Text graphics problem in 2.5(?)

[Kent]

Hi,

First, I'd like to say I enjoyed V2.4 quite a bit and am looking forward to seeing what is new in 2.5. Also, I apologize in advance if this question has been asked before - I did check around but certainly may have missed something. Note that this may be similar to the 'Font Problem' posted by Real Spirit on Sept 3, 2013 but I did not see a resolution to that question.

Anyway, I installed 2.5 on my laptop (Windows 7 64 bit) and the small white text that is used in many windows (for example, the place where you chose campaign difficulty) is rather difficult to read - different pixels in the letters seem to have very different brightness. I blamed this on my crappy laptop screen, but then I installed 2.5 on my home computer (also Windows 7 64 bit, but with different graphics card and much better monitor) and have exactly the same problem. I tried fiddling with stuff on the graphic options panel, but that didn't seem to help. On the other hand, I had no idea what a lot of the options did so I may have missed something obvious. Oh, for my laptop I also tried changing the resolution to the native 1366x768 by hand (per another post) and that had no effect either.

Any suggestions on what to do to make things more readable?
Thanks,
Kent

[Grug]

Can you get a screenshot we can look at?

[Kent]

Per your request

[diegobf109]

I wonder if there has been any progress or investigation regarding this issue.
I have basically been unable to play since the 2.5 release.
I would not be surprised if this is related to a videocard + screen resolution issue.
Unfortunately, I don't have multiple PCs to test it.
But in case someone is taking note:
Display adapter type NVIDIA GeForce GT 630
  Total available graphics memory 4096 MB
        Dedicated graphics memory 2048 MB
        Dedicated system memory 0 MB
        Shared system memory 2048 MB
  Display adapter driver version 9.18.13.4725
  Primary monitor resolution 1920x1080
  DirectX version DirectX 10

[DarkRain]

Actually, the problem was that upon porting to SDL2 alpha blending was mistakenly applied when rendering text (the problem existed only in the SDL2 version), I have since fixed the issue (and adjusted font hinting while I was there) and IMHO the text looks way better now — at least here, and I also have an NVIDIA card — but we haven't made any release since then, and, looking at how things have been here lately, I doubt that we will any time soon, you could always try to compile the latest version from git on your own (if you want to try see the indtructios here: http://ufoai.org/wiki/Coding)

[Jamester]

So no solution for that? i can't play it with those fonts. I have headache

[DarkRain]

As I mentioned the fix is in the repository, but not released so far, so only option is compiling on your own

Other option would be using a snapshot of the current 2.5 branch — if someone can manually trigger a build for the stable branch in our buildbot

Or, you know, you can try the current 2.6-dev version.

[Sandro]

Actually, the problem was that upon porting to SDL2 alpha blending was mistakenly applied when rendering text (the problem existed only in the SDL2 version), I have since fixed the issue (and adjusted font hinting while I was there) and IMHO the text looks way better now — at least here, and I also have an NVIDIA card — but we haven't made any release since then, and, looking at how things have been here lately, I doubt that we will any time soon, you could always try to compile the latest version from git on your own (if you want to try see the indtructios here: http://ufoai.org/wiki/Coding)

It depends on how you define "mistakenly". Alpha blending sometimes helps with a font rendering, sometimes not. Since game uses prerendered (cached) glyphs, alpha blending looks like a somewhat better blending option IMHO. Obviously, the alpha masking gives a sharper version, but jagged edges are not fun either.

OFC, distance field font rendering solves all the problems, but who will do it? Sorry, I cannot do it right now. No time to do it. For more than a two years

[DarkRain]

It depends on how you define "mistakenly". Alpha blending sometimes helps with a font rendering, sometimes not. Since game uses prerendered (cached) glyphs, alpha blending looks like a somewhat better blending option IMHO. Obviously, the alpha masking gives a sharper version, but jagged edges are not fun either.

OFC, distance field font rendering solves all the problems, but who will do it? Sorry, I cannot do it right now. No time to do it. For more than a two years

Well, I don't recall the exact circumstances now — it's been a while — but as I posted above, only the SDL2 code was doing it, old SDL code wasn't, so it seems to me that it was an oversight introduced when porting to the new SDL2.