntegerScaler, I want to play again. It fills this weird, incomprehensible gap in gaming-Windows-monitor ecosystem. The second best thing about IS, is that it fills the role of 3 applications at once: integer scaler, cursor lock and borderless window. Great work. Thank you for what you did for old game players and for your commitment to the quest for better drivers.
Czeslaw
Great software thank you for making it free. I’m playing a game called StarSector. The one problem I’ve always had with this game was not being able to play it on my big screen. Now it finally looks like it should and plays like it should thanks your program. You have no idea how great this is. Honestly thank you so much. You’re awesome.
Davis
Finally I can easily play my games in FHD on my UHD monitor without getting any headache. It even runs fine with accelerated 3D-Games like Anno 1440, which could run in UHD, but with much too tiny menus, and in FHD of course blury text. It seems to run very well, not even any performance issues so far. Thank you very much!
Passatuner
Thanks a lot! Works, perfectly and even scales by the amount of times compared to my desktop resolution just to be able to fit the screen as much as it can without breaking aspect ratio! Doom 2 now finally feels as it should on a big screen! Love those huge pixels.
HiCZoK
AHHHHHHHHHH. O.M.G. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! THIS SOLVED IT! Wowzers! Really, I was ready to sell this laptop [Alienware m17 R3 4K]. This changes everything. I can play 1080p games with clarity!
SPQR-3000
The main benefit of IntegerScaler over the nvidia custom resolutions is HDR support. If you use a custom resolution, and go fullscreen in game with HDR at the custom resolution, you just get a black screen in many setups. Not an issue with IntegerScaler. Another benefit is you can justify the displayed pixels as you want. Do you want the image in the center? Justified to the top of the screen? Bottom left? however you want it.
BloodBaneBoneBreaker
Tested it with FTL and it works great.
didamangi
There — fullscreen, pixel-perfect, blur-free Starsector on 4k monitor.
Ungern
So useful in preserving detail in sprite-based games when displaying at higher resolutions. Amazing software, you are doing great work for people who hate the in-built scaling of displays/gpus.
Daniel
Exactly the utility I needed to get rid of blurriness when playing older games. I’ve been using it very frequently since I first downloaded it a few months ago. Appreciate all the work you’ve put into this.
Will
Works really well and the games do look awesome!
Simone
Really impressive, I’ve been looking for an app that does this for years now.
Ben
Very small memory footprint ~ 2MiB.
Fragment
Thank you very much, That’s what I’ve been looking for, for a long time!
MADDIT0R
Integer Scaler makes such a difference to the playability of this game [Grand Prix Manager 2].
DBRRacing
Great tool I have found is called IntegerScaler. It can scale programs like pixel games through multiplying them by whole numbers, which makes it look a lot better and less blurry than RPG Maker’s default.
toxic shroom swamp
IntegerScaler is very nice. I’m curious as to if it adds any latency, though. Even if it does, it will prove useful for most of the older games I like to play where the lag wouldn’t do much harm. I appreciate your efforts in this war, Marat.
galneon
Pretty awesome.
biffPTS
Small and easy to use. Thank you so much for this great piece of software!
Oscar Capac
Tested SW KotOR which I had patched to 1080p. I thought it looked great on my 4k monitor, but running it with IntegerScaler is must crisper. That blur might be preferred by many people, but I much prefer the sharpness. Thanks!
Tom Ferrier
It scales the game well in excellent quality.
a4k
Finally I can stop using a VM to play old RPG games in a proportional scale.
Cirno
No perceptible performance hit over the same game running in windowed mode.
somnambulist80
I’m super amazed by how well it works, and really happy with the functionality.
Aleksander
I am a huge fan of your IntegerScaler application. Thank you so much for creating your application and making it publicly available — it has transformed so many games for me and many others.
Trey
I like your tool very much. It has greatly improved the experience of the game.
BAIXI
Thank you for developing IntegerScaler! I have used it almost every day for the last several months to play upscaled games on a 4k display.
Connor
I love this scaler and am continuing to use it. Compared to the others it offers the best performance. It goes directly to the windows api without doing window capture. Works even where competitors fails with black screen.
Max

See also

“Pixel-perfect integer-ratio scaling with no blur” — article about the point, potential and partial solutions and progress.
SmartUpscale — Firefox extension that disables blur for images displayed with integer ratio.
ExplorerHiDpiFix — fix for wrong address-bar and search-box lengths in Windows 7’s Explorer at zoom of 188%+.

