Blurry text problem has not been fixed in Win 8.1 RTM

[joncr]

Yes, it is a monitor issue....

No. You are wrong, and you are ignoring what I've said.

I've pointed out errors and deficiencies in rendering, not preferences. it is not my preference to see dark pixels where there should be none, It is not my preference to see strings of dark pixels stringing away from individual characters. It is not my preference to see the individual pixels that make up 9pt characters. It is not my preference smears that make individual characters look like the ink ran before it dried.

I have installed both 7 and 8 several times. These deficiencies are apparent immediately.

I have asked several times on several Windows forums for assistance. Other than exhortations to use Cleartype (on by default and always adjusted, as I always mention and as always ignored), here are the usual inane and useless suggestions I am given:

-- buy high DPI monitors that do not yet actually exist,
-- throw out my $500 video card and keep buying new ones until I find one I like,
-- keep buying monitors until I find one that's better.
-- one poor fool told me to out a new card in the ThinkPad
-- get new eyeglasses (my vision is correcte to 20-20)
-- acknowledge that text looks bad and get used to it, like everyone else

The rambling anecdote about your friend is entirely inappropriate and unhelpful. I haven't "tweaked" anything because, as far as I can determine, there's nothing on offer to be tweaked,

But, if *you* know if Windows offers something other than Cleartype, the font smoothing option, and scaling as ways to change how text is displayed, please enlighten me.

 

[joncr]

maybe i just don't see it or i need new glasses , the attachment is a web page from Firefox browser and it looks fine to me,i some time use 3 different browsers on my computer and they all seem to be doing there job of rendering fonts.
could you post a screen show of how bad yours looks

Sorry, I can't do a screenshot because Windows isn't currently installed. I don't intend to take the time (about 4 hours) to install it again until I come across a different apaproach to altering and improving the rendering.

Posting screenshots is not really an accurate way of showing characteristics of text rendering because the image is rendered, for example, at the DPI of each machine. Your shot looks different on my 142 DPI display than it does on a 96 DPI display and, in turn, on my iPad. Screenshots will convey some components of rendering quality, but not all.

In any case, your shot look nothing at all like what I see. I've repeatedly described what I see, so I won't annoy people and repeat it here.

 

[joncr]

or maybe this is what you mean,from fonts in control panel .
but this is the only place i see this .

The jagged pixelated text, and the stair-stepped curves and loops, are what I see in *all* text, including small interface text and the standard 16pt text in browsers. Large bolded headline text is also obviously smearing, often painted with two tones of black rather than one, and with dark artifacts along character edges that should be smooth and straight.

In terms of browsers, IE 10 is the worst, Firefox is better, and Chrome is more or less the middle candidate. But, the differences are marginal and none of them do an acceptable job.

Tthree more things I've noticed:

1. Unchecking the font smoothing option instantly changes the display into something like pixels-on-steroids. Looks like bitmapped text from 1990.

2. Playing with Cleartype doesn't really change much. All the samples look pixelated, in varying degrees. It is this inability to actually affect how text is rendered, for better or worse, that most frustrates me.

3. After a clean install of 7, I immediately pull down all the updates. Something on the order of 135 or so. I have noticed that somewhere during that update process, the appearance of text goes from bad to worse. I've seen this happen on repeated installs. I do not see this on 8, presumably because it already incorporates that update.

 

[Mystere]

Yes, it is a monitor issue....

No. You are wrong, and you are ignoring what I've said.

I've pointed out errors and deficiencies in rendering, not preferences. it is not my preference to see dark pixels where there should be none, It is not my preference to see strings of dark pixels stringing away from individual characters. It is not my preference to see the individual pixels that make up 9pt characters. It is not my preference smears that make individual characters look like the ink ran before it dried.

No, you are ignoring what I am saying. These problems do not occur on any system I have seen, and I've seen literally thousands of systems.

This tells me that either you don't like something that is perfectly fine for everyone else, or your hardware is incompatible, faulty, or mis-calibrated.

How exactly do you explain that 99% of users do not have the problems you claim to see everywhere if it's not personal preference?

 

[joncr]

No, you are ignoring what I am saying. These problems do not occur on any system I have seen, and I've seen literally thousands of systems.

