Windows 10 Text

On 18/10/2017 11:40 PM, Paul wrote:
Bob Henson wrote:
Having finally be forced to use Windows 10 (new computer - the only
thing that could make me!) I have managed to sort out most of its many
problems other than the one which is a major problem to me at my
advanced age - all the standard text is am anaemic grey, not black. I've
read umpteen answers to the problem online, most of which involve trying
to use the high contrast themes and none of which (so far) have worked
without causing me more problems than they are worth. Increasing the
text size to, say, 125% helps me a lot with the microscopically small
text size (19" 1920 x 1080 screen) but makes the text dramatically paler
grey and hopelessly blurred. Naturally, I've made sure that I have the
latest drivers installed, and adjusted the screen settings as well as
possible. I've tuned the Cleartype settings to the optimum. Graphics in
games are remarkably good with the GTX 980 Ti 6Gb card, and I can adjust
the text within some programs (or parts of them) to look a bit better
using different fonts.

Before I resign myself to it never being any better than this, has
anyone any ideas where I could look for a way to change the Windows 10
global text settings to something more useable? Is there, for example,
an easy registry hack to change the global text colour from grey to
black (and perhaps to a more legible font than Segoe - albeit that is a
secondary issue, it's the colour that's important)? I imagine I'm on a
hopeless quest - but maybe I've missed something simple in my research?


https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/c...ont_not_sharp/

"I have found the culprit. When using HDMI, Nvidia control panel sees
the monitor as HDTV instead of a PC.

The problem is fixed if I use DVI; Nvidia control panel shows PC display.

So what can I change to make Nvidia treat my monitor as PC display
instead of HDTV?"

*******

I'm already using DVI and as far as I can tell all is well in that regard.

As for the "ClearType", WinXP and Win10 have quite different approaches.

https://s1.postimg.org/754xt7eg0f/te...comparison.gif

ClearType uses color pixels. Now, a small percentage of the population,
the feathering on both sides of a letter, "sets them off". Not everyone
likes ClearType, just as Zebra stripes don't agree with all human
visual systems. There is actually a distribution of reactions to sight,
and we're not all the same.

The Win10 text rendering, is done with gray scale. And you can
see in the case of the letter "f", it's a horrible flop.

Using the SnippingTool, take a screen shot of your text.
Use your favorite image editor to zoom in and compare
to other screen shots you can find. Is your desktop
significantly worse than other people ? And just because
the video card says to "draw it this way", some screens
look worse than others (because of how the color pixel elements
that combine to form one "dot" on the screen, have some
weaknesses that are harder on the eyes). When you take
a screen shot, it doesn't actually capture the appearance
on the monitor, and the snapshot is further back in
the pipeline.

I'll see if I can find some for comparison - judging by the number of
complaints out there, I'm only one of many who have the same problem.

This image editor is not always that easiest to use, as
it attempts to do some things the "Photoshop way". This is
what I use on a daily basis for trivial cropping and image
conversion (jpg to gif maybe). There is a manual for it.
If I need to zoom in (using the scroll wheel), this is
the tool I use.

https://www.gimp.org/

I'll get a copy installed. You're certainly correct about it being a pig
to use - I tried it under Linux and gave up. I haven't got a photo
editor yet, my very old Photoshop Elements won't install under Windows
10 - or at least I haven't managed to get it to yet.


If you want to post a (small) screenshot (1024x768),
you can do it here, and save the URL for your postings
later.

https://postimage.org/index.php?um=flash

Paul

OK, thanks for the ideas - I'll have a longer look at them.

--
Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England

Coles Law: Cabbage makes good salad.

On 19/10/2017 2:57 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
Bob Henson wrote:

Having finally be forced to use Windows 10 (new computer - the only
thing that could make me!) I have managed to sort out most of its many
problems other than the one which is a major problem to me at my
advanced age - all the standard text is am anaemic grey, not black. I've
read umpteen answers to the problem online, most of which involve trying
to use the high contrast themes and none of which (so far) have worked
without causing me more problems than they are worth. Increasing the
text size to, say, 125% helps me a lot with the microscopically small
text size (19" 1920 x 1080 screen) but makes the text dramatically paler
grey and hopelessly blurred. Naturally, I've made sure that I have the
latest drivers installed, and adjusted the screen settings as well as
possible. I've tuned the Cleartype settings to the optimum. Graphics in
games are remarkably good with the GTX 980 Ti 6Gb card, and I can adjust
the text within some programs (or parts of them) to look a bit better
using different fonts.

