@jackbrookes I agree with you about the default on Windows, and how much better it looks with Cairo. We'll consider your enhancement request to add an option for type in future releases. Thank you!

I'm putting this into the v1.3 milestone for consideration (this will become more important especially as high DPI displays become more common on Windows machines as well)

Here's a hacky way to force RStudio to make anti-aliased plots on Windows:

library(ggplot2)

trace(grDevices:::png, quote({
  if (missing(type) && missing(antialias)) {
    type <- "cairo-png"
    antialias <- "subpixel"
  }
}), print = FALSE)

ggplot(iris, aes(x = Petal.Width, y = Sepal.Length)) + 
  geom_point() +
  stat_smooth(method = "lm", col = "red")

You can change type and antialias as appropriate / preferred for the plots generated by RStudio. This is at least a stop-gap solution until we get something properly implemented on the RStudio side. (Unfortunately I don't think we're going to fit the window for v1.3)

Here's a hacky way to force RStudio to make anti-aliased plots on Windows:

library(ggplot2)

trace(grDevices:::png, quote({
  if (missing(type) && missing(antialias)) {
    type <- "cairo-png"
    antialias <- "subpixel"
  }
}), print = FALSE)

ggplot(iris, aes(x = Petal.Width, y = Sepal.Length)) + 
  geom_point() +
  stat_smooth(method = "lm", col = "red")

You can change type and antialias as appropriate / preferred for the plots generated by RStudio. This is at least a stop-gap solution until we get something properly implemented on the RStudio side. (Unfortunately I don't think we're going to fit the window for v1.3)

Thanks for looking into it further. The fix works for me within a regular R script but not within a R Notebook (Rmd) file. Error: Tracing function "png" in package "grDevices (not-exported)"
[1] "png".

Running latest version of R and latest stable R Studio on Win 10. Current workaround is to render notebooks on a MacOS machine before sharing with others.

Thanks for looking into it further. The fix works for me within a regular R script but not within a R Notebook (Rmd) file. Error: Tracing function "png" in package "grDevices (not-exported)"
[1] "png".

Running latest version of R and latest stable R Studio on Win 10. Current workaround is to render notebooks on a MacOS machine before sharing with others.

For Rmd files adding this to your setup chunk should fix the issue:

knitr::opts_knit$set(dev.args = list(type = "cairo"))

Here's a hacky way to force RStudio to make anti-aliased plots on Windows:

Thanks a lot! Works for me in the plot window, but not in the zoom window - does that use a different device?

Here's a hacky way to force RStudio to make anti-aliased plots on Windows:

library(ggplot2)

trace(grDevices:::png, quote({
  if (missing(type) && missing(antialias)) {
    type <- "cairo-png"
    antialias <- "subpixel"
  }
}), print = FALSE)

ggplot(iris, aes(x = Petal.Width, y = Sepal.Length)) + 
  geom_point() +
  stat_smooth(method = "lm", col = "red")

You can change type and antialias as appropriate / preferred for the plots generated by RStudio.

Awesome, thanks! I've also been disappointed / frustrated at the sucky graphics on Windows vs. Mac (at least in the "live" plots in RStudio - I know they can be just as beautiful when saved as PNG etc.).

Could you (or someone) explain what this code does? It's brilliant and just what I've been looking for!

I'm guessing it takes the graphics as input and spits out an anti-aliased PNG in the plots panel? (I've found Cairo mentioned before, but not used the "missing" or "trace" functions.

Here's a hacky way to force RStudio to make anti-aliased plots on Windows:

library(ggplot2)

trace(grDevices:::png, quote({
  if (missing(type) && missing(antialias)) {
    type <- "cairo-png"
    antialias <- "subpixel"
  }
}), print = FALSE)

ggplot(iris, aes(x = Petal.Width, y = Sepal.Length)) + 
  geom_point() +
  stat_smooth(method = "lm", col = "red")

You can change type and antialias as appropriate / preferred for the plots generated by RStudio. This is at least a stop-gap solution until we get something properly implemented on the RStudio side. (Unfortunately I don't think we're going to fit the window for v1.3)

Thank you, that's awesome! Any way to make this a default setting, instead of running the code every session?

