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Old December 27th 17, 09:49 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-8
VanguardLH[_2_]
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Default 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.
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