Do I need another video card?

I recently got a nice new Dell U2211H IPS monitor. As expected, I had to get a new video card to drive it (old one didn't have enough memory for 1920 X 1080).

So I went down to Fry's and picked up an Nvidia GT 430 card. Cheap, but adequate I thought. It works, all right, but there are three glitches that are most annoying:

- many of the fonts, particularly in small sizes, are so ugly as to be hard to read;

- some web sites (not POTN) have problems with text - it overlays graphics or other text. I didn't have this problem with my old video card and monitor;

- on POTN the "ads by Google" text has its bottom tails cut off.


So I guess this is a problem with text rendering by the video card.

I don't have any problems editing images, whether it be with CS4, Paint Shop Pro X3 or DPP. I asked in another thread and Pekka suggested if I were using Firefox 4 I should turn off the hardware acceleration. But I'm not, and I can't find a way to do that anyway. I'm using FF 3.6.17.

My questions:

- Does anyone know how to turn off the acceleration?

- Can anyone suggest a card with decent looking font rendering?

TIA...

-js

Do you have your resolution set correctly at 1920 x 1080?

MadlyAlive wrote in post #12333924
Do you have your resolution set correctly at 1920 x 1080?

Yep. It looks good.

-js

Possibly a defective card. It should be more than good enough. Try the latest drivers ?

bohdank wrote in post #12334966
Possibly a defective card. It should be more than good enough. Try the latest drivers ?

I looked for drivers, but I guess I'll look again. The nvidia site isn't very helpful.

Guess I need to send some email to tech support and see if anyone answers.

-js

What company is it from? Some companies provide their own drivers.

I doubt this is a hardware problem, it'll be something to do with your setup. Exactly what, i'm not sure. I suspect it'll be in the display section of your OS though.

Look for native resolution, to match what you monitor is. There should be a new Nvidia driver, dated 4/18/11 for the 430 (just installed mine tonight). I have to agree with Tim - it's probably not a hardware problem, but a mismatch between the desired settings and the default settings.

number six wrote in post #12335268
I looked for drivers, but I guess I'll look again. The nvidia site isn't very helpful.

Guess I need to send some email to tech support and see if anyone answers.

-js

nvidia drivers are very easy to locate. http://www.nvidia.com …oad/index.aspx?​lang=en-us

number six wrote in post #12333897
I recently got a nice new Dell U2211H IPS monitor. As expected, I had to get a new video card to drive it (old one didn't have enough memory for 1920 X 1080).

So I went down to Fry's and picked up an Nvidia GT 430 card. Cheap, but adequate I thought. It works, all right, but there are three glitches that are most annoying:

- many of the fonts, particularly in small sizes, are so ugly as to be hard to read;

- some web sites (not POTN) have problems with text - it overlays graphics or other text. I didn't have this problem with my old video card and monitor;

- on POTN the "ads by Google" text has its bottom tails cut off.


So I guess this is a problem with text rendering by the video card.

I don't have any problems editing images, whether it be with CS4, Paint Shop Pro X3 or DPP. I asked in another thread and Pekka suggested if I were using Firefox 4 I should turn off the hardware acceleration. But I'm not, and I can't find a way to do that anyway. I'm using FF 3.6.17.

My questions:

- Does anyone know how to turn off the acceleration?

- Can anyone suggest a card with decent looking font rendering?

TIA...

-js

If this is only a problem in your browser, try "Ctrl+0"

Check the sharpness of the monitor too. Default is 50. I pump it to 70 or 80. This is done on the monitor itself through the menu.

Tom W wrote in post #12336759
Look for native resolution, to match what you monitor is. There should be a new Nvidia driver, dated 4/18/11 for the 430 (just installed mine tonight). I have to agree with Tim - it's probably not a hardware problem, but a mismatch between the desired settings and the default settings.

I'll hunt that driver down, thanks. So are you happy with the renderings of your fonts in small sizes? Many of mine are only one dot wide and very hard to read.

Woolburr wrote in post #12336893
nvidia drivers are very easy to locate. http://www.nvidia.com …oad/index.aspx?​lang=en-us

Thanks, Dan.

Moppie wrote in post #12337644
If this is only a problem in your browser, try "Ctrl+0"

Doesn't seem to do anything in FF. What's it supposed to do?

crazyfoo88 wrote in post #12337779
Check the sharpness of the monitor too. Default is 50. I pump it to 70 or 80. This is done on the monitor itself through the menu.

Mine is at 50. Wow, 80 looks like I've used way too much USM.


Off to hunt down a driver. Thanks, guys!

-js

OK, new driver installed. No change, though.

It looks like the issue is with Firefox - I get normal text display with IE. I just updated FF the other day to 3.6.17, but the old version did the same thing.

Here's what I see with FF:

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number six wrote in post #12340150
I'll hunt that driver down, thanks. So are you happy with the renderings of your fonts in small sizes? Many of mine are only one dot wide and very hard to read.
...

-js

No problems with fonts in IE or elsewhere. I don't have firefox on this computer so I can't compare. The only downside to the 430 is that it isn't exactly a gamer card. But it was cheap, has sufficient memory, and most importantly, easily drives two DVI monitors. I was having problems with the old card running two monitors.

Is there a setting in Firefox that would change the web page font size? It looks almost like an HTML problem, though I am by no means an expert on that.