New Acer monitor problems
We just bought a new Acer CB281HK monitor for my wife's Win8.1
computer. It's a 28" screen and is in some ways (particularly rendering photographs) really spectacular. But it seems to have a problem with text. Text - menus, dialog boxes, the titles under the desktop icons - is rendered extremely poorly. We've been through the ClearType tuner (it's *really* bad with Clear Type turned off) and it helps some, but it's still pretty bad. I haven't found any information at Acer's web site, except for somebody complaining about the same problem. Also, text in menus, under desktop icons, etc, etc, is really small,and we've been unsuccessful in finding out how to make it bigger. She seems to have figured out how to make the icons bigger, but the text is the same size. Can anybody help? -- Tim Slattery tim at risingdove dot com |
New Acer monitor problems
"Tim Slattery" wrote
| We just bought a new Acer CB281HK monitor for my wife's Win8.1 | computer. It's a 28" screen and is in some ways (particularly | rendering photographs) really spectacular. But it seems to have a | problem with text. | Presumably you've tried these, but just in case: * Make sure you have the proper graphics driver. * Make sure the resolution is set to something compatible. The "native" resolution is best, but if that's a bad size you need to at least make sure that the resolution fits the monitor. I have an Acer and find that some resolutions that are not the right w/h ratio will distort, while others will just fit themselves to the screen. Currently I'm using 1440 x 900. It gives me the size of objects that I like but leaves about 1" black on each side. I think native is something like 1920 x 1080, but that just makes things too small. Some other resolutions will distort, so that a square icon becomes rectangular. It depends on what the display hardware/software can handle. * Install the monitor "driver". Windows should see the brand in display properties. It will then show accurately what your display options are. * Try different connectors. I find that my options with HDMI vs VGA vs DVI are entirely different. I'm using HDMI. * If all else fails you can try installing a new graphics card, but that shouldn't be necessary in a recent vintage computer. |
New Acer monitor problems
Tim Slattery wrote:
We just bought a new Acer CB281HK monitor for my wife's Win8.1 computer. It's a 28" screen and is in some ways (particularly rendering photographs) really spectacular. But it seems to have a problem with text. Text - menus, dialog boxes, the titles under the desktop icons - is rendered extremely poorly. We've been through the ClearType tuner (it's *really* bad with Clear Type turned off) and it helps some, but it's still pretty bad. I haven't found any information at Acer's web site, except for somebody complaining about the same problem. Also, text in menus, under desktop icons, etc, etc, is really small,and we've been unsuccessful in finding out how to make it bigger. She seems to have figured out how to make the icons bigger, but the text is the same size. Can anybody help? First of all, a 4K purchase is a "research project". It's not "pick and pay", especially when mixing such displays with older equipment. If you were buying a new computer the same day as the monitor, then (if you're lucky) it might come close to "pick and pay". A particularly economical PC purchase, might still not have the right video output. You must make sure "all your ducks are in a row" before purchase, to prevent hair loss when it's all set up and blurry in front of you. ******* 4K 3840 x 2160 === from a spec web page Hi-DPI (it's 2X of an HD monitor at 1920x1080). So you're driving it with the wrong video card and it's not running native for starters. It's blurry from resolution scaling (the monitor input board scales up pixels for the number on the screen). ClearType won't fix that. The monitor is multisync, meaning you can drive it at non-native resolutions, but it doesn't have to look "nice" when you do that. Not like a CRT used to be able to do when used multisync. CRTs looked a lot better over a wide range of input conditions. Only certain interfaces will support 4K at 60p. There are certain HDMI and DisplayPort standards that will work. Older video cards might not be well equipped for the job. You may not necessarily be able to find a $40 video card which adheres to one of the nicer standards. You might have to go upscale a bit on a video card purchase to drive it native. Have a look through Wikipedia in the HDMI and DisplayPort sections for details. VGA can't go that high, and VGA typically stops at 2560 or so (the VGA spec is unlimited, but DACs don't go that high). The