Version history

2.18 (2021-09-25)

Support for cropping and aligning with command-line options -crop (-c) and -align (-a) correspondingly.
Taskbar is now hidden if it would otherwise overlap scaled window.

2.17 (2021-04-24)

Support for automatic calculation of fractional scales via -fractional (-f) command-line option.
Added short aliases for command-line options, like -r instead of -ratio. For consistency, -background is added as long version of -bg.
Mouse-cursor position relative to game window is now maintained at 100% game-window scale too.
Fixed 2.15+ regression: menu items contained hotkeys even if hotkeys were disabled via command line.
Notification is not shown anymore when trying to enable scaling when there is no active window.

2.16 (2021-03-18)

Fixed 2.14+ bug: scaling was re-enabled when focusing game window after disabling scaling.
Scaling can now be disabled via menu item.
“About” window now looks more consistent at different OS-level zooms.

2.15 (2021-02-23)

New command-line option -maxratio for specifying maximum scaling ratio.
New value system of command-line options -ratio and -maxratio.
Support for fractional scaling ratios in command-line option -ratio.
Ability to cancel delayed scaling.
In Windows 7, when trying to automatically enable Aero, showing command-prompt window is now prevented.
Some menu items are moved to new submenu “Help”, menu item “Webpage …” is replaced with a button in the “About” window.

2.14 (2020-09-29)

Scaling now disables temporarily when scaled window loses focus e. g. as a result of Alt+Tab.
UTF-8 BOM signature is now ignored when reading auto.txt, if signature is present.
“How to use” window now shows at first start.

2.13 (2020-08-25)

The maximum -ratio value is now not limited by the value to fit the screen.

2.12 (2020-08-02)

Background can now be disabled with -bg none.
Ability to specify custom scaling ratio with -ratio.
Game window to scale is now only moved if there is not enough space around it for background.
Now if game window cannot be moved, it’s scaled at its original position.
Added the “Scale” menu item to make it more clear that immediate scaling is possible.
Better implementation of “How to use” window.
Minor changes to texts of menu items.
Values of command-line parameters are now case-insensitive.
Multiple internal changes.

2.11 (2019-12-09)

Support for resizing game window and limiting cursor-movement area via the command-line parameters -resize and -clipcursor correspondingly.

2.10 (2019-11-27)

Support for overriding background color and user-interface language via the command-line parameters -bg and -locale correspondingly.
Fixed: command-line parameters were not taken into account when restarting the app as administrator via the item of the app’s own menu.

2.9 (2019-09-07)

Ctrl+Alt+F11 now turns scaling off if pressed when scaling is turned on.
Added menu item and window “How to use”.

2.8.3 (2019-08-17)

Fixed (2.7+ issue): the application did close right after start if one of the two main keyboard shortcuts was occupied by another application.
Changed texts of some items of the menu.

2.8.2 (2019-08-14)

Fixed: the “Restart as administrator” menu item was empty in English-language user interface.
Improved parsing of command-line parameters.
Removed disabling scaling when pressing the Win key.

2.8.1 (2019-08-07)

Fixed: command-line parameters could sometimes not work depending on parameter order.

2.8 (2019-08-07)

Support for command-line parameters for scaling and disabling hot keys.

2.7 (2019-07-24)

The keyboard shortcuts Alt+F11 and Ctrl+Alt+F11 now work in “GRID Autosport” and other games that suppress third-party keyboard shortcuts when processing them using the previous method.
Improved positioning of black background.

2.6 (2019-06-25)

Added autoscaling of user-defined games.

Support the author 🎁: Gift games via GOG, etc.

IntegerScaler

Features

User interface

Keyboard shortcuts

Menu

Autoscaling

Command-line options

Advantages over scaling via GPU

Advantages over Windows Magnifier

Compatibility with games

Windowed mode

DPI-awareness

Mouse

Administrator mode

Aero / DWM composition in Windows 7

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)