Before I resign myself to it never being any better than this, has
anyone any ideas where I could look for a way to change the Windows 10
global text settings to something more useable? Is there, for example,
an easy registry hack to change the global text colour from grey to
black (and perhaps to a more legible font than Segoe - albeit that is a
secondary issue, it's the colour that's important)? I imagine I'm on a
hopeless quest - but maybe I've missed something simple in my research?

You never mentioned the brand and model of your monitor. For LCDs, use
a screen resolution that matches the native resolution of the monitor.
If you attempt to use any other resolution, there will be video
artifacts in attempting to interpolate images to a size that is
different than what the monitor was actually designed to handle.
Artifacts include color tinging along the sides of text, moiree
patterning, irregular stroke width in text, and loss of focus.

You say the screen resolution is 1920x1080 but is that the *native*
resolution of your monitor? You could give the brand and model of your
monitor but all anyone here could do is go lookup the specifications on
that device to see what is its native resolution.

It's a Viewsonic VX2260wm LCD. Yes it is the native resolution. The
monitor was absolutely fine at that resolution and text was black and
quite sharp under Windows 7 - the change to Windows 10 (with the same
monitor settings) instantly produced the problem. I've obviously tried
adjusting it (contrast, brightness etc.) but nothing improves it over
the original settings. I think the problem lies fairly and squarely with
Windows 10, not the equipment.

--
Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

Bob Henson wrote:

On 19/10/2017 2:57 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
Bob Henson wrote:

Having finally be forced to use Windows 10 (new computer - the only
thing that could make me!) I have managed to sort out most of its many
problems other than the one which is a major problem to me at my
advanced age - all the standard text is am anaemic grey, not black. I've
read umpteen answers to the problem online, most of which involve trying
to use the high contrast themes and none of which (so far) have worked
without causing me more problems than they are worth. Increasing the
text size to, say, 125% helps me a lot with the microscopically small
text size (19" 1920 x 1080 screen) but makes the text dramatically paler
grey and hopelessly blurred. Naturally, I've made sure that I have the
latest drivers installed, and adjusted the screen settings as well as
possible. I've tuned the Cleartype settings to the optimum. Graphics in
games are remarkably good with the GTX 980 Ti 6Gb card, and I can adjust
the text within some programs (or parts of them) to look a bit better
using different fonts.

Before I resign myself to it never being any better than this, has
anyone any ideas where I could look for a way to change the Windows 10
global text settings to something more useable? Is there, for example,
an easy registry hack to change the global text colour from grey to
black (and perhaps to a more legible font than Segoe - albeit that is a
secondary issue, it's the colour that's important)? I imagine I'm on a
hopeless quest - but maybe I've missed something simple in my research?

You never mentioned the brand and model of your monitor. For LCDs, use
a screen resolution that matches the native resolution of the monitor.
If you attempt to use any other resolution, there will be video
artifacts in attempting to interpolate images to a size that is
different than what the monitor was actually designed to handle.
Artifacts include color tinging along the sides of text, moiree
patterning, irregular stroke width in text, and loss of focus.

You say the screen resolution is 1920x1080 but is that the *native*
resolution of your monitor? You could give the brand and model of your
monitor but all anyone here could do is go lookup the specifications on
that device to see what is its native resolution.

It's a Viewsonic VX2260wm LCD. Yes it is the native resolution. The
monitor was absolutely fine at that resolution and text was black and
quite sharp under Windows 7 - the change to Windows 10 (with the same
monitor settings) instantly produced the problem. I've obviously tried
adjusting it (contrast, brightness etc.) but nothing improves it over
the original settings. I think the problem lies fairly and squarely with
Windows 10, not the equipment.

