# Even more minor annoyances



## Flatline (Jul 23, 2011)

Since I upgraded to Windows 7, I'm running into more and more annoying things. 
I still have the same problem with my external drive, but at least I could find a workaround for that.

The other thing that irks me is that some text looks... weird. Like when I'm not using the native resolution of my monitor, but I do. On some programs, websites and games, text looks kind of blurry and distorted, even though I have ClearType enabled. I could fix it in Steam by disabling DirectWrite, and somewhat fix it in Firefox by disabling hardware acceleration. But I can still see it in a lot of places.

I've tried messing with the ClearType settings and even disabling it completely, but that didn't really change anything.

And there is another problem with games (besides them crashing more frequently than ever) - Anti-Aliasing doesn't seem to work as good as it did when I was using XP. Even if I use the highest setting, I can still see jagged edges, and it's annoying because it worked better before. 

These aren't big problems really, and maybe I'm just overreacting (wouldn't surprise me)... But I have spent all my money on the OS change and I'd like it to work perfectly. I've been looking for help using Google and asking friends for days, but I'm getting tired.

I am using Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Video card is an XFX GTS 250 Core Edition LITE (1GB)
Monitor is a Samsung SyncMaster 943NW

I'm using the latest drivers.

Any help would be appreciated.


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## Runefox (Jul 23, 2011)

If I'm not mistaken, _anything_ that uses DirectWrite for font rendering is going to look "blurry", because one of the major selling points of DirectWrite is the ability to place/kern fonts at a subpixel level. In other words, instead of using the subpixels on your monitor to make text smoother, we're now using them to make sure text is even more precisely aligned than the pixel level. _*I have no fucking clue why this was considered a good idea to do by default*_ (I do, however, understand why this is a good idea in specific cases like accurately scaling fonts along with an entire document/interface). In cases like Steam or Firefox, it's a case of "don't care about positioning" or "HTML doesn't do subpixels, idiot", respectively.

That said, are you using VGA or DVI to connect this monitor to the computer? Also, for anti-aliasing, be aware that the nVidia drivers offer more features in Windows 7 than Windows XP; It's very likely that a default setting within the nVidia Control Panel is different from how it was set in XP. In particular, Transparency AA is something you'll probably want to enable.

At any rate, though, perhaps a screenshot of said blurry text might help identify exactly what the symptoms are?


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## Flatline (Jul 23, 2011)

I find it kinda weird how DirectWrite didn't make fonts blurry as hell in Steam when I was using XP...

Anyway.
The monitor uses VGA but my card only has two DVI ports so I'm using a converter. 
Transparency AA is enabled in the nVidia Control Panel, but it's set not to override the settings of the applications, which might be the problem. I'll try to use the settings defined in the control panel instead, maybe that'll help.

As for screenshots, I'll post two for now and I'll take more if necessary.

This is from Wallbase (It doesn't look that bad on the screenshot for some reason
And this is the options screen of Amnesia (Subtitles look like shit as well)

Apparently other people have the exact same problem.

Also, even though turning off hardware acceleration in FF solved some of this, the fonts still don't look as good as they should.


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## AshleyAshes (Jul 23, 2011)

That in game screen shot has the apperance that you are running the game at an extreamly low resolution.


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## Flatline (Jul 24, 2011)

That's what I meant - Fonts look like I'm using a lower resolution.

The game is set to my native resolution (1440x900), so it shouldn't look like that.


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## Runefox (Jul 24, 2011)

Flatline said:


> I find it kinda weird how DirectWrite didn't make fonts blurry as hell in Steam when I was using XP...


There's a very good reason for that: DirectWrite is a Windows Vista/7-specific feature. It isn't available on Windows XP.



> The monitor uses VGA but my card only has two DVI ports so I'm using a converter.


Well, VGA with LCD's is a poor choice and will result in at least some blurriness. If your monitor has an auto-adjust function, I'd recommend hitting it so that it syncs up properly with what the card's putting out. I'd definitely recommend grabbing a DVI cable whenever you can, because a digital connection avoids any kind of blurriness or shadowing that happens with analogue signals. That said, it doesn't explain your issues.



