Screen text - it's not black...

knoxy · 16 Jul 2006 at 09:17

The text on my monitor isn't actually full black, its like its got pinky green pixels where it anti-aliases the text? Now, I had a similar effect on my previous CRT monitor so I'm wondering if it could be my 9800 pro graphics card. I have some screenshots if that makes it easier to figure out what I'm blathering about :-)

Image 1

Image 2

Borden · 16 Jul 2006 at 11:50

Taking a screenshot won't show up any problem with the monitor, it only takes an picture of the image being outputted by the graphics card. Taking a phioto of the monitor will show us any problems.

From those two screenshots it looks to be the monitor that has the problem and not the graphics card.

Wheaty · 16 Jul 2006 at 12:33

I see little pink dots on the second picture.

fish99 · 16 Jul 2006 at 12:42

knoxy, could you give us a link to a website where you get that problem and we can see if it's there on our PCs too. Maybe it's supposed to look like that.

ajgoodfellow · 16 Jul 2006 at 13:07

That's Windows ClearType

It blurrs the edges of screen fonts by adding differing colours to make the text appear to be smoother

Turn it off and you'll have nice crisp text again

MAllen · 16 Jul 2006 at 15:50

If it the problem isn't the Clear Type suggestion of ajgoodfellow, then I can't really see anything in the text that looks odd. It will probally need a camera to show anything up.

Any chance of a second graphics card to test with? Or test your card in a second PC?

I have seen graphics cards fail due to heat, and then they start showing "speccles" of colour on text. This colour is often cyan or pink dots. The effect is then made worse if that window is dragged around the screen. (It is damaged/overheated graphics RAM that causes this)

I have seen this especially with Ati PCI-Express cards stuffed into Dell's and Advent's which are then placed in a badly ventilated area by the customer. The card slowly cooks up, and spits out funky text.

knoxy · 16 Jul 2006 at 18:40

ajgoodfellow said:
That's Windows ClearType

It blurrs the edges of screen fonts by adding differing colours to make the text appear to be smoother

Turn it off and you'll have nice crisp text again

Hmm, I'll try that when I get a chance - cheers for the tip - I'll post back when I've tried.

knoxy · 16 Jul 2006 at 18:52

fish99 said:
knoxy, could you give us a link to a website where you get that problem and we can see if it's there on our PCs too. Maybe it's supposed to look like that.

was just the news.bbc.co.uk website - but i get it on all sites - its not a massive problem, just a bit annoying really :-)

Magic Man · 16 Jul 2006 at 21:40

That's just anti-aliased text - perfectly normal

knoxy · 16 Jul 2006 at 23:29

Disabled cleartype and text is black - no pink/green.

Seems it is indeed normal :-)

But why? Its rubbish! Why aren't grey tones used instead??

ajgoodfellow · 16 Jul 2006 at 23:35

Beats me - I personally cannot stand it! It gives me a real headache trying to concentrate as it looks so blurred

Some people must like it though otherwise they wouldn't have it! (Or so you'd have thought!)

Aod · 17 Jul 2006 at 06:39

ajgoodfellow said:
Beats me - I personally cannot stand it! It gives me a real headache trying to concentrate as it looks so blurred

Some people must like it though otherwise they wouldn't have it! (Or so you'd have thought!)

so just turn it off then :confused:

i personally like Cleartype, its significantly less blocky than non-anti-aliased type.

i've just remembered something from my mum's old days as a graphic designer; Manual Anti-Aliasing.

*shudder*

knoxy · 17 Jul 2006 at 08:00

It's the first time I've had to disable ClearType, I've never noticed it before, only since I got a new LCD monitor. Been using it for the last 5 years!

fish99 · 17 Jul 2006 at 11:06

I get the same thing with Cleartype turned on, lots of pink and cyan pixels around text on the bbc website if you zoom in. Text looks very round and natural with Cleartype on though, but a touch blurry. Without Cleartype it's quite pixelated though. Hard to say which is better...