You mentioned using the high contrast theme. Tried any others?
Personally I found the Aero theme on Windows 7 to be washed out until I
lowered the contrast and brightness on my monitor. Before that, for
example, I couldn't tell which key was selected in the tree list in
regedit.exe to know under which one I was looking at data items and
their values. The highlighting for a selected object was just way too
faint to know which registry key was currently selected.

Which video driver are you using? A later version in Windows 10 than
you were using in Windows 7? I've seen where the color correction and
hue intensity were different in different versions of the video
software. In fact, I've stayed with an older version of the video
driver under Windows 7 than what is the latest version. The older
version gave me better color controls which I cannot find in the new
version. For example, when a video game crashes in which the gamma was
changed, the crashed game doesn't restore the original gamma so I use
the video software to reset color controls. The latest version of AMD's
driver doesn't have the color reset that the old one has and which I
need too often because video games represent some of the worst code:
they don't have graceful recovery routines, error checking, check the
return status of a function, and don't do limits checking. All that
requires more code which means more CPU cycles which means a slower
game.

While Catalyst (an old version) gave me the color reset (to the driver
defined settings), I think in Windows 10 for nVidia you go to the
Control Panel - System Security and Settings, type "HD Graphics" in the
search box, click on HD Graphics (nVidia's ancilliary control software).
In the Intel Graphics Control Panel, choose Display and go to the Color
tab. Under there are even more brightness and contrast controls. So
you have at least two places to set those video settings. Also, nVidia
allows applications to control video output. You need to change to an
nVidia preset (which is basically what the color reset in Catalyst was
doing when an application [game] changed video settings but crashed and
I had to use Catalyst to get back to its settings).

You said this is a new computer. Did you check if you have the latest
video driver for the card? You'd hope that the factory image provided
an optimal config but those images are fixed at the time the product
goes into production and a later driver may correct the problem; i.e.,
it was a bug present in the version used in the factory image for the
pre-built computer but the bug got fixed in a later version of the
driver. There may even be later driver package(s) available from the
OEM of the pre-built computer.

Although you mentioned altering brightness and contrast, was that only
on the monitor? The ancilliary or control software that comes with the
video card also has its own brightness, contrast, gamma, and color range
controls.

Although a bitch to end up with overly small text on the screen, what
happens when you [temporarily] disable the DPI setting from 125% back to
100%?

A troubleshooting step that I've read about (for nVidia) is to check the
"output color format" setting (looks to be under nVidia Control Panel -
Display - Change Resolution) and change from RGB to YCbCr44. I did not
find that setting in Catalyst (the control panel for AMD driver). Some
info is at:

https://referencehometheater.com/201...ll-vs-limited/

I use AMD/ATI video cards so can't be of much help with how to use the
nVidia driver and its ancilliary software. Per Paul's reply, have you
checked what monitor type is specified in Device Manager (devmgmt.msc)
under Display Adapters and also in whatever hardware status reporting is
available within the nVidia control software?

While trying to find the RGB/YCbCr444 setting in Catalyst, I found an
HDTV config screen. You said on HDMI that your monitor was getting
detected as an HDTV device. Sounds like your monitor is not reporting
valid EDID although maybe that's due to a setting in the monitor; see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extend...ification_Data and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=babx06TSc8Y. In Catalyst, I can elect
to add support for other HDTV modes. You (and I) have 1080 monitors so
I would try adding HDTV support for 1080i30 and 1080p60 (both NTSC
formats, there are similar resolutions for PAL). This setting seems to
deal with sizing of the screen to the target monitor but maybe your
monitor reporting its an HDTV might need some additional settings in the
video driver to treat it as such. While Catalyst will tell me what is
the video hardware, I don't see it reporting what is the EDID data sent
by the monitor.