> This is from Wallbase (It doesn't look that bad on the screenshot for some reason


I can see the telltale DirectWrite anti-aliasing there, with more emphasis on smoothing things out than actually making sure they display properly. Sort of like this (all lowercase L's):








> And this is the options screen of Amnesia (Subtitles look like shit as well)


This is definitely weird... Did you resize this screenshot? What was the original size? Are you sure it was 1440x900?



> Also, even though turning off hardware acceleration in FF solved some of this, the fonts still don't look as good as they should.


You said earlier that you ran the Cleartype tuner, but it's probably a good idea to go over it again, particularly after hitting the auto-adjust on your monitor. It's possible or even likely that it's shadowing due to the analogue signal; That said, it would be strange if it was fine before, but with the new font rendering, it could have simply become more noticeable.


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## Flatline (Jul 25, 2011)

Runefox said:


> Well, VGA with LCD's is a poor choice and will result in at least some blurriness. If your monitor has an auto-adjust function, I'd recommend hitting it so that it syncs up properly with what the card's putting out. I'd definitely recommend grabbing a DVI cable whenever you can, because a digital connection avoids any kind of blurriness or shadowing that happens with analogue signals. That said, it doesn't explain your issues.



The only problem is that my monitor doesn't have a DVI port...




> I can see the telltale DirectWrite anti-aliasing there, with more emphasis on smoothing things out than actually making sure they display properly. Sort of like this (all lowercase L's):



Is there a way to disable DirectWrite all together? It solved the problem with Steam so I guess it would solve it in Firefox too.



> This is definitely weird... Did you resize this screenshot?



No, it's just cropped.



> What was the original size? Are you sure it was 1440x900?



Yes.



> You said earlier that you ran the Cleartype tuner, but it's probably a good idea to go over it again, particularly after hitting the auto-adjust on your monitor. It's possible or even likely that it's shadowing due to the analogue signal; That said, it would be strange if it was fine before, but with the new font rendering, it could have simply become more noticeable.



Auto Adjust does fuck all in this case... But it did help me a few times before. I ran the ClearType tuner at least 5 times already and used Auto Adjust a lot. But I'll try again, even though I doubt it will help.


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## Flatline (Aug 2, 2011)

Sorry for bumping this, but I still couldn't solve this and it's driving me mad. I did not find anything on other sites either. Is there no solution at all? I can put up with it if that's the case but I'd like to know for sure.

I tried running the ClearType tuner a few more types, messing with the nVidia Control Panel, nothing. I also tried installing a Firefox extension called Anti-Aliasing tuner which apparently helped some people, but it did not change anything for me. 

I asked everyone I know personally who uses W7 (Including my father), but no one had problems like this.


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## Runefox (Aug 2, 2011)

I just have to ask - Is ClearType actually turned on? Because without it, it blurs the hell out of my text. It seems it does anti-aliasing on the text anyway whether you have ClearType on or not, and without ClearType on, it's a horrendous mess.


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## AshleyAshes (Aug 2, 2011)

Is ClearType even used in fullscreen PC games?


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## Onnes (Aug 2, 2011)

Do you have the same problem in IE9, or just Firefox?


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## Flatline (Aug 3, 2011)

Runefox said:


> I just have to ask - Is ClearType actually turned on? Because without it, it blurs the hell out of my text. It seems it does anti-aliasing on the text anyway whether you have ClearType on or not, and without ClearType on, it's a horrendous mess.


 
Yes, it's enabled. 
Smaller fonts look blurry and distorted while larger ones have jagged edges (similar to my AA problem in games).



Onnes said:


> Do you have the same problem in IE9, or just Firefox?



I do. In fact, it looks even worse in IE. Same with Chrome.


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## Onnes (Aug 3, 2011)

Have you tried disabling both AA and AF, overriding application settings, through the driver control panel? It almost sounds like they are being inappropriately applied to text rendering.


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## Flatline (Aug 3, 2011)

Onnes said:


> Have you tried disabling both AA and AF, overriding application settings, through the driver control panel? It almost sounds like they are being inappropriately applied to text rendering.



Just did, no difference. I'm either just dumb and doing something entirely wrong or my computer is a troll. Probably the former.


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## Onnes (Aug 3, 2011)

Make sure that you do a restart after disabling things in the driver. I'm going to assume that you've also already obtained this Windows update.