You could set it in your .Rprofile.

@kevinushey This hack is so useful that it even solved a longstanding issue of showtext with RStudio: yixuan/showtext#31. I owe you a thousand thanks. 😉

@ishisht If it does not work for the zoom window, then modify the code as below:

trace(grDevices::png, quote({
  if (missing(type) && missing(antialias)) {
    type <- "cairo-png"
    antialias <- "subpixel"
  }
}), print = FALSE)

The tiny difference is that you now trace the exported function grDevices::png instead of the unexported one grDevices:::png. The reason is that the unexported version grDevices:::png() is called for the default window, but the exported version png() is called for the zoom window.

@jackbrookes , thanks again for finding and reporting this issue. We now have a fix in place in our latest 1.4 daily build.

If you get the chance will you let us know if the issue is resolved for you in that build?

@R-Hannibal

@jackbrookes , thanks again for finding and reporting this issue. We now have a fix in place in our latest 1.4 daily build.

If you get the chance will you let us know if the issue is resolved for you in that build?

Unfortunately, the latest build did not change anything for me. Here is a screenshot of the Plot pane:

And even the saved file has the same issue:

Does it make a difference if you alter the graphics device settings (Tools - > Global Options... -> General -> Graphics)?

Kind of, I can get good looking plot in the plots window if I set Backend to Cairo (not Cairo PNG), and Antialiasing to Gray or (Default). Other options don't work for me.

@kevinushey it seems like this is still an issue in some cases, should it be reopened?

I've re-opened the issue, but moved out of 1.4 as I don't think we can apply any further fixes in time for this release.

When I use the following code in an R Notebook, my lines look better, but the fill of shapes/ribbons is still heavily aliased (and using three colons instead of two did not work):

trace(grDevices::png, quote({
  if (missing(type) && missing(antialias)) {
    type <- "cairo-png"
    antialias <- "subpixel"
  }
}), print = FALSE)

Here's are a few examples of output:

In RMarkdown documents, adding this to a setup block fixes it for me:

knitr::opts_knit$set(dev.args = list(type = "cairo"))

However this issue is around fixing this by default in Windows

In RMarkdown documents, adding this to a setup block fixes it for me:

knitr::opts_knit$set(dev.args = list(type = "cairo"))

However this issue is around fixing this by default in Windows

As described here and here, the suggestion to use knitr::opts_knit$set(dev.args = list(type = "cairo")) works for RMarkdown documents, but it does not work with R Notebooks.

Hi,

as the changelog said: The default renderer used for the RStudio graphics device can now be customized. (#2142) - How to set this value globally in the server context for every user? What is the value of (Default) inside the option dialog?

Thanks!

You can set the R option RStudioGD.backend; it should match one of the graphics backends here:

For example, to use ragg by default, you could set:

options(RStudioGD.backend = "ragg")

in (say) your R installation's Rprofile.site.

Setting this in Rprofile.site might not work as expected currently (the user-preference will override anything set at startup). We should provide a mechanism for making this work a bit more cleanly.

How to set this value globally in the server context for every user?

You can do this by creating a global user preference file, e.g., /etc/rstudio/rstudio-prefs.json (see https://docs.rstudio.com/ide/server-pro/r-sessions.html#user-preferences), with the following contents:

{
    graphics_backend: "ragg"
}

@jmcphers Is this also possible for non-pro versions of the server?

EDIT: Yes, is is also working on non-pro servers ;)

Yes, it does work for both!

What ended up working for me was this command:

options(RStudioGD.backend = "cairo-png")

{
    graphics_backend: "ragg"
}

Just noting that you'll likely get a JSON parsing error with the above so it needs to be valid JSON, e.g.:

{
  "graphics_backend": "cairo"
}