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answe...-my-display%3F

That mentions how for some nVidia drivers you can get at the EDID data
that the monitor sent to the video card. I also found:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/dump_edid.html

but I've never used it before (but did now). You don't install it: just
download the .zip file, extract, and run the .exe. It runs as a
DOS-mode or console-mode program. That means if you just double-click
on it in Windows/File Explorer that all you'll see is the console window
flash on and off the screen. Open a command shell and run dumpEDID.exe
inside there. When the program ends, the console window will remain
open so you can see its output. Sorry but I don't know which value
would represent an HDTV device. None of them report my monitor as an
HDTV so it's not surprising that I don't see anything in the output
indicating it is an HDTV. If you are averse to running console-mode
commands and demand a pretty GUI, they have another version at:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/monitor_info_view.html

Rather than try to get the differing Clear Type feature to work in
Windows 10, what does the text look like if you disable Clear Type? You
won't get the smoothing but does the text get more opaque or have
sharper contrast?

https://www.isunshare.com/windows-10...indows-10.html

If you are using a video daughtercard, did you disable the onboard video
in the BIOS/UEFI settings?

On 18/10/2017 4:09 PM, Bob Henson wrote:
Having finally be forced to use Windows 10 (new computer - the only
thing that could make me!) I have managed to sort out most of its many
problems other than the one which is a major problem to me at my
advanced age - all the standard text is am anaemic grey, not black. I've
read umpteen answers to the problem online, most of which involve trying
to use the high contrast themes and none of which (so far) have worked
without causing me more problems than they are worth. Increasing the
text size to, say, 125% helps me a lot with the microscopically small
text size (19" 1920 x 1080 screen) but makes the text dramatically paler
grey and hopelessly blurred..,..

Check the resolution settings of your display card. Is it set at
1920x1080 and matched your 19" monitor's native resolution?

--
@~@ Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch! Live long and prosper!!
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty!
/( _ )\ May the Force and farces be with you!
^ ^ (x86_64 Ubuntu 9.10) Linux 2.6.39.3
�借貸! ��騙! ��交! �打交! �打劫! �自殺! 請考慮綜� (CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_...sub_addressesa

On Wed, 18 Oct 2017 09:09:18 +0100, Bob Henson
wrote:

Having finally be forced to use Windows 10 (new computer - the only
thing that could make me!) I have managed to sort out most of its many
problems other than the one which is a major problem to me at my
advanced age - all the standard text is am anaemic grey, not black. I've
read umpteen answers to the problem online, most of which involve trying
to use the high contrast themes and none of which (so far) have worked
without causing me more problems than they are worth. Increasing the
text size to, say, 125% helps me a lot with the microscopically small
text size (19" 1920 x 1080 screen) but makes the text dramatically paler
grey and hopelessly blurred. Naturally, I've made sure that I have the
latest drivers installed, and adjusted the screen settings as well as
possible. I've tuned the Cleartype settings to the optimum. Graphics in
games are remarkably good with the GTX 980 Ti 6Gb card, and I can adjust
the text within some programs (or parts of them) to look a bit better
using different fonts.

Before I resign myself to it never being any better than this, has
anyone any ideas where I could look for a way to change the Windows 10
global text settings to something more useable? Is there, for example,
an easy registry hack to change the global text colour from grey to
black (and perhaps to a more legible font than Segoe - albeit that is a
secondary issue, it's the colour that's important)? I imagine I'm on a
hopeless quest - but maybe I've missed something simple in my research?

Bob,

There is a small program called "Advanced System Font change" that can
help in changing the font and size of the font for a fair amount of
stuff within Windows. You can find this and info on it at
"www.wintools.info". Pretty simple to use and it has helped me with
the mall incon fonts and menus.

JB in Colorado Springs

On 19/10/2017 10:12 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
Bob Henson wrote:

On 19/10/2017 2:57 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
Bob Henson wrote:

Having finally be forced to use Windows 10 (new computer - the only
thing that could make me!) I have managed to sort out most of its many
problems other than the one which is a major problem to me at my
advanced age - all the standard text is am anaemic grey, not black. I've
read umpteen answers to the problem online, most of which involve trying
to use the high contrast themes and none of which (so far) have worked
without causing me more problems than they are worth. Increasing the
text size to, say, 125% helps me a lot with the microscopically small
text size (19" 1920 x 1080 screen) but makes the text dramatically paler
grey and hopelessly blurred. Naturally, I've made sure that I have the
latest drivers installed, and adjusted the screen settings as well as
possible. I've tuned the Cleartype settings to the optimum. Graphics in
games are remarkably good with the GTX 980 Ti 6Gb card, and I can adjust
the text within some programs (or parts of them) to look a bit better
using different fonts.

