Windows 8 RTM, sometimes blurry font

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Soulburner
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Windows 8 RTM, sometimes blurry font

Post by Soulburner »

edit - added a better image to show the problem, an animated PNG. Click here and look at the text below the video - the font changes when hovering over buttons.

I have recently installed the fresh Windows 8 RTM on my PC. It's the Enterprise trial edition.

The thing I have noticed already when evaluating the community and release previews. Sometimes Firefox's fonts become blurry - as if the rendering method occasionally switched between ClearType and the default DirectWrite smoothing method. In most cases, when fonts become blurry, simply hovering the mouse cursor over the text fixes it and restores the usual ClearType.

It happens on both the default Microsoft video drivers and on Release Preview drivers from all major vendors: nVidia, AMD and Intel (I tested on three different desktop PCs; including the recent AMD Catalyst 12.8 final release for Win8 RTM).

It may not be apparent on the below screenshots, but when the font smoothing keeps changing it feels like a bug. Also, while typing this post the fonts also occasionally look different after each keystroke.

Image
...and after hovering the mouse cursor:
Image

I realize Windows 8 is not yet available in retail and won't be for quite a few weeks, so fixing this may not be a priority for Mozilla developers, but I would like to know if there maybe is a workaround for this and what other users of Firefox+Win8 think.

The problem goes away after disabling hardware acceleration, but I'd like to keep it enabled.
Nitrius
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Joined: October 23rd, 2008, 2:17 pm

Re: Windows 8 RTM, sometimes blurry font

Post by Nitrius »

Same bug/problem here, remember this when Firefox 4 came, think it was the first version with hardware acceleration, but i think i got sorted, but looks like it's back on Windows 8.
KWierso
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Re: Windows 8 RTM, sometimes blurry font

Post by KWierso »

Fonts are clear for me. I had this problem a while back on a machine with an Nvidia card, but recent drivers seem to have fixed that.

Disabling acceleration IS the workaround, though.
Nitrius
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Re: Windows 8 RTM, sometimes blurry font

Post by Nitrius »

Yea, but i would like to keep the acceleration enabled. I know i had this problem back when Firefox 4 came, but it got fixed, not sure by what. So maybe it's driver related then? Got the Nvidia GTX 670.
KWierso
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Re: Windows 8 RTM, sometimes blurry font

Post by KWierso »

Have you installed the Windows 8 driver? http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/46124
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Soulburner
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Re: Windows 8 RTM, sometimes blurry font

Post by Soulburner »

It's not a driver issue. I've seen this happen on three different PCs:
- my desktop (nVidia card)
- a friend's computer (AMD card)
- pc at work (Intel HD)
with both the Microsoft video drivers and AMD/nVidia/Intel drivers.

Microsoft made some changes in DirectX and some other stuff, so it may require some work from Firefox developers. Disabling hardware acceleration in Firefox is not a solution :(
xamphear
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Re: Windows 8 RTM, sometimes blurry font

Post by xamphear »

Add me to the list of users having the problem in the Windows8 RTM. Same exact symptoms as those described (in excellent detail) by the OP.
Nitrius
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Re: Windows 8 RTM, sometimes blurry font

Post by Nitrius »

Well i hope there is a fix, beside disabling hardware acceleration out there, or that it get fixed soon. Tried both beta 15, and Aurora from Firefox, but same issue on all.

Edit: Both IE10 and Chrome is without this issue.
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patrickjdempsey
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Re: Windows 8 RTM, sometimes blurry font

Post by patrickjdempsey »

Nitrius wrote:or that it get fixed soon.


Not likely considering that Windows 8 isn't even released yet, and after that it will take 3 months for a fix to come down the pipe from Mozilla. It's probably a bit too early to file a bug on it with bugzilla, but it wouldn't hurt anything.
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Dingler
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Re: Windows 8 RTM, sometimes blurry font

Post by Dingler »

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