dual link DVI won't go that high either. DVI dual link 2560x1600 at 60Hz VGA 2560x2048 or so (maybe), it's a function of 400MHz DAC bandwidth HDMI 2.0/2.1 3840x2160 at 60Hz === Wikipedia has a table DisplayPort =1.2 3840x2160 at 60Hz === Wikipedia has a table MHL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile...efinition_Link Once it's running native, then you can convince the OS and applications to use a decent number of pixels to represent stuff. https://www.eightforums.com/tutorial...ows-8-1-a.html Some early monitors consisted of two panels, and you could drive it with two cables from a dual-head video card. There was one IBM monitor product, you drove it with four cables, so there have been some kooky solutions to the resolution thing. And that's not necessarily the end of it. I think applications like Firefox, might have a preference related to HiDPI. As some of the geometry calcs Firefox does are suspect, and it's bound to do something stupid. Paul |
New Acer monitor problems
On Wed, 27 Dec 2017 10:00:13 -0500, Tim Slattery
wrote: We just bought a new Acer CB281HK monitor for my wife's Win8.1 computer. It's a 28" screen and is in some ways (particularly rendering photographs) really spectacular. But it seems to have a problem with text. Text - menus, dialog boxes, the titles under the desktop icons - is rendered extremely poorly. We've been through the ClearType tuner (it's *really* bad with Clear Type turned off) and it helps some, but it's still pretty bad. I haven't found any information at Acer's web site, except for somebody complaining about the same problem. Also, text in menus, under desktop icons, etc, etc, is really small,and we've been unsuccessful in finding out how to make it bigger. She seems to have figured out how to make the icons bigger, but the text is the same size. Can anybody help? I would recommend using Advanced System Font Manager. The first time you run the program note the font details (there are six items) in case you need to take a backward step. You may also improve the text under icons if you go to: Control Panel / System / Advanced system settings / Advanced Under "Performance" select Settings and remove the tick in the last item "Use drop shadows .... |
New Acer monitor problems
Tim Slattery wrote:
We just bought a new Acer CB281HK monitor for my wife's Win8.1 computer. It's a 28" screen and is in some ways (particularly rendering photographs) really spectacular. But it seems to have a problem with text. Text - menus, dialog boxes, the titles under the desktop icons - is rendered extremely poorly. We've been through the ClearType tuner (it's *really* bad with Clear Type turned off) and it helps some, but it's still pretty bad. I haven't found any information at Acer's web site, except for somebody complaining about the same problem. Also, text in menus, under desktop icons, etc, etc, is really small,and we've been unsuccessful in finding out how to make it bigger. She seems to have figured out how to make the icons bigger, but the text is the same size. Anytime you run an LCD/LED monitor at other than its native resolution means interpolation gets used to render objects on the screen, and text is just another graphical object on the screen but requires better clarity than some blob of color. Running at a non-native resolution causes artifacts, like loss of focus and color tinging. No text tuner, DPI resizing, or font changing can compensate for the artifacts of running a digitally designed monitor at other than its native resolution. Unlike CRTs where interpolation would simply occupy a portion of nearby phosphor, LCD/LED monitors have discrete pixels and trying to interpolate between them causes problems, like the one you mention. https://www.acer.com/ac/en/GB/conten...l/UM.PB1EE.001 That monitor is specified to have a native resolution of 3840 x 2160. If your video card is incapable of running at that resolution, get a new video card so its specifications match or exceed those of the monitor. If you are relying on onboard video rather than using a video daughtercard, likely that video chip is incapable of supporting the 4K resolution of your new monitor. You'll be stuck with fuzzy color tinged text until you install a 4K capable video card. First fix the root problem: running the LCD/LED monitor at other than its native resolution. Then see if changing DPI (to, say, 125%) makes the text more legible to you. However, upping the DPI means text may get truncated in some windows (on the right or bottom sides). Although it has been over 15 years since Microsoft published help on how to code for changes in DPI, there are still a lot of programs that are not DPI-aware. Microsoft tried to alleviate display issues in non-DPI aware programs but cannot compensate for all the simpletons that think they can code and do so at only one screen resolution and their DPI. Mention DPI and many programmers look like deer caught in headlights. |