Before I resign myself to it never being any better than this, has
anyone any ideas where I could look for a way to change the Windows 10
global text settings to something more useable? Is there, for example,
an easy registry hack to change the global text colour from grey to
black (and perhaps to a more legible font than Segoe - albeit that is a
secondary issue, it's the colour that's important)? I imagine I'm on a
hopeless quest - but maybe I've missed something simple in my research?

You never mentioned the brand and model of your monitor. For LCDs, use
a screen resolution that matches the native resolution of the monitor.
If you attempt to use any other resolution, there will be video
artifacts in attempting to interpolate images to a size that is
different than what the monitor was actually designed to handle.
Artifacts include color tinging along the sides of text, moiree
patterning, irregular stroke width in text, and loss of focus.

You say the screen resolution is 1920x1080 but is that the *native*
resolution of your monitor? You could give the brand and model of your
monitor but all anyone here could do is go lookup the specifications on
that device to see what is its native resolution.

It's a Viewsonic VX2260wm LCD. Yes it is the native resolution. The
monitor was absolutely fine at that resolution and text was black and
quite sharp under Windows 7 - the change to Windows 10 (with the same
monitor settings) instantly produced the problem. I've obviously tried
adjusting it (contrast, brightness etc.) but nothing improves it over
the original settings. I think the problem lies fairly and squarely with
Windows 10, not the equipment.

You mentioned using the high contrast theme. Tried any others?

The couple I've tried don't seem to make any difference.


Which video driver are you using? A later version in Windows 10 than
you were using in Windows 7?

Well, I wasn't using the same video card in Windows 7 , so of course the
driver is different. I've installed the latest that Windows could find
for me on the internet and when playing games etc. the definition is
very good indeed - just ropey windows text. I'll be having a look at
what MSI have to offer, but I'm loath to change anything when it's only
a text problem. Until I'm more used to Windows 10 I'm a tad uncertain
what can safely be messed around with too.


Although you mentioned altering brightness and contrast, was that only
on the monitor? The ancilliary or control software that comes with the
video card also has its own brightness, contrast, gamma, and color range
controls.

I haven't got anything of that nature - as I said above, I'll have a
look what I can find.

Although a bitch to end up with overly small text on the screen, what
happens when you [temporarily] disable the DPI setting from 125% back to
100%?

I did just that - I tried 125% (and indeed some custom settings in
between) and quickly went back to 100%. The increase to 125% made the
problem much, much worse.

A troubleshooting step that I've read about (for nVidia) is to check the
"output color format" setting (looks to be under nVidia Control Panel -
Display - Change Resolution) and change from RGB to YCbCr44. I did not
find that setting in Catalyst (the control panel for AMD driver). Some
info is at:

https://referencehometheater.com/201...ll-vs-limited/

Here we are into territory that I know very little about - so some
reading up is needed.

While trying to find the RGB/YCbCr444 setting in Catalyst, I found an
HDTV config screen. You said on HDMI that your monitor was getting
detected as an HDTV device.

That was someone else. I've only ever used DVI.


http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answe...-my-display%3F

That mentions how for some nVidia drivers you can get at the EDID data
that the monitor sent to the video card. I also found:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/dump_edid.html

If you are averse to running console-mode
commands and demand a pretty GUI, they have another version at:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/monitor_info_view.html

This would all be dependent on my doing a lot of rersearch/learning
first - it means little to me. In these matters the "pretty GUI" sounds
like an excellent idea to me.


Rather than try to get the differing Clear Type feature to work in
Windows 10, what does the text look like if you disable Clear Type? You
won't get the smoothing but does the text get more opaque or have
sharper contrast?

https://www.isunshare.com/windows-10...indows-10.html

I haven't, and it's worth a try.

If you are using a video daughtercard, did you disable the onboard video
in the BIOS/UEFI settings?


No - but, again, I'll look into that.