This tells me that either you don't like something that is perfectly fine for everyone else, or your hardware is incompatible, faulty, or mis-calibrated.

How exactly do you explain that 99% of users do not have the problems you claim to see everywhere if it's not personal preference?

You have not seen my hardware, and you cannot call my hardware "incompatible, faulty, or mis calibrated." You know what my hardware is, so show me evidence that Dell and Lenovo are marketing broken hardware. The faults are not there using non- Windows software.

Windows forums have many threads about Windows font rendering. Plug that phrase into Google.

You have no way of standing by your assertion that 99% percent of Windows users have no rendering issues. Have you surveyed every user?

Are you asserting that the specific faults and deficiencies I have listed are merely a matter of preference, that they are visible to others who, for some reason, prefer a faulty display?

Or, are you asserting I am fabricating all this?

As I have asked, if you know a way to alter the appearance of text in Windows that I have not tried, please post it. Otherwise, the denialism is not helpful.

i bought the ThinkPad specifically to help a friend who needs work done in Windows. I'm just looking for a way to fix the broken fonts.

 

[4wd]

Yes, it is a monitor issue.

Please read Poor font rendering in Windows 8 (blurry text) - Microsoft Community to get the picture.

& tons of google-info available, example ClearType takes a back seat for Windows 8 Metro – istartedsomething

Am hoping thy will fix it, maybe by allowing users to choose which type of font rendering to be used.

 

[joncr]

Yes, it is a monitor issue.

Please read Poor font rendering in Windows 8 (blurry text) - Microsoft Community to get the picture.

& tons of google-info available, example ClearType takes a back seat for Windows 8 Metro – istartedsomething

Am hoping thy will fix it, maybe by allowing users to choose which type of font rendering to be used.

I read that thread a few weeks ago. I'm aware of the issue about grayscale rendering in Metro/Modern apps and interface. As i've been at pains to mention, the faults I see are present in both 7 and 8.


But, I'm with you. I hope MS fixes that Win8 problem. (And, it is a *Windows* problem, not a monitor problem.) They depend on institutional and corporate customers. Did they really think all those customers would junk their installed hardware and go buy Surface tablets just to make Windows 8 look less horrible? The world runs on 96 DPI displays. If Microsoft thinks everyone is going to put up with Windows 8 until they can buy $300 200-DPI displays, they're crazy.

 

[Mystere]

You don't seem to get that just because a few vocal people post something all over doesn't mean it's a problem that a large number of people have. They simply don't.

 

[fafhrd]

Joncr, it might be helpful to post an image or two, with an inset magnified by the Windows Magnifier to about 400%, like this;



Once we can see your problem it may be possible to offer more concrete help.

There are of course several ways that things can get mucked up in Windows. Monitor native resolution, ClearType, All Items Size and Font Size (Display Settings), and font smoothing (System Advanced Performance Settings) have been mentioned, but there are also registry values that control these too. Graphics drivers have long been a source of hard to pinpoint problems.

If you have a large screen display, Windows may unhelpfully scale up Internet Explorer Windows to fill more of the screen, which can throw the text scaling within the browser out of balance, unless you tell it not to. I think that also Office 2013 uses monochrome antialiasing, so the width of the editor window will affect the view too. Mid-size budget systems like I normally use rarely have problems. Saying that, netbooks were often crap because of their awkward resolution values.

Where web pages are specifically coded to use subpixel rendering for text, in IE, they can look terrible with colour fringing and blurry downstrokes together. Firefox and Chrome tend to give the best overall output.

 

[popeye]

Screen snip of fafhrd's above post. Does it look bad to you? Please click on it to get correct size.

 

[fafhrd]

Does it look bad to you?

No, Popeye, neither attachment does on IE10 or Chrome - but these are now images, and whatever my system does to render text has no effect on images.

If there's a difference on your system which looks bad to you, please use the Magnifier in your image to show how the distortion appears to you, and point it out.

 

[joncr]

You don't seem to get that just because a few vocal people post something all over doesn't mean it's a problem that a large number of people have. They simply don't.

It's a problem that *I* have. Why are you spending your time telling me I don't? Do *you* know how I can affect the appearance of text in 7 and 8 on my hardware?

