Windows 10 Text

On 10/22/17 3:42 AM, Bob Henson wrote:
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!

Glad it at least helped.


--
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!"

Bob Henson wrote:

Ken Springer wrote:

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.

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

Video games should have their own internal gamma adjust. In fact, in
the games that I play and which all have a gamma setting under their
video settings, if the game crashes then I'm stuck at the higher gamma
(I hate squinting at the monitor and getting headaches for overly dark
places in the game) when thrown back to the Windows desktop. I have to
use Catalyst, ancilliary software for the video driver of an AMD video
card, to restore color controls back to the driver's default settings
(well, those configured using Catalyst).

On 22/10/2017 11:05 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Bob Henson wrote:

Ken Springer wrote:

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.

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

Video games should have their own internal gamma adjust. In fact, in
the games that I play and which all have a gamma setting under their
video settings, if the game crashes then I'm stuck at the higher gamma
(I hate squinting at the monitor and getting headaches for overly dark
places in the game) when thrown back to the Windows desktop. I have to
use Catalyst, ancilliary software for the video driver of an AMD video
card, to restore color controls back to the driver's default settings
(well, those configured using Catalyst).


OK, that hadn't occurred to me. I've just used the Nvidea control panel
and changed from "other applications control the colour" to Nvidia
control. The gamma was already set low on the slider scale, but I cut it
further and there was a distinct improvement in the blackness. If this
has no effect on anything else (like yours, my eyes can't stand the
darker, night-time episodes of games) or if I can adjust the gamma from
within the other programs, then I'm more or less where I want to be.
I've just tried removing the font changing extension from Thunderbird
before writing this and am now near enough to where I was before with
Windows 7. Even text within Chrome (which was by far the worst
beforehand) is better with the extension I mentioned and the gamma change.

I guess I (and some of the many others also whinging about it the grey
text) owe Windows 10 a bit of a reluctant apology - it's not quite as
bad as I thought. I wouldn't go so far as to say I like it though. :-)

Thanks again to your and everyone else who replied.

--
Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England

Why is there only one Competition Commission?