--
Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

On 19/10/2017 6:30 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 18 Oct 2017 09:09:18 +0100, Bob Henson
wrote:

Having finally be forced to use Windows 10 (new computer - the only
thing that could make me!) I have managed to sort out most of its many
problems other than the one which is a major problem to me at my
advanced age - all the standard text is am anaemic grey, not black. I've
read umpteen answers to the problem online, most of which involve trying
to use the high contrast themes and none of which (so far) have worked
without causing me more problems than they are worth. Increasing the
text size to, say, 125% helps me a lot with the microscopically small
text size (19" 1920 x 1080 screen) but makes the text dramatically paler
grey and hopelessly blurred. Naturally, I've made sure that I have the
latest drivers installed, and adjusted the screen settings as well as
possible. I've tuned the Cleartype settings to the optimum. Graphics in
games are remarkably good with the GTX 980 Ti 6Gb card, and I can adjust
the text within some programs (or parts of them) to look a bit better
using different fonts.

Before I resign myself to it never being any better than this, has
anyone any ideas where I could look for a way to change the Windows 10
global text settings to something more useable? Is there, for example,
an easy registry hack to change the global text colour from grey to
black (and perhaps to a more legible font than Segoe - albeit that is a
secondary issue, it's the colour that's important)? I imagine I'm on a
hopeless quest - but maybe I've missed something simple in my research?

Bob,

There is a small program called "Advanced System Font change" that can
help in changing the font and size of the font for a fair amount of
stuff within Windows. You can find this and info on it at
"www.wintools.info". Pretty simple to use and it has helped me with
the mall incon fonts and menus.

JB in Colorado Springs


Thanks for the tip, I've downloaded that and will try it out soon. I
managed to change the system font with Winaero Tweaker, and changing
from Segoe to Verdana produced a reasonable improvement - slightly
larger and darker - so it may well be that I can improve on that with
this program.

--
Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England

A book is a man's best friend, outside a horse or a dog - inside a horse
or a dog it's too dark to read anyway.

Bob Henson wrote:


No - but, again, I'll look into that.


Have you taken a screen snapshot yet ?
And zoomed in ?

If it looks bad, zooming in should show some sort
of "pattern of badness". Like that letter "f"
I showed in my sample, where the vertical part
of the f didn't have black pixels, and the gray
feathering made the middle of the "f" a gray mess.

Paul

On 20/10/2017 9:09 AM, Paul wrote:
Bob Henson wrote:


No - but, again, I'll look into that.


Have you taken a screen snapshot yet ?
And zoomed in ?

If it looks bad, zooming in should show some sort
of "pattern of badness". Like that letter "f"
I showed in my sample, where the vertical part
of the f didn't have black pixels, and the gray
feathering made the middle of the "f" a gray mess.

Paul


Not yet. I've been pretty busy of late, so I've just been doing the
easier things.

--
Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England

A woman's mind is cleaner than a man's: She changes it more often.

On 19/10/2017 6:30 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 18 Oct 2017 09:09:18 +0100, Bob Henson
wrote:

Having finally be forced to use Windows 10 (new computer - the only
thing that could make me!) I have managed to sort out most of its many
problems other than the one which is a major problem to me at my
advanced age - all the standard text is am anaemic grey, not black. I've
read umpteen answers to the problem online, most of which involve trying
to use the high contrast themes and none of which (so far) have worked
without causing me more problems than they are worth. Increasing the
text size to, say, 125% helps me a lot with the microscopically small
text size (19" 1920 x 1080 screen) but makes the text dramatically paler
grey and hopelessly blurred. Naturally, I've made sure that I have the
latest drivers installed, and adjusted the screen settings as well as
possible. I've tuned the Cleartype settings to the optimum. Graphics in
games are remarkably good with the GTX 980 Ti 6Gb card, and I can adjust
the text within some programs (or parts of them) to look a bit better
using different fonts.

Before I resign myself to it never being any better than this, has
anyone any ideas where I could look for a way to change the Windows 10
global text settings to something more useable? Is there, for example,
an easy registry hack to change the global text colour from grey to
black (and perhaps to a more legible font than Segoe - albeit that is a
secondary issue, it's the colour that's important)? I imagine I'm on a
hopeless quest - but maybe I've missed something simple in my research?

