On Thu, 2010-02-25 at 17:01 +0100, C wrote:

On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 16:30, Mark Misulich wrote:

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Hi, here is a link to a snapshot I took of the way fonts are displayed on my screen. I am a little disappointed with it because as I look at the screenshot it looks better than what I see on my desktop. The fonts on my desktop are more chopped up, but I hope it will give you an idea of what I am trying to fix. If it doesn't work to convey that idea, let me know and I will try something else.

This link shows the desktop at native resolution (1366X768, VGA)

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/653/snapshot1lw.png

Here is a screenshot showing the same view at a different resolution (1280x720). Hopefully you can pick out the improvement in font rendering quality.

http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/6872/snapshot2zw.png

Hmmmm... I cannot see any difference at all between the two. I opened the screencaps in two different tabs in Firefox, and then quickly switched back and forth between them... they look identical to my eyes...

I also opened in Gwenview and in Gimp and.. still the same.

The problem with screen caps is they show the screen as it was sent to your video card/monitor, not necessarily what was actually displayed on the monitor.

Is your monitor a TFT? Are you running it in analog mode (traditional VGA) or using DVI? What vid card? Open source or proprietary drivers?

I'm just guessing here, but I'd say that openSUSE's font rendering is not at fault, but that it's more likely something to do with your monitor, or the drivers, or.... something like that.

C.

Hi, I had begun this thread about a week ago, but had a little break for a business trip. To bring you up to speed, I have a problem with fonts being rendered poorly when I use the Nvidia driver. It happens on all the operating systems on this computer, but only when the Nvidia driver is used. When the Nvidia driver is used I can get the fonts to display better when I use a non-native screen resolution. The native resolution is 1366x768. The display is an emachines E161HQ TFT LCD. I am trying to either find out what to do to display the fonts correctly, or how to set the monitor so that it boots to a screen resolution of my choice. I have used the Nvidia configuration interface to set the screen resolution to what works, but when I reboot the computer it goes back to the native setting. Any ideas? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

OK, on a TFT, and I do definitely remember others saying this, using anything other than the native resolution is not a "good thing". TFTs are designed to work best at their native resolution, and while they can support other resolutions, they are usually VERY sub-optimal at those resolutions. I have never seen a TFT monitor display cleanly at resolutions other than native.

Its better at other settings, not perfect.

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It happens on all the operating systems on this computer

By that, then I assume you mean it also is a problem in Windows?

Yes, but only with the nvidia driver

Maybe someone else here has some thoughts on it.. but looking at the screen caps you've supplied... I'd say... if you're seeing fuzzy font rendering, it's much more likely to be a hardware issue, not software.

The fonts aren't fuzzy, its as if they are chopped up.

Make sure you're using DVI instead of VGA (if you can). If it's still "fuzzy' then.. can you swap it out for a different monitor as a test? Maybe a friend has a similar 19" TFT you can test with? Something like this will certainly help you nail down if it's the monitor... which given that you've stated it's the same in all OSes on that machine... well...

It is the same but only with the nvidia driver. It works fine with whatever driver comes with the operating system. I did try a different video card. It worked the same, fine with operating system drivers, bad with nvidia driver.

One last grasp at a possible solution... have you tried turning on full subpixel rendering?

No, I haven't tried that. How is it done? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, 2010-02-25 at 21:27 +0100, C wrote:

On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 21:18, Mark Misulich wrote:

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It is the same but only with the nvidia driver. It works fine with whatever driver comes with the operating system. I did try a different video card. It worked the same, fine with operating system drivers, bad with nvidia driver.

Which still leads me to be really suspicious of the monitor itself... ie not the software or the video card.. but I could be wrong.

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One last grasp at a possible solution... have you tried turning on full subpixel rendering?

No, I haven't tried that. How is it done?

I don't know the Gnome (or other DE) paths, but in KDE4, it's in a pretty logical place... go to: KMenu > Configure Desktop > Appearance > Fonts > Use anti-aliasing Set to Enabled Click Configure and make sure Use sub-pixel rendering is checked. I've got my system set up with Hinting style set to Full. Some people get better results at one of the other settings (eg medium)

This will only affect newly started apps... so I usually log out of KDE and back in after setting this option.

Does it make a difference? I can certainly see a difference on my monitor with this option set to Disabled vs Enabled.

C. Hi, At native resolution I set anti-aliasing to enabled, sub-pixel rendering is checked, and hinting set to full. It made a little difference, but not much. I played around with the hinting, and found that I have a good screen and fonts with hinting set to none. I think this is fixed for now on 11.2 & 11.1 on this computer. I have to do it for WinXp and Elive yet, but I am on to the solution so I believe it will be resolved in short order there too.

Thanks for the help. Mark -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org