 

[popeye]

Does it look bad to you?

No, Popeye, neither attachment does on IE10 or Chrome - but these are now images, and whatever my system does to render text has no effect on images.

If there's a difference on your system which looks bad to you, please use the Magnifier in your image to show how the distortion appears to you, and point it out.

fafhrd, I don't have a problem. My question was to joncr but your point about it being an image is well taken. My desktop, browser all fonts look fine.

 

[fafhrd]

Thanks for the reply. It all goes to show how difficult it is to discuss this problem without giving some clear evidence of the problems people are experiencing. If I can see part of the whole picture now, there are several proprietary rendering systems in use by Windows, and various Desktop applications may use their own rendering methods too.

If all easy to get to font smoothing and sub-pixel rendering options are turned off at the OS level, Windows Explorer still smooths fonts on the desktop and in Explorer Windows. Then there's the application level smoothing. Then there is the Modern UI.

 

[David Bailey]

Why not just contact Microsoft Customer Support since you aren't getting an answer here ?

 

[Mystere]

You don't seem to get that just because a few vocal people post something all over doesn't mean it's a problem that a large number of people have. They simply don't.

It's a problem that *I* have. Why are you spending your time telling me I don't? Do *you* know how I can affect the appearance of text in 7 and 8 on my hardware?

I didn't say you didn't have a problem. Obviously you do, or you wouldn't keep talking about it over and over again. But because you do, doesn't mean everyone else does, or even a large percentage of people do. I've seen no evidence of any large scale font rendering problem, which leads me to believe that the problem is either in personal preference, or incompatible, faulty, or mis-calibrated hardware.

Because most people do not have a problem with font rendering, it's hard to argue that this is a problem with the OS.

 

[joncr]

Fafhrd, thanks. I can't post a screenshot, as I said upthread, because I don't have Windows installed at the moment. Installing it is a 4-hour affair. I'll do that when I find something new to try.

On an iPad, your screenshot looks like a sample of text with the subpixel bits lit up. I see that, too, as expected. But, again, there is smearing, meaning it looks like someone painted the text and then brushed a hand against it. This makes letters appear to have extraneous black pixels attached to them. The lower portions of many characters look as if they have a blob of black extending below the line.

Large bolded text, say 36-60 pt range, is often shadowed by strands of gray pixels of equal thickness, at a distance of several pixels. The characters can appear in two tones of black. This is pronounced IE, and present in FF and Chrome.

Interface text, and all standard body text, is pixellated, in and out of browsers. Curves are stairstepped and and can count individual pixels from normal viewing distance. Dark pixels inside loops are apparent.

I'm not scaling and don't think IE is. Monitors are at native resolution.

You came close to saying Windows looks best on less capable hardware. Should I take it that my Dell 24-inch IPS 1920x1200 and the ThinkPad's 15.6-inch 1920x1080 142-dpi just magnify whatever flaws exist in Windows?

I'm not buying new hardware because I already have better-than-average hardware that only shows these problems with Windows. And, as I mentioned earlier, I see the same on the NEC's and Ilyama displays in my friend's photo studio. I've spent a lot of time researching this. I've tried what seem to be the available options. Now, I'm looking for more. For exampe, is there a third-party utility that would allow me to adjust hinting levels and select the subpixel mode? I.e., set grayscale and full hinting, or RGB and slight hinting?

 

[joncr]

Screen snip of fafhrd's above post. Does it look bad to you? Please click on it to get correct size.

View attachment 27205

I'd take that. It's in a different league than what I see. A bit fuzzy on an iPad, and the top line isn't very dark, but without the faults I've described.

 

[Mystere]

If the problem is in your hardware, then screenshots will not show any problems, because the actual bitmaps will be fine.. it's just subpixel rendering that will be faulty, and since that's display specific, it won't appear in the image if viewed on a different monitor.

The "smearing" you mention is called "anti-aliasing". It's deliberate, and you can obviously turn it off if you don't like it, but most people prefer it to the alternative.

 

[joncr]

Because most people do not have a problem with font rendering, it's hard to argue that this is a problem with the OS.

Yes, yes, Windows honor is secure. Now, do you have any suggestions for me that don't amount to throwing out $3500 in hardware and going on a serial shopping spree?