Fuzzy fonts in several apps.

[mtek]

Hi,
Just loaded Karmic Koala yesterday and find that most fonts are displayed a bit fuzzy. (Firefox, ThunderBird and Office for example).
I tried loading the msttcore fonts but that hasn't made any difference. I'm using two LCD monitors on a dual head Nvidia card. Does anyone have any idea how to make the fonts appear more crisp?? (I'm new to Kubuntu so I'll need lots of info to make the changes please.)

Thanks

[oshunluvr]

Re: Fuzzy fonts in several apps.

What's your DPI and resolution set at?
What fonts do you have installed?
What fonts are these fuzzy apps using?

[mtek]

Re: Fuzzy fonts in several apps.

What's your DPI and resolution set at?
What fonts do you have installed?
What fonts are these fuzzy apps using?

Resolution is 2560 x 1024(dual monitors) DPI is 96 x 96. I have the standard fonts that came on the install CD and I installed the MSTTCore fonts.

Thunderbird is using sans-serif and I've set Firefox to allow each site to set it's own fonts. The problem is visible if I use OpenOffice word processing and type in eithe times roman or Arial (presumably others as well.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Fuzzy fonts in several apps.

I too have dual monitors. 96x96 DPI is OK if you're using the Windows (mscore) fonts. I use 100x100dpi setting and fonts and I have no blurriness.

If you want to try that - install the 100 dpi fonts and edit the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Add the line

Option "DPI" "100x100"

to your screen section.

Make sure you're using the native resolution and scan Freqs. for your monitors. If you post your model of video card and monitors I can help you somewhat.

[mtek]

Re: Fuzzy fonts in several apps.

If you want to try that - install the 100 dpi fonts

When you say this, where do I get them (the 100 DPI fonts)??

Thanks

[mtek]

Re: Fuzzy fonts in several apps.

I too have dual monitors. 96x96 DPI is OK if you're using the Windows (mscore) fonts. I use 100x100dpi setting and fonts and I have no blurriness.

If you want to try that - install the 100 dpi fonts and edit the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Add the line

Option "DPI" "100x100"

to your screen section.

Make sure you're using the native resolution and scan Freqs. for your monitors. If you post your model of video card and monitors I can help you somewhat.

My video card is an Nvidia 7900 GS and my screens are both ViewSonic VA912B.

Thanks for the offer of help.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Fuzzy fonts in several apps.

I assume you've fully updated your system since initial install.

Download and install the fonts them from the repository. You should already have xfonts-100dpi, but add xfonts-100dpi-transcoded. You might also try ttf-liberation fonts. They are supposed to be optimized for LCD monitors

I believe your video card is compatible with mine. Run nvidia-settings and look at each monitor to see refresh rate. It likely defaulted to 60hz. You need to check your monitor documentation or with Viewsonic to find out what the native or "optimal" vertical refresh rate is. I believe it's 75hz but don't take my word for it - check for yourself. Once you find out what it is supposed to be we can set it permanently.

You can also add these options to your xorg.conf file device section for performance improvements:

Option "TripleBuffer" "True"
# + Enables triple buffering. "Decreases the time an application stalls while waiting for vblank events, but increases latency slightly" (NVIDIA Readme)
Option "UseCompositeWrapper" "True"
# + Enables the X server's composite wrapper instead of the builtin one.
Option "AllowIndirectPixmaps" "True"
# + Could improve hardware rendering on G80+ cards with more than 256 MB of video memory.
Option "BackingStore" "True"
# + Cache overlayed areas in case they get redisplayed later
Option "PixmapCacheSize" "200000"
# + allocate said number of pixels for pixmap caches
Option "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "True"
# + only fire VBlank interrupts in modes where they are needed
EndSection

[mtek]

Re: Fuzzy fonts in several apps.

Yes, the system is fully up-to-date. I have all the fonts installed now. How do you get the system to use them? I checked the monitor specs and at 1280x1024 it supports 60, 70, and 72Hz. Right now they are at 60 Hz. I'll try the mods to xorg.conf and see what happens.