New Acer monitor problems
Wolf K wrote:
VanguardLH wrote: Then see if changing DPI (to, say, 125%) makes the text more legible to you. All in all, I agree with Paul, the issue is the graphics card. Which is why I *lastly* mentioned "First fix the root problem: running the LCD/LED monitor at other than its native resolution. Then see if changing DPI ...". The first 64% of my reply was about using the native resolution of the monitor and included mention that the video card/chip specifications need to "match or exceed those of the monitor." The last paragraph (that you quoted in part) was more of a warning about using anything different than 100% DPI. I use 125% but do run into non-DPI aware programs where some of the text within their dialogs is cut off or not visible. I'd rather suffer a few defects in a few programs due to a changed DPI than make my eyes suffer all the time. |
New Acer monitor problems
Paul wrote:
4K 3840 x 2160 === from a spec web page Hi-DPI (it's 2X of an HD monitor at 1920x1080). So you're driving it with the wrong video card and it's not running native for starters. It is at its native resolution, no doubt of that. Have a look through Wikipedia in the HDMI and DisplayPort sections for details. VGA can't go that high, and VGA typically stops at 2560 or so (the VGA spec is unlimited, but DACs don't go that high). The dual link DVI won't go that high either. DVI dual link 2560x1600 at 60Hz We're using a DVI connection. The resolution is the full 3840 x 2160 -- Tim Slattery tim at risingdove dot com |
New Acer monitor problems
Tim Slattery wrote:
Paul wrote: 4K 3840 x 2160 === from a spec web page Hi-DPI (it's 2X of an HD monitor at 1920x1080). So you're driving it with the wrong video card and it's not running native for starters. It is at its native resolution, no doubt of that. Have a look through Wikipedia in the HDMI and DisplayPort sections for details. VGA can't go that high, and VGA typically stops at 2560 or so (the VGA spec is unlimited, but DACs don't go that high). The dual link DVI won't go that high either. DVI dual link 2560x1600 at 60Hz We're using a DVI connection. The resolution is the full 3840 x 2160 What's your refresh rate ? Go back to the Windows Display panel and check. https://s17.postimg.org/il97umvgv/refresh.gif https://s17.postimg.org/wroypw173/modes.gif A 4K panel might support 24Hz (not because the LCD panel works at 24Hz, but because it can fake it digitally). I don't recollect anyone mentioning refresh rates below that. Even at 24Hz, I'm not sure the reduction in clock rates, make this possibility a reality. Maybe someone in avforums.com knows, as I'm not up on the hardware details at all. If the specs were open distribution, I might have collected and read some of this. ******* This is dual link DVI R 1650mbit/sec \ G 1650mbit/sec \ B 1650mbit/sec \ CLK 165MHz \___ 2560x1600 at 60Hz CRT-RB reduced blanking / R 1650mbit/sec / One clock cycle equals 10 bits, 8B10B code, G 1650mbit/sec / 8 bit per pixel output from decoder. B 1650mbit/sec / 24 bit total on three guns. CLK 165MHz / Clock equals pixel rate. Even if you plugged a (single link) HDMI into a DVI adapter, it's going to look like this. I got the 12.54 number from Wikipedia. R 12540 mbit/sec \ G 12540 mbit/sec \ B 12540 mbit/sec \ CLK 313.5MHz \___ 3840x2160 at 60Hz CRT-RB reduced blanking / 12.54 Gbit/s per channel. R - / When clock rate goes over 340MHz, the G - / clock switches to 40 bit mode and four B - / symbols are sent per clock. And the clock CLK - / is still well above the DVI limit. Is the DVI block inside the monitor going to be expecting the 40 bit mode ? Just look at the numbers involved. Think about the loss in the DVI cable at that baud rate, and how small the receive amplitude is going to be at the DVI receiver. While they could stuff an HDMI PHY on the DVI port, there will still be issues with the "front end" gear grinding... that make me suspicious. At those kinds of data rates, you'd expect equalization of some sort. Would the DVI block normally need equalization ? Probably not. But they could use an HDMI 2.0+ PHY and "fake the rest of it" with software modes. Who can really guess what "outside the spec" behaviors exist ? If you gave me more details, like the video card involved, maybe it doesn't even have HDMI 2.0 and native is definitely impossible ? That would save me having to cook up technical reasons :-) Paul |
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