Bob,

There is a small program called "Advanced System Font change" that can
help in changing the font and size of the font for a fair amount of
stuff within Windows. You can find this and info on it at
"www.wintools.info". Pretty simple to use and it has helped me with
the mall incon fonts and menus.

JB in Colorado Springs


That was very useful. It hasn't solved the anaemic grey text problem,
but getting all the texts to a reasonable size without upscaling the
whole display has made a big improvement to readability.

--
Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England

If God didn't want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat?

Bob Henson wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

While trying to find the RGB/YCbCr444 setting in Catalyst, I found an
HDTV config screen. You said on HDMI that your monitor was getting
detected as an HDTV device.

That was someone else. I've only ever used DVI.

EDID is transferred using HDMI, DVI, and Display Port.

On 10/18/17 2:09 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
Having finally be forced to use Windows 10 (new computer - the only
thing that could make me!) I have managed to sort out most of its many
problems other than the one which is a major problem to me at my
advanced age - all the standard text is am anaemic grey, not black. I've
read umpteen answers to the problem online, most of which involve trying
to use the high contrast themes and none of which (so far) have worked
without causing me more problems than they are worth. Increasing the
text size to, say, 125% helps me a lot with the microscopically small
text size (19" 1920 x 1080 screen) but makes the text dramatically paler
grey and hopelessly blurred. Naturally, I've made sure that I have the
latest drivers installed, and adjusted the screen settings as well as
possible. I've tuned the Cleartype settings to the optimum. Graphics in
games are remarkably good with the GTX 980 Ti 6Gb card, and I can adjust
the text within some programs (or parts of them) to look a bit better
using different fonts.

Before I resign myself to it never being any better than this, has
anyone any ideas where I could look for a way to change the Windows 10
global text settings to something more useable? Is there, for example,
an easy registry hack to change the global text colour from grey to
black (and perhaps to a more legible font than Segoe - albeit that is a
secondary issue, it's the colour that's important)? I imagine I'm on a
hopeless quest - but maybe I've missed something simple in my research?

I was also going to suggest the Advanced System Font Changer, but was
beat to the punch.

I was also poking around a windows10 forum, and found 2 possibilities.

1. One poster said that after 2 passes through the process of adjusting
Clear Type, his problem was solved.

2. Another poster used the control panel for his graphics card, and
adjusted the gamma. Raising the gamma gave lighter text, lowering gave
him darker text.

No promises on either of these. LOL


--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.11.6
Firefox 53.0.2 (64 bit)
Thunderbird 52.0
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On 22/10/2017 7:00 AM, Ken Springer wrote:
On 10/18/17 2:09 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
Having finally be forced to use Windows 10 (new computer - the only
thing that could make me!) I have managed to sort out most of its many
problems other than the one which is a major problem to me at my
advanced age - all the standard text is am anaemic grey, not black. I've
read umpteen answers to the problem online, most of which involve trying
to use the high contrast themes and none of which (so far) have worked
without causing me more problems than they are worth. Increasing the
text size to, say, 125% helps me a lot with the microscopically small
text size (19" 1920 x 1080 screen) but makes the text dramatically paler
grey and hopelessly blurred. Naturally, I've made sure that I have the
latest drivers installed, and adjusted the screen settings as well as
possible. I've tuned the Cleartype settings to the optimum. Graphics in
games are remarkably good with the GTX 980 Ti 6Gb card, and I can adjust
the text within some programs (or parts of them) to look a bit better
using different fonts.

Before I resign myself to it never being any better than this, has
anyone any ideas where I could look for a way to change the Windows 10
global text settings to something more useable? Is there, for example,
an easy registry hack to change the global text colour from grey to
black (and perhaps to a more legible font than Segoe - albeit that is a
secondary issue, it's the colour that's important)? I imagine I'm on a
hopeless quest - but maybe I've missed something simple in my research?

I was also going to suggest the Advanced System Font Changer, but was
beat to the punch.

I was also poking around a windows10 forum, and found 2 possibilities.

1. One poster said that after 2 passes through the process of adjusting
Clear Type, his problem was solved.

2. Another poster used the control panel for his graphics card, and
adjusted the gamma. Raising the gamma gave lighter text, lowering gave
him darker text.