It might be worth trying the Firefox in-development builds, which do feature changes to how it handles text. Here you can find version 6 (Beta) and version 7 (Aurora). You can also get version 8 as a nightly build here.


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## Flatline (Aug 3, 2011)

Onnes said:


> Make sure that you do a restart after disabling things in the driver. I'm going to assume that you've also already obtained this Windows update.



Yes and yes.



> It might be worth trying the Firefox in-development builds, which do feature changes to how it handles text. Here you can find version 6 (Beta) and version 7 (Aurora). You can also get version 8 as a nightly build here.



That's really nice and all and I might try it, but this doesn't only occur in browsers. The only program I could somewhat "fix" was Steam, by disabling DirectWrite.
*
EDIT*

My VGA adapter has a slightly bent pin which caused resolution problems a while ago - I could fix that with a screwdriver, but the pin is still bent.
I have been using this adapter for a while and had no troubles with it after I fixed the resolution issue, but I'm not sure if this whole thing is actually caused by this. 

I ordered a new one - Maybe it won't change anything but I wanted to get another one sometime anyway.


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## Flatline (Aug 5, 2011)

Okay, this is weird. I gave up on trying to fix the fonts so I tried to fix Anti-Aliasing. 
I've tried changing the settings in the nVidia Control Panel - Changing it so the settings would be controlled by the application, using the custom settings or the slider.

Setting it to be controlled by the application didn't help, in fact that produces the worst results.
I was messing with the custom settings for hours but honestly, I don't really have any idea what should I enable or disable >.<
Setting the slider to "Quality" helped in some cases, but some games still look like crap if I use that.

Some examples:

Re-Volt looked bad with the application controlled settings, and I could make it look better by changing the custom settings - But that ridiculously slowed down the game. Using the slider fixed the problem, it looks as good as it did on XP and it runs smoothly.

Minecraft looks "bad" with the custom and the application controlled settings. Using the slider produced a better result, but I have this weird "grid" around the blocks.

Mirrors Edge and Borderlands look worse than they did on XP, no matter what I do.

These are the games I tested so far. I couldn't do anything with the text though...

Both of these problems are tolerable, but I'd like it if at least either AA or font rendering worked properly. 

And again, I didn't even have to touch the nVidia CP when I was using XP...


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## Onnes (Aug 5, 2011)

If it's something screwy with the driver then it's always worth it to try different driver versions, starting with the newest and working backwards in time. There's also a new beta 280 driver. I'm not sure what driver you are using now, or which you've tried.


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## Flatline (Aug 5, 2011)

I did a clean install of the current driver but that didn't help.
I installed the newest beta driver, that didn't help either.

I even disabled Aero and every other effect but the text still looked terrible.

I might try to use an older driver, but I've used the latest stable one with XP too and didn't have any problems like this.

I can change some stuff from the nVidia CP but if I manage to make a game look better then all my other games will look even worse. And none of this helped with the font rendering thing.

*sigh*

Sorry for making this so complicated... I keep checking other sites for info but couldn't find anything that would help me. Anyone who had similar problems could solve it with one of the methods that didn't work for me.

I really appreciate the help though.


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## Flatline (Aug 6, 2011)

Alright, I have tried the following drivers: 280.19; 275.50; 275.27 and 270.61.

None of them changed anything. I reinstalled the 275.33 driver, which I was using when I posted this thread and is the latest non-beta version.

And I'm out of ideas. Yay.


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## Onnes (Aug 6, 2011)

It sounds like you are at the point of swapping out components to see if anything changes. Ideally, you'd want to try a different monitor with a DVI input--an HDTV with an HDMI input would also work--and (separately) a different video card. If those items aren't available, you're probably stuck trying more random things or going back to XP to fix the issue.


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## Flatline (Aug 6, 2011)

None of the monitors in the house use DVI, and we don't have an HDTV =/
I could try using my old 8400GS, which uses VGA so I wouldn't have to use a converter (but the card itself is so weak I don't really want to use it...) - But I think I'll wait with that, my current card barely fits into this case and I'm not really in the mood for messing with hardware (Let alone buying new parts). I wanted to get a new case anyway, I guess I can wait a few months.

Maybe it _is_ caused by the damaged VGA adapter but that did not cause any problems before. I have to wait until the new one arrives to find that out.

Anyway, thanks for the help.


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