Graphics Card Advice

[Redactuk]

Hey guys

Just bought this
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-040-OP

as a replacement for my ageing web development PC. Problem is I stupidly assumed that the on-board graphics would be good enough for design work, but so far very dissapointed. While all the colours are fine it's the fonts I'm having issues with. I've spend ages so far playing with the AdjustClearType text settings and DPI settings and still my fonts are overly bold, often too small and slightly blurry compated with previous PC i had with a 5 year old graphics card! I don't need this PC for gaming, I just want nice clear image and good fonts for design work. Do i need a separate graphics card or is there some config issue I've missed?

Thanks

 

[Redactuk]

Thanks for your reply.

The first thing I would check is that you're running at your monitor's native resolution.

It's a Dell E228WFP. The resolution is currently 1680x1050(recommended). That's highest it will go. Funny thing is on my old box running XP it was set to 1600x1050 which is no longer an option on this new PC

Also make sure you aren't using any scaling options for fonts so that they're not shown larger or smaller than normal.

Hmm not sure which options you mean. Currently I have everything set at default via most settings I can find.

Also what connection type are you using for the monitor: DVI, HDMI, VGA?

DVI

As I said graphics are generally ok it's just the fonts. As FF is my primary browser I first thought it was another issue with fonts, as there have been several since FF4.0, but IE9.0 and Chrome fonts also look blurry, although admitedly not as bad as FF. On some websites fonts is almost acceptable, yet on other sites like Facebook the default font seems a little smaller than usual AND slightly darker and blurry.

 

[Redactuk]

The differences in resolution could be the problem, I'm sure there are some ways of forcing resolution but as it isnt native to this new build (For whatever reasons) you might have problems with the screen being centered.

Well the onboard Intel graphics control panel does include an option to force the resolution, but it first gives a big warning message about it leading to chip failure, overheating etc... so I haven't tried that yet.

 

[Redactuk]

Yes its set to 60HZ

I just went to a site a designed recently where all the text fitted within a particular panel using font family Arial,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,sans-serif, yet on this new PC the text now overflows the background panel. On my old, on my laptop and on another gaming PC all with diffent setups and cards the text is fine and sits within the panel area. So it seems this PC is currently messing with something that is in some cases making text larger than it should be in terms of chr/pixel spacing. I just don't get it

 

[Redactuk]

Well if I turn off ClearType then the text is the right size i.e. same as other machines, yet oviously looks horrible. So it's almost as if i need aDPI that is less than 100%, but can't set that.

 

[Redactuk]

Ok I was wrong about Chrome...

Text appears correctly proportioned in Opera, Safari and Chrome, but not in FF 6.02 and IE9. In both those browsers the overall text appear larger than in should be and slightly darker and blurred. This is reardless of the browser zoom settting (which is 100% on both). Only way text proportion is correct is if ClearType is turned off, but then of course text becomes very frail and hard to read (hence the reason for the option).

 

[Redactuk]

ok. Finally getting somewhere. Text is much clearer and the correct size in Firefox if Hardware Acceleration is turned off... kinda think this proves onboard Intel graphics is part of the problem.

So Ijust left with issue in IE 9. Anyone know if IE 9 has equivalent option to FF's Disable Hardware Acceleration? Note: I've tried the "Use software rendering instead of GPU rendering" but makes no difference.