No promises on either of these. LOL



I'll certainly try them - the latter sounds the most promising, except
that lowering the gamma may spoil some of the games graphics somewhat.

--
Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England

I'm retired. I was tired yesterday, and I'm tired again today.

On 18/10/2017 9:09 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
Before I resign myself to it never being any better than this, has
anyone any ideas where I could look for a way to change the Windows 10
global text settings to something more useable? Is there, for example,
an easy registry hack to change the global text colour from grey to
black (and perhaps to a more legible font than Segoe - albeit that is a
secondary issue, it's the colour that's important)? I imagine I'm on a
hopeless quest - but maybe I've missed something simple in my research?


I've replied to myself here, just to stay in the same thread and to say
thanks to everyone who came up with suggestions. I've tried most of them
and will still try the others when time permits. There doesn't seem to
be a perfect answer for me, or for all the many other people out there
with the same problem. However, using a combination of ideas, I've made
the situation tolerably better without solving the problem.

For anyone else with the same problems, here's a few of the things I've
done.

I applied Classic Shell to get a useable menu system which I could
configure regardless of the text size elsewhere.

I changed the Windows 10 settings to use the dark theme - in white on
black they're fine.

As I use Thunderbird a lot, I found that the Theme Font and Size Changer
extension let me blacken up the header fonts and marginally change the
background colours to good effect. Adapting userChrome.css did the rest.
Not perfect, but good enough.

A+ Font Rendering Handler extension helped somewhat with pages viewed in
Chrome.

The Advanced System Font changer, Winaero Tweaker (recommended for lots
of other useful hacks as well as the text) and couple of other utilities
let me change the text size in most places without changing the overall
DPI settings. Changing everything from Segoe to Verdana made a marked
difference to sharpness and a small improvement in the text density -
not sure why, but it did.

I've run Nvidia's Geforce Experience © to make sure the drivers were up
to date, and Nvidia's Control Panel © to see if it would help. I didn't
understand much of what that could do, so it didn't help much and I left
it largely alone.

Thanks again for all the help.
Regards,
Bob


--
Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England

You know you're old when the Doctor warns you to slow down instead of
the Police.

On 22/10/2017 7:00 AM, Ken Springer wrote:
On 10/18/17 2:09 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
Having finally be forced to use Windows 10 (new computer - the only
thing that could make me!) I have managed to sort out most of its many
problems other than the one which is a major problem to me at my
advanced age - all the standard text is am anaemic grey, not black. I've
read umpteen answers to the problem online, most of which involve trying
to use the high contrast themes and none of which (so far) have worked
without causing me more problems than they are worth. Increasing the
text size to, say, 125% helps me a lot with the microscopically small
text size (19" 1920 x 1080 screen) but makes the text dramatically paler
grey and hopelessly blurred. Naturally, I've made sure that I have the
latest drivers installed, and adjusted the screen settings as well as
possible. I've tuned the Cleartype settings to the optimum. Graphics in
games are remarkably good with the GTX 980 Ti 6Gb card, and I can adjust
the text within some programs (or parts of them) to look a bit better
using different fonts.

Before I resign myself to it never being any better than this, has
anyone any ideas where I could look for a way to change the Windows 10
global text settings to something more useable? Is there, for example,
an easy registry hack to change the global text colour from grey to
black (and perhaps to a more legible font than Segoe - albeit that is a
secondary issue, it's the colour that's important)? I imagine I'm on a
hopeless quest - but maybe I've missed something simple in my research?

I was also going to suggest the Advanced System Font Changer, but was
beat to the punch.

I was also poking around a windows10 forum, and found 2 possibilities.

1. One poster said that after 2 passes through the process of adjusting
Clear Type, his problem was solved.

2. Another poster used the control panel for his graphics card, and
adjusted the gamma. Raising the gamma gave lighter text, lowering gave
him darker text.

No promises on either of these. LOL



Hmm. Why it should work I don't know, but adjusting Cleartype again did
produce an improvement. Good tip!

--
Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to
fill the world with fools. - Herbert Spencer