Free QGIS Retina/HiDPI map tiles still produce illegible text

Question

I'm using QGIS 3.34.1-Prizren on macOS 14.

When I use the default XYZ OSM basemap in QGIS on my Retina screen, the roads and labels are all extremely small and pixelated:

• URL: https://tile.openstreetmap.org/{z}/{x}/{y}.png

I tried using a free Retina Tiles account, but the retina tiles are both quite slow (for me in the UK), and also draw text at the same size as the standard OSM ones (meaning: illegibly small).

• URL: https://retina-tiles.p.rapidapi.com/local/osm@2x/v1/{z}/{x}/{y}.png?rapidapi-key=MY_API_KEY
• Tile Resolution: High (512x512 / 192 DPI)

I have a MapBox account as well, so I tried following these instructions to create a WMTS layer. Unfortunately, while the map is prettier, the text sizes are no more legible:

• URL: https://api.mapbox.com/styles/v1/mapbox/streets-v9/wmts?access_token=MY_API_TOKEN
• WMS DPI-Mode: QGIS
• WMTS server-side tile pixel ratio: High (192 DPI)

I also found this post from 2016 describing the introduction of MapBox HiDPI tiles. So I tried creating an XYZ tile layer using this approach:

• URL: https://api.mapbox.com/styles/v1/mapbox/streets-v9/tiles/{z}/{x}/{y}@2x?access_token=MY_API_TOKEN
• Tile Resolution: High (512x512 / 192 DPI)

The layer works well, but the text is, if anything, even smaller:

So I'm stumped. How can I get a basemap with legible street names in QGIS on a Retina screen?

Answer 1

You should use the following settings in QGIS:

• URL: https://retina-tiles.p.rapidapi.com/local/osm@2x/v1/{z}/{x}/{y}.png?rapidapi-key=MY_API_KEY

• Tile Resolution: Standard (256x256 / 96 DPI)

• Magnifier: 200%

And in regard to slow loading tiles: check your dns resolver, it does not seem to support EDNS(0). By that AWS locates you in the US, not UK, resulting in higher latency for the tiles you load as those are served from the US and not EU. If you e.g. are using Cloudflare DNS for resolving (that does not support EDNS(0)), you should change this by e.g. using Google DNS as a resolver or another resolver that does support EDNS.