Thanks

[oshunluvr]

Re: Fuzzy fonts in several apps.

60hz is usually the standard for LCD's but not all or the same. Some like the highest setting so try that first.

If you set your DPI to 100 it should use them automagically I believe. Supposedly xorg will select 100 dpi fonts if your dpi setting is over 88 dpi so you might as well use 100dpi. If you choose to stick with the windows fonts you can force KDE to use 96dpi (you should also set this dpi in xorg) in System Settings > Appearance > Fonts. You can over-ride anti aliasing here and change your fonts too.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Fuzzy fonts in several apps.

Another thing I thought of with openoffice - the kde add-on for openoffice has issues and might be part of your problem.

See if you have a package installed named "openoffice.org-kde". It's not required and you can remove it. It changes to menu style of oo but thats about it.

[mtek]

Re: Fuzzy fonts in several apps.

HI,
Removed the Oo package. xdpyinfo reports 100dpi but the screens are still at 60.2 Hz. Here's the monitor section of my xorg.conf;

Section "Monitor"

# HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
# Energy Saver settings
# Time in minutes
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "ViewSonic VA912-3SERIES"
DisplaySize 677 270
HorizSync 30.0 - 82.0
# VertRefresh 50.0 - 85.0
VertRefresh 72
Option "DPMS" "true"
Option "UseEdidDpi" "false"
Option "StandbyTime" "15"
Option "SuspendTime" "20"
Option "OffTime" "25"
# Option "Xinerama" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"

# HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
# Energy Saver settings
# Time in minutes
Identifier "Monitor1"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "ViewSonic VA912-3SERIES"
DisplaySize 677 270
HorizSync 30.0 - 82.0
# VertRefresh 50.0 - 85.0
VertRefresh 72
Option "DPMS" "true"
Option "UseEdidDpi" "false"
Option "StandbyTime" "15"
Option "SuspendTime" "20"
Option "OffTime" "25"
# Option "Xinerama" "true"
EndSection


Thanks

[oshunluvr]

Re: Fuzzy fonts in several apps.

xorg is likely using EDID to set your monitor freqs. You can verify this in your log file /var/log/Xorg.0.log .

The solution is to add Option "UseEDIDFreqs" "false" to your monitor sections.

BTW: Since your monitors are identical, you can define only one and use Twinview functions if you prefer. Be aware that the new DynamicTwinview feature breaks scan freqs. reporting to KDE. Which basically means nvidia-settings and xrandr will report a false freq.

To use twinview. Define one monitor only then add the relavent lines to your Screen section;

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "DPI" "100x100"
Option "TwinView" "1"
Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-0"
Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"
Option "metamodes" "DFP-0: nvidia-auto-select +1280+0, DFP-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Note I have turned DynamicTwinView off so the freqs are correctly reported. This also dis-enables changing screen settings via nvidia-settings, but if you're set correctly in xorg.conf, you won't care...

[mtek]

Re: Fuzzy fonts in several apps.

OK. I did exactly as you suggested and what it has done is as follows;
Resolution is 800 x 600 on each screen. Refresh is 72 Mhz. It left my KDE panel on the bottom of the left screen (where it was) but it otherwise reversed the screens (to get the mouse cursor to travel from my left screen to the right I have to move it off the LEFT of the left screen.

So, we have the frequency correct all I need to do now is reverse the screen and increase the resolution to 1280 x 1024.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Fuzzy fonts in several apps.

OK so the screens are on the wrong side of each other. Thats a metamode change:


Try
DFP-0: 1280x1024 +0+0, DFP-1: 1280x1024 +1280+0

[mtek]

Re: Fuzzy fonts in several apps.

OK. That moved the order of the screens correctly. (Left is left and right is right) However they're still at 800x600?? Shouldn't the metamode have changed that?

Here's the screen section in case it makes a difference;

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "TwinView" "1"
Option "DPI" "100x100"
# Option "metamodes" "DFP-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, DFP-1: nvidia-auto-select +1280+0"
Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-0"
Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"
Option "metamodes" "DFP-0: 1280x1024 +0+0, DFP-1: 1280x1024 